At the Student Government Association Senate’s Oct. 8 meeting, senators voted to increase the budget for the Organization Fund and require campaign packets to be presented to the Senate for approval.
Crawford Rummel, senator for the College of Business, presented an amendment to a bill that increased the Organization Fund by $25,000, for a total of $125,000.
We really owe it to the students to allow all of the organizations, not just those with Student Activity Portfolios, to apply for it, said Max Zinner, graduate school senator. Zinner said the number of student organizations has increased significantly, so the budget should increase to accommodate them. The amendment passed unanimously.
Sully Jeter, at-large senator, presented an amendment to a bill that requires the executive director of elections to present the campaign packet, which includes necessary forms and supplemental material for students conducting a campaign, to the SGA Senate for approval. The amendment passed unanimously.
When discussing future orders of business, Zinner introduced multiple amendments to bills that reorganized sections, cleaned up inconsistencies and used gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” instead of “he" or "she.”
Before the meeting concluded, Brad Smith, SGA faculty adviser, spoke to the senators about examining more than one variable when discussing an issue, citing the discussion from the Oct. 1 meeting where Jordan Bailey, senator for the College of Engineering, said Clemson University’s campaigns were less successful because less students voted, which he said was due to smaller budgets.
Smith said Clemson University had less students than Auburn, so a more appropriate comparison would be the percentages of students who voted or a university with a similar population. He said University of Florida’s campaigns had unlimited budgets, but voter turnout was less than 15 percent, so just examining Clemson’s success in raw numbers compared to their budget was inadequate.
Smith said he was surprised at the lack of debate about the amendment requiring campaign packets to be presented to the Senate. He said such a bill had been passed a few years ago, but it became an issue as minor issues regarding campaign packets had to be approved in the Senate, which led to it being repealed.
“It’s always originated out of some personal frustrations with how the previous election cycle went,” Smith said.
He said the problem has been presented roughly three times within the past five years, and it has never originated from student’s problems with the process.
Smith said he personally thinks this is an overstep of the Senate. It’s not a balance of power, and it can be perceived as an attempt to maintain power, he said.
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