My Farewell Address

[aggienaut]

A Day in the Life of ASUCD Senate
   Still in Senate, Senator Zamora just cited "hearsay" about what a business manager allegedly said about a financial bill, which I thought was funny. Anyway, we're talkign about about a bill to spend $11,500 on security cameras for the Bike Barn. For unclear reasons this bill didn't formally go through Business & Finance Commission (B&F) so people are talking about it at great length here.
   Earlier the Senate discussed spending $1,600 so people can go to the "Reaffirming Ethnic Awareness & Community Harmoney" conference. The Bike Barn bill just passed 9-?-? over the B&F Chair's mild objections.
   Bill for $300 for World AIDS Day shirts. Later we'll be discussing the Justice-Impeachment-Indictment Bill (formerly Judicial Proposal 7, now Senate Bill 23), and the bill to change the wording of the Senate agenda item under which the Chief Justice makes reports. Then a constitutional amendment and a bill placing it in the bylaws regarding the proposed "Outreach Assembly" will be discussed. That should be interesting, its gone through every commission, and it would kind-of create a lower-house of the Senate.

   8:36 - senate is now debating whether "miseducated" is a word
   8:51 - Senator "Tiny" Sanders: "I'm disappointed none of these t-shirts are in extra large. Big people also believe in fighting AIDs! But if it costs more don't worry about it, I'll go work out so I can fight AIDs, or wear a tight shirt!
   8:55 - The passing of the t-shirt bill puts the Senate budget in the red!
   9:38 - a bill reallocating the money formerly given to UCSA just passed, so the budget is no longer in the red. Now the Office of External Affairs is proposing we hire a professional lobbying firm for $15,000 a year (a company that usually charges $30,000 a year). This will of course be coming from the money that formerly went to the UCSA. This company will research education related legislation for us, lobby for us, and train 20 students a year for us. Sounds like it really kicks the ass of our former use of the money.
   10:37 - Kevin Powers (Executive Staff) - "I feel like its Mount Olympus up here ... and some people just can't claim it" (talking about the Outread Assembly now)
   11:07 - Senator Deepek "I want to include some kind of clause or.. quasi-clause..." (it was even funnier at first because I thought he said "clausie-clause")
   11:21 - Senator Higgens "The corruptability of this proposed body will . be . the . downfall . of . this . association." (still talking about the Assembly.)
   12:32 - The Bill & Constitutional Amendment to create the Assembly have passed.
   12:50ish - JP7/SB23 finally comes up, which is the bill I've been waiting for. Things start out good, with two senators speaking very favourably of it, and Ostrowski speaking against (which is in fact a good thing, as Senators tend to rally against whatever he's saying). Then two senators spoke skeptically and Max Mikolanis, who's the author since I am one of nine people in the world who can't be,* got cold feet and withdrew the bill. Next time I'm putting Jabba the Hutt as the author and myself as the author-designee.
   01:10am - Meeting over. I've spent 17 of the last 29 hours at student government meetings.

*ASUCD Justices are forbidden from writing legislation, but non-ASUCD members aren't. Saddam Hussein could write an ASUCD bill, but I can't. At the time they made this rule I tried to point out that it is NOT a violation of seperation of powers if I can write legislation since its the ability to PASS legislation that is unique to the Senate (again, since even Augusto Pinochet can write ASUCD legislation), and that unless they think I could unfairly cause them to pass it through some kind of jedi mind tricks, there's absolutely no reason to prevent me from writing legislation. This was part of the origin of the "jedi mind tricks" epitaph which eventually got stuck to my name (for example I was put on the fake election ballot as "Kris 'Jedi Mind Tricks' Fricke").

   Anyway, this entry is about my farewell address.

My Farewell Speech

   

