Daily Cal: ASUC Sponsors Vigil for Victims of Tucson Shooting
By J.D. Morris
Daily Cal Staff Writer
Date Added Friday, January 14, 2011 | 5:21 pm
Last Updated Monday, January 17, 2011 | 12:57 pm
The ASUC Senate voted electronically Tuesday evening to suspend parliamentary procedures and pass a bill that sponsored a candlelight vigil for wounded Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and called for more civility in the political process.
The bill was passed unanimously by all senators who cast their votes, allowing the student government to sponsor the event held by the East Bay Young Democrats Wednesday at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland. Several UC Berkeley campus groups, including the Cal Berkeley Democrats, also co-sponsored the event.
Authors of the bill said it was important to establish a response from student leaders to the shooting of Giffords and several others outside a supermarket in Tuscon, Arizona on Jan. 8.
“It was such a senseless act of violence,” said CalSERVE Senator Courtney McDonald, who co-authored the bill. “We thought it necessary to say that we really don’t support these actions – we condemn it.”
Anais LaVoie, communications director for Cal Berkeley Democrats and a co-author of the bill, said the bill took into account that part of the reason for the events may have been the politics of the shooter.
“We by no means think that politicians should take full responsibility, but I think it’s fine that we say we’ve been behaving like children and we really need to take responsibility for what’s out there,” she said.
While normal procedure would require that the senators vote first to suspend parliamentary procedures and then conduct a second vote on the bill, Executive Vice President Nanxi Liu opted to expedite the process by asking senators to vote on both the suspension and the bill at the same time because the event was held the following day.
“There was no point in waiting to see if senators wanted to set aside parliamentary procedures before stating their aye or nay votes,” Liu said in an e-mail. “This bill was passed using (this) method because it had a particular time stamp on it … and the purpose was to send a message to the community that the ASUC does not tolerate violence.”
According to Jonathan Uriarte, finance director of Cal Berkeley Democrats and another co-author of the bill, about 50 to 70 people gathered Wednesday in Oakland to light candles for the victims and hear from several members of the community and elected officials, including Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland.
Though organizers of the vigil may have expected a better turnout, Uriarte said the bill was also intended to make a statement about the Tuscon shooting.
“There’s the hope that maybe because of the ASUC sponsorship, maybe in the future our campus will have an event like (the vigil),” Uriarte said.
Source: The Daily Californian, http://www.dailycal.org/article/111500/asuc_sponsors_vigil_for_victims_of_tucson_shooting.