Miller questions authority
Referendum taken off ballot
Dave Awbrey, student body president and Rick von Ende, vice-chairman of the Student Senate Executive Committee (SenEx), said Wednesday night that accusations acusing Awbrey and SenEx of acting without authority in postponing six referendum questions until April 7, were false.
The accusations were made by Dave Miller; student body presidential candidate, and Dan Beck, student body vice-presidential candidate.
Miller and Beck's statement came
after the decision by SenEx Wednesday to drop the referendum questions from the March 17 and 18 student body elections.
SenEx said the referendums would be voted on in a special election April 7.
Miller and Beck said, "David Awbrey, student body president, on his own initiative ruled that students would not vote on the Wescoe Hall referendum in the March 17 and 18 elections. He did not have the power to make that decision."
Von Ende said, "David Awbrey is falsely accused of having ruled that students would not vote on Wescoe Hall."
Awbrey made the motion in the SenEx meeting to put all referendum questions on an April 7 ballot in a special referendum election. Members attending the meeting were, Phil Weiss, Philadelphia, Pa. graduate student, Peter George, Tuckahoe, N.Y. law student, Bill Ebert, Topeka junior, von Erde and Awbrey. The vote was four in favor, none opposed.
Miller and Beck said, "SenEx chairman George, president Awbrey, and members Ebert, von Ende, and Weiss did not have the authority to postpone the considerations of the referendum."
Von Ende said, "The Student senate executive committee has the authority provided for in the Senate Code."
The Senate code states, "The University SenEx shall ensure that all functions of the University Senate and University Council are carried
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80th Year, No. 97 The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas Thursday, March 12, 1970
Voting age discussed
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The Senate refused Wednesday to kill a proposed amendment to the 1965 Voting Rights Act which would lower the voting age to 18 in national, state, and local elections, effective Jan. 1, 1971.
The test vote indicated solid Senate support for reducing the voting age, but there was still no indication how soon the Senate would be able to vote on the proposal itself.
Although not a single voice was raised against the idea of granting 18-year olds the vote, the Senate had been bogged down all day in its attempts to reach a decision.
After an afternoon of voting on amendments, Sen. Russell B. Long, D-La., marched into the Senate and, unexpectedly, made a motion to table the amendment which was offered to the proposed five-year extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Long's proposal was beaten. 62-21.
An anticipated showdown was
blocked by Sen. James B. Allen, D-La., who offered a series of changes. Asked how many more amendments he would propose, Allen said "I will offer them one at a time."
There was no indication how many amendments Allen would offer, but at the end of his second, he told the Senate, "I hope I'll have time on subsequent amendments to conclude my remarks." Then he told reporters there would be no vote Wednesday.
Nearly everybody backed Allen's amendment to add the words "except as required by the Constitution" to the voting age proposal. The vote was 84 to 7 and advocates of the 18-year-old vote contended it would have no effect on the measure.
Allen's second amendment, which would have eliminated penalties of five years in prison or a $5,000 fine for anybody denying the vote to 18-year-olds, was soundly beaten, 66 to 22.
Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield, who sponsored the 18-year-old vote amendment, sat by grimly as Allen produced his hand-written amendments.
Despite overwhelming support for lowering the voting age to 18, the Mansfield proposal ran into strong opposition from senators who argued it had to be accomplished through a Constitutional amendment. They were backed by the Nixon Administration.
Arguing for his amendment, Mansfield said, "This is the only chance we've had . . . to give 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, and 20-year-olds . . a small wee voice" in setting policy.
Rejecting argument that the Senate wait for a Constitutional amendment, Mansfield said he was not sure that would ever happen.
"Maybe we're afraid of these youngsters. Maybe they're too smart for us," Mansfield said. "Maybe they'll take some of our jobs."
Weather
Variable cloudiness and continued cold with 10 to 20 mph north winds today. Tonight, clear to partly cloudy and cold.
