Senator Luke Swarthout '04 made a motion to delay the rest of the discussion to a meeting at some unspecified point in the future. At that point senators had completed revisions on the first eight of 24 pages. Since the senate has not yet reviewed all of the changes, none will go to referendum in the upcoming election.
The discussion quickly became disorganized. Nobody was certain how senators would vote on proposed amendments, or even who had the floor.
Senator Ben Baum '03 suggested a solution. "Bob [Razavi '03, AAS vice president], you need to run this because it can't go the way it's going ... We need order," he said.
Deckrow suggested changing the constitution to allow future senates to make "non-substantive" changes to the constitution (such as grammatical errors) with a three-quarters vote, eliminating the need for a referendum in these instances. The senate struck this down, limiting, as Razavi noted, their own power.
The senate also struck down a proposed change that would forbid senate voting outside of physical senate meetings. The likely effect of such a change would be the elimination of email votes.
The senate discussed reforms to Budgetary Committee (BC) legislation at length, finally passing some proposed amendments. Senator and BC Chair-elect Paris Wallace '04 made a successful motion to combine programming, discretionary and appeals funds beginning next year.
Senator Mihailis Diamantis '04 suggested splitting current appeals funding evenly between initial funding and discretionary funding. Senator Matt Vanneman '06 made a motion to do so, which failed.
The senate passed other proposed amendments suggested by Wallace. If the amendments are passed by referendum vote, the BC will be able to call semesterly meetings of club leaders to discuss funding procedures, and the BC Chair will appoint someone to record minutes at meetings. Wallace also made a motion to strike the clause forbidding almost all groups with funding from the AAS to charge for events, which he withdrew before a vote was called.
The JC recommended that the number of committees on which senators may participate be raised from two to three. Senator Mike Flood '03 motioned to abolish the limit completely, which failed. The senate then passed a motion to strike a sentence from the constitution forbidding freshmen to participate in faculty and alumni committees.
The JC also recommended that the senate change the constitution to allow students to remain on committees, regardless of their status as a member of the senate. This change would bring the AAS policy into accordance with the faculty handbook, which says that students will remain on committees for two years, regardless of whether or not they are reelected to the senate. The senate struck the recommendation down.
Deckrow suggested another alteration which would prohibit senators from dropping a committee without withdrawing from the senate. Senior Jesse Freedman's motion to strike this amendment failed. The senate later added that the AAS vice president could grant permission to break this rule under extenuating circumstances.
Baum argued that people should not remain on committees to represent students who would not vote for them to be on the senate. The senate voted to make membership on the senate requisite for committee membership.
An early and uncontroversial proposed change states that students expecting to graduate early (after the fall semester) must vote and run in AAS elections as members of the younger class; these students no longer have the choice of class with which to participate in elections.
Senators eventually discussed the best manner in which to complete the revisions. Flood and Wallace again presented their proposal for a referendum question asking the student body if it wants to take some sort of quantitative vote each year demonstrating where and how they want their campus activities fee to be spent.
"There is no reason anyone in this senate should say, 'it doesn't matter what my constituents say,'" said Flood. "This is one helpful tool which, in the context of other helpful tools, will help the BC to make good decisions."
Some senators expressed concern that the student body would consider the vote a promise or guarantee. Flood did not share this concern.
The results of the vote were 10 in favor of the referendum and seven opposed, with one abstention. The motion failed to garner the necessary two-thirds majority.
BC Chair Livia Angiolillo '04 presented this week's funding recommendations, which the senate approved. After these allotments, $3,417.43 remains in the AAS combined programming/discretionary fund for one more week of requests.
Angiolillo also presented appeals allotments, which the senate passed after several questions but no changes.
The senate lost quorum after this point. Baum finished the meeting by presenting his plan to re-establish an old graduation tradition. He explained that in the 19th century, graduates of the College had been given canes and had posed for a photograph with them.
Baum said that the Office of the President and the Alumni Office were excited about the idea of reviving the tradition. Alumni from the graduating class 25 years prior would present the canes to current graduating classes.
Baum proceeded to take a straw poll (which does not require a quorum), asking whether the senate would be willing to contribute some funding to the program in the future. The vote returned resoundingly in the affirmative.