About 15 students gathered in the Norris Wildcat Room Monday night to discuss the most recent legislation drafted to restructure student representation within ASG’s senate body.
The sparsely attended forum, composed mostly of senators, was scheduled following last week’s senate meeting, as the ASG constitution mandates a public meeting before any vote on reorganization takes place.
The proposal, which was drafted over the first two weeks of the month by a seven-person task force headed by senate speaker Wilson Funkhouser, calls for a reduction in the total number of senators to 34 representing four caucuses: eight Greek senators, five off-campus, 10 representing the Residential College Board and Residence Hall Association and 11 student groups senators, including an athletics representative.
While the first three caucuses mentioned would devise their own senate election procedures to be approved by an ASG committee, student groups with common interests would be encouraged to band together in coalitions and apply for a single senate seat, with applicants selected by the Student Group Seat Committee.
“This is a way for student groups themselves to choose how they’re represented,” said ASG President Austin Young, who supports the bill but was not part of the task force that wrote it. “A key goal for us over the next year is to change the culture of ASG, and this is a good first step in that direction.”
Vice President Ash Jaidev suggested the bill will increase accountability of absent senators, as two absences will result in the loss of the seat, leading the seat committee to select another senator.
“We’re not just looking for senators to show up,” Jaidev said. “We want them to be engaged with constituents on a day-to-day basis.”
Some in attendance, including former senate speaker Tyris Jones, took issue with the idea of having multiple student groups being represented by a single senate seat, suggesting it could cause conflicts of interest or dilute representative interests down the road. Hayley Stevens, Weinberg sophomore and member of Alianza, was firmly against the idea of banding groups together under one representative.
“Unless that senator is in Alianza, my interests as a student and member are not being directly served,” Stevens said.
Funkhouser suggested that the proposal is only part of a gradual evolution in the face of ASG.
“Something many people don’t realize is we’ve changed the structure of ASG a lot over the past two decades,” Funkhouser said. “Things change, new issues come up, and we have to adapt to new needs of the student body.”
The bill has already been presented as new business to senate, and Funkhouser said it could be discussed further at Wednesday’s meeting. It will be voted on at the final senate meeting of the year on May 25.