I
editorial p3
y y
Constitution
cleanup
So you step into that voter's booth and
check a box next to one presidential
candidate, make your U.S. Senate and House
of Representatives choices, and, if you live in
the right place, vote for a state senator and
maybe a regent. Wrap-up all the local races.
Then you're half done.
Left are 16 perplexing amendments to the
State Constit6tion.
. Thirteen merit a yes vote. One is a definite
no. Two others, a qualified no.
Proposed constitutional changes winning
yes votes include:
No. 2 reduces the number of votes needed
to create new judicial districts.
No. 3 and 9 both permit, in one way or
another, higher pay for overworked and
underpaid legislators. Amendment 3 lets
legislators set their own salaries. Amendment
9 provides them with extra pay for work done
when the Legislature is not in session.
Currently Nebraska's state senators get
remuneration to the tune of $400 a month.
No. 4-guarantees, Constitutionally, a
felon's right to appeal his conviction to the
Supreme Court.
No. 6 just clarifies wording in the
Constitution.
No. 7 this amendment stipulates that land
"devoted to agricultural or horticultural use"
could be assessed for taxes based solely on its
use and not at a value the land might have if
used for other purposes.
This amendemnt protects farmers whose
land lies at the fringes of urban centers and
conceivably could be used for urban
expansion. Opponents contend that the
amendment would mean tax breaks for land
speculators. It seems worth that chance to
protect the farmer from unfair taxation, even
to the benefit of speculators who still would
have to continue to farm after they purchased
the land.
No. 8 and 13 these amendments
respectively make legislators and legislative
employes part of the state retirement system,
and adjusts benefits of retired public
employes to reflect increases in the cost of
living.
No. 1 0-rearranges wording in the
constitution relating to education.
No. 11 would permit cities and villages to
levy taxes or special assessments to build
off-street parking.
No. 12 increases the size of the judicial
nominating committee and requires that the
names of judicial nominees be publically
disclosed in advance. It also insures against
conspicuously stacking' the nominating
committee with members of one political
party.
No. 14-takes the state tax commissioner,
an appointed official, off the State Board of
Equalization (the body that sets the tax rate)
leaving only elected officials.
For those that should not be passed:
No. 1 if passed, this amendment would
prohibit voters ages 18 to 21 years from
serving in the Unicameral. A definite no.
No. 5-A yes vote would give the governor
broad power to remove his appointees. Those
appointed without a specific term could be
exinguished for no reason at any time. Those
picked for specific terms could be removed
for reason after a public hearing. The
amendment possibly would give the governor
the opportunity to remove an appointed state
senator.
No. 1 5 this amendment leaves legislators
to decide what conflicts of interest are for
persons getting checks from the state. This
includes themselves. Impetus for this
amendment was the resignation of several
members of state boards (mostly University
professors) for what the attorney general
deemed Constitutional conflicts of interest.
Granted, the state should be able to call
upon professionals to serve on state boards
where a technical conflict of interest isn't
really a conflict like with University
professors. But, this situation should not be
remedied at the expense of allowing
legislators to pick and choose what their own
conflicts of interest are. Randy Beam
Games of war
all the fun's
in trying
miche
e
e
For today's exercise, we are going to play a little
game. Everyone loves to play games, it's almost as
much fun as real life. In fact, games can be even more
than fun-for some people, they become a way of
life. Therefore, pardon my confusion If I can't quite
seem to determine where some of these games end
and breathing, bleeding, sometimes beautiful lives of
real people begin.
Anyway, back to my game. Acutally, it's not
really my game. I just borrowed it. But it's such an
old game that, at this point, I don't imagine too many
people really care much one way or the other if we
spend a little time with it or not.
O.K. Now, there's just a few more things I'd like
to make perfectly clear before we start. First, you
might like to know that only one person knows the
rules to this game and how and when the game will
end. Hopefully, this somewhat unusual touch will
only add to the game's excitement, but if It bothers
you, just pretend you don't care or aren't interested,
we'll just let the secret plans lie.
Maybe we'd better have a little background
information, now, too, before we get underway. You
should be well aware of the honored history and
well-traveled path of this little exercise we're about to
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participate in. It can be traced back more than 2,000
years. Imagine. How little times and people must have
changed to be playing the same games for so longl
Of course, our own variation of this age-old
pastime is only fifteen years old by some accounts,
much older by others. At any rate, a three or four
year difference one way or the other doesn't account
for much in some people's minds. We'll just accept
the fact our game is well-established and leave it at
that.
I think we're finally ready to begin. Here's the
game plan. Divide up into three teams and set
boundaries. (By the way, this game has a lot of
physical contact, so consider yourself forewarned.)
Now, one side should begin by invading the other's
territory. The third team should join with the second
team, taking care that the first team is poorly
equipped and underrated, organized largely by a sense
of common purpose rather than motivation of a
financial or military sort.
The third team should have access to any of the
equipment it might need and not think twice about
using it against the first team, even if by so doing, it
cripples its own ally, the second team. This may
sound a little dishonest, or even a little cruel, but it's
all a part of the game.
Any and all tactics may be used, no holds barred.
The game is to continue until all team members have
been disabled, injured or in some other way made
ineligible to play.
As you might guess, it would be next to Impossible
to ..... a game of this kind, so one doesn't try to win.
Rather, one tries to inflict as much damage as
possible on the enemy in the shortest amount of
time. Take a body or casualty count, add up the
figures for the past week, tack them on to the figures
accumulated throughout the past month or year.
Subtract (or add) a certain percentage for deflation or
ppajanda purpoBi, and you get a rough idea of
in I ' ah2f' S,nce - team cant rMy win or
lose In games of this sort, the fun's only in trvina
But though the Us! GovemmenrseTohave
tried harder, its role in games of war, at least in
Vietnam seems to be in doubt. Time appears to be
drawing to a close, but you never know in an election
year.
Whatever the outcome of this war-game victory or
no, how comforting to look at the way this game was
played ,n the last four years. Surely there's
page 4
daily nebraskan
thursday, november 2, 1972