The 54th legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) unanimously passed a bill on March 1 that would allow legislators to vote anonymously during meetings. However, the identity of those who cast votes will be published after the meeting.
The bill was sponsored by First-Year Legislators Khegan Meyers (24C) and Jojo Liu (24C).
Both sponsors said they hope the option to vote anonymously in the meetings will reduce social pressure that may come from other legislators.
If anonymous voting is used, votes will be cast using platforms such as Microsoft Forms. The final vote tally and details about legislators’ votes will be published after the meeting, similar to the system College Council (CC) uses.
SGA Attorney General Ryan Murray (19Ox, 21C) questioned how effectively the bill would reduce social pressure if voting records are ultimately published.
“In practical usage, it seems like any time this provision might be used, it would be used on some sort of a controversial issue, where people [would] want to vote more with their conscience than what the social pressure might yield,” Murray said. “However, if you publish individuals’ votes and not just the tally right after the vote, it kind of diminishes this kind of purpose.”
While the social pressure would not be completely removed, it would be “helpful” if the voting procedure was anonymous, Liu responded.
The bill will not allow voting by secret ballot as this would violate Article VII, Section 1 of SGA’s Constitution, which states that “the papers of the SGA shall be considered public records.”
“We, as representatives, need to be accountable to the Emory students, and I think that the votes do need to be in the public,” Meyers said.
Currently, the speaker of the legislature determines the voting method, but the bill will allow legislators to make the choice between roll call, non-secret ballot, unanimous consent or an anonymous vote. In the case of dissent, the voting method will be determined by a majority vote.
SGA Discusses Changes to SAF Split
BBA Vice President of Finance Aditya Govindraj (21B) argued for revising the split of the Student Activity Fee (SAF) between the divisions at the meeting.
“Significant sums of money are moving between divisional councils for reasons that I believe are arbitrary,” Govindraj said.
Under the current system, the SAF collected from each student is directed to the divisional council in which the student is enrolled. The divisional councils then pay fixed percentages of the money they collect to the “macro,” a pool of money used by SGA for its expenses and to fund the six executive agencies. CC pays 60%, BBA Council pays 52%, ESNA pays 22% and Oxford SGA pays 5% of the SAF money to the macro. In addition, Oxford, BBA Council and ESNA also pay money to CC because students from these divisions are members of clubs sanctioned under CC.
Govindraj said that neither SGA governing documents nor any SGA legislation passed after 2011 provides a reason for “why contributions to the macro vary and why different divisions pay varying amounts to College Council.”
Govindraj said that he would like to eliminate the payment of money by each division to CC and standardize the percentage of each divisions’ money that would be paid to the macro. Govindraj does not plan to alter Oxford’s contribution to the macro.
No bill making these changes has been introduced.
Wiener said that while he agrees that “it is really important to consider that the way we have the numbers right now is inherently arbitrary,” he believes that setting a new standardized percentage would also be “somewhat arbitrary.”
Wiener recommended that before the end of the academic year, the incoming legislature should set up a permanent committee to gather data regarding club spending and club membership by division over the next fall semester and the beginning of early spring so that the legislature may be able to make an “educated decision” on this next spring.
A similar effort to gather data to reevaluate the SAF split was conducted during the 2018-19 academic year by a SGA Club Audit Committee. The Committee had recommended reductions to the amount of money BBA Council and ESNA pay CC. However, a bill implementing the recommended fee split was ultimately rejected by SGA legislators.
Discussion of New Code
The legislature unanimously passed a bill updating the SGA code on March 8. The effort to revise the code was led by Murray.
Most of the edits to the code include changes in procedures that have been implemented in the form of bills.
The revised version states that any communication a member of SGA receives from the University Board of Trustees must be discussed with a majority of sitting legislators. A bill to this effect was passed in October 2020.
The new code also reflects the February 2020 changes to the partitioning of SGA legislative seats between the four divisional councils.
Additional changes include removal of details of positions that no longer exist such as assistant treasurer, clarification of procedures for the creation of committees and elaboration of the SGA secretary’s duties.
SGA Discusses Temporary Contingency Cap Increase
CC President Aditya Jhaveri (21C) and SGA Vice President of Finance Ben Wiener (21C) previewed a bill that will be presented next week that aims to raise contingency caps for each of the divisions for the 2021-22 academic year.
Contingency caps are limits on the amount of unused funds that divisions are allowed to retain from one academic year to the next. These caps are at $75,000 for CC, $45,000 for BBA Council, and $35,000 for Emory Student Nurses Association (ESNA).
“The whole point of where we are is to reduce the financial burden on students and organizations that have already been impacted by the pandemic,” Jhaveri said, adding that allowing surplus money to return to organizations will reduce their need to find external sources of funding and can “instead just focus on planning after a full year of not being able to plan at all.”
Wiener said that a bill raising the contingency caps will be presented next week. The bill tentatively proposes that the contingency caps will be increased this year and will gradually reduce over the next two academic years so that they will be back to current levels for the 2024-25 academic year.
