Over the past couple of months, NEIU’s Student Government Association (SGA) has been embroiled in a series of debates over several proposed bills. With SGA elections coming up soon, the senate recently came to an important conclusion in order to safeguard the constitution and transition of new members into the SGA.
The Independent began covering turmoil in the SGA starting with the negative reaction to the “Welcome Back Party” earlier this semester. As previously reported, a bill was proposed to limit the amount of power the Student Welfare Committee had within the SGA.
The bill ended up defeated by a majority vote, but not before the senate debated it and several other bills rather intensely. According to an email sent to all SGA members and obtained by the Independent, David Benjaih stated, “I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I was offended by the patronizing, repetitious nature of what occurred,” referring to the debate.
Senator Steven Jerome later responded to Benjaih and other SGA members in an email and stated, “If the bills at present are not agreeable, please [let the sponsors] know. We will be happy to try and revise them to your liking. The more persons who offer their opinions in a debate, the more truly representative the final measures will be.”
Recently, the SGA debated the bill titled, “Safeguarding the Transition Reform Act Constitution Amendment” over two separate meetings. This bill was proposed in order to ensure an organized transition for new SGA members and a new constitution.
Senators Mark Banks and Steven Jerome, the main sponsors of the bill, were adamant about having it passed as soon as possible. Basically, the bill purpose is to ensure that the old constitution be amended to reflect the new constitution. Although the new constitution has been ratified already, the administration has yet to sign off on it, so it cannot be put into effect yet.
One of the issues is that the new constitution called for the creation of a new position of treasurer, and several candidates are already running for treasurer in anticipation of this. If the old constitution was not amended to reflect the new one, the person who won the spot for treasurer would have gained a position that does not yet exist.
To complicate matters further, the new constitution dictated new GPA requirements for those running for executive positions. Even though the senate had already passed the new requirements for executive positions, they had not actually been implemented yet. If they were, that would restrict certain candidates currently running and force them to quit the race.
During the last day of the debate, Senator Jason Garcia stated, “The SGA should be a cohesive unit. We need to get the treasurer position set up because people are already running for it, but at the same time we don’t want to lose candidates that have already been campaigning.” Speaker Michael Kline agreed, and stated, “The necessity is for the treasurer position.”
Director of the Student Activities Office Sharron Evans, who acts as an advisor to the SGA, suggested that a grandfather clause be added to the bill, so that anyone who is currently part of the SGA or anyone currently running would be grandfathered in, regardless of GPA requirements.
The majority of the SGA agreed with this suggestion. Senator Jerome said, “The grandfather clause will ensure the current organization of the senate.” The bill was amended to include the grandfather clause, voted on and passed by the majority.