SGA passes rule about phrasing
Senate decides when attendance is posted online
By Heather Chou, contributing writer
Posted on September 28, 2006

All 14 of the SGA’s house rules were passed with relatively little debate at Tuesday’s Student Senate meeting. Sen. Megan McQuighan (Sr.) proposed an amendment before the rules were passed as a whole. The amendment concerned the wording of a rule that dealt with when the executive assistant must post tables of roll call votes on the SGA’s Web site following senate meetings.

McQuighan proposed the amendment read that the tables be posted “by the next senate meeting” rather than “in a timely manner.”

“The phrase ‘in a timely manner’ is big and needs to be defined,” McQuighan said. “I urge you to pass this amendment.” The amendment passed 46-33.

With the house rules aside, other business was attended to by Sen. David Allen (Sr.), SGA’s director of Government Relations, who brought up an important date to remember: Oct. 10. This is the last day to register to vote for students planning on voting in the upcoming November elections.

“Last year, only 3.5 percent of JMU students voted in a gubernatorial election,” Allen said. “We’re really trying to get everyone to vote this year.”

