After deciding to forgo any formal debate on the legislation, Student Council on Tuesday night narrowly rejected a bill to amend its bylaws that would have required the publication of individual voting records on the organization's Web site.
The bill, which was introduced Oct. 19 and tabled Oct. 26, was designed to eventually give Council members the opportunity to provide explanations for their votes through individual Web sites overseen by Council's chief technology advisor.
Council Executive Vice President Whitney Garrison, who co-sponsored the bill, said holding Council members accountable for their votes is an important issue but that there are technical issues involved in making records and explanations available online.
"The legislation is very open ended because we want to try different things and see what works best," Garrison said. "I don't know how feasible this is and if it can happen in a timely manner."
Council Chief Technology Advisor Adam Sanders said setting up a system as stipulated by the bill would be labor intensive and that professional consultation might be needed.
Despite technical issues, a number of representatives said they think the publication of voting records is needed.
"Even if it takes until next semester, I think it's worth doing," College Rep. Sam White said. "It's going to be an effective way to communicate with students."
In a move usually reserved for unanimous or nearly unanimous decisions, the representative body chose not to engage in formal debate and continued with voting procedures.
When Council voted 14 to 12 in favor of the bill, the bill momentarily was thought to have passed until Garrison and Parliamentarian John Goduti pointed out that a two-thirds majority was needed to amend the bylaws.
Council President Noah Sullivan's motion to reconsider the bill was ruled invalid because Sullivan had voted in favor of the bill. According to parliamentary procedure, only those who voted against a bill can motion to reconsider it.
"Ironically, since the bill failed, we won't be recording who voted for and against it," Garrison said.
Some Council members were concerned about the lack of debate involved in the representative body's decision to reject the bill.
"What we just did -- that was not cool," Sullivan said after the vote. "We defeated a piece of legislation that we did not even debate on. I hope we can come forward with something better to let people know what we're doing here."
A number of Council members offered their rationale for voting against publishing voting records.
"As far as voting against the bill, I believe in transparency, but I think we need proper avenues to express our [voting] rationales," College Rep. Jequeatta Upton said after the meeting.
Graduate Arts and Sciences Rep. Gavin Reddick said he thought that Council members should have given the bill more consideration.
"I wholeheartedly agree with Noah," Reddick said. "The fact that I can only find out people's objections [to legislation] through The Cav Daily is really interesting."
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