Student Senate failed to pass a veto override Wednesday evening by a margin of 37 against to 14 for. The veto came about because of proposed constitutional amendments brought forth by Cary Cheshire, liberal arts senator, and Aaron Mitchell, rules and regulations chair.
“Basically the constitution is a leaky roof,” Cheshire said. “The leaky roof exposes us to a lot of problems. Each change is to patch holes in the roof.”
Some proposed amendments dealt with simple word changes, while others addressed larger issues, including articles dealing with the removal of student body president from office.
One proposal was to change the three-fourths majority necessary to impeach a student body president to two-thirds. Mitchell said, however, lowering this number was more to match what other schools and other governments have as a standard than to make the impeachment process easier.
“We would receive backlash because the student body president is most likely the most popular person on campus,” Mitchell said. “People know his face, people voted for him, people were on his campaign. You’re not going to be able to convince two-thirds of people very easily, and I would argue it’s almost impossible.”
Student Body President Kyle Kelly said he vetoed the amendments due to concerns over wording and motivations for certain changes, especially those surrounding impeachment and removal rules.
“There was already a process in place for impeachment or removal,” Kelly said. “At the end of the day, this was just a point that any amendment to the constitution, bylaws or governing documents needs to be near perfect. This is something that governs both us this year and the student government association in the future, so it’s extremely important to make sure that it’s over the highest standard.”
Senate also heard from the Student Affairs Fee Advisory Board. Members presented their recommendations for the 2016 fiscal year, recommendations that totaled $488, 898, excluding alternatives. These recommendations will also be presented to Interim President Mark Hussey.
Fernando Sosa, constituency affairs chair, authored Bill 67-31, which addressed a university administration proposal to increase student fees and tuition. Sosa said he was told there was little student involvement in the process, a fact he had some concerns with.
“I don’t think that the wisest way to go about proposing this type of information to the Board of Regents,” Sosa said. “This is being pushed as emergency legislation because we don’t have enough time as students to discuss with our administration and with our constituents.”
The Board of Regents is scheduled to hear the proposals Thursday, but the bill, which was passed, will also be brought forward requesting that the Board hold off on reviewing the proposals until the spring.
Sosa said a concern was not with the increase itself, but more with the lack of transparency. He said he wrote the bill out of concern there was too little time for the student body to communicate with administration about the proposed increases.
“The lack of transparency, the lack of communication to students, is something that happens every year,” Sosa said. “This isn’t an issue about administration typically doing this in the spring, in the fall it’s fine. But every single year since I’ve been here, administration releases this information to students about a week before meeting with the Board of Regents. That is unacceptable and would be very irresponsible of student government, in my eyes, to support this proposal and to not have any type of legislation against the proposal.”
Kelly said he has been happy with the student attendance and questions at the meetings.
“We do have a responsibility to, one, represent the student body and that requires that we are very informed on all things we make decisions on, being for and against,” Kelly said. “Tuition and fee increase, we never go back. Once we increase, there’s no reverse of that for the most part so it’s something that we take very seriously.
Hannah Weger, senate speaker, will present the bill to the Board of Regents Thursday on behalf of the Student Senate, asking that the Board of Regents to postpone on a decision as well as ask administration that, in the future, any type of fee changes be made public to the student body a month before it is presented to the Board of Regents.