Students will soon
have the opportunity to vote on an amendment to the Student Government
Association constitution that would make petitioning the senate
easier.
The amendment would change the number of signatures required to
submit a proposal to SGA to 100 for legislation and 500 for a constitutional
amendment. Currently, Article IX of the constitution requires signatures
of 10 percent of the student body, or 1,300 students, to submit
an initiative.
The amendment, introduced by off-campus senators H. Dustin Bayard
and Justin W. Moore, passed the senate last Tuesday night 50-10
with nine senators abstaining, giving it the necessary two-thirds
margin. The student body still has to approve the amendment and
can vote online from Nov. 12-14.
“The easier it is for initiatives to go through and to have
students have issues brought up for a referendum, the more students
will have to learn about issues, the more students will learn about
and have to take action for or against,” Bayard said. “I
think initiatives and referendums hold a lot more weight with the
administration than a [senator-proposed] piece of legislation.”
“I feel that SGA represents the student body, but that there’s
a barrier,” Moore said. “I feel we’re sometimes seen
as unapproachable, and I hope that this bill would encourage students
to be more active and give us ideas.”
Not all senators shared that view. At the meeting, some voiced concerns
about the amendment reducing the senate’s power as representatives
or swamping the SGA Rules Committee with poorly written legislation.
“If the student body wants something done, they need to go
see a senator. We represent them, that’s our job,” said
David A. Barrett, a senator representing Gardner Residence Hall,
who voted against the amendment. “I like the idea [of the amendment],
but if the students feel deeply about something, they should contact
a senator instead.”
Moore had proposed a similar amendment, which was defeated in the
senate, at the end of spring 2002. Bayard had supported the previous
amendment and said one of his first actions this semester was to
seek out Moore about co-sponsoring the current amendment.
“We changed some of the wording this time, and added more detail
about the history of the problem,” Moore said.
Moore and Bayard both thought the current requirements were too
high.
“1300 signatures is extremely high except for the largest organizations
on campus,” said Moore. “This really allows the regular
student who doesn’t go to five organizations to have their
voice heard.”
“If you get 100 signatures, you can join senate; we wanted
to make it equal with that, so if you have 100 signatures, you can
submit a piece of legislation,” Bayard said.
According to the amendment, the last initiative to gather 1,300
signatures was an effort to keep Howard’s Knob from development
in 1994.
The last successful constitutional amendment, involving impeachment
procedures, passed in 1996, and the last constitutional amendment
to make it past SGA was in 1998.
Both Moore and Bayard were surprised at the amendment’s passage.
“Usually the constitution is seen as something absolute, and
if you want to amend it you have to go through a long battle,”
Bayard said. “We got lucky this time, and our first battle
was successful.” |
