ASG Senate tabled a resolution supporting Northwestern’s complete financial divestment from the coal industry in a nearly three-hour meeting Wednesday.
According to the resolution, Northwestern’s endowment managers have suggested that divestment from coal and potential investment in clean energies would be possible and even profitable for the university.
After the Senate voted to make the resolution "old business" and blocked an amendment that would have struck some “presumptuous” language from the resolution, Weinberg sophomore Rebecca Schieber, the College Republicans senator, proposed a motion to table the resolution.
Schieber said senators should talk with their constituents about the contents of the resolution before ASG attempts to pass it. She argued that unanimous support from the Senate would give the resolution more weight in the eyes of the Northwestern administration.
After the Senate tabled the resolution, Mark Silberg, ASG’s associate vice president for sustainability and one of the resolution’s authors, told senators to “please reach out to your constituents and please reach out to me.”
Communication senior Steven Monacelli, ASG’s community relations vice president, took to the Senate lectern once again to reintroduce a resolution that would support President Obama’s gun control agenda. The Senate will vote on the resolution next week.
“We have done this numerous times, we have taken a political stance,” Monacelli said, echoing his argument last week that ASG has a rich history of recognizing national issues. “This is surely a political body.”
Monacelli said the resolution does not intend to “condemn any political party,” adding that there are even Democrats who do not support the agenda.
“The facts are the facts, and unfortunately they are atrocious,” he said.
Schieber returned to the lectern to introduce a resolution authored by College Republicans president Dane Stier, in which ASG would resolve to “refrain from establishing an official opinion” on “partisan and political matters” not directly related to Northwestern.
Schieber said that this resolution was drafted “in response to” what Monacelli had presented earlier. It seeks to keep certain groups on campus from feeling isolated or offended by ASG legislation.
“Political diversity exists and this resolution is here to prevent a minority from being ostracized,” Schieber said.
Later, Weinberg senior Ian Coley presented legislation, co-authored by Monacelli, that would create an ad-hoc committee on gun control. This committee, according to the legislation, would “compose an open letter to Congress urging them to work with the Executive branch to make bipartisan movement on gun control.”
The Senate also passed legislation calling for the purchase of four new Apple computer chargers that would be made available for student rental at the library. This legislation also created an ad-hoc committee that will also investigate purchasing PC chargers for student rental.