I did not get these from Ray Duncan himself, but rather from one of the people he chose to distribute this to initially.
These are copies of files that are on the hard drive, but do not exist in a
"document" form. It was very hard to get.
Please widely distribute.
Sincerely,
Raymond Duncan
UNIVERSITY STUDENT COURT
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER AND INJUNCTION
Acting under the authority granted in Section 4.3 of the University Student Court Bylaws, I hereby grant Speaker of the Senate, Clayton E. Clouse's request for a Temporary Restraining Order and Injunction.
This Order restrains all individuals in violation of the Court Order in Michals v. Clouse from functioning within the Student Association government. Individuals in violation must choose to serve on a single Branch of SA and to vacate their remaining office(s).
Individuals in violation of the Order in Michals v. Clouse that fail to choose by 4:30 PM on Sunday, September 12, 2004 to serve on a single Branch of SA are in violation of the Court Order thus illegally occupying their offices. At 4:30 PM on Sunday, September 12, 2004, members that have not complied with the Court Order in Michals v. Clouse will have all of their positions vacated, their titles in SA stripped of them, access to their office denied, and their pay suspended. In short, individuals that fail to comply will have all of their positions in SA vacated and all of their rights and privileges of those positions denied.
There will be a hearing on Monday, September 13, 2004 at 4:00 PM before a 2/3 majority of the Court to discuss the Continuance and/or Validity of this Order. The location of the meeting will be posted outside of Union Room 392 at least four hours before the hearing time.
On this 12th Day of September 2004,
It Is So Ordered.
________________________________________
Russell E. Rueden
Chief Justice
University Student Court
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Senator Neal A. Michals, Student Association Senator and Shared Governance
Director,
v.
Speaker Clayton Clouse, Speaker of the Student Association Senate
Released Thursday, September 2, 2004.
Heard Before: Justices Rueden, Zahn-Craig, and Frank.
Introduction - Student's Self Governance
The Court acts as the guardian of the Constitution and the protector of all things just within the Student Body. The bylaws passed by the Student Association (SA) Senate and signed by our SA President grant us final authority in interpreting the governing documents that direct our student government. As the final student interpretive authority, it is important that we recognize the right of self governance. All matters heard before the Court have been dealt with exclusively by students, as demanded by Wisconsin State Statute 36.09(5), "The students of each institution or campus shall have the right to organize themselves in a manner they determine and to select their representatives to participate in institutional governance."
State law allows the students to form a government of their choosing. The students chose to create the Court and give us final interpretive authority: Section 3.2 of the Court bylaws: "The USC shall be the final source in all matters concerning the
interpretation of the Student Association's Constitution and its legislation."
The Court's decisions are therefore final in matters involving student governance. To stray from this destroys shared governance and ignores the will of the students that we are all here to represent.
Case Before the Court
This case began as the result of an election held during the Senate meeting on Sunday, June 6, 2004. The election was for the two Senate seats on Union Policy Board, a board that formulates policies for the UWM Union. Three individuals ran for two spots. Senator Robert Schuettpelz won with 12 votes. Senator Neal Michals and Senator Christopher Vega tied with 10 votes each. The (SA) Secretary, Ms. Scottie Allen, was not allowed to vote in this election as she was deemed an ex-officio member of the Senate by Speaker Clayton Clouse. The issue before the Court is whether or not Ms. Allen should have been allowed to vote, as she holds both the SA Secretary position and the position of Senator.
Issues in this Case
This case asks us to look at four particular areas of conflict.
The first area of conflict is whether or not an ex-officio member is allowed to vote. The current governing documents are silent as to whether they can or cannot vote. Therefore, in the absence of any guidelines, the governing documents tell us to look to Robert's Rules for clarification (Article II, Subsection A of the SA Senate Bylaws). It is clear in Robert's Rules that ex-officio members are allowed to vote (Article IX, Section 51 of Robert's Rules).
The second area of conflict is the question of holding dual roles within the Student Association. It is clear within the governing documents that the Student Association and the students at-large are looking to maintain a three branch government with a complete system of checks and balances. This is evident in the President's veto power (Article V, Section 5, Subsection C of the SA Constitution), the Senate's abilities to formulate legislation and over-ride a veto (Article IV, Section 8, Subsections D and F of the SA Constitution), the President's ability to appoint Court Justices with 2/3 consent of the Senate (Article V, Section 5, Subsection B of the SA Constitution), and so on.
