University Senate will re-vote today on an amendment that would help bring greater accountability to the group.
If passed, the votes on all important issues would be recorded into the minutes. This would allow community members to know at a glance how senators voted. The list would also be distributed to the media, allowing the Daily News for example, to let our readers know which senators voted on the issues that students and faculty care most about.
Right now, the senate uses a simple voice vote for the bulk of its decisions.
"I think accountability will allow us to build support for policies we enact," Political Science Chairman Joe Losco said during last month's meeting. "That's what governance is about."
This is good legislation, which would help increase the integrity and respectability of University Senate. If anything, the Student Senate should follow suit, introducing a similar amendment.
The procedure actually gained a majority of the vote last month, at 23-19. However, the parliamentarian stopped the amendment from passing, citing a Robert's Rules of Order statute that any proposed amendment not announced before a meeting requires a two-thirds vote.
Robert's Rules of Order is meant to help expedite meetings, not to bog them down in procedure. Ideally, today's vote will go through unbothered, and the amendment will take its rightful place in the senate's standing rules.
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