Good evening, ladies & gentleman, my name is Kris Fricke, and I am the Chief Justice. I do hereby resign as Chief Justice -- Offer not valid until the conclusion of the ASUCD Fall 2006 Election, offer not valid until replaced, offer can be rescinded at any time prior to replacement. I also resign as a member of the Court -- offer not valid before end of the Fall 2006 UC Davis quarter, offer not valid until replaced, offer can be rescinded at any time prior to replacement. -- Basically I resign effectively when replaced, so I'll be around for a few more weeks.
   So. I've been Chief Justice for awhile now. I've been Chief Justice through the careers of 51 senators, 3 ASUCD Advisors, annnd around an eighth of (ASUCD Business Manager) Mark Champagne's career. I have served under ASUCD Presidents C.S. Lai, Sara Henry, Kalen Gallagher, Caliph Assagai & Darnell Holloway.
   There are a number of people I'd like to thank. Unfortunately you probably haven't heard of any of them and I don't think any of them are in this room. Firstly I'd like to thank my wonderful girlfriend Kristy, she sat with my through my three impeachment hearings, and I am very fond of her. I'd like to thank our former Justice Zeng, Chief Justice Khan from Mt San Antonio College & Chief Justice Moreno from University of Texas El Paso, whom all helped put together the Inter-Collegiate Judicial Federation -- which is a project to bring the judicial branchs from different universities into contact with one another. I'd also like to thank our former Justice Bernstein, or rather apologize to him, although he's not here. The biggest mistake I made as Chief Justice involved mishandling some evidence which caused him to appear to be biased in a case, whereas in retrospect I don't believe he was. I think it really destroyed the enthusiasm of a promising justice, which I've always felt really bad about that.
   Which kind of brings me to something else I wanted to say, which is that I'm not perfect, I make mistakes and I have personality flaws ... and all of you have personality flaws as well. And I think a lot of people forget that. You can all improve yourselves and so can I and I believe it is deeply important for a person to continuously seek to better themselves. Thats just a belief thats very important to me.
   I wanted to talk about some general trends and in ASUCD. One thing that always comes up is the perception of ASUCD as the senate. ASUCD is of course not just the Senate. And while we're modelled after the federal government we don't need to be exactly like them. But we have a seperation of powers, which obviously I feel very strongly about, but the difference between the Senate & the Executive should be kept in mind as well. Some people have always actively tried to push for an alternative view of ASUCD as one body that IS headed by the Senate, such as that whole "business model" thing, but I'm not going to talk about that. However I would like to hit on what in my opinion is the worst decision made in ASUCD while I've been here -- the consolidation of the bylaws.
   We had two sets of bylaws, the Standing Rules governed Senate procedures, and the Government Codes pertained to the business units. Both were really big and unwieldy and people didn't read them. So what do we do, we COMBINE them into one GIANT set of bylaws no one will ever read, and now you need to flip through all this stuff that doesn't pertain to what you're looking for when you want to look something up. Yes they needed to be updated and reviewed, but combining them?? Furthermore, it utterly blurrs the distinction between the Senate and the Executive. It probably won't happen this year, or next, but I firmly believe that eventually a future Senate is going to go through a lot of work and time to SEPERATE these bylaws again because they SHOULD be seperate and its inconvenient and unpreferable to have them combined.
   Another thing that always comes up is whether Senators just represent their constituents, or whether each one of them represents the student body as a whole. I firmly believe that Senators represent their constituents. Obviously they should look out for the desires of unrepresented groups and not do anything that outrages other groups, but they are here specifically to look out for the desires of those who voted for them.
   I think a good example of this is Senator Ari Kalfayan. Most people thought he was a jerk, and I thought so too, but he was one of my favourite senators. That year there was a bill regarding supporting a state bill regarding cigarette advertising in bars, or something. Most of the Senators were against smoking, but Kalfayan was standing up for it. Some senators scolded him saying that 70% of students are against smoking, he is not representing the students when he is supportive of smoking. But see, someone SHOULD be representing those 30% of the students who aren't against smoking. And Ari was doing that. Personally I am strongly in favour of the gradual elimination of smoking from society, but I am so glad that Kalfayan was there to represent that faction of the student body.
   Anyway, before I was on the Court I ran for Senate twice, and I would have been elected if we had had choice voting back then -- the second time I ran I got nearly as many votes as the people on the two parties, and I didn't put any effort into that campaign at all, and I was the only independant. But I am very glad I ended up on the Court. I didn't just wash up here, I am very passionate about being on the Court and very glad I ended up in this position.
   And I was a commissioner for a year, way back under the Bledsoe administration, which is probably shrowded in myths and legends to you guys. And now I've been in this position for a very long time, and I've always been involved in a lot of other things but the Court has always been my highest priority, so I'm very attached to it. And its kind of who I am now. People introduce me to people at parties as the Chief Justice, which is kind of embarressing I think, and then people invariably talk to me about ASUCD at parties, but anyway. So its something I'm very passionate about and has been very important to me.
   And finally, the general question of what is ASUCD -- is it a government, is it a business? I believe its our chance to attempt to create our own little utopia. Many of us are extremely critical of the federal government, but how can we criticize them when we can't run a government better ourselves? I think ASUCD fundamentally reflects upon us. It even reflects upon those students who don't vote and don't think they care. ASUCD symbolizes the specific civic contribution of us students, whether we can make it work or if its dysfunctional, it reflects on us, and I believe it is important.

