Rose’s revised proposal not passed

The revised senate proposal failed to gain the two-thirds majority it needed to be passed by the undergraduate student government last Tuesday night.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council table voted 7-5 for the proposal, falling short of the nine votes it needed to pass and move to a student vote in the government elections.

President Gabe Rose presented a revised amendment to the undergraduate student structure that would have added four additional general representatives to the council, increasing the total number of representatives from three to seven.

Rose previously proposed a senate proposal to create a new legislative body of 20 senators elected by the undergraduate student body.

After weeks of council discussion, Rose chose to create an amendment to add more general representatives with more legislative duties to the existing council structure.

During the council meeting, several councilmembers found the revised proposal a useful opportunity to open the council to more third-party independents.

General Representative Christina Colosimo said council expansion will contribute to greater student representation.

“General representatives seek out communities that are not represented well on campus,” Colosimo said. “More general representatives may cover more topics that are not necessarily tackled on council.”

Facilities Commissioner Sherlyn Mossahebfar said Rose’s revised proposal was easier to comprehend and showed sufficient compromise.

However, Alumni Representative Willard Tressel said he had concern about the amendment and asked why the council is trying to fix a system that may not need to be fixed.

“Expanding student government may not be the answer,” Tressel said.

Internal Vice President Dianne Tanjuaquio said the proposal should be put to student vote because the push for amendments often gets lost with the annual transitions from current to incoming councils.

“You have to start from scratch every year, and next year’s council may lose the fact that this year’s council was ever pushing it,” Tanjuaquio said.

Student Welfare Commissioner Jonathan Pham said a legislative change is unnecessary because general representatives should talk more to the student body and bring more issues to council.

Rose said the current system does not allow as many independent students to join council.

“There is no opportunity for Joe Bruin to be at this table,” Rose said. “I feel strongly about this because I consider myself a Joe Bruin.”

Despite Rose’s efforts, the proposal was not approved.

After the meeting, Rose said it was embarrassing for the five councilmembers who voted against the proposal to not allow undergraduate students a chance to vote on the proposal.

Rose said the amendment was an opportunity for councilmembers to exhibit fairness and transparency.

Gabe said the proposal would have allowed people not in student political parties to be able to get involved in USAC.

“I thought we could have changed how the student government works and give chances for third-party independents to be councilmembers,” Rose said. “It is a shame.”