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WWW.GUlLFORDIAN.COM NEWS SENATE Senate discusses nominations for treasurer replacement Continued from page I "The turnout, while not where I would've liked it, represents an understanding of the student body that Senate does play a role in their lives at Guilford," Gibson said in an e-mail interview. Hannah Kennedy, presidential candidate of the defeated ticket, also pointed to the increased par ticipation as a result of the elec tion's outcome. "This is the third election that I've been present in and the fact that we had not only ground breaking numbers, but the kinds of people ^at voted in this election — for both parties — was incredibly inspiring," Kennedy said. "The amount of athletes and various other factions on campus that usu ally feels sort of disenfranchised coming out and using their voice was incredibly empowering." The WE ticket's winning cam paign included a platform focused on increasing student participa tion. "Senate needs to be proactive in getting student involvement," Oerther said. "This means priori tizing filling every student seat on the various faculty/administration committees around campus, which previously have not been filled, or have only been offered to students with high positions in senate." Hamdan cited the diversity of senate representation as a primary concern for next year's executive council. "(We) stress the importance of student representation across our community," said Hamdan in an e- mail interview. "We are creating a student athlete representative posi tion on steering (committee) and a multicultural position." While the executive council is looking to increase the quality of student representation by filling senate's empty seats and creating new ones, they first face the task of replacing one of their own. On April 5, less than 48 hours after winning the executive seats, Arguimbau, a first-year, handed, in a letter of resignation, leaving the newly elected executive coun cil without a treasurer. Arguimbau was unable officially to comment on his resignation. In response to Arguimbau's resignation, the executive council- elect asked for time during the April 7 senate meeting to discuss a replacement. Klosteridis began the discus sion by outlirung the procedure for replacing a member of the execu tive council as defined in the by laws, which state, "The Executive Council shall nominate a candidate for the office of the Secretary or Treasurer, who will assume office immediately, pending approval of the Senate." On behalf of the executives, Hamdan motioned to nominate Gibson, originally the vice-pres idential candidate on Kennedy's ticket, as a replacement for the trea surer position. Soon after, a second motion was introduced by junior Trevor Corn ing, former vice president of the current executive council, who resigned following the March 31 meeting in which the WE ticket was reinstated. Coming's mo tion called for the replacement of the now-incomplete council-elect by the members of the opposing ticket. "I believe that the community has been fraudulently led and has been completely misinformed and misguided by (the WE ticket) in this process," Coming said when asked by senate members to ex plain the reasoning behind the mo tion. "I believe that the communi ty's voice has been disregarded in an act of authoritarian power." Coming's motion was met with (Left to right) Current senate secretary and losing ticket presidential candidate Hannah Kennedy, junior (seated); losing ticket secretarial candidate Sam Huff, first-year; losing ticket vice presidential candidate Lamar Gibson, first-year; senator Phil Kennedy, senior. resistance from several senators, and after several rounds of discus sion never made it to vote. "(The motion) was just totally against procedure," said Kloste ridis in a post-meeting interview. "There would need to be an im peachment. It was just so left-field. It was just in response to what some people thought was a mock ery of the bylaws last week. "There's this feeling that because the bylaws were interpreted and stretched last time, and for some people broken, this time there was no law, there were no bylaws, and that anything could happen." Following the dismissal of Com ing's motion, Hamdan's motion to approve Gibson's nomination was put before the senate. After several senators expressed concern over a lack of community involvement in the decision-making process, sen ate agreed to postpone the decision until a later date. "We weren't allowed to decide tonight because more motions kept coming through," said Klosteri dis. "We felt like we didn't have enough people here to make a deci sion, and that's a totally legitimate argument, so in the end we didn't make any decision." On Monday, April 12, Commu nity Senate will meet in Found ers Gallery to reexamine Gibson's nomination. War tax resistance: Today's civil disobedience By Kara Thomas Staff Writer A group of students met on March 30 for a presentation on war-tax resisting led by Daniel Woodham. If you're from the government, though, no such presentation occurred. That is because it is illegal for Woodham, a long-time war-tax resister and regional