But instead of looking at what motivated the shooter or why he committed such a horrendous act, it would seem now is a good time to look at what the possible ramifications of Saturday’s tragedy could be.

Sadly, it appears that greater space, both literal and figurative, will be placed between citizens and politicians that are elected to represent them. A further sense of alienation between American citizens and their political representatives will likely continue because of this.

One of the things I am sure will come as a result of Saturday’s attempted assassination and mass murder is a more robust security force to protect members of both the U.S. Congress and Senate against the threat of such violence. It would not surprise me to see politicians with security details that are more reflective of the U.S. President than that of members of the Congress or Senate.

But as security increases, so too will a physical barrier between politicians and their constituents. As more police and guards surround those elected on our behalf, these representatives will be even more removed from the people they were voted to serve. And with such a wall between them and their political leaders, people will probably be less inclined to try and engage in a dialogue with said leaders.

The shooting may also affect the willingness of politicians to engage their constituents openly, and in public.

According to a Jan. 12 Associated Press report titled, “Dad pursued Ariz. massacre suspect before shooting,” Rep. Giffords was shot at a shopping center while taking part in what was referred to as “Congress on Your Corner.” During such events, Giffords would meet and speak with voters in her district out in the open, in public places.

It’s doubtful politicians are actually beaming at the prospect of going out into public arena and engaging with voters while one of their own sits in a hospital bed after trying to do just that. If anything, these sorts of forums for open government, such as “town hall meetings,” are likely to grow less frequent.

If these kinds of forums grow fewer and fewer, the distance between politicians and citizens will grow larger than it already is.

With the potential for increased security around them, a lack of willingness to take part in open forums like “Congress on Your Corner” and fear that they may be attacked, members of both Congress and the Senate may turn their attention inward.

As these elected officials’ attention may be turned inward, it will only detach them from their constituents and increase their attachment to entrenched special interests, i.e. political lobbyists.

Surely those lobbyists will have greater access (more than they already do) to our representatives than voters if these politicians choose to retreat from the public realm and surround themselves with security. Yet, after Saturday, how could anyone blame a member of Congress for feeling safer meeting with a lobbyist than with individual members of the public. After all, lobbyists generally want something from our elected officials, but it’s not to shoot them in the cranium.

But when it comes to engaging openly with the public, a senator or congressional representative can never be sure that some lone gunmen may not be in the crowd waiting to gun them down. Many politicians may largely remove themselves from the public eye

This will surely not enamor the voting community with their politicians. If anything, it will reinforce the whole concept that our elected representatives are beholden and serve at the behest of special interests; at least moreso than they are to the people they’re supposed to serve.

This will most likely increase the sense of disillusionment many have towards government.

So while you can blame partisan political rhetoric for motivating the shooter, this means little or nothing in contrast to the ramifications that may come as a result of the massacre.

None of which bodes well for increasing the contact between those elected officials and those they are charged with representing. Nor does it enhance the likelihood that public’s faith in their representatives is going to increase—not at least anytime soon.

Email the author: sstaley2@uwyo.edu

Branding Iron

The Branding Iron is a Student Media project. Student Media gives University of Wyoming students valuable experience in writing, editing, advertising, sales, graphic design, photography and production through its publications with the guidance of professional staff members. If you find a mistake in an article, e-mail us at bi@uwyo.edu. We will make sure to torture the poor soul until it's corrected. Just kidding. We probably won't do anything, since we're busy studying for finals.

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The Student Senate voted on three pieces of legislation at Tuesday night’s meeting, with one bill awarding $7,500 from the general reserve to sponsor a spring break trip to Washington D.C. for 12 students.

The Student Senate voted on three pieces of legislation at Tuesday night’s meeting, with one bill awarding $7,500 from the general reserve to sponsor a spring break trip to Washington D.C. for 12 students.

Along with the spring break trip, there was a bill to require senators to volunteer for SafeRide once per semester and two bills were proposed to change some of the internal structure of ASUW in an elections reform act and committee reform act. 

