The Agrinautica

   So as you may have gathered we had a bit of a debacle in Senate on Thursday. The novel-length account of the situation can be found on daviswiki, or a shorter summary can be found in someone's livejournal here (though note that the candidates are allegedly on disciplinary probation, not grade-related academic probation -- see my comment if you read the entry for further explanation).

Prologue
   Basically, though it was discovered that some candidates were on disciplinary probation (ie plead guilty before SJA for some kind of ethical or criminal lapse), once they'd been elected but before taking office, they had survived what was supposed to be a verification of disciplinary probation earlier because due to some kind of miscommunication they weren't reported as on probation. The question came to the Court to decide whether or not the verification had taken place, or should be done again.
   The seating of senators was delayed while everyone waited for the Court to hear the case, and the outgoing Senators remained in office for two additional meetings because Senate met on the last day of fall quarter and first day of winter -- and the Court needed three days notice to have a hearing. When the Court did meet, it was discovered that quorum could not be met because Justice Johnson had neglected to inform anyone that he no longer attends UC Davis. Anyway, I decided to hold the Hearing and then have Senate decide if it was legitimate before the ruling was announced. Plaintiff and Defence did not object to this arrangement prior to the hearing; both sides objected following the hearing. Which brings us to last night:

Extraordinary Session of ASUCD Senate of 12 January 2006
   The Senate rejected the legitimacy of the hearing, insisting that quorum rules are there for a reason. They then held a lengthy closed session during which they all tried to escape through the window and determined that election rules are not there for a reason, and eliminated the requirement that candidates not be on disciplinary probation. They further removed the Elections Committee Chairman from the certification process --because he didn't agree with their actions--, thereby breaking with all precedent (all political elections in the United States are certified by the elections administrater). While they were working on this bill during the closed session, however, the Court had been convened across the hall. Once the Senate read their bill (SB 36), the Court read the order they had just completed themselves:

It has been argued that Judicial Code Three Section 301 could literally be interpreted to grant quorum during the hearing. The Court rejected this as against the Spirit of the bylaws.

Senate appears now to be seriously considering overriding bylaws to accomplish the opposite of their spirit.

If the Senate does this, the Court's objection to the literal interpretation of section 301 will be overridden. Quorum will immediately and retroactively be considered to have existed during the hearing. It's opinion will immediately be official and binding.