editorial
Election
times a
changin'
When voters approved Constitutional Amendment Number One
(the student regent amendment)last fall, they unknowingly
opened a Pandora's box of election problems for ASUN.
No longer could ASUN hold the psuedo-elections so typical of
the uncomplicated past. Electing an ASUN president is one thing,
but electing a regent is serious business. The added status requires
compliance with state election laws, a trying task for budding
parties now required to garner 500 signatures in order to
file-2,400 students voted last year.
Notarized filing forms, voting booths and acceptance of
absentee and disabled ballots are other hallmarks of ASUN's move
into big time politics. It's a pity attitudes can't be changed as easily
as rules.
Other election changes have slipped in while this general house
cleaning has been going on. Last week the ASUN electoral
commission approved the placement of voting booths in the five
major residence hall complexes. The thinking behind the original
ban was that election booths in residence halls would have dormies
(shudder) rushing to the polls in record numbers. This spring we'll
find out if that is true.
Residence hall voting booths may cause some problems.
Campaign paraphernalia will have to be removed from around the
booths, and ASUN candidates who live in residence halls will have
to resist the temptation to lead their friends en masse to the polling
t
One election change has been left up to the voters-the question
of moving ASUN elections from spring to fall. Unlike some ASUN
constitutional amendments in the past, this one isn't on the ballot
because some enterprising senator thought it would make ASUN
look like it is doing something. This change is needed.
Members of the NU Board of Regents take office in the fall-all
members, that is, except student regents who, under present
election rules, take office in the spring. By the time the student
regents get there, officers have been selected and committees have
been appointed.
Fall elections would give the student regents a chance to serve
on committees they are interested in. Whoever succeeds Regent
Clingenpcel this spring will probably also take his place on the
business committee-a fate worse than death for someone not
interested in discussing capital construction funds.
Fall elections would also allow the new ASUN administration to
prepare its own budget. As things stand now, the present
administration will submit a budget for next year before the new
administration takes office.
The constitutional amendment to move ASUN elections from
spring to fall has something going for it-that a lot of things we'll
hear during this year's campaign won't have. It makes sense.
Wes Albers
"III i
ggM us
ERA may create more problems than it solves
bruce
nelson
9
Ml .ca
The controversy over the Lqual Rights Amendment (KRA) has
already generated so much rhetoric and newsprint that one is
reluctant to add to the conflagration.
Despite all the polemics, howver, confusion stiii reigns and
several points need to be clarified.
The first of these is whether a state can repeal an earlier
ratification of the IRA. The answer, according to constitutional
and congressional precedent, is a fiat no.
The constitutional case is Coleman v. Miiler, 307 U.S. 433
(1939). This case was concerned with a proposed Child Labor
Amendment and the issue was whether Kansas, after first rejecting
ratification could later, in 1937, change its mind.
Chief Justice Hughes, writing the majority opinion, pointed out
that there had been this kind of problem in the ratification of the
Fo u r t e e n t h A me n d n ic n t .
On July 20th Secretary Seward issued a proclamation citing the
ratification by 28 Slates, including North Carolina, South Carolina,
Ohio and New Jersey, and staling that it appeared that Ohio and
New Jersey had since passed resolutions withdrawing their consent
and that "it is deemed a matter of doubt and uncertainty whether
such resolutions are not irregular, invalid and therefore
ineffectual."
The next day Congress icniovcd that doubt by accepting
Seward's proclamation and added the Fourteenth Amendment to
the Constitution.
The point concerning ratification is not. however, the only
problem or source of confusion surrounding the LRA. For many,
there is a question whether it is actually needed.
In a purely technical sense, the answer is again no. The courts
could, if they so desired, accomplish all the LRA could accomplish
through existing laws, such as the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments or the various Civil Rights Acts in conjunction with
the "commerce clause."
The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall
"deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due
process of law: nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws."
The Supreme Court has ruled that women are persons and
citizens as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment in Minor v.
Happerset, 21 Waii i 62 (1874).
Usually the passing of constitutional amendments has been
thought of in terms of protecting the minority against the majority
or the unenfranchised against the Iranchised.
Women fall in neither of these two categories, which to many
suggests that the most desired method of change should come
through the ordinary channels of legislation rather than by
constitutional amendment.
Indeed, if three-fourths of the states arc willing to ratify the
amendment, why can't they simply pass specific laws and model
progiams on their own to correct discrimination?
If the amendment is finally ratified, this will have to be done
anyway. Why must a slate legislature exhort themselves (through
ratification) to treat women justly before they start doing so?
There is yet another question of ambiguity in the wording of
the I RA. Its enforcement clause states that legislative authority
belongs to Congress and the states "within their respective
jurisdictions."
This is a much more limited authorization of Concessional
power than is now practiced under the Fourteenth Amendment. If
the Supreme Court decides that the LRA supercedes the
Fourteenth Amendment in regard to sex discrimination. Congress
may find itself with less power to prevent that very sex
discrimination than it had betoie.
f inally, it must he said that all the controversy over what the
LRA will or will not do is just "so much blowin' in the wind" until
the Supreme Court starts "interpreting" it under the various cases
which most assuredly will come if the LRA is ratified.
No law. constitutional amendment included, can anticipate all
the problems, solutions, questions or heartaches that may arise
under it.
page 4
daily nebraskan
monclay, march 3, 1975