On the spring break trip, the students will be given the opportunity to meet and interact with a federal congressional delegation as well as sight see in the nation’s capital.

Although ASUW is sponsoring the trip and the coordinators are looking for outside funding, students would be required to pay about $400 for the weeklong trip. 

However, some senators felt the bill was an inappropriate use of the general reserve fund.

“I see it as a PR trip where 12 students will have a phenomenal trip with ASUW footing part of the bill, and I don’t think that’s right,” said one senator. 

The coordinators of the trip said they would like to see it become an annual event that ASUW sponsors. 

The bill passed by a vote of 24-2. 

The senate also discussed, and once again voted down, a bill that would require senators to volunteer for SafeRide once per semester during their term. 

This is the third time in three years that a similar bill has come before senate and each time the bill has failed. 

“I like this bill because I realize SafeRide has a lot of issues finding volunteers,” Sen. Noah Hull said. 

yes on the bill and said he thought the only way to fix the problems with the program is go to and see what those problems are by volunteering. 

Senator for the College of Business Katie Cusack disagreed.

“I think we all come into a job with a job description and this was not in the one we had, it’s not fair to change a description half way through,” she said. 

Senator for the College of Health Sciences Bryan Dugas responded to her comments.

“I don’t think our description is changing, our job is to help and serve students its not changing at all,” said Dugas.

Senator Phil Abernathy, said that he didn’t feel volunteering for SafeRide guaranteed that he would talk with any of his constituents from the College of Business.

After the meeting, Senator Alex Sullivan-Brink, who also voted no, said he didn’t think ASUW should force senators to do the things they should already be doing. 

During the meeting senate also awarded $3,750 to the Chinese Students and Scholars association for its Chinese New Year celebration to take place next semester. 

Email: Erin Jarnagin 

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ASUW discussed the need for two students to fill open spots on an Implementation Committee at its meeting Tuesday. The committee will be tasked with transferring the operation of SafeRide to Transit and Parking Services by July 1, 2012.

The committee’s responsibilities will also include collecting information to clarify and set the final details of the merger, and conducting interviews and opinions from comparable universities, UW administrators and students, according to the senate bill that created the committee.

Students in the committee will work with the vice president and two senators from ASUW, Elizabeth Whitt from Transit and Parking Services, as well as Matt Caires, ASUW advisor and Michael Pule, ASUW program coordinator.

The Implementation Committee will be required to report to the senate and ASUW president once each semester and will report its final analysis in the spring of 2012, according to the bill.

“It is a student program and student input is very important to Transit and Parking Services, which has made that a priority since day one,” ASUW vice president Liz Brown said. 

In other business, UW president Tom Buchanan visited the senate for the first time this semester to discuss university studies requirements in the undergraduate curriculum and  college ranking systems. 

Buchanan said the university is planning to go back through the university studies requirements to see what has been working and what has not in order to make the necessary changes. 

He added that the requirements have become increasingly complicated and a stumbling block when students change majors. 

He was not concerned about the content of the courses, but rather the structure of the requirements. 

Buchanan also said the Provost’s office has issued a white paper for the discussion about the requirements. 

Finally, he talked about university ranking systems. 

“There are as many different rankings as there are weekly magazines,” he said. Adding that the system which he believes gives some of the best information is the Integrated Post Secondary Data System. It requires all universities to give the federal government the same information for publication.

The data system does not put universities on a list of where they rank as compared to the other institutions around the nation, instead universities are given the opportunity to compare themselves to 12 other schools to see how they stack up. 

Buchanan said the universities UW chose to compare itself with were a mix of regional institutions as well as institutions he says UW aspires to be similar to. 

 Email: Erin Jarnagin 

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ASUW passed a piece of legislation Tuesday night creating a committee to look into the SafeRide-TransPark merger along with a Judicial Comprehensive Review and Reform Act which will make clear the separation of power of the judicial branch from the legislative branch of ASUW. 

