Undergraduate Student Senate votes on two measures

As this past week was Carnival, the Undergraduate Student Senate did not meet for their weekly meeting. However, they voted on two measures this week.

The first was J.22.08, an amendment to the student government fiscal policy. These amendments focused on making changes to how appeals work for the joint Senate and Graduate Student Association (GSA) meeting and allowing for rollover of the Student Government Executive Budget.

Currently, if an organization wishes to appeal a portion of their budget after the Joint Funding Committee (JFC) appeals, they must bring that business to the joint Senate and GSA meeting. The current language indicates that “Any member of Senate or the GSA may lobby an appeal to any item in the JFC budget proposal.” The amendment would alter such that “one member of Senate and one member of the GSA are required to lobby an appeal to any item in the JFC budget proposal.” Two additional requirements were also added to the amendment: “The appeal may only be lobbied at the joint meeting if the organization has participated in the first round of appeals at the Joint Funding Committee” and “The student leader representing the organization may not be a member of Senate or the graduate Senate Assembly.”

The second part of the proposed amendment aimed to allow up to $15,000 of remaining funds in the Student Government Executive account to rollover, with the rest being returned to the JFC Main account. The current language does not allow for any rollover from this account.

This amendment needed a 3/4 supermajority to pass. The final vote was 15-7-2, so the motion to pass the amendment failed.

The second measure was S.Res.16.2022, a resolution to merge the committees on advocacy and governmental affairs. On Nov. 21, 2022, the Senate Executive Committee passed S.E.Res.01.2022, which created the Select Committee on Governmental Affairs. However, this proposal aims to merge this committee with the Committee on Advocacy, as both focus on advocacy; the committee would retain the name the Committee on Advocacy.

This resolution needed 3/4 supermajority to pass. The final vote was 21-2-1, so the motion to pass the resolution succeeded.