Burnt Orange Report

Burnt Orange Report from the Floor

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Coming over the next couple of hours, after a looooong break, the Burnt Orange Report from the Floor, live here on the Student Government floor bringing you the latest happenings. Be prepared for updates!

First one, Brent Chaney tells us about movement on the Student Board of Regents bills, which is really moving forward, and of course, finding out that Gov. Perry "is making calls" on behalf of the effort doesn't hurt.

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Now we have a representative (e-mail jboots@ku.edu if you need to ask him questions SG reps) from the University of Kansas (and he's a hottie) speaking about their Student Government election systems, since that is the hot topic tonight. Here is their website as far as candidates go (their election is later this spring still). They have about 28,000 students and 57 seats in the Assembly. I'm not sure how productive the questioning in this format will really be tonight. There are a couple proposals in our very own assebly to me talked about tonight, the main bill being AB 18, the move away from Tickets, plus some election reform cleanup in general, AB 19.

More below the fold...

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SG Rep. Yamisette Westerband announced that we have gained two more gender neutral restrooms on campus, in Gregory Gym, which is awesome. She's been working on this project all year and there may be one more gender neutral bathroom coming.

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Rep. Stannis just spoke about attempting to block Rep. Chris Kennedy's impeachement resolution of do-nothing rep Rodrigo Interiano. Kennedy has stuck his neck out on this one. I personally do not support avoiding the issue just to 'save face' since there isn't much face to save when it comes to SG in most cases. People here are worrying too much Press Coverage (which there is going to be anyways now) and I feel is just another example of SG not wanting to vote on sensative issues.

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I missed a bit of typing since my computer spazzed out on me.

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Now in discussion of tabling indefinatly the Impeachment of Interiano. Personally, and I spoke to this breifly (it wasn't an impressive presentation, granted), I think this is partially tied to election reform. For someone who's had 2 years in the Assembly, why do we have to wait around and hope things improve? Then again, maybe this legislative action will accomplish it's end without having to have a successful vote of impeachment cast. I don't really care if the actual impeachement gets voted down, but to silence it now, seems more like "insider political coverage" than "clearing his name".

Best quote so far... "we can talk about how we feel all day long..." Oh boy, ain't that the truth. It's been about an hour now discussing the Tabling motion, and we havn't even gotten to the Election Reform package yet.

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Omar Ochoa, incoming SG president and current 2 year at large Rep just voted No to table the impeachment proceedings which caused a bit of tittering in the crowd.

The vote to table the Impeachment resolution is 15-14. One more vote and this issue would have moved on to be discussed next week. But now it's dead. Tally another point in the SG protecting it's own category. Seriously, I think many were suprised to get to 14 votes on this one. Then again, Interiano got to vote on that motion though the legislation affects him. I'm not sure if that conflict of interest disbales him from voting, but if it does, that puts it at a 14-14 tie, and in that case, doesn't the motion fail? Something to investigate Constitutional guru Kennedy.

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Apparently the discussion about Election Reform will not be tonight, but rather, during the forum this Thursday March 24, @ 8pm in Welch 2.246.

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AR 23, a resolution to reaffirm UT's commitment to ending sexual violende and support Sexual Assault Awareness Month, was voted to be fast-tracked and passed without opposition. Not sure why there would be any, but whatever.

Also, if you want to apply for SG offices or appointments, be sure to use this application (buried on the SG website and why oh why havn't each of the SG campaigns sent this out to their thousand person listservs??) and turn it in before this Friday.