 
 
The merger has recently been a controversial issue within ASUW. Accordingly, when the bill was sent to the Student Interest and Policy Planning Committee, the vote was split two to two and had to be broken by committee chair Joel Defebaugh who voted in favor of the bill, giving it a due pass recommendation to senate. 

 
Last week, vice president Liz Brown, author of the bill, brought the bill to the senate for first reading and encouraged all senators to “do their homework.” Senators had several opportunities to speak with representatives from both Transit and Parking Services as well as SafeRide last week.

 
The bill, which passed with a vote of 27 to 2, created a committee to explore the idea of SafeRide, which is currently ASUW’s largest program in terms of funding, moving under Transit and Parking Services.

 
During the meeting, Brown said all of the questions regarding whether or not TransPark might change the programs would go to the committee who would be researching the merger. 

 
Sen. Pat Hurley said he felt there has been a lot of animosity toward the bill and senators should remember that the bill would only make a committee to explore the options, not implement them. 

 
 
“If you vote no, you are saying you don’t want to hear anything they have to say about [the merger],” he said.  

 
The Senate also passed the Judicial Comprehensive Review and Reform Act which was given a due pass recommendation by the Constitution Committee.

 
 
During discussion of the bill, senators talked about the need to clearly define the separation of power between the branches of ASUW and, in particular, not allowing judicial members to author or sponsor legislation. 

 
Chief of staff Liz Rader said this was important because if the bill needed to go to judicial council for any reason, the justice who authored or sponsored a bill would have to excuse himself or herself from the decision making process and it is important to have a full judicial council when making decisions. 

 
The bill also asked vice president of Student Affairs Sarah Axelson to not to make a decision on Judicial Council decisions until after the appeal period for students is over.

 
Before the bill passed, when a Judicial Council decision was to be appealed, the decision went to the vice president of Student Affairs for comment. The appeal period for students is five days after the decision is made, after which the appeal goes to the dean of Student Affairs, currently Dave Cozzens, to be decided. 

 

Previously, senators said the problem was that the vice president of Student Affairs could make their decision and add comments on the Judicial Council’s ruling before the student had an opportunity to appeal. The appeal would then go to the dean of Student Affairs, who is an employee of the vice president of Student Affairs, making the possibility of a biased outcome of the appeal more likely. 

 
 
In other business, ASUW Senate approved a new senator, Didi Gonzales from the College of Education, following the resignation of Sen. Jace Elson.

 
They also approved former senator Andrew Ssekajja as a Judicial Council justice for a two-year term.

 
RSO Funding Board granted $6,150 to the International Student Association for their International Education Week to take place in November.
 
Email: Erin Jarnagin 

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Senators voted down two new pieces of legislation at Tuesday’s meeting, that would have regulated senators absences and leaving meetings early.

Last year’s senate voted to instate a bill that would require them to do one outreach presentation per semester during their term as a senator.

This outreach presentation was put together by the ASUW Student Relations Committee and is to be given during one of the senator’s classes.

However, the senate has had problems ensuring the senators fulfill their outreach obligation. The bill presented Tuesday night would have made it so senators failing to do the presentation would receive one fourth of an absence.

Senators are allowed three absences before they are required to go before the steering committee to face disciplinary action.

Much of the debate surrounding the bill was whether or not missing a presentation was worth one fourth absence or a full absence.

Constitution committee, which had reviewed the bill proposed an amendment to make missing the presentation one full absence rather than part of one.

If we are going to enforce this, we need to enforce it with something that has impact, Sen. Alex Sullivan-Brink said.

However, many senators felt that missing a presentation did not have the same implications as missing a meeting and therefore should not be weighted as heavily with the absence policy.

The second bill required senators to have written permission from the residing officer to leave a meeting early.

The bill stated that any senators who left early from the meeting without this permission would not have their names called in a roll call vote and would change the majority to the current number of senators present.

