The Mississippi State University Student Association Senate met for the second time this semester on Tuesday night to begin discussing new legislation for the year, as well as to confirm the Fall Elections Packet.
The first meeting of the semester, which was Aug. 28, was an introductory affair, rather than one focused on legislation.
Only two pieces of legislation, a bill and a resolution, were presented to the Senate floor during Tuesday’s meeting.
To recap, the SA Senate passes three different kinds of legislation: acts, resolutions and bills. While no acts were passed this session, an act appropriates SA funds to organizations and events around campus. Next, a resolution is a piece of legislation which expresses Senate support, and thereby student support, of an idea or proposal. They only require a voice vote to pass, which is a vote arbitrated by volume of “yays” and “nays.” Sometimes, resolutions are done to show the student body’s receptivity to something outside of the Senate’s direct control, and other times, they are used to encourage MSU’s administration to act on an issue.
For instance, Resolution 3, which passed Tuesday night, requests all professors list their required textbooks’ prices on the front page of their syllabi. Specifically, the prices would preferably be from local bookstores and a reliable online source. This is in response to rising textbook costs, because according to Ben Popken with NBC, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows textbooks have increased in price over 1,000 percent in four decades.
Lastly, bills change the SA Constitution in some way. Like acts, bills require a roll-call vote, which consists of each senator being called individually to vote on the issue. In most cases, the Senate will vote to suspend the roll call vote to a voice vote, simplifying the process.
Tuesday, the Senate passed Bill 3, which requires all SA members to attend general body meetings. The general body meeting is a newly implemented idea from the SA Executive Council in hopes to bridge the gaps between the different factions within the SA. Therefore, the SA Senate, the SA Cabinet, the SA Judicial Council and the SA Executive Council are now required to meet monthly to discuss plans and goals for the SA as a whole. The bill also indicates that general body meetings will follow the same attendance policy as Senate meetings, meaning absences can lead to impeachment.
Finally, the Senate passed the new Elections Packet. The Elections Packet is the guideline for student elections at MSU, and this year’s edition was mostly unaltered from previous years, barring cosmetic changes. The official date for fall elections is now set for Sept. 18. Following this last piece of business, the Senate adjourned and went to participate in the first ever SA general body meeting.