With 11 bills, SGA still sees almost no debate

While last week's 11 proposed SGA bills ended a three-week dry spell in the body's legislation, last night's meeting came and went without debate, and legislators unanimously approved every bill that went before the body.

There were only a few slight differences of opinion during the Student Government Association's weekly meeting yesterday. While some legislators said this means the organization is effectively hammering out any contention during weekly mandated committee meetings, Speaker of the Legislature Carson McDonald said this seeming indifference to the voting is contrary to the body's duties as legislators; they were not elected into office to passively pass bills, he said.

"I think what the legislators need to understand is that when there are bills on the table, you need to stick up for your constituencies," McDonald said. "If you're not going to stick up for your constituencies and just pass and this and this like it's not a really big deal, then you need to consider whether you're really the right person for the job."

During last night's meeting, there was one abstention from the vote on a resolution to support the College Park Boys and Girls Club and two abstentions from the vote on a resolution supporting new standards for course syllabi.

Five other bills — including a resolution supporting the campaign for affordable textbooks and another resolution endorsing this year's Facilities Master Plan — passed unanimously.

Although McDonald said most of the bills were not very controversial, he said he was perturbed that not even one legislator addressed the syllabi resolution, which was a plank in both parties' platforms during the spring elections.

The bill supports a University Senate bill that SGA President Kaiyi Xie proposed. If the senate passes the bill, it will mandate professors provide detailed outlines of course content and set a "hard deadline" for them to post their syllabi prior to the start of each semester.

Cambridge Community legislator Christopher Harris said he abstained from voting on the bill because he felt the current syllabi requirements are fine as is.

"As for putting [a syllabus] out earlier, I already feel like it's early enough that you get a week to get your things together," Harris said in an interview after the meeting.

The other abstainer, arts and humanities legislator Mace Phillips, said he did not feel informed enough to approve the bill because last night was his first meeting; he was just recently appointed.

Nonetheless, the bill was passed without any remarks from the body.

But several legislators said the bills were not controversial enough to warrant discussion.

"I feel like a lot of the bills weren't really contentious," arts and humanities legislator Julie France said. "I was reading a lot of these bills on my computer before the meeting and I didn't really see any reason to debate."

Outlying commuter legislator Chuk Agubokwu said SGA committees, which debate and edit bills before they're presented to the entire legislature, likely discussed the bills in depth first.

"I have a strong feeling that a lot of the debating was already happening outside of the session," he said. "So I think this is a positive symptom that we are engaging in the legislation before it comes to debate on the floor."

Xie said while debates are vital to the body's role, debating simply for the sake of debating is a waste of time.

"We can't have the six-hour meetings of last year because that's not efficient," Xie said. "But I do hope every legislator who had questions asked them."

Several SGA committees put the remaining four bills — some of which were controversial — on hold for revisions and future debates. These tabled bills include support for reforming the university's process for setting mandatory student fees, urging the Department of Transportation Services to enforce a helmet policy for scooter riders, requiring all SGA members to volunteer at the annual Crabfest and displaying the organization's agenda in the Stamp Student Union.

The SGA will revisit these bills next week.

villanueva@umdbk.com