resistance counselor, to advocate people doing anything illegal. The illegal and somewhat dangerous nature of resisting hasn't stopped Woodham or the many others like him from withholding some or all of their federal income tax. According to a flyer put out by the War Resisters League, Ae government claims to use a quarter of an individual's federal income tax for military spending. In actuality, somewhere closer to half of the tax goes for military purposes once veterans' services and nuclear research is taken into account. Any amount is too high for resisters. They do not morally support war and therefore believe that they should not financially support it either. "My great-great-grandfather was drafted for the Confederate Army," said Frank Massey, IFF gifts discernment coordinator, Quakerism professor and former resister. "In those days you could pay $300 to hire someone else to fight for you. But he thought that if he opposed fighting, it would be just as bad to hire someone else to fight in his place. So he resisted." That mentality is what caused Massey to begin resisting the war tax in 1979. Woodham, who began resisting in 1990 after the first Gulf War, explained that most people, Massey and himself included, get into resisting gradually by withholding a small amount of the tax on the basis of principle rather than effectiveness. Fear of IRS consequences causes most people to proceed with trepidation, Woodham explained. The extent of those consequences was thoroughly documented in the movie "Death and Taxes," produced by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, with which Woodham opened the presentation. During this movie, in which Woodham appears, resisters explain their reasoning for not paying the tax as well as ways they deal with or avoid trouble from the IRS. One featured resister was Julia Butterfly Hill, the woman credited as withholding the largest sum of federal income tax money from the government: $150,000. When the government tried to collect from Hill, she protested by living in a redwood tree for two years. Since leaving the tree. Hill has not heard from the IRS. Another resister who told of her experiences was Juanita Nelson, the first woman jailed for refusing to pay the war tax. She tells of her experience, in which the police carried her from her house one morning while she was wearing only her robe and placed her in jail for a day in 1959. "I balk at the notion of contributing so directly to making atomic hash of others and perhaps of my own wonderful self. Nelson said in her essay "A Matter of Freedom" published by the National War Tax Resistance Coordination Committee. Woodham has had his wages garnished three times. Massey once had an IRS agent visit his place of employment. His bank account was seized twice and his wife's wages were garnished for several months. Fear of the IRS should not deter anyone interested in resisting, said Woodham. He explained that upon first withholding tax money, a person will receive three computer generated letters from the IRS requesting that they pay the tax and informing them of possible consequences, but it rarely goes beyond that. "If you're not a big fish they usually don t waste their time," he said. Woodham explained, however, that there is no real way of telling what the IRS will do because resisting is breaking the law. People, like Woodham himself, quickly learn to live with the consequences, or at least the fear of them. "You put up a cheap door so if it gets kicked in (by the IRS) you don't worry about it," said Woodham. In the film, resisters explain ways in which they are dealing with a potential IRS backlash. Some choose to live below the taxable income level, which is $9700 a year. according to Woodham. These people are able to survive on little income by creating a strong support system and relying on the barter system. By using the barter system people, even those who are in the taxable range limit the amount of money they put into the economy, and thus the amount of taxes collected by the government. David Gross, a member of the Northern California War Tax Resisters organization, explained in the film how he went as far as to brew his own beer to avoid the alcohol tax. Both Woodham and Massey stress the importance of a strong support system for resisters. That support becomes even more important if the IRS does decide to take action by seizing houses or bank accounts, or garnishing wages. If someone is interested in becoming a resister, Woodham says that the first step is to alter their W-4 form. He explained that the lower the number of dependents a person claims on the form, the more the government takes out of each paycheck and returns in the form of a refund. By increasing that number the government removes less and the person will end up owing the government taxes come April. And then you have a choice whether and how much to resist. Woodham offered one other warning for people considering resisting do not withhold your state income tax. "The state will find you a lot quicker than the feds," he said.
The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.)
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