The Student Government Association debated and voted on a new bill at their meeting on Tuesday.
SSB-17-004 was proposed as an alternate procedure to the current nomination process. Often, SGA does not have enough people to fill the seats for every college, and throughout the year, senators resign.
This new nomination processes would have students elected by their college. If the college cannot come up with a nomination, then it would be carried out the way it has from the past, with the SGA president electing someone to fill the seat.
“In the past, we’ve had an overwhelming number of appointees and though it’s very good, we would like to have people who have been voted in and are representing the student’s voice in that way,” Sen. Nick Fasanello said.
Fasanello was one of the senators who helped write the legislation.
“So, our way of dealing with that, is to have a more intentional approach with getting these nominees to represent their college,” he said. “A lot of people are appointed for roles in colleges that they have no relationship with whatsoever. A lot of people have expressed great concern with that — students and faculty.”
Sen. Morgan Munsey thought this bill had some good aspects to it.
“I think this is a really cool idea, because I think most colleges have a good idea of who their involved students are (and) who would do really well in this position, so I think allowing the colleges to decide is a nice idea,” she said.
Others were worried that this bill would slow down the process of filling senator seats and take power away from the president.
“Sixty-seven pages is the current length of our constitution and you’re about to add another page to it, just to limit the power that the president already has,” Attorney General Hunter Shipley said.
“Don’t do this. The president’s job is to appoint the people.”
Others felt that the current appointment position gave a voice to all students.
“When I got appointed, I feel like Pooja was trying to give the LGBTQ a voice and I think it is important to think about representing colleges, but I also think it’s important to think about representing certain organizations that are very relevant and alive on campus,” said Sen. Allie McEntire.
Although the senators voted to extend time twice to discuss and ask questions on the bill and while there was a motion to table the bill until next week, the senators ultimately decided to vote on the legislation during Tuesday’s meeting.
SSB-17-004 failed unanimously.
