Representative Elect Kevin Tracy:

I finally got a chance to review the Student Council's Constitution.  Only one thing really gets my attention as unfair.  That would be the status and power of an At-Large Member.
 

ARTICLE 3. 
Section Two: Any person may be an at-large member.  They may vote and serve on committees but they cannot hold an office or be chairman or vice-chairman on a committee.

I have no objections to at-large members serving on committees and after discussing this with most of my staff, they firmly agree with me.  But I am not as easy with the At-Large Members' ability to vote. Neither are the members of the staff, including Matt Wyatt, my Minister of Liberal Affairs.  And it has been a long time since we agreed on anything.

I'm at a complete loss as to why this would be added to the Constitution.  Greg [Minister of Propaganda] came up with the most - the only logical answer we could think of was that a representative was not re-elected and he or she wouldn't stop complaining.  So in order to shut the former representative up, they voted to give EVERYONE the right to vote in these affairs.  It probably passed because underclassmen were afraid of loosing their power in the next years election.

But I highly doubt this was the right thing to do for several reasons.  Put it in another light.  Imagine walking into the Senate or the House of Representatives and voting.  Would that be fair?  Or imagine Al Gore walking into the White House and legally vetoing a bill the Senate gave to him.

I believe this steals power from both the Representatives and the student body as a whole.  The Representatives are all given one vote, as stated in Article Eight. Section One.  By adding votes from non elected persons, it is quite clear how our power is obstructed.  The Student Body also looses power.

When a student votes, that vote is going to a or, in our case, the candidates he or she wants to win.  But they may want that person to win because they don't like the other person or persons running.  A lot of people voted for President Bush because they didn't like Al Gore or Ralph Nader.  So how is the Al Gore or Ralph Nader walking into Bush's White House and signing or vetoing something fair to these people?  And what about the people who wanted us to win?  The most important voters, the supporters, voted for the people they want to represent them.  They are given one vote for Officers and five votes for their Representatives. If you were kind enough to vote for me, how do you like knowing I may have less power than you thought I would.  

As it is, Representatives should have 5% of the vote in the council. If enough people come, the Representatives will be absolutely powerless.  Some of us ran for no reason whatsoever.  There are only 12 ranking positions including Chairmen and Vice Chairmen, so al least 8 of us will have no power at all.  Meaning we spent our campaign funds on nothing more than a meaningless title.

As things currently stand with at large members having the right to vote, the classes are unfairly represented.  Each Class has 5 Representatives, and therefore has 5 votes with these Representatives.  When At-Large members are added into the equation, The Sophomore class may get 50 votes and then Freshmen may only get 5, it works the other way around also.  I highly doubt 50 students will really waste their time with this though, but if they did, and they were all from the same class, one class could rule the entire school unfairly.  It is a whole lot more fair that all the classes have their five votes and nothing more. If a Representative is absent, he or she misses the vote and have to face re-election that next year.

There will be one last meeting on Tuesday, it should have been on Friday, but not enough people were able to attend and we needed to vote on amendments.  I think I will bring this up then and give others something to think about over the summer recess.  Then call for an immediate vote in August if possible.

In case I am still not convinced that at-large members deserve to vote on issues brought before the council and those who are afraid of loosing all power have voted Nay, I am discussing several compromises and sly ideas with my staff.

As things stand now, I am unconvinced and I am protesting by not voting, even though I have the right, I nor anyone else deserves it who was not elected by the student body, to serve this year.