Though Sen. Joel Defebaugh assured senators this bill was designed to bring ASUW policy up to speed with policies of comparable groups to the senate, since some senators saw it as a direct reaction to events that happened two weeks ago.

At the senate meeting on Oct. 5, several senators left the meeting early which caused problems when a vote that had been taken earlier in the meeting was brought back up and voted on again.

Sen. Will Reese said he felt the bill was trying to close loopholes and was undemocratic.

Senators said they felt ASUW policy should not be changed because a bill did not pass and as an action against events that have not had a history of happening.

In other business, ASUW passed two RSO funding board requests. The first was for $2155 to Women’s Action Network for their annual Take Back the Night event to take place in April.

The second was $2051.67 to Got Equality Women’s Leadership Conference. 

Email the author: lkottens@uwyo.edu 

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I do not feel my fellow senators and myself are lazy. 

What Sen. Joel Defebaugh and last week’s Branding Iron writer have failed to mention in their articles is the true debate we all heard in the Senate Chambers over this bill. 

Had the debate been whether or not senators should attend RSO events, I would have voted yes; however, the majority of the debate was centered on the issue of RSO autonomy. 

Several senators who voted yes on this bill used phrases like, “this is our money” and we are “giving” that money to the students. Senators who voted yes also argued there should be feedback for the RSOs and for the funding board that can determine future funding.  

The money ASUW grants RSOs is not “our money,” it is the students’ money.  Y’all pay student fees and as Sen. Defebaugh writes in his editorial, some of that money funds the student government.  

As a Senate, we are representing that money and its intention to better this campus and the education students receive at UW. The fact that yes-voting senators feel ownership over students’ money scares me.

Second, what has neither been represented in last week’s article, nor in Sen. Defebaugh’s is there were several amendments made to this bill. 

In fact, it was startling how many violations of the ASUW bylaws were present in this piece of legislation. After said amendments were made, this bill was an entirely different document than the original. 

This signaled to me there was a need for those in favor of this legislation to re-write it and bring it back to ASUW. Also, I feel it is my duty as a senator to represent all students of this university to the best of my abilities and I did my best to hear both sides of the bill before voting.  

In this case it was clear to me that there was a huge flaw in this legislation: ASUW’s sudden power over RSO’s future funding. 

If this legislation passed, it was argued that the ASUW funding board would have say over future funding of events based on their past evaluations, as made by respective senators. 

What right does ASUW have to tell RSOs what they can and cannot do at their events? It is not our duty as a student government to judge the events of our student body and punish them with lack of future funding because of unforeseen obstacles that may occur at their events.  

If this legislation had been structured in a way that we would evaluate events based on their commitments to ASUW funding board then yes, I would have voted in favor of this legislation, but that was not the case. 

The evaluation form presented with this legislation was biased and to some senators very offensive. For example, respective senators would evaluate things such as entertainment of an event, and based on their personal opinion would decide if that event was entertaining enough to be funded in the future. Ridiculous. Who are we, as a small body of representing students, to say what is entertaining or not at events we may have no previous knowledge of whatsoever?

My final voting issue was based on the remarks of the ASUW ex-officios. For those who do not know, ex-officios to the Student Senate are representatives of many student groups such as Greek Life, Student Athlete Advisory Council, etc. These representatives cannot vote but have every right to voice their opinion in all Senate matters.  

When we debated this legislation, two ex-officios (the representatives from United Multicultural Counsel and Residence Halls Association) both urged a no vote as they were also worried that ASUW should not police student events and determine their funding based on the unforeseen. I listen to those I represent and the ex-officios are a prime example of students without voting powers telling ASUW what they want for our university.  

I voted no on this legislation because I feel it must be rewritten: we are not entitled as senators to consider student fees as a “gift” we grant to students holding an event. 

As written, this legislation takes away from RSO autonomy and because I listened to the students in this matter, I feel it is not a piece of legislation that would benefit the student body.  

