The Associated Students Inc. Senate debated the “juvenile” language of its Senate Rule of the Conduct of Senators on Wednesday.
The Conduct of Senators is a rule that states that each senator must follow certain bylaws to appropriately fulfill his or her duties.
Some rules that are included require senators to be on time to all meetings, to interact with their constituencies, to be prepared when they attend a Senate meeting, to be professionally presentable and to be respectful to each other.
Certain senators said they are not happy with this current code of conduct and feel that the particular bylaws are unpractical and juvenile.
Sen. James Davis said he feels he “really wants something better. The whole thing could be structured and written better so that it can be helpful to senators.”
Davis said that the “last three bullet points should be taken out.”
The bullet points Davis referred to were those that advise senators to be active listeners, to refrain from directing comments to other members or members of the public and to turn off all pagers and cell phones during a meeting.
Davis also said that he feels these bullet points are unpractical and too juvenile to be included in the codes of conduct.
However, Sen. Shelena McClinton said she feels the bullet points are essential to the conduct rule.
“We need the last three bullets because we need future senators to know even the most juvenile of things,” McClinton said.
Sen. Chris Chavez agreed with McClinton.
“This is taking too many good things out, which will water down the code of conduct. Unless you have a suitable substitute for these items, I think they need to stay,” Chavez said.
In other Senate news, ASI Recycling Center Coordinator Lee Johnson made comments to last week’s Senate article in the May 3 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner on the ASI Recycling Center.
Johnson wanted to clarify, to the best of his knowledge, that “all recyclable materials places in the recycle bins on campus are being recycled.” However, the trash receptacles are not sorted through in search of recyclables.
“Ladies and gentlemen should not place recyclables into the trash cans,” Johnson said.
Johnson also wanted to explain his “zero waste” concept that he thinks would be a wonderful project for the ASI to undertake. “However, it would involve much greater analysis before I could make an adequate presentation.”