Comments

[robroy10280.livejournal.com]

Good speach kris. I am rather sad that i missed it.

[ucd-bean.livejournal.com]

Awww, cold feet, because the senate was going to fail it then and there without even understanding what was going on. Additionally, you forgot to post an explanation of "*" but most readers know why you are one of nine, err, 5 or 6 at this time. Additionally, on a lesser note but still important to me, is that you transposed the a and o in my last name.

If i thought there would have been ANY chance of the Senate making an informed decision and passing it, I woulda fought it out, BUT, due to the circumstances in the meeting, due to the attention spans, and due to the lack of knowledge of the bill by the senators, Calling the battle uphill would have been an understatement, even with some support of the minority party.

[ucd-bean.livejournal.com]

maybe you just added that "*" but otherwise your jedi mind tricks have blinded me.

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

How could you know the Senate was going to fail it? You'd heard four senators express opinions, two of them extremely favourably. The conclusion you made from that I would without a doubt term "cold feet."

If things actually did start to look like they were going south, than I'd be in favour of pushing to table or withdraw it and address their concerns in the mean time, but since we didn't wait that long, the concerns weren't very well spelled out. There was zero advantage to withdrawing it at that time, and in fact severe disadvantages.

[ucd-bean.livejournal.com]

The conclusion was that they didn't know what they were talking about, and that yes, I'll admit that I did not explain the leg. in the best possible manner (esp. with reference to the extension i was handing out). The reason I thought it would fail is because of the partisan lines in the senate and who was expressing the positive versus negative opinions.

[ucd-bean.livejournal.com]

I'll write a better resp laters. And make sure all the senators see this, and all that. It is NOT dead in the water.

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Because Avni Patel and Tiny "Independant" Sanders are the lynchpins around which the Senate rotates?!

I suppose I should be understanding, since its the first bill you've attempted to shepherd through senate as an author, but well, I think I'm grumpy since I spent five hours waiting for that bill to come up, and it kinda pisses me off that I can't have any control over my leg due to past senators not understanding governmental philosophies at all but ... the take-home lesson of the day is that there is no advantage to withdrawing a bill immediately. If it comes to a choice between having it failed or withdrawing it, the withdrawing/tabling can be done much later on (when they're practically ready to vote on it).

At that point, they will have very clearly articulated their objections, you then have a very very clear understanding of their objections as opposed to currently where I have no freaking idea really. Then you can fix their objections and their objections being fixed they'll feel like knavish poltroons if they continue to oppose the bill.

[ucd-bean.livejournal.com]

Alright, I'll take that lesson home. No, I wasn't just referring to them, i was also thinking of some of the senators who had supported the 2/3rds vs 1/2 clause.

You definitely have a right to be grumpy, and i did give in too soon, and maybe If i'd gotten more than 4 hrs of sleep yesterday, i would have been in a better state, and argh/damn sb11/ca16.

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

I'm so grumpy I just voted and wished I could vote everyone number 17. I don't think I've ever had so little opinion as to who gets elected.

[orwell-troll.livejournal.com]

The whole not caring about Senate elections is just a function of being around a lot longer than everyone else. I'm so over trying to electioneer.

UCD_bean is right. They generally don't have the capacity to consider complicated bills that late at night, especially after other complicated bills. You should have done like I did and just went home.

[angelicheroism.livejournal.com]

My apologies for not lasting through enough of the meeting to debate on that part. Should I be elected today, I assure you, I'll reintroduce it as soon as possible.

[sostrowski.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I will get a bill done to give Justices co-author abilities. But then as you know, that will probably mean it will fail.

[orwell-troll.livejournal.com]

This is something I actually argued for in the past. I really don't see why the judicial branch can't write or recommend legislation. They're some of the closest things we have to lawyers in ASUCD, and lawyers write legislation all of the time.

If the Court can't write legislation, should seperation of powers also imply that the Senate can't bring any suits in the ASUCD Supreme Court? Or that Justices can't buy any food in the CoHo, because it's part of the executive branch -- a bad burrito could prejudice them against the CoHo, after all.

So yeah, Steven, I'd like to help you on this one.

[punitrebel.livejournal.com]

farewell!