If those voting decisions make me a bad senator then so be it. I feel I was voting in the interests of our student body and would vote similarly again.

 I do encourage the yes-voting senators to rewrite this legislation, remove the funding boards oversight of RSOs and provide an unbiased evaluation for said events. If this is done, I will vote yes. I think it is our duty as senators to be present at the events we fund, but we have no right to tell students how they should run their events. 

If any student would like to give me feedback on this issue I would love to hear from them as I always want to be an outlet for students to have their voices heard in their elected student government.  My email is: asulliv9@uwyo.edu

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I have sat in, and written about, nearly every ASUW meeting for the last year, and, in general, the Senate does a fine job. But, at least once a semester, the Senate does something that hits a nerve with me; they refuse to do the job they volunteered for.

Because of yet another instance of this last week, my confidence in student government has dropped to an all time low.

For the third time since I started writing for The Branding Iron, ASUW voted down a bill that would have required senators to get out of their chairs and actually work beyond sitting around a table on a Tuesday night, trying to hide their cell phones and text instead of paying attention.

At Tuesday’s senate meeting, ASUW twice voted against a bill that would have required senators to attend two RSO events a semester.  These are events that their organization funds. They would also have been required to write a review so the RSO Funding Board would have data about the success of events.

Attendance for these events would even count toward the one hour a week senators are required to put in at the ASUW office.

But, how dare the authors of the bill expect their fellow senators to get out of their chairs and actually talk to the people they are trying to represent!

During their debate, senators argued that they didn’t want to micromanage RSO events and they would only give poor reviews because they didn’t want to attend the events anyway.

One senator from the College of Business went as far to admit, “Why on earth would I fill out a survey if it’s not going to count toward my requirement?”

And this appears to be the attitude of many of the senators: ‘why would I do anything that isn’t going to directly benefit me?’ It is this lazy, selfish attitude of our senate that has prevented our university from living up to its potential, and it makes me sick.

ASUW has no problem writing checks—for every event.  I can recall only one instance they voted not to fund an event, and only because it was on a weekend before spring break.

Every week, they spend thousands of student dollars, and every year, during budget meetings , they vote to increase student fees. Why not pay attention to the money that they spend instead of forcing students to pay more and more every year?

Moreover why, when they say they are in office to represent students, do they adamantly refuse to pass legislation that would require them to see what their constituents really want?

This is not the first time ASUW has voted down this kind of bill. The first time I saw this  laziness from the senators was last year when they voted down a bill that would have required them to volunteer for SafeRide once a semester.

SafeRide is an entity that ASUW spends more money on than any other program, and voting down this SafeRide bill proved the Senate has no problem spending well over $100,000 of your student fees; especially if it means they can slap ASUW’s logo on it, and they don’t have to get out of their chairs.

SafeRide is a fantastic program, and ASUW does a great job with it—a comment I can make from first hand experience as both a user and a volunteer—but what I don’t understand is why senators take for granted the facts and figures they get from the program itself as a correct representation of students’ feelings.

Senators would do well to recognize that if they want ASUW to have a reputation beyond that of a blank check, they should remember they ran for office to serve students. Students are not served when their representatives refuse to do more than sit behind a desk and text.

Email Erin Jarnagin

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After three consecutive years of work from Freshmen Senate, the tradition of the Octopus Tree was revived Wednesday night as President Tom Buchanan and his wife Jacque Buchanan kissed under the newly planted tree. 

“We met 35 years ago when we were students here, but this is the first time we have kissed under the Octopus Tree,” Buchanan said. 

The legend of the Octopus Tree says anyone who has not been kissed under it is still a freshman at the university, regardless of the number of credit hours the student has obtained. 

The original tree, which was condemned in the 1970s, was removed from the university grounds in the 1980s after it was determined to be a hazard. 

When the Octopus Tree was first planted, along with about 20 other trees, the groundskeeper at the time mowed over it and the other trees so many times it was caused to grow in an odd shape, giving it its name. 

