Ball State’s Student Government Association (SGA) held its weekly meeting on Feb. 10 over Zoom. At the meeting, senators looked over a budget proposal and voted on two amendments that had been introduced at the Feb. 3 meeting.
RELATED: Ball State SGA votes on elections code, two amendments
The budget proposal came from the Diversity and Multicultural Committee, for a series of diversity tabling events. At the events, members of the Diversity and Multicultural Committee will pass out stickers, buttons and pamphlets that have facts and statistics about Black History Month.
The tables will be set up in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center and the Atrium on Feb. 22. Senator Nita Burton said the committee chose two popular places on campus for this event in hopes that more students will participate.
The budget proposal passed 35-1, with no abstentions.
Senators also looked over an amendment presented on Feb. 3 updating the executive official eligibility requirements. The amendment would require presidential and vice presidential candidates to serve as a member of the senate for at least a semester.
When looking over this amendment again, Senator Auston Everman proposed an amendment to the original amendment that will only make this update affect the vice president.
“If I’m not mistaken, the vice president runs the senate, and the president is supposed to run the entirety of SGA,” Everman said.
The senators passed the amendment to the amendment, 19-15, with three abstentions.
After passing this, senators looked into whether the whole amendment should pass, specifically into the vagueness of the amendment and when a senator could join SGA and be considered a candidate in the election.
“They could join a week prior to the elections and still consider themselves a member of SGA because there’s no verbiage stating otherwise,” Senator Miryam Bevelle said.
Author of the amendment Trent McKenzie said the amendment made it clear candidates must be a member of SGA for a semester before running, but it wasn’t enough to convince the senators to pass the amendment — it failed, 6-25, with four abstentions.
The senators also looked at another amendment proposed at the Feb. 3 meeting regarding the parliamentarian’s duties, stating that they shouldn’t have the power to appoint senators to the Rules and Constitution Committee.
McKenzie also wrote this amendment and motioned to table the debate for this amendment until the end of the semester. He said that tabling it to the end of the semester would allow him to make necessary changes to the amendment.
The motion to table failed, 14-20, with one abstention.
After the motion failed, the senators looked into the power that the parliamentarian has now and whether it should stay like that.
“I really appreciate the power that the parliamentarian has to appoint senators to the [Rules and Constitution Committee] because he knows what is best,” Senator Amy Wyse said. “I think the parliamentarian is very knowledgeable on the subject.”
The amendment failed, 4-25, with seven abstentions.
SGA plans to have another optional in-person meeting next week, Feb. 17, with the following week solely on Zoom.
Contact Maya Wilkins with comments at mrwilkins@bsu.edu or on Twitter @mayawilkinss.
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