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UDK News Roundup
By United Press International
Explosions rip New York
NEW YORK—Powerful bombs ripped through the office of major corporations in three mid-Manhattan skyscrapers early today, shattering walls, windows and plumbing. No one was injured.
A special delivery letter received in United Press International's New York Bureau said a group called "Revolutionary Force 9" was responsible for the bombing attacks against the large corporations.
Moon soil kills bacteria
SPACE CENTER, Houston-A Space Agency doctor said Wednesday moon soil collected from beneath the surface at Apollo 11's Tranquility Base apparently kills three types of hardy terrestrial bacteria for unknown reasons.
Experiments performed by microbiologist, Dr. Gerald R. Taylor, showed that only the material collected from below the surface of Apollo 11's landing site appears to have a lethal effect on bacteria growing in a culture medium.
Mudslinging highlights debate
A verbal mud-slinging contest evolved out of a "Meet the Candidates" debate Wednesday night in Templin Hall, presented by KUOK, the university radio's "Night Beat" program hosted by Joe Vaughn, Kansas City, Kan. senior.
The debate was designed for interested voters to hear all the student body presidential candidates.
The two-hour debate included Peter George, ISP presidential candidate; Sharon Baucom, ISP vice-presidential candidate; Bill Ebert, Alliance presidential candidate and Dave Beck, Independent vice-presidential candidate.
The verbal battle began in response to a question on the black studies program. Ebert began by explaining the work his vice-presidential candidate, Greg Thomas, Shawnee Mission, sophomore had done by contacting black students across campus finding out their needs. Thomas is a black student. Ebert continued in saying, "There currently is a black studies program and Alliance thinks the committee on black studies program should be listened to and acted on."
At that point, Sharon Baucom, Kansas City, Mo. sophomore said, "Well, I think Greg missed the boat. Black studies began last year and I was on that committee. I agree I'd like to have more black professors and more black courses but if Greg thinks he's starting something new, he's wrong.
"If Greg's so interested he should start by coming to the black meetings and programs. I think just because Greg is black by pigmentation alone doesn't mean he's interested. It's also a state of mind." Miss Baucom said.
"The crying need." Beck said, is not for a black studies program but a black major. We need qualified black teachers
Beck accused both parties of "missing the boat."
and right now we don't have the professional people we need. First of all we need to integrate the people in educa-
sue. When the question was put to Beck he sidestepped the issue saying, "If elected, I promise to place Mr. George
tion and then we can begin a black major's program."
Rebuttal then bounced back and forth on the ecological is-
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Blast rocks courthouse
CAMBRIDGE, Md. (UPI) Authorities sought an unidentified white woman Wednesday as the chief suspect in an early morning bombing that caused $100,000 damage to a courthouse where black militant H. Rap Brown originally was to have been tried, the governor's office announced.
A spokesman for Gov. Marvin Mandel said three witnesses had given information about an alleged getaway car and its license plates which pointed to a woman suspect.
State Police Lt. Col. Thomas Smith confirmed this and said the "white female had been
seen in the courthouse at a late hour in the afternoon yesterday just before closing."
Rumors and confusion swept Dorchester County after the blast rocked the circuit court building only 24 hours after two Negro men, one of them an associate of Brown, were killed by an explosion in a car near Bel Air, Md., 85 miles away.
Mandel ordered the historic state house in Annapolis surrounded by state police, then flew to Cambridge to confer with State's Attorney William Yates, local officials, Congressman Rogers C. B. Morton and Sen. Charles Mathias, R-Md.,
Morton's Congressional District contains Cambridge.
Yates, who is the prosecutor for the Brown trial, said he thought the latest bombing was linked to the trial, but he did not elaborate. The explosive device apparently was planted in a lady's lounge on the second floor of the stone building.
Meanwhile authorities positively identified the badly mangled second body in Monday's car explosion as William H. Payne of Atlanta, Ga., an organizer for the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a veteran civil rights worker in Alabama and
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