Of the 20 original trees, the Octopus Tree was the only survivor of the repeated attempts at destruction, Dennis Dreher of Admissions said at the ceremony.  

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Senate Bill 2292 would have mandated that ASUW Senators attend two RSO events each semester and fill out evaluation forms for the event.

“The bill is designed to provide feedback to RSOs, so they can improve future events they hold,” Dugas said.

 The bill would increase and help build relationships between ASUW and RSOs on campus, Dugas said.

Sen. Pat Hurley spoke in favor of the bill.

“We shouldn’t look at this is if we’re policing RSOs,” Hurley said. “It would be great to have RSOs come to future meetings and be able to look at previous years’ evaluations and see how they intend to improve their future events.”

 Director of Finance Luke Frye was also in support of the legislation. He felt ASUW should have accountability with the money it hands out, Frye said.

“This is student fee money, and we should be responsible for it,” Frye said.

Sen. Will Reese spoke in opposition of Senate Bill 2292.

 “I’ve made it clear that I’m concerned with holding RSOs accountable, but if we really want to be accountable we need to be accountable on Tuesday nights when we’re writing checks,” Reese said. Reese said he feels many of the bureaucratic requirements in the bill are excessive and silly.

Some senators said they believed RSOs should be allowed to evaluate themselves and that the bill is an overreach of student government.

“It’s not our job to be policing the RSOs on campus,” Sen. Lana Percival said. “I feel like we make them jump through enough hoops already—these are our fellow students.” Percival said she feels the bill would lead to ASUW and the RSO Funding Board voting on previous years’ evaluations, instead of the legitimacy of the current requests.

When the Senate took a roll call vote on the bill, the result was 16-9 in favor. The bill, however, needed a two-thirds vote in order to pass, which it missed by a single vote.

However, an attempt to reconsider the bill after some senators left sparked controversy.  Some senators felt the attempt to reconsider was made to take advantage of some senators who voted against the bill and left before the meeting was over.  

“I don’t think the senators would have expected something like this,” Sen. Joe Chenchar said. 

Sen. Jordan Kaul said she thought the move was justified and senators should stay for 100 percent of the meetings. “If they didn’t want to stick it out, they shouldn’t run for ASUW,” she said.

The bill failed again during the re-vote.

In other business, ASUW allocated $1,275 for Alpha Kappa Psi, a business fraternity. The money will go toward their etiquette dinner to take place on Nov. 8. The College of Business has contributed $1,100 to the event, which is intended to instruct students on the necessary etiquette skills to succeed in the business world.

Dan Adams was approved as the Director of Diversity and Student Outreach.  “I will be able to reach out to a diverse UW campus,” Adams said. “I would also like to expand and reach out to all the RSOs on campus as a representative of ASUW.”

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               “A lot of college students are progressive thinkers,” said Chris Rothfuss, the Democratic candidate for the State Senate, District 9. “They have fresh ideas, but they also have a kind of apathy towards the government. They believe that their voice will not be heard, so they neglect to vote and have their voice heard. We (the Democratic Party) are working to cure that apathy.”

                The event was organized to get students – both Democrat and Republican – fired up about the elections. Several Democratic candidates running for state office were present, including Dave O’malley (Sherriff), Craig Cook (State Legislature), Chris Rothfuss (State Senate, District 9), Andrew Simons (Secretary of State for Wyoming Governor), and David Wendt (U.S. Representative, Wyoming). Students were encouraged to fill out pledge cards, promising that they would vote in the upcoming election whether they voted Democrat or Republican.

                The highlight of the night was a speech by President Barack Obama, which was broadcast via live web feed from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI to over 200 college campuses nationwide, including the University of Wyoming. Obama spoke about the positive feelings of hope and the desire for change from voters that helped secure his election to President in 2008, and said that a similar attitude would be needed to succeed in the mid-terms. “It was your hope, and your desire for change, that got me into this office,” said Obama. “We need to recall those same feelings this year at the polls.”

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