The Student Association's attempts at forming "a more perfect student government (SA Constitution Preamble)," are being bastardized by the current administration in that many of the Directors are concurrently serving as Senators. This inevitably causes a great deal of conflict. The potential level of corruption in a government of this nature is immense. The student body entrusts that a three branch government will aggressively and proactively check each of the other branches. This is simply not possible within the current Student Association. The Chief of Staff, who also serves as a Senator, is charged with oversight of the Directors, many of whom are also Senators. It would be very difficult for a Senator to voice the wants of their constiuents when their supervisor is sitting next to them voting another way. The current state of the Student Association, in regards to the integration of the Executive and Legislative Branches, is completely unacceptable. The students elect a President to be their voice and to "promote our general welfare (SA Constitution Preamble)." To stand idly by and allow no true check to exist is deeply upsetting and will not be tolerated by this Court.
The third conflict that exists is the level of privacy between the three branches. It is very difficult for the Senate to conduct investigations of the Executive Branch when they share the same office space. This once again brings about the potential for corruption and destroys the ideal government that the students expect. The Vice-President is in a unique position in that he is both a member of the Executive Branch as well as the Legislative. It is therefore difficult for that office to be shared as he can participate in the activities of both branches.
The final conflict was the issue of how the tie was to be broken between Senators Vega and Michals in aformentioned election. Senator Michals argued that there should have been a run-off election. Speaker Clouse argued that Vice-President Rodriguez has all tie breaking authority. In reviewing Article IV, Section 6, Subsection A of the SA Constitution, it is clear that the Vice-President does have all tie breaking authority.
Orders
The Court is appalled at the current level of integration amongst the branches of government. We therefore Order that any member of the Senate that currently holds any office within the Executive Branch choose which of those two offices they would like to occupy and to vacate the remaining office. This must be done within seven calendar days of the release of this opinion. The Vice-President is an exception to this rule, as he is Constitutionally mandated to be a member of the Senate and technically does not hold dual roles. The Court Parliamentarian is also exempt as this is a Constituionally mandated service of the Court.
We further order that ex-officio members are currently allowed to vote. This however, would not change the outcome, as Ms. Scottie Allen was acting as the Secretary during the meeting and is not allowed to hold dual roles. As such, she should not have been voting at the meeting as a Senator.
We let stand the decision of Speaker Clouse to recognize Ms. Allen solely as the SA Secretary.
We further order that the Union Policy Board immediately address the office allocation and see to it that the Legislative Branch has their own locking office.
We finally order that tie-breaking authority in the Senate falls solely upon the Vice-President in all cases, as directed by the SA Constitution. Therefore, the
decision of Speaker Clouse to allow the Vice-President to break the tie stands.
It is so Ordered.
____________________________________________
Russ Rueden
Chief Justice
____________________________________________
Jessicka Zahn-Craig
Assistant Chief Justice
_____________________________________________
Ryan Frank
Clerk of Court
This is the temporary restraining order followed by the actual court case filed to deal with separation of powers.
Student Association
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Office of the President
President Brett P. Belden
Response to University Student Court Mandates in the Opinion of Michals v Clouse
On Thursday, September 2 at approximately 5:20 PM Chief Justice of the University Student Court Rueden issued an email release of the opinion of Justices Rueden, Frank and Zahn-Craig which stated that I, as President of the Student Association, am responsible for enforcing the Court's opinion in the matter of Michals v Clouse. For this reason, I am issuing the following public response to the University Student Court's orders.
Background
First, I must address certain assumptions I am required to make in the interpretation of this court order. In reviewing the opinion of the Court, the only order I appear to have any direct impact on is the order of the Court for officers serving dual roles to choose one role within seven days of the release of the opinion and vacate the other role. Therefore, I will assume that this is the section of the opinion the Court states that I am responsible for enforcing and I will limit the scope of my response to this section. Furthermore, the Court has been unclear exactly how I am to address the issue of individuals who choose not to vacate one of their positions within the given time period. Again, the only power I myself would have to address this would be to remove the individuals from their Executive Branch positions, and thus I am forced to assume this is the intention of the Court's order.
With this being said, I would like to address the Court's contention that I have chosen "to stand idly by and allow no true check to exist." I have never disallowed checks and balances from existing in the Student Association as they are defined in the governing documents. In fact, I have never claimed that I am in favor of officers serving concurrently in more than one branch. The reality is, I do not have the power to impose a restriction on members of the Executive Staff that disallows them from serving on both the Legislative and Executive branches. Article VI, Section 1 of the Student Association Constitution states that "The Judicial Branch shall have a University Student Court, which shall have five justices. These Justices may not hold any other office in SA."
