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| Student constitution
change rejected by BOT |
By by James Nix
Editor-in-Chief
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The
Board of Trustees voted down the bill designed to change the
number of signatures required for a student to propose legislation
in Student Government Association in their June 6 meeting.
SGA voted in favor of the bill by a two-thirds majority last
fall and sent it to the student body as a referendum in the
spring elections, where it passed with 1,464 votes.
Newly appointed SGA president Rachel Johnson and immediate
past SGA president Ryan Eller were key opponents to the referendum,
saying it would undermine the student senate.
“I feel the student senate is ideally very well trained
and their job is kind of to mentor students that need to write
legislation,” Johnson said. “This would be a way
for students to disregard that help.”
The bill, co-authored by senators Justin Moore and H. Dustin
Bayard, would change Article IX of the SGA constitution, requiring
students to obtain 100 signatures to propose legislation rather
than the current 10 percent of the student body, approximately
1,300.
Moore said the bill was designed to make it easier, mainly
for off-campus students, to be involved.
Johnson said students can already propose legislation without
a petition, but they must have it sponsored by a senator.
“That requires the extra bit of effort of going into
the office and talking to someone,” she said.
To write structured legislation, research is needed. Senators
are there to guide students through that research.
“It would cause students to, without their own fault,
write legislation that isn’t as sound as it could be,”
Johnson said.
Bayard said he felt the bill would have created a more cohesive
senate as it would alleviate the turnover time of people joining
senate just to write their piece of legislation.
If students could write legislation so easily, it would tie
up the Rules Committee, which scans all legislation before
it goes to the senate.
Bayard said it is the Rules Committee’s job to catch
poorly organized bills.
“That’s what they’re there for and we should
use it,” he said.
Johnson also said she feels ex-senators would take advantage
of it to write legislation without joining the senate.
As for the student body’s seemingly strong support for
the referendum, Johnson said she felt not much information
was given about its entire background.
“You can’t always say pass it, pass it, pass it,
you have to look at the numbers as well,” she said. “If
you don’t know the senate, if you don’t know our
constitution, it’s hard to always know what would help,
what it would change.”
Johnson said she plans to better advertise to students their
ability to introduce legislation through a senator’s
sponsorship next year.
Moore originally introduced the bill in the spring 2002, during
the Xan Harrington and Amanda Privette administration.
The bill got a majority vote, but not the required two-thirds
required for a constitutional amendment, said Moore.
Moore then teamed up with Bayard last fall to reintroduce
the bill. The bill passed but Eller vetoed the bill.
The senate overturned Eller’s veto and the bill was sent
on to a student body vote.
With the approval of both the senate and student body, Bayard
said he feels the BOT’s decision could cause some conflict
between the students and trustees in the fall.
“This is a clear statement that we don’t have control
over our own constitution,” Bayard said. |
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