The AAS Constitution specifically states that in order for the AAS to vote, and therefore to hold a meeting, at least two-thirds of senators must be at the meeting. Last night, Vice President Dave Scherr '05 cancelled the senate meeting because the senate was three senators short of a quorum.
"We need a quorum to officially hold a senate meeting...and unfortunately only 16 senators showed up when we needed 19," Scherr explained. "There are only 28 senators right now pending the February mid-term elections."
Scherr said it is rare for attendance at a meeting to be low enough to cancel the meeting, but Valentine's Day was likely to blame. "Not having quorum for a student senate meeting is a very rare occurrence, so I was a little surprised at the lack of turnout," he said. "Obviously Valentine's Day ended up drawing more people away from the meeting than I expected."
Other members of the senate also attributed the meeting's poor attendance to Valentine's Day. President Ryan Park '05 expressed his disappointment about the meeting's cancellation, which he said might be attributed to Valentine's Day plans. "A lot of people had Valentine's Day-related plans, so I guess it is understandable; but still it is disappointing," he said. "We have a responsibility to the school, especially to the clubs that needed funding for this week so that is disappointing. We will just need to be more diligent about ensuring that on holidays we have quorum."
Senator Mike Simmons '06 was upset by the meeting's cancellation and the senate's subsequent inability to get anything done this week. "I was very disappointed we did not have quorum Monday as we have so many important issues to take care of very soon," he said. "This is completely in line with our recent problem of discovering that we are a do-nothing senate. People are perfectly content to get elected, chill with the status quo and hold a place. We have administrators and deans for that type of thing!"
Senator Erika Sams '08 thought that senate officers should have predicted the lack of attendance because of the holiday. "I feel that our meeting should've been postponed to another day of the week, since apparently so many of our members preferred to celebrate Valentine's Day than represent our constituents," said Sams. "I'm not casting aspersions by any means; I believe that we should've had some foresight to see that no one would want to come to a meeting on V-day."
Several senators were understanding about the meeting's cancellation. Senator Josh Stein '08, who attended the meeting, was not surprised about the mass absences. "Obviously it's Valentine's Day, so it's understandable that we wouldn't reach a quorum on a night like this," he said.
Senator Avi Das '07 was also understanding of Monday's situation and said that the cancellation of the meeting would not pose serious problems. "We didn't have a lot of pressing issues," he said. "Anything that was time [pressing] was taken care of."
Das added that a lot of the budgetary concerns could have been handled by the executives without the senate. However, Das agreed that the meeting should have been rescheduled since the incident was certainly foreseeable.
Senator Elan Ghazal '05 said that Valentine's Day is unique and that the meeting still can be planned for another day. "Valentine's Day is a special day for everyone," he said. "We can reschedule the meeting, hopefully."
Captain of the Amherst equestrian team Alicia Fazzano '06 attended the meeting because she hoped to present the senate with the equestrian team's budgetary request. "I was disappointed that I took the time to go to the meeting only to see that it had been cancelled due to a lack of attendance," she said.
Because of the meeting's cancellation, the senate could not make important decisions including those concerning budgetary requests. "The biggest potential problem for our constituents is that the senate was unable to approve budgetary requests," said Scherr. "There were a couple of clubs that had time-sensitive requests pending before the senate."
However, Scherr explained that clubs who desperately need money before the next senate meeting will be able to receive it. "Luckily there is a provision in the constitution that allows the treasurer, with the approval of the Budgetary Committee (BC), to allot up to $200 in discretionary funding to clubs that need it before the next scheduled senate meeting," he said. "This is probably a case in which we should invoke that provision given the unexpected cancellation of the senate meeting-the clubs got their forms in on time and did their part; the senate failed to do its part."
The requests that had been made were close to the $200 limit. "Both the time-sensitive requests were under or not much over the $200 mark, so if the BC approves the expenditures the clubs' needs can still be met fully or mostly," said Scherr.
Treasurer Ian Shin '06 expressed relief that the immediate needs of clubs can be handled. "My only concern as the treasurer is that the budgetary recommendations get taken care of when they need to. The concern I have is not so much with the reputation of the AAS; that speaks for itself," he said. "The concern I have is that the money gets taken care of, and, thankfully, there are safeguards in place for clubs to get their money even when we run into scheduling issues like this."
As a result of the cancellation, Senator Rania Arja '06 did not have the opportunity to consider any changes made by an ad-hoc committee to an amendment she proposed last week urging the senate to require all senators to plan individual projects.
Arja's amendment was scheduled to appear on the ballot of yesterday's mid-term election. A problem with the voting booth software forced the senate to postpone the elections until later this week at the earliest. "A bug with the software of the voting booth is responsible for the problems," explained Ghazal.