Clearly, the Legislature and students at large, in approving this Constitution, have defined this situation in which members of the Judicial Branch are restricted from holding offices in other branches. No such restriction exists in the Constitution for the Executive or Legislative branches; that is, no restriction has been approved by the Legislature and students at large to be included in the Constitution or any other governing document of the Student Association. Furthermore, precedent shows that Directors and other Executive Branch members have in the past served as Senators as well. Prior to the 2003-2004 session, Directors were actually placed under the Legislative Branch, and to my knowledge all of the Director positions were filled by Senators. With the bylaw changes that occurred at the beginning of the 2003-2004 session the Director positions were moved to the Executive Branch, but many Executive Staff members still served concurrently as Senators. Treasurer Ben Butz, Student
Organization Relations Director for the first semester Avigal Harris, Student Organization Relations Director for the second semester Robert Schuettpelz, who currently serves as a Senator, and Chief of Staff Clayton Clouse, who currently
serves as Speaker of the Senate, are all examples of individuals who served concurrently in both the Executive and Legislative branches in the previous
Student Association session. Considering these precedents and the fact that no Legislature-approved law exists prohibiting officers from serving dual roles, I
can only conclude that I do not have the power to disallow members of the Executive Staff from serving as Senators as well. To remove someone from their Executive position for serving concurrently as a Senator would make me vulnerable to very real legal action for unfair termination of employment, since I could site no rule currently in the governing documents as my reasoning.
Powers of the Judicial and Legislative Branches
Article IV, Section 8, Subsection (d) of the Student Association Constitution states that "The Senate shall formulate rules, regulations, and policies that govern the activities of SA." It goes on in Subsection (i) to state that "The Senate shall have the power to approve all SA By-Laws." This jurisdiction of the Court is in the interpretation of the governing documents of the Student Association. However, the effect of this opinion is to alter the governing documents of the Student Association, creating a rule where none exists in the Constitution. Clearly, Article IV, Section 8 of the Constitution reserves this power for the Legislative Branch, not the Judicial Branch. The Court uses the Preamble of the Constitution to impose its own opinion of what are appropriate checks and balances onto the Student Association. The Preamble reads, "We, the Students of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in order to form a more perfect Student Government; to ensure participation in Student Governance; and to promote our general welfare, do hereby establish this Constitution." In other words, in order to ensure a more perfect Student Government, we establish rules in the Constitution. Only the Legislative Branch has the authority granted in the Constitution to approve alterations to the rules and governing documents of the Student Association, and this ruling serves to take that power away from the Legislative Branch and give it to the three Justices who heard this case.
For me to take action against an officer serving dual roles citing only this Court opinion without the benefit of a legislature-approved rule change would again make me vulnerable to reprimand, not only on behalf of the affected officer, but also on behalf of the Senate for attempting to enforce a rule which the Senate did not approve.
Dual Roles in the Judicial Branch
I find it interesting that the Court is so appalled at the integration between branches considering its own Chief Justice is currently serving a potentially
disastrous dual role. Sandburg Halls Administrative Council (SHAC) is the second major governing body on campus. It is so important, in fact, that the 2003-2004 Student Association Senate passed a piece of legislation reaffirming its support of SHAC and acknowledging SHAC's authority in matters of residence life. This piece of legislation essentially reaffirmed SHAC as an extension of the Student Association in the shared governance process. The Chief Justice of the University Student Court currently is serving concurrently as the President, the head executive, of SHAC. The potential damage that could result from this dual role is certainly far worse than that of an individual serving in both the Executive Staff and Senate. What would happen should an individual who falls under the jurisdiction of SHAC be displeased with a decision made by the SHAC President and decide to turn to the University Student Court? Surely it would be difficult for that individual to find any sort of justice in the Court. Even if the Chief Justice were to recuse himself, the considerable influence he has as the head of the Judicial Branch would certainly affect the opinions of the Justices hearing the case.
Conclusion and Possible Remedy
In conclusion, the individuals affected by this opinion have been made aware of the Court's wishes, but I cannot personally take any action against the individuals who are serving in both the Executive and Legislative branches. I want to be absolutely clear that I am not purposely defying the Court, but rather I simply do not have the power to take any action without a specific clause prohibiting Executive Branch members from serving on other branches, as exists with the Judicial Branch. I leave it to the Senate to decide whether to pass a bylaw change implementing this restriction; I am most certainly not opposed to the discussion of a bylaw change, and I absolutely will do my best to enforce anything the Senate passes that is signed into law. I only ask that if the Senate considers the elimination of the dual roles that exist in the Student Association, it do so fairly and equitably, and address the dual roles which currently exist in all branches of the SA.
In service to the students of UWM,
Brett P. Belden
President
Student Association of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
This is then SA President Brett Belden's response. Notice that he is aware of Rueden's cozy relationship with the Sandburg Halls Administrative Council, and notes how such a problem can exist even outside the normal divisions of student government.
Again, please widely distrubute these. I will offer more comment when I have a chance to study these further.
1 comment:
We therefore Order that any member of the Senate that currently holds any office within the Executive Branch choose which of those two offices they would like to occupy and to vacate the remaining office.
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