The Associated Students of Fort Lewis College meeting on Wednesday addressed the Campus Accountability and Safety Act in addition to other measures.
Campus Accountability and Safety Act
The ASFLC spent a large portion of the evening discussing Resolution 14-043, which is a resolution in support of the Campus Safety and Accountability Act.
The Campus Accountability and Safety Act is currently an unfunded mandate, which would impose more financial stress on institutions that have to get additional staff, said Alex Thompson, an ASFLC senator.
The addition of an recommendation that would ask sponsors of the bill to make this a funded mandate has the probability of detracting from the support of the resolution, he said.
“I don’t believe it accomplishes anything in our scope of legislative affairs,” Thompson said.
Several of the ASFLC members believed that an addition to the resolution would not make it weaker but rather support better funding of higher institutions.
“I think the funding from the government to the higher education institutions is abysmal,” said Scott Greenler, the ASFLC president.
Despite the Senate concerns, some of the most basic pieces of legislation in U.S. history are unfunded mandates, Thompson said. The American with Disabilities Act is an example of a successful, unfunded mandate, he said.
“Even without funding, I still think it’s very important to support,” said Kate Suazo, an ASFLC senator.
Overall, the ASFLC voted to pass the resolution without the addition of a recommendation for funding.
Scalia Makes Appearance at CU Boulder
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appeared at CU Boulder Wednesday evening. A live feed from Boulder was streamed around the state to various institutions. The feed came through to FLC in Chem Room 130 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday evening.
In the feed, Scalia advocated for interpreting the Constitution as its authors originally intended.
“Scalia's talk, like most of his public speeches, concerned the Court's division between two forms of constitutional interpretation,” said Michael Dichio, a professor of political science at FLC.
“The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete’s sake,” Scalia said. “ It’s a law. It’s a super law. And if you think that the ‘living Constitution’ people are trying to bring us flexibility, you’re dead wrong.”
As Scalia sees it, the division is between originalists and living constitutionalists. Originalists are those who attempt to discern the public meaning of a constitutional provision when it was enacted. Living constitutionalists are those whose interpretation likely changes over time and adapt to new circumstances, Dichio said.
KDUR
President Dene Kay Thomas is now fully in support of broadcasting KDUR in the Student Union during lunch hours, Greenler said.
Pending approval from Sodexo, KDUR currently plans to play mixtapes during the lunch hours, Thompson said.
Internal Links:
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http://www.theindyonline.com/News/Campus.aspx
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http://www.kdur.org/
External Links:
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http://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CampusAccountabilityAndSafetyAct.pdf
- http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx