The 46th Legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) convened voted down a bill Monday evening that would have amended SGA's Constitutional bylaws.
The bill would have required that all current and future appointments of executive assistants be approved by the legislature.
Executive assistants are currently appointed by SGA Executive Board members to help with daily SGA responsibilities, most consisting of clerical work.
The bill stated that "the Constitution grants the privilege of confirmation to the Legislature" and stipulates that "all executive assistants shall be subject to...approval of the Legislature...impeachment by the Legislature."
SGA currently operates under a system where executive officeholders appoint assistants at their own discretion.
However, currently, the legislature does not have to first approve any appointments that these officeholders make.
"This bill is exactly what is happening right now. We're just writing it down to make it official," said Ted Guio, a Governance Committee Chairperson and sophomore in the College.
The bill failed to pass despite strong support from the SGA Governance Committee, which presented it to the legislature.
The SGA Governance Committee advocated that SGA ought to follow the text of its Constitution.
The text of the Constiution currently states that appointments to what the Constitution deems as "permanent subsidiary offices" are subject to approval first by the legislature.
The Governance Committee said that they believed that executive assistants fall under the category of "permanent subsidiary offices."
The question of whether executive assistants are considered permanent subsidiaries sparked a debate over interpretations of the Constitution among those legislators present.
Legislative members brought up a number of potential problems with the bill.
Many members said that they believed this bill would create an additional layer of unnecessary red tape to SGA's responsibilities.
Among those opposed to the bill was senior representative Brad Clement.
"It would make the exec board less flexible...assistant to a current office is not a brand new office so it's clearly not against any rule now," Clement said.
The discussion rapidly turned into a debate about the wording of the Constitution, as other members of the legislature had different interpretations of what "permanent subsidiary office" meant.
Members of the Governance Committee like Chairperson and College sophomore Raj Patel and Senior Representative Malika Begum repeatedly insisted that "permanent subsidiary office" included the offices of executive assistants.
"A subsidiary office is anything that helps carry out the duty of that office," said Patel, reiterating the Governance Committee's interpretation of the wording of the Constitution.
Currently, assistants to executive positions "shall serve a term equivalent to the officer who they were appointed by," according to the text of the bill.
The variability of term for executive assistants led other members of SGA to question whether the positions should be considered "permanent."
"'Permanent member' to me is a position that will be there for more than one term of SGA," said Brian Diener, who is a sophomore representative in the College. "If you're just an assistant to the VP for two semesters, it doesn't sound like a permanent position."
Some other legislators said that they believed that the bill would add an additional legislative check to a decision that the executive board typically makes without prior approval from other members of SGA.
Members of the executive board expressed their frustration with this would-be check from the legislature during the session.
"Assistants aren't considered an office in my opinion because they don't have authority; they're simply serving clerical duties," said Mike Howell, a Law School student and Attorney General to the SGA. "I don't really see the purpose of this, nor do I see how it really works in terms of taking power from the executive branch and putting in a legislative check...we have better things to be doing."
Several members of SGA provided their own interpretations, while a couple legislators brought up, what they considered to be, the futility of the debate over Constitutional interpretation of the term "permanent subsidiary office."
Given that they were discussing a Constitutional interpretation, many said they believed that it should be subject to decision by the judicial branch.
The judicial branch consists of student justices who interpret the wording of the Constitution and thereby apply it to any potential SGA resolutions or bills.
Clement concluded that this bill in particular needed to go to the judicial branch, but Guio explained that the process to present bills to the Court is lengthy.
Regardless, certain legislators said that they believed that this judicial process was necessary.
"It's not up to a legislative branch to decide that they feel the assistants are permanent subsidiaries," said Aaron Leven, Campus Services Committee Chair and a sophomore in the College. "I completely feel that it's totally up to the judicial branch to decide"
On one occasion, Clement made a motion to table the bill, but SGA legislators voted against his motion, with members determined to settle the issue during the meeting.
Ultimately, SGA voted in favor of the bill 10-9-3.
However, the bill failed because in order to amend the bylaws of the Constitution, a majority of the legislature or two-thirds of those present must approve it. However, a majority was not present.
– By Rupsha Basu
