The Council's New Tune: You Say You'll Change the Constitution...

Madison, Franklin and Washington meet Gusmorino, Griffin and Smith.

For the second time in four years, the Undergraduate Council is taking its massive constitution and bylaws back to the drawing board.

And just as in 1787, there is a deep divide over whether that constitution needs dramatic restructuring or just a bit of tweaking.

But in contrast to the situation faced by the Framers, there is no clear ideological divide on the question--council liberals and conservatives can be found on both sides of the debate.

With the broad mandate the council has given to its Ad Hoc Committee on Constitutional Reform--the authorizing bill passed in late February suggested areas of particular concern but did not place limits--the committee has attracted many influential council members from across the political spectrum.

All seek to leave their mark on the document that governs Harvard's student government, either by making drastic changes or preserving the status quo.

It is not yet clear whether the Constitutional Committee will be able to convince the full council--which must approve any amendments it offers--to do what it wants.

A 1997 attempt to reform the constitution was largely a failure: only two of a dozen amendments proposed by a reform committee were "ratified" by the council.

And even the advocates of reform this year acknowledge how difficult it will be for this year's committee to make significant changes to the council's constitution.

We the People

Some council members have always thought the constitution needed reworking, but recent developments--from the rejection of a term bill referendum to the impeachment of council Vice President John A. Burton '01--convinced the vast majority of the council to seek constitutional reform.

The bill authorizing the Constitutional Committee's creation was introduced by Campus Life Committee (CLC) Co-Chair Stephen N. Smith '02, former council Secretary Jim R. Griffin '02 and Student Affairs Committee (SAC) Vice Chair Paul A. Gusmorino '02. All three later won seats on the 15-member committee.

Council members cited the passage of a referendum downsizing the council from about 90 to about 50 members as one reason for organizing a constitutional committee.

A smaller council raises difficulty finding adequate personnel for the council's three standing committees. The constitution currently requires that each House delegation have at least one representative on each committee.

But some say this arrangement, with only three members per delegation, may be too inflexible after downsizing.

"Keeping the current system...will almost guarantee that many people are not working on their first choice committee," writes former council Vice President Samuel C. Cohen '00 in an e-mail message.

And while downsizing will create more competitive council elections, some say it will also stop interested students from contributing to the council's work.

Gusmorino says he is interested in figuring out constitutional remedies to this problem. One suggestion proposed at the committee's last meeting on March 22 was to allow non-council members to be voting members of council committees.

The council must also figure out how to deal with the student body's decision to reject the proposed term bill increase from $20 to $50.

Since available funding has not kept pace with the growth of student groups, many members of the council's Finance Committee and of the council at large say something in the grants structure needs to give.

Some Constitutional Committee members suggest using the constitutional reform process to make the grant application requirements more rigorous. Other suggest the Constitutional Committee should propose cutting back on the size of the grants it does give--although the John P. Marshall '00, the Finance Committee's chair, says groups already receive less than half of what the request, on average.

On the other hand, some argue that the council is not giving out enough money to student groups. Finance Committee Vice Chair Jeffrey A. Letalien '01 says he thinks the council ought to reverse its policy of not funding groups that are making profits.

Such a policy "of encouraging fiscal irresponsibility" gives student groups an incentive not to fundraise and to run up debts and lessens the number of students who benefit from grants, according to Letalien.

But the most frequently cited reason for reforming the constitution was the impeachment of Burton, which triggered an exhaustive debate about the constitutionality of such a proceeding.

Members disagreed vigorously about whether the constitution--which was amended to allow the recall of council officers by student petition--also allows council members to bring impeachment legislation without such a petition.

At the end of the contentious impeachment hearing, council members and observers agreed on only one thing--that the constitution's wording needed to be clarified.

The Visible Hand of Brian Smith

Many council members see the Constitutional Committee primarily as a way to avoid the ambiguities that plagued the Burton debate. The committee should sift through the constitution and correct inaccuracies, vagaries, redundancies and internal contradictions, they say.

But others see the committee as a vehicle by which the council can solve some of its nagging problems, such as student apathy and ineffectiveness in lobbying administrators. In this category, enter Brian R. Smith '02.

Smith, who championed bringing ROTC back to campus and focusing the council on student services as a council member last year, decided not to run for re-election out of frustration with what he calls the council's ineptitude.

But he jumped at the chance to serve on the Constitutional Committee to take a shot at correcting the council's structural problems.

"I've been thinking about this since I was a rep myself," Smith said at the committee's last meeting.

At that meeting, Smith presented a proposal for sweeping changes to the constitution that would scrap the three current council committees and create four new ones.

Smith proposes getting rid of SAC, the Finance Committee and the CLC. In its place, the council would have a Grants Committee to handle financial duties, an All-House Committee in charge of managing relations with House Committees, an Administrative Relations Committee to deal with administrators and student-Faculty committees and a Student Groups Committee to serve as a liaison to campus organizations.

Smith thinks these new structures will dramatically improve the council's ability to relate to students and administrators.

But the plan has drawn criticism from some of the conservative council members who allied with Smith in the past, in addition to many liberal council members.

"It's just more bureaucracy," Cohen says. "It's going to turn more people off." He went on to say that the three-committee system works and that past attempts to involve House Committees in campus-wide life have failed.

Council Treasurer Sterling P.A. Darling '01--a conservative council member--agreed with Cohen.

"I also agree with Sam. These things don't work," says Darling, who says he is sympathetic to Smith's desire for reform.

Darling echoed sentiments expressed by David B. Orr '01--one of his frequent opponents on the council.

Orr, who is not a member of the committee, says he showed up to the meeting anyway to determine whether any reform was likely to be made.

"I'm very skeptical about the ability of this committee to actually do anything," Orr says.

But while the proposal has drawn some bipartisan opposition, it has also drawn support from some liberal council members.

Stephen Smith--who is not related to Brian Smith--says he likes the "openness" of the proposed structure. He says the council's most important work is done on student-Faculty committees, which are "too clandestine" right now.

"I like having Houses and student groups as the basis for things," he adds.

Final Verdict

But despite the backing of the two Smiths and the tentative support of others on the committee, Brian Smith's proposal seems unlikely to generate the consensus it needs to pass through the committee and then the council at large.

Many committee members are especially sensitive to the idea that large changes may not be able to muster the supermajorities--three-fourths for constitutional amendments, two-thirds for bylaw amendments--needed to enact them.

At the committee's last meeting, committee members postponed discussion of Smith's proposal until after spring break, when Smith says he would present a more detailed plan. They chose instead to comb through the constitution's text to pick out inconsistencies and errors.

For instance, references to "Dean of Students" (a position that no longer exists) were changed to "Dean of the College."

And some believe this is just about all the Constitutional Committee ought to do.

"It's just not going to happen," says Burton of the larger scale reform proposals. He urged the committee to focus on the areas it was created to look at. "This doesn't address elections; this doesn't address impeachment," he said of Smith's plan.

Even Brian Smith says large-scale reform will be an uphill battle.

"If we agree on anything, each of us is going to have to sit down with each and every member of the council and convince them," he says.