A directive issued by Illinois Student Government president Marcia Fuentes last week to suspend voting rights for all six committee chairs will be enforced, after ISG assembly members used an invalid veto process to overrule it.

However, the directive continues to divide ISG members between those who see it as a necessary action to ensure the integrity of student government and others who call it an abuse of presidential authority and an insult to the ISG assembly.

The presidential directive issued by Fuentes last week, the first by an ISG president in at least six years, suspended the voting rights of Campus Committee Chairs Derek Chan, Andrew Erskine, Cate Parkin, Dave Shore, Kalycia Watson and Illini Media Company employee Matt Diller, pending new committee elections.

The directive stated the six were elected last spring in "an initial election process devoid of integrity and fairness."

Fuentes said three committees in particular — the academic affairs committee, the graduate affairs committee and the cultural affairs committee — held elections that violated ISG law and lacked adequate student and committee member involvement.

In the case of the graduate affairs and academic affairs committee elections, no committee members voted — only the chair, vice-chair, and the ISG executive board, said Vilas Dhar, former vice president of the Student Senate Caucus. None of these officials are allowed to vote in committee elections, he said.

The cultural affairs committee had two nominees for its chair, Dhar said — Watson and Gus Otalvora. But a deadline set by Brian Colgan, then ISG's chief of staff, forced the election to be held on a day when Otalvora could not attend due to an ISG meeting, Dhar said. Watson then won the election over Otalvora.

In some cases, Fuentes said, these chairs had never attended meetings of their committees.

Thursday, ISG assembly members voted 11-0, with one abstention, to "overrule" the directive.

Assembly members claimed the veto process was upheld under a section of the constitution which stated that "Presidential Orders may be overturned by two-thirds majority vote of the General Assembly."

However, that line was deleted from the constitution by the student referendum of 2002, according to the ISG Web site.

ISG Chief of Staff Ben Wagner said the vote to overrule "should not have happened" and that he would uphold the presidential directive until Fuentes or another power, such as the Constitutional Review Board, instructs him otherwise.

Wagner said the matter would likely end up in the hands of the Constitutional Review Board, an independent committee set up to decide questions regarding the ISG constitution.

Many ISG assembly members say while they support Fuentes' goal of ensuring fair committee elections, they disapprove of the way she tried to achieve it, on both a personal and a legal basis.

Several assembly members were troubled that they didn't hear about Fuentes' decision until they read it in Thursday's newspaper.

"That was totally, totally rude," Watson, an assembly member who temporarily lost her voting rights, said after Thursday's ISG meeting.

At a time when many are calling for the dissolution of ISG, assembly member Brian Colgan said Fuentes' decision divides the organization at a time when it should be unified.

"If (ISG) is one voice, it should be united," Colgan said.

Others believed that the directive implied Fuentes lacked respect for ISG assembly members.

"Who wants to listen to and follow a leader who from experience doesn't respect them?" asked Erskine. "That's a problem you have ... with your leadership."

There is also a confusion over the constitutionality of Fuentes' action because presidential directives are not mentioned in the current ISG constitution.

Supporters of Fuentes say her power to issue such a directive comes from an "implied mandate" given to her by the students of the University, who elected her last spring.

"She had a responsibility to ensure everything was fair and right," Wagner said.

Opponents counter that nothing in the constitution permits a presidential directive, and her loose interpretation of her powers as president sets a dangerous precedent.

"She clearly overstepped her bounds as stated in the constitution," said assembly member Andrew Fitzgerald. "You can't just make an order out of your head."

With such a loose interpretation, "Could she declare herself consul and take over student government?" he asked.

Fitzgerald said Fuentes has violated at least three parts of the ISG constitution dealing with committee chair rights, quorum, and the powers of the president.

However, he said a motion he introduced at last week's meeting to censure Fuentes would likely be dropped or turned into a simple informational bill.

The six chairs will continue to serve on an interim, non-voting basis until new elections are held, Wagner said.

Wagner said he did not know when new elections would be held.

Marcia Fuentes did not return a phone call on Sunday for further comment.