Proposed Amendment Voted Down by SGA E-board

SGA’s executive board decided by a majority vote last Wednesday not to allow a constitutional amendment to continue onto the general SGA floor for deliberation. The amendment would have changed the criteria for who would be allowed to run for e-board positions.

Currently, only SGA members who were voted in to their positions by the student body – not just appointed - can run for e-board positions: President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. Any seats that remain open after elections are given to members-at-large.

“What was really snagging it for me was that [the amendment’s authors] didn’t introduce this until right before the process of elections began,” said SGA president Brian Lefort after the vote.

“This isn’t because the election’s just coming up and we want someone to go against the people—that has nothing to do with it. If I knew about this and noticed it before, I would have brought this up before, no doubt in my mind,” said Michael Gesualdi, SGA senator for the class of 2012 and co-author of the amendment, before the vote took place.

The proposed amendment, co-authored by Gesualdi and Guy Zagami, an appointed member of SGA who had seeked out a run for President, would have allowed appointed members to run for e-board positions.

“From three years past to now, we’re seeing a very different SGA. Many members who care about being the voice student body at large and want to help change things around here want to be a part of that e-board” said Zagami.

For the amendment to be brought to a vote, Gesualdi and Zagami first had to petition it by collecting at least 100 signatures from the student body.

Zagami has been serving “for a year and a half, he knows everyone, everyone knows Guy,” said Gesualdi. “All these [appointed members] are always here, and they’re such good kids, and just because they weren’t elected and voted on should not mean that they can’t run for an executive board position when they probably got their name out more than a senator did.”

“The essence of it, being able to have everyone involved in the process, I think that’s great,” said Lefort. “I have told the authors that I’ll be more than happy to sit down with them and work on something for next year if they want to—if they want to keep it alive for next year, that I could sit down with them and write something with them.”