Five bills and three resolutions were passed in final Student Government Association senate meeting of the year.

Voting opened with senate passing amendments to SGA bylaws in order to make them more consistent with current practices

Next senate passed a bill banning tickets from SGA executive board elections. This means that the groups students have seen in past elections, such as Building Bridges last year and Limitless this year, will cease to be a part of the election process. Endorsements were also barred in the bill. Thus every student must run as an individual for any SGA executive board positions.

Debate carried on for over an hour, with senators from both sides voicing strong opinions on the bill and the impact it would have on the student body and SGA. Those for the bill argued that tickets were unfair to students because they limited the election pool and made it harder for students to run due to the intimidation and influence of a ticket’s unified presence. They hoped that removing tickets would make elections more merit based, and would promote more student involvement in the election process.

President-elect Blake Exline stood in opposition of the bill. The process felt rushed he said, and he believed that more research needed to be done and more time needed to be given to consider the implications of the bill. Other arguments against the bill were that tickets allowed an executive board to have a unified vision, and that removing tickets would have no positive impact on the student body.

SGA sent out a survey with its weekly mailer on Wednesday, April 30, with questions pertaining to student opinions on elections without tickets. SGA still hadn’t received the results at the time of the debate.

“The issue is not decided on yet,” President Matt Ryan said concerning the bill.

Next bills concerning amendments to the SGA constitution were brought up. Most of the amendments were meant to make the constitution more concise and understandable, and 8 of the amendments were passed in an omnibus. An amendment concerning the function of the Black Student Alliance senator failed, with many senators arguing that the bill was incomplete, not stating clearly enough what the responsibilities of the BSA senator are and how the minority groups of the school are represented.

A bill attempting to absolve the Constitutional Review and Rules Committee failed due to concerns about investing too much power in in the Internal Affairs Committee. Following this, senate voted to pass three resolutions, meant to act as guidelines concerning the alterations made this year to annual funding and the creation of the wellness fee. Finally five left over funding bills, which were added to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, were voted to pass in omnibus.