SGA kills joint committee proposal

Cyrus Nuval
Staff Writer

The Monroe Park SGA voted down the proposal to create a joint student government group between the two campuses during a Senate vote Monday.

After discussion developed in the Forum Room of the Commons during an SGA Senate meeting, 19 senators voted for the formation, 22 voted no and one abstained from the vote.

People from both sides of the the discussion advocated their positions to try to sway unconvinced senators before the final vote.

Championing the formation of the Joint SGA was Niyati Patel, chairwoman of academic affairs committee.

Patel impressed upon the Senate the importance of the one-year review period placed in the proposed constitution of the JSGA and that the Senate will still be in control of the JSGA’s power.

“The Joint SGA will only handle joint matters and during this review period, it will have limited to no power,” Patel told the Senate. “Basically, it’s almost like an advising committee. … The majority (of) power still belongs to us in the Senate. Once the review period is over, we can decide whether the Joint SGA was effective or ineffective in its duties.”

Advocating the opposition against the formation of a JSGA was Katheryn Witt, chief chairwoman of the SGA legislative branch.

Witt said she was not opposed to the idea of a JSGA but questioned its current proposed structure.

“While the idea of the JSGA was in the making for years its current structure has only been developed this semester,” Witt said to the Senate. “The Joint SGA does not have any bylaws and only a constitution. This means that it will take a year for us to change anything in it.”

Chris Strauss, chairman of the appropriations committee, agreed with Witt and encouraged a change from a constitution to a bylaws system.

“Adding bylaws will make changes in the Joint SGA less complicated. By making these quick changes, we can increase its efficiency during the review period,” he said. “Changing things from a constitution to bylaws is not even a complicated procedure.”

Although current SGA President Jae Lee has no voting power, he took to the floor to voice his position in favor of the move.

“We have students and student organizations that attend both campuses. Groups like the Nursing Students Without Borders are having a complicated time receiving funding,” Lee told the Senate. “There are issues that we as two separate SGAs cannot solve as fast as a singular SGA. We have talked to thousands of students … and all of them are in favor of this.”

Vice chairman of the legislative branch Bryan Cowles said the formation of the structure may have been too abrupt, and students and organizations asked about the formation of the JSGA may not have fully understood its current structure.

“Are we, as the Senate, even ready for a Joint SGA? We already have issues that we have not tackled fully on our own,” Cowles said. “We need to clean the house before we can add new things. Besides, the structure was way too rushed to have been fully understood.”

The MCV SGA had already approved a draft of the JSGA bill, but it would have taken the passage of the Monroe Park SGA Senate as well to pass the provision. Had it passed, it would have gone to the Board of Visitors for approval before being included as a constitutional amendment on the spring general SGA elections ballot.

As it stands, the ballot includes half of the seats of the 60-seat Senate, as well as the presidential and vice presidential seats. Voting opened in the Monroe Park spring SGA elections on March 19. Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on March 21.

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