Georgia State’s Student Government Association (SGA) met on Jan. 25 to propose amendments to the organization’s constitution and bylaws.
SGA President Lanier Henson led the group of officials in an open-forum discussion of potential changes to the student government’s regulations.
Boyd Beckwith, SGA advisor and director of the Student*University center, said the constitution needs changes to remove redundancies and remain relevant to the governing students.
“It is important that the really big things about student government are in the constitution and the day-to-day responsibilities are in the by-laws, otherwise they’re hamstrung with really old job descriptions and things that don’t exist anymore,” he said.
Henson said SGA’s organization also needs to shift some statutes of the constitution to the bylaws so the articles are more accessible for revision.
He also said the previous amendments to the constitution left the executive branch with potential for corruption and he proposed an alteration to rid the branch of excessive power.
“The President and the EVP get to view legislation and say whether or not it goes to the senate, then vote on whether or not it passes, then they have veto power over whether or not it passes,” Henson said.
This amendment would only allow the executive board members to take part in one part of passing legislation rather than influencing the entire process, according to Henson.
“This way one person approves it, another group votes on it and the president can veto it, but none of those parties are involved in more than one part of the process,” he said.
Beckwith said he is happy with the progress made thus far but none of the proposed changes can be ratified until the spring elections.
“There is a lot more in the bylaws that we haven’t addressed yet, but it’s great that the students realize that they needed to change it, and getting the rest of the senate’s input will be good too,” he said.
