Correction Appended
The 17 Student Assembly members present at Tuesday's meeting voted down two proposals one by Assembly member Will Hix '12 and a "counter-proposal" by Student Body President Eric Tanner '11 to implement structural changes to the Assembly's committee system. General Assembly members focused their discussion on membership caps for Assembly committees and ways to increase and maintain membership at the meeting.
Tanner's campaign platform called for the formation of issue-based committees that would include "experts" in each topic and would develop comprehensive reports that could be presented to the administration, according to his candidate statement. This platform was the basis for the proposal that was voted down.
"I'm disappointed in the General Assembly and their unwillingness to see this issue as the root of many of [the Assembly's] problems," he said.
Both Hix and Tanner proposed different ways of implementing issue-based committees. Currently, the Assembly committees focus on Student Services, Diversity and Community Affairs, Academic Affairs and Student Life.
Before issue-based committees can be formed, however, Tanner had to propose changes to the Assembly's bylaws that sought to address the "culture" of the Assembly and "redefine" roles within the organization rather than alter the entire Assembly structure, as stated in the legislation. This is the move that was defeated on Tuesday night.
One of the most debated components of Tanner's bylaws was the proposal to cap the number of members on each committee, which Tanner said would create a sense of "responsibility and accountability" for Assembly members and would provide an incentive for students to join and remain committed to the organization.
"Personally my feeling is that you need to set a number of people meeting regularly at committee meetings to create institutional memory for each specific committee," Tanner said.
General Assembly member David Becker '13, who said he is largely supportive of Tanner's overall plan, thinks the capping of committee members will work against Tanner's goal of making the Assembly more inclusive and was the reason he abstained from voting.
"He has the admirable agenda of opening [the Assembly] up to campus, and I think the committees will be great recruiting tools for that agenda when he uses them to tackle the campus issues of his platform," Becker said in an interview .
The legislation introduced by Hix in last week's meeting proposed an amendment to the Assembly's Constitution that would drastically alter the structure of the Assembly to create issue-based committees composed half of Assembly members and half of "experts."
The changes proposed by Hix's plan would create new positions that would select the issue-based committees and oversee different aspects of the internal workings of the currently existing committees.
Some Assembly members questioned whether the Assembly had sufficient membership to implement the proposed plan.
Many Assembly members abstained from the vote because of a lack of information, they said.
Tanner agreed that the controversy over caps on committee membership as a primary reason why General Assembly members voted against his proposal.
"I think people were held up by the capping issue and we will probably revisit it next week with more people in attendance and I think a deal can be brokered in due time," Tanner said.
Despite the setback, Tanner said he will continue to push for the proposed reforms in upcoming meetings.
"I think this is one of the biggest issues going forward for General Assembly and I will continue to fight for it as it was one of the pledges of my campaign platform," Tanner said.
