The ASUA Supreme Court killed a proposal Sunday night that would put a student goverment restructuring measure on the election ballot.
The Supreme Court rejected the proposal put forth by Sens. Jon Shoemaker and Brad Milligan and Wendy Anderson, member of the Graduate and Professional Student Council to create one single legislative body in the place of three that now exist in the Associated Students of the University of Arizona.
The proposal would comprise eight undergraduate senators and three graduate students into one legislative body, replacing the existing sturcture of one Undergraduate Senate, the GPSC and the Central Governing Council.
In collecting signatures to support putting the issue on the ballot, the ASUA officials worded it in a way that made it sound like a constitutional amendment was in order.
Confusion over the wording of the petitions caused the court to strike the proposal down.
Supreme Court members said a constitutional amendment change would require at least 10 percent of student body signatures to be put on the ballot in the general elections. Proposal authors collected 5 percent _ only enough to put the proposal on the ballot to survey students.
More than 1800 graduate and undergraduate students signed the petition.
Milligan said the organizers only wanted to pose a question to the student body and not to institute the constitutional change if students voted for it.
"What we tried to do is form a question students could direct towards ASUA," Milligan said. "It might be another year before it gets forwarded (to the student body for a
Still, he said while the proposal failed this year, he plans to continue pushing the effort to let students vote on ASUA legislative structure.
"This just proves everything is too bureaucratic," Anderson said.
But the majority of Graduate and Professional Student Council members opposed the idea.
Mitzi Forbes, GPSC vice president, said she and other members of the graduate council were concerned that graduate students would not have any power in student government if the move went through.
Forbes said that an undergraduate majority in the senate would make approval for graduate funding difficult.
She cited an Arizona Board of Regents mandate that states the university president has the authority to direct graduate student funds into a separate student organization. Forbes said GPSC members had been collecting graduate students' signatures to present to UA President Manuel T. Pacheco to do just that.
Now, she said they will discontinue their efforts.
But both factions agree ASUA can be more effective and hope to address that by forming a Committee on Effectiveness, to be overseen by Kristin Major, ASUA vice president for programs and services and Josh Grabel, Arizona Students Association federal relations director.
The new committee met yesterday, but nothing new has
"The committee has always just been looking at how to improve ASUA's effectiveness," Grabel said. "It allows us to really focus on the issue at hand, and that's how to improve the effectiveness of ASUA." Supreme Court members said a constitutional amendment change would require at least 10 percent of student body signatures to be put on the ballot in the general elections. Proposal authors collected 5 percent _ only enough to put the proposal on the ballot to survey students.