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A proposal to improve senator requirements

Two weeks ago, 15 Student Government Association (SGA) senators were eligible for impeachment, primarily because they did not meet senator requirements. These senators included the most active members of the SGA, and yet even they failed to meet the guidelines, specifically, Recognized Student Organization (RSO) event attendance. The Senator requirements rarely keep the senators in touch with the student body, with one of the only requirements that keep the senators in touch is RSO event attendance. Are these senators only serving themselves and not what the student body needs or wants?

And Speaker of the Senate Nic Nuila’s response to 15 senators up for impeachment? He’s “very upset,” but won’t bring them up for impeachment. Disappointing. If someone doesn’t do their job, they should be brought up for impeachment regardless. Sure, some great senators, such as oversight committee members Matthew Cunningham and Melanie Caba, were up for impeachment, but what about the dead weight of the SGA? Might as well light a fire underneath those people, even if the entire Senate decided to vote no on their impeachment. The current senator requirements are light, yet senators still fail them. A new policy of senator requirements needs to be created that ensures that all senators do their jobs and remain in touch with the student body, all without subjectivity.

Subjectivity is a problem with any disciplinary system. Currently, it is solely up to the oversight committee whether or not to bring up a senator for a transgression, regardless of the action. I support adding a “three strike rule” for disciplinary review. Essentially, for each transgression, a senator receives a strike. At one or two strikes, the oversight committee will be able to bring a senator up for impeachment, as they do now. At three strikes, however, a senator will automatically be impeached. No trial, vacancy elections immediate. If a senator receives three strikes, then they are not performing their job at all and should not be a public official.

Now for the guideline improvements:

Currently, senators are not in touch with the student body. Frankly, most senators only care about their own viewpoints on an issue or topic, not what their constituents believe. In order to aid this, all senators must be a voting member of at least one RSO. Much of what the Senate does and whom they interact with, are RSOs or their members. By ensuring that a senator is an active member of at least one organization, they will be able to gain a better insight on the struggles of RSOs. This suggestion would amend the current requirement that senators must attend five RSO events per semester. Failure to complete any of these suggested requirements earns a senator a strike.

Additionally, the Senate claims that they look to make improvements for the student body and are working with them, but they can’t be doing that because they are bad at communicating with the student body. Currently, senators are required to send out an email to their constituents only once a month. This is not even close to enough to keep the student body updated; additionally, there are no provisions for when the student body has to be notified in an emergency, such as Tommy Daly’s Gianforte non-statement. My proposal for communications is that each senator shall be required to send an email to its constituents once every two weeks, and a specific email within 72 hours when mandated by the SGA president or public relations. This ensures that the student body is kept updated on all actions of the SGA.

To remain connected with the “needs” of the student body, senators are encouraged to fill out “quick-response” surveys: a quick question that they need to ask to only TWO Stevens students. And guess what? Most of them still don’t do it. How are senators supposed to represent the Stevens student body if they can’t even be bothered to know their view on a question? Codify into the senator requirements that participating in the surveys are a requirement. Failure to do so (or send an email in a timely manner) earns a senator a strike.

The above guidelines ensure that each senator remains connected with the student body. But what about internally? The current guidelines are appropriate; however, they need to be more strictly enforced. Currently, a senator has to be a member of at least one committee (appropriate) but there are no provisions for when a senator doesn’t participate in a committee. Allow committee heads, with approval from the Vice President of Operations and members of the committee, to impeach dead weight on a committee. If a senator is impeached, that senator receives a strike and is reassigned to another committee.

The other modified internal guideline is attendance. Currently, a senator can have two unexcused absences before having an impeachment trial, with excused absences counting as half an absence. Reduce it to missing one unexcused meeting gives a senator a strike. The remaining guidelines (keeping an updated DuckLink Profile, attending RSO Leadership Summit, attending one administrative event per semester) are widely appropriate. Simply give any senator who doesn’t fulfill one of these requirements a strike.

My proposed guidelines would be widely appropriate and very easy to reach (perhaps too easy), yet some of the current senators still would not meet them. With the oversight committee working on improving the senator requirements, now would be a great time to start the discussion and promote greater campus involvement and connection with the student body. Now is the time to make clear guidelines to boost campus involvement.

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