From htowsner@stanford.edu Tue Apr 29 07:23:46 2003 Date: 28 Apr 2003 14:55:06 -0700 From: Henry Towsner To: Howard Shen Cc: bill@koko.stanford.edu, trang , potato@stanford.edu, achriste@stanford.edu, camelot@stanford.edu, mbartsch@stanford.edu, sanliu@stanford.edu, jshipp@stanford.edu Subject: Re: Initial Response from V Ball Bill, In response to your request for a more fleshed-out argument, I hope this suffices (it's a bit longer than I originally intended). I think both sides agree that the issue centers on the interpretation of Article V, Section 2.A.5 of the ASSU Constitution. Based on the Viennese Ball's statement, there are three potential interpretations of this section: 1) Any student (who has not obtained a refund) must be allowed to purchase tickets to an event 2) Any student (who has not obtained a refund) must be able to obtain access to an event, and there must be alternatives to purchasing tickets for those with financial difficulties 3) Any student (who has not obtained a refund) must be able to attend an event (with only administrative limitations) The Viennese Ball appears to be arguing for the at least the second, if not the first interpretation; I will argue for that third is not as surprising as they suggest, and that it is the only reasonable interpretation of the Constitution. If interpretation 3 is correct, groups receiving Special Fees could raise money through Special Fees, donations, charges to non-students, selling advertising, and so on (the Viennese Ball's budget for next year predicts just over $18,000 in revenue other than student tickets and Special Fees, out of a total budget of $55,000). This would admittedly be a hardship, but it is certainly not impossible. Until three years ago, the Undergraduate Senate refused to spend General Fee money on events which charged students for admission, on the grounds that those students had already paid for it. It seems likely that the authors of the ASSU Constitution had a similar idea in mind. It is dishonest to charge students to support the Viennese Ball while simultaneously telling them that in order to actually get most of what their money pays for, they will have to pay substantially more. The fee refund system is only a partial help: not only does it leave the burden on students not to pay for something they can't use, but since the Viennese Ball takes place after the first two deadlines, students could easily pay two-thirds of the Special Fee request before even realizing that they can't attend the event. The context of the clause makes alternative 1 untenable: the clause prohibiting deprivation of services is followed by a clause requiring that "a student organization may not charge a total amount greater than its per capita Special Fee for services provided to members of the Association outside of that organization's funding population." At a minimum, this means that Viennese Ball cannot charge graduate students more than its per capita funding for tickets. It would be patently absurd for undergraduates--who pay the fee unless they actively withdraw it--to pay more than graduate students, who pay the fee only if they choose to. The only reasonable interpretation is that students in the funding population must be admitted free of charge and those outside at no greater cost than the Special Fee. This leaves alternatives 2 and 3. Perhaps the Viennese Ball is making sufficient accomodations by allowing students to work on the committee or for the event. The first offer is obviously unacceptable: students cannot be required to join the group as full, active members in order to attend the programming the group provides. It is hard to comment on the specific implications of the work-exchange program, since none of the Viennese Ball's financial statements, nor their website, make any reference to it. However the general principle that would imply is that, in exchange for attending an event (for which they have paid) students must do some amount of work in support of the event (or buy their way out of it). This still seems most unreasonable. These are students who are alreading paying to support the event; demanding labor from them in exchange for those services is still an indirect form of double-charging. After all, if a group can demand labor, why not just find a job paying $10/hour to file papers, then have students work there for seven hours on behalf of the group? The students have participated in a work-exchange, and the group walks away with a $70 dollar ticket payment. This is really no different than the first interpretation. The Viennese Ball charges $75 dollars for pairs of students to attend; removing the $12,000 special fee would increase prices to a little over $100. In effect, 6,000 students are paying to subsidize ticket prices for the 10% who attend. The intent of Special Fees is to make more programming available to the student body, not to provide limited subsidies for a few. An decrease of a third in the ticket price (particularly given that attendees can easily spend far more than the ticket price on things like tuxedo rental, flowers, and so on) does little if anything to make the event accessible to more student than it would be if it received no Special Fee. This year's ball has been held, and it would be unduly crippling to the Ball (and, I think, not in the best interests of the student body) to force them to refund ticket sales. However the Viennese Ball's budget for next year plans on both $12,000 from students up front and another $22,000 from students for tickets. It is the Viennese Ball's choice which source to drop, but the Constitutional Council should make sure that one of them is indeed dropped. Also, as the Viennese Ball pointed out, they are far from the only group double-charging students. I believe it is the responsibility of the joint legislative bodies to ensure that groups receiving funding comply with the By-Laws and the Constitution, and that they have failed to do so. It is particularly ironic that the Undergraduate Senate recently eliminated its Budget and Finance Committee on the grounds that it had nothing to do. The Constitutional Council would do the student body a great service if it ordered the joint legislative bodies to properly monitor future use of student funds. The Viennese Ball's statement raised a number of specific points I should respond to. First, the question whether former ASSU President Monica Henestroza was eligible to sign the petition when I submitted it. They note that, according to Article III, Section 4.1 of the ASSU Constitution "The term of the President of the Association shall end when another President of the Association has been elected by the Association." To figure out what it means to elect a President, the controlling section is Article II, Section 9 states that "For elections involving the Association populatoin, the Association legislative bodies shall have the joint power to make rules, in accordance with this Constitution." The Association legislative bodies, in turn, specified in Article IV, Section 9.A.8 that "No officer shall take office, no Special Fee shall be authorized for collection, and no ballot measure shall take effect unless and until the appropriate election result has been certified." While they are not obliged to, the legislative bodies have extended the certification procedure to apply to all matters appearing on the ballot. As such, results are not valid, and a President not elected, until the election is certified. (The alternative would be to suppose that if a corrupt Elections Commission allows only votes for one candidate, that the legislative bodies have no recourse, since the elections becomes instantly valid on release of the results.) The Viennese Ball's implication that their interpretation is the one used by the Appropriations Committee is based on a misreading of Shipp's e-mail. He states "that clause [Article V, Section 2.A.5] does exist in the ASSU Constitution, and does restrict those groups receiving special fees as far as charging for admission to events." He goes on to suggest amending the Constitution to allow groups to charge for tickets for some events (although I gather that the Viennese Ball's practices would still be prohibited under that hypothetical amendment, since they would be allowed to spend Special Fee money only on free events). The quotation in the Viennese Ball's statement was making a technical legal point, that it was not unconstitutional for the Viennese Ball to receive Special Fee funding while merely planning to turn away students who didn't buy tickets. Incidentally, as far as I know, no ASSU official has actually openly disputed interpretation 3. The only other public comment I am aware of was then-ASSU Parliamentarian Harris Shapiro's statement to the Stanford Review that "Groups receiving Special Fee funds may not charge any member of the funding population for their services, unless that member has received a fee refund for that group." Henry