Rand's power stymies student effort

The N.C. House has overwhelmingly passed legislation during its last four sessions that would grant a student leader a vote on the UNC system's Board of Governors

But in a process that repeatedly frustrates student leaders across the state, every time the legislation gets to the Senate, it is referred to the Rules Committee where it dies, undebated.

The Senate leadership says there has been adequate informal debate on the issues - enough, at least, to reflect the whims of members of the state Senate.

But others paint a different picture of an issue that is consistently blocked by one senator - Cumberland County Democrat Tony Rand.

"I believe that the bill would pass the Senate with the same sort of margin you see in the House if it were to be brought up - I absolutely do," said Amanda Devore, president of the UNC-system Association of Student Governments, who spent the first weeks of her presidency trying to lobby Rand.

"We understand that in a lot of issues, Senator Rand does a lot of great things for the (UNC system) and for students. We just very strongly disagree with him on this issue and would like to have just a hearing on this," she said. "Let the General Assembly decide."

The BOG makes policy for the UNC system's 16 schools. The body has 32 voting members - 16 appointed by the N.C. Senate, 16 by the House - and a handful of other members. The ASG president or a designee gets a constitutionally mandated seat on the board, but no vote.

Devore and her predecessors have been asking the legislature for that vote for years.

That's where Rand comes in. The powerful Rules Committee chairman and member of the UNC-Chapel Hill class of '61 says the law shouldn't be changed, an opinion shared by the Senate's top legislator, Marc Basnight, D-Dare.

The two hold considerable sway among their peers and over the legislation they debate.

Working on the Rules Committee gives a legislator the power of influencing the flow of debate before a single vote is cast. By assigning bills to committees with powerful Democrats such as Rand, Basnight, the Senate president pro tem, can seal a bill's fate without ever allowing it to reach the floor.

Sen. Ham Horton, R-Forsyth, said it is not unusual for legislative leaders to hold up bills. Usually, this stagnation happens to bills proposed by the minority party.

"The Senate is predominantly Democrat, right, and you have to keep the Democrats voting in number," said Horton, the ranking minority member of the Rules Committee.

Legislators and pundits agree that giving leaders like Rand large amounts of power is necessary for the legislature to work, but some complain that it also allows personal preferences to hinder particular pieces of legislation.

Rand said that hasn't happened, although in the nine years since he became the committee's chairman, the ASG vote has failed every time it has been proposed.

"Discussions have been held, and we've kind of reached a consensus that we have no interest in changing the law," Rand said. "We're doing a study of the BOG. We believe the BOG is already too big."

Basnight's spokeswoman, Amy Fulk, said the president pro tem also opposes a student vote on the BOG, but for a different reason.

"He really thinks that student input is really important," she said. "But when you have a Board of Governors, you want people who have lots of experience."

But other legislators say there has not been significant debate on the issue in the committee or in the Senate. Among the ranks of people voicing objections is Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange, a repeat sponsor of the legislation and a member of the Rules Committee. She says she's made little headway.

"I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions, because I will be working, of course, with legislators on this issue," she said.

"There are people who feel very protective of the (UNC system) and care deeply about it who feel this is not a good measure. You might want to call Senator Rand - he's chair of the Rules Committee and has a great love for this University."

Horton says the issue of a student vote on the BOG hasn't been discussed. "It never came up in the Rules Committee," he said. "Within the past few years we have developed an unfortunate habit of letting the chairman of the committee decide whether or not to consider a bill that's been referred to the committee."

Last year's ASG president, Jonathan Ducote, said legislators have their reasons for not wanting a student vote. Some are reluctant to have a voting member of the board whom the General Assembly has not approved.

"If you boil it down at the end of the day, it very much is a control thing," Ducote said. "You have this 33rd member who can vote ... for or against things; it's not the ideology set that Rand or Basnight or the North Carolina legislature has control over. I think that concept is something that they really don't want to deal with."

Nash County Democratic Sen. A.B. Swindell, another member of the Rules Committee, said he has "not been in any conversation" about a student vote on the BOG.

"The rules chairman has certain authority granted for him," he said. "But these are based on the rules that are passed, the chairman and input from members and input from the public."

UNC-Chapel Hill political science Professor Thad Beyle says that's the nebulous nature of the Rules Committee, one of the most powerful and flexible in the legislature. On one hand, it's a necessity - if the legislature had to vote on every nuance of every bill, little would get done.

But, Beyle says, there are drawbacks. "The Rules Committee serves as sort of a traffic cop," he said. "If the leadership doesn't like a particular bill, then it just disappears, it stops. Or it gets assigned to a committee that'd be unfriendly."

There do not appear to be enough legislators willing to fight Rand and the Senate leadership in the name of an ASG vote on the Board of Governors, Devore said.

"Few people in the Senate really want to go head-to-head with him really on a bill that doesn't affect them directly."

Contact the Projects Editor at mbhanson@email.unc.edu.