On March 19, the voting senators, the presidents and senators from each class in the Student Government Association (SGA), discussed each article of the Constitution proposed by General Judicial Director Stephen Weinstock.
The senators had discussions after each section in the Constitution and will vote on the supremacy clause in Article One at the end. The supremacy clause determines the Constitution will be the governing document of SGA and bylaws, context for the rest of the document, will come later.
Weinstock provided more context as to why he developed the proposed Constitution that would replace the old Constitution developed by a previous director.
“The director at the time was very well-intentioned, but there was a lot of flaws in my view with the constitution that we’re currently operating under, which was also the one at the time,” Weinstock said. “I’ve been writing that since November, working on the bylaws since January, and now it’s all coming to a vote.”
SGA Senate Requirements
Senior Class President Walden Hicks first proposed an amendment to the requirement that students must have full-time status to run for a position in SGA. Currently, the constitution states students must be full-time both at the time of their election and during their full term.
“If a student gets knocked down to part-time and we still feel like they are capable of representing the student body therefore they should,” Hicks said.
Hicks also proposed an addition to the requirements that only undergraduate students can run for a position in SGA.
“I also think it should explicitly say undergraduate student at Seaver College because only undergraduate students pay the campus life fee,” Hicks said.
The amendment to the requirement that SGA members must be at full-time student status passed unanimously so undergraduate students running for SGA positions would not have to be enrolled as full-time students during all of their time in office, but only at the time of their election.
Executive Board Spending when Senate is Out of Session
Additional conversation surrounded the executive board spending during break periods when the Senate is not in session. Weinstock explained his intent regarding the authority of SGA over the executive board.
“In my view, the power belongs to the elected members of the legislative body,” Weinstock said. “However, that doesn’t mean that the executive board is not able to administer approved finances. Before any adjournment of the Senate or before the Senate would go out of session, they would have to approve things like a summer budget where you can apportion money that can be spent by the e-board.”
Adviser Danielle Minke raised concerns over how a new senate would vote on a budget for the summer with no knowledge of how the process works if a session was called.
“I don’t think it would be wise to have a new senate who has no training, no understanding of the budget, vote on the budget before training even ensues,” Minke said.
Hicks brought up the possibility of the Senate setting a budget for the executive board to use during breaks when the Senate is out of session so there is less confusion over the executive board spending.
“We can just set aside a budget, a cap on the amount of money that could spend during this session,” Hicks said. “If we all agree that 12 or $15,000 is too much to spend on a retreat, then let’s just set the cap at 10k and then be done with it.”
Junior Class Sen. Julian Moghaddasi raised concerns over a previous Senate deciding on a budget for a future Senate. SGA President Myers Mentzer responded by saying that the carryover from previous Senates was to a design to some degree.
Sophomore Sen. Zayd Salahieh said the executive board is vetted and has its own system of checks and balances.
“If we’re deciding what e-board does over the summer, then that’s trampling in on their job description,” Salahieh said. “At the end of the day, they have a director that oversees the budget that they spend over the summer and they’re vetted. They’re elected by the student body to a higher standard than the senators.”
If this Constitution were to pass, it would go into effect for the next SGA Senate in the fall of 2025.
“This is mainly to protect SGA and protect the students and making sure things are used to the best of their ability,” Mentzer said. “But then this is one measure of that and we have other measures, but we want to make sure that we are leaving the best with that in the future of SGA.”
As there was a lot of differing viewpoints from the Senators. over the autonomy of the executive board and how much authority SGA should have over the board’s spending, SGA tabled the discussion for the next meeting.
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Contact Christy Thien via email: christy.thien@pepperdine.edu or by Instagram: @christy.e.t
