Council Debates Wide-Ranging Constitutional Changes

The Undergraduate Council was unusually productive last night, debating 20 minor constitutional amendments and one major amendment.

The 20 minor amendments, which mostly deal with issues of grammar and clarity, are expected to pass, with the fate of an amendment which would change the way members are assigned to committees still unclear. Council members have a week to vote on the amendments.

The council debate all these bills in three hours--the same amount of time the council's meeting took last week, during which time it passed a single bill allocating $400 to administer Harvard Census 2000.

Not only did the council fight its way through constitutional debates, but members wielding magic markers also used the meeting time to decorate boxes to be set up in dining halls for the collection of feedback cards.

The council's productivity was due in part to the efforts of the Constitutional Committee, which docketed all the constitutional legislation and spent many hours working through the issues involved.

Ordinarily it would be very difficult to pass constitutional amendments, Campus Life Committee (CLC) Chair Stephen N. Smith '02 said, as three-fourths of the full council must vote for any proposed change.

"Normally, all it takes is a doubt," Smith said. "[The Constitutional Committee] makes this process much easier."

Council President Fentrice D. Driskell '01 was especially optimistic that the minor amendments would pass.

"I think this entire package will pass without a hitch," she said after the meeting.

Much less clear is the fate of a more substantive proposal sponsored by Jeffrey A. Letalien '01 and David B. Orr '01. The bill addresses the problem of assigning members to the council's three standing committees--CLC, the Finance Committee and the Student Affairs Committee (SAC)--in a downsized council.

In Constitutional Committee discussions, former Vice President Samuel C. Cohen '00 had noted that, in a council with three members per House and mandated representation of every House in each of the three committees, many members will not be able to serve on their first or second-choice committees.

Letalien and Orr--council members who are usually on opposite sides of contentious issues but have recently collaborated quite a bit--proposed that the problem could be remedied by letting some council members serve as full voting members of more than one committee.

The bill would allow members who had served on a committee in the past to serve on that committee again, in addition to serving on the committee on which they are placed by their House delegation's committee selection process.

Supporters of the bill used the potential plight of SAC Vice Chair Paul A. Gusmorino '02 to make their case. Because Gusmorino lives in Lowell House, where council elections are very competitive, it is possible that he will not be elected delegation chair next fall. As a result, he may not get to serve on SAC, his first choice committee.

Letalien and SAC Chair Michael D. Shumsky '00 suggested that it would be a terrible thing if SAC did not benefit next year from the experience of Gusmorino, who has spearheaded SAC projects like UC Books.

But Cohen, responsible for bringing up the problem of committee placement, said he didn't like Letalien and Orr's solution.

Decrying "individual member arguments" as poor guides for council structure, Cohen said he would go about solving the committee dilemma another way.

Former council President Noah Z. Seton '00 agreed with Cohen that members should only be able to serve on one committee.

"This should strike fear in the hearts of all who value democracy on campus," Seton said. "Each person on council gets one vote on committee and one vote on council."

Backers of the amendment said they didn't buy the argument that it was undemocratic.

"These committee votes don't mean anything," said council Treasurer Sterling P. A. Darling '01, drawing applause when he noted that the council has the final say on everything the committees do.

Cohen emphatically disagreed, also eliciting cheers from a council that was unusually alert well into its third hour of debate.

"A bad idea shouldn't get docketed in committee," he said. "You should use your vote in committee."

According to Cohen, bills don't get the same critical look in general council meeting that they do in committee. Often, the council is just a rubber stamp for committee projects.

After the meeting, members said they weren't sure whether the council would pass the amendment--or, for that matter, whether they personally would support it.

Smith said he wasn't sure what he would do, though he gave the amendment a 50-50 chance of mustering the required three-fourths majority.

Letalien wasn't too hopeful about the amendment's chances.

"It'll get a majority. Maybe two-thirds," he said. "But three-fourths is a lot."

The spirited debate over the Letalien-Orr bill didn't come until the council had gone over 20 simpler proposals, many of which didn't even draw questions or opposing speakers.

The more contentious of the changes included a proposal to extend the council's support of free speech to include the right to assembly. Practically, such a change might make it unconstitutional for the council to come out against a neo-Nazi rally in the Yard, council members said.

Also contested was a plan to give the council some of the power to select delegates to conferences--a power which is currently held by SAC.

The council spent little time debating changes to the constitution which clarify ambiguities in the procedures for removing of an officer.

The impeachment of council Vice President John A. Burton '01 was the very issue that sparked the push to revise the constitution in the first place.

And at last night's meeting, no members spoke against any of the three proposals dealing with expulsion and recall.

The amendments distinguish between two ways of removing an officer--"recall," which requires a vote by the students who elected the official, and "expulsion," which requires a vote of the council.

Driskell said some of the Constitutional Committee's more ambitious proposals--such as expanding the role of the vice president--will come before the council in the next couple of weeks.

"You'll definitely see more from this committee," Driskell said.