The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 86, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 26, 1999 Page: 4 of 16
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1999
Nothin'for Al
History should vindicate
House of Representatives
Nowthat the trial of President
Bill Clinton has ended and we no
longer have to discuss his behav-
ior, it would be worthwhile to
discuss the behavior
of Congress in han-
dling this matter. Un-
til now, the American
people have judged
Congress largely
alojig the lines of
whether or not they
support Clinton:
Those who felt he was
guilty praised Con-
gress and those who
felt he was innocent
condemned it.
According to conventional
wisdom, there is a clear di-
chotomy between the two cham-
bers of Congress. The House of
Representatives supposedly
acted in a rash and partisan man-
ner, and the Senate was concilia-
tory and bipartisan. Presented in
these terms, it may seem like the
Senate carried out its duties more
responsibly than the House. In
fact, nothing could be further
from the truth.
Todd
Makse
The Senate... chose
bipartisanship over
propriety in
conducting the trial.
The House performed its du-
ties well. Akin to a grand jury in
the criminal justice system, its
role was to decide whether there
was enough evidence to merit a
trial. Impeachment, which was
thus similar to an indictment, was
not only appropriate but also pro-
vided the perfect punishment for
those who argued that Clinton's
acts were illegal but did not merit
removal from office.
The Senate, on the other hand,
chose bipartisanship over propri-
ety in conducting the trial. Many
actions by senators destroyed any
chance to have a fair and unbi-
ased jury.
In early January, senators
from both parties asked the presi-
dent to forego giving his State of
the Union address on television
and to submit it in writing in-
stead, saying it would be wholly
inappropriate during the trial. The
president refused and, instead of
insisting, the senators backed
down from the demand. There
was thus a situation in
which senators were
judging the facts of the
case against Clinton dur-
ing the day and attend-
ing a pep rally for him in
the evening.
Three senators in par-
ticular took the oath to
be impartial under the
most dubious of circum-
stances. Newly elected
Sens. Jim Bunning,
Michael Crapo, and
Chuck Schumer refused to re-
cuse themselves even though
they had already voted on the
case in December as members of
the House. In particular, Schumer
behaved disgracefully, speaking
publicly about the lack of merits
of the case nearly every day while
continuing to claim impartiality.
One question often raised was
whether any senator could truly
claim to be objective in light of
his party affiliation. Perhaps there
is some truth to this, but some
senators crusaded for one posi-
tion or the other while maintain-
ing a veneer of impartiality. For
example, Sen. Tom Harkin de-
scribed the case against the presi-
dent as a "pile of dung."
All senators who had already
come to a decision should have
excused themselves instead of
taking a false oath, even if that
meant only 10 or 20 senators
would have remained. Despite
the common cynicism, I believe
there were some senators who
truly had not made up their minds
when the trial began. Those
should have been the only sena-
tors making the decision of
whether to remove Clinton.
For the time being, people may
only care about the House's vote
and the Senate's verdict, but the
history books will care about pro-
cedure. Both houses set prece-
dents for future impeachment
cases with their actions, some of
which were less than honorable.
I hope history will vindicate the
House's actions by valuing integ-
rity above bipartisanship in the
hierarchy of ideals.
Todd Makse is a Sid Richardson
College sophomore.
Rice Student
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From the West and the East
Rice values money over students' health
Have you ever been sick and
needed to visit Health Services on
the weekend ? Have you ever needed
non-emergency care after dinner
hours? If you went to any
other major university, pri-
vate or public, you'd go to
the open health services
office conveniently located
on campus.
But at Rice University,
you can't do that. Health
Services isn't open on
weekends. To get any sort
of care, besides at an emer-
gency room, you have to
go through the hassle of a
health clinic. That means finding
y#ur insurance card, calling the in-
surance company to find out which
clinic takes your type of insurance,
and then finding out where this clinic
is. That is on top of the fee you must
pay for the clinic.
And if you don't have a car, like
many Rice students, yo'u have the
extra task of finding a ride. As people
who have experienced this sort of
thing know, this is a pain in the ass.
So whose fault is this? It's not
Health Services', but the
administration's. As much as Rice
cares about its great reputation, one
would expect Rice to have such a
basic service readily available to its
students. This is especially true since
we pay a flat fee for these services.
Michael
Sew Hoy
But this is obviously not the case.
And how does the administra-
tion justify such a system? By saying
that it isn't economically efficient —
that keeping the Health
Services office open ex-
tra hours on weekdays or .
the weekend would cost
more than the services
would be used.
And in fact, they are
right. It isn't economi-
cally feasible to run such
a service on the weekend
at such a small school.
But should that matter?
Should Rice be using
some sort of cost-benefit analysis
with our health? Of course, the an-
swer is no. Rice should not put a
monetary value on our health and
wejl-being. ,,
So what should Rice do? Are there *
any reasonable answers? I believe
there are many possible solutions.
The university could open Health
Services on the weekends — maybe
half a day so it is not too expensive.
They could keep Health Services
open after hours on weekdays so we
can get care after school hours. Es-
pecially for those of us who have
jobs, or labs or meetings after our
classes finish, this would be a wel-
come change. Or if paying the staff
overtime is too expensive, then
maybe Rice could work out some
sort of deal with a local clinic in the
Houston area, not too far away, that
will take Rice students at no extra
cost witHt whatever insurance they
have. And even the students could
help pay for this. We pay around
$ 100 a year for the services, why not
just add about $20-30 more per year
to help pay for the extra costs, if not
pay for them completely.
Any of these solutions would rem-
edy some of the problems of the
current system. Whatever the solu-
tion, Rice needs to do something
about the lack of such a primary
service for students. Even recently,
Rice has again denied Health Ser-
vices its own building in the new
plans. And that is characteristic of
Rice's value on the health care of its
students. It is irresponsible of Rice
to disregard such an important as-
pect of life away from home.
The administration is always talk-
ing about how Rice is a superb uni-
versity because of all its massive
donations, award-winning profes-
sors and beautiful new buildings,
but the administration needs to con-
centrate a bit more effort on the
students. They need to make Rice
live up to that high praise by provid-
ing the basic services that we de-
serve and demand.
Michael Sew Hoy is opinion editor
and a Hanszen College sophomore.
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Stoler, Brian. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 86, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 26, 1999, newspaper, February 26, 1999; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246641/m1/4/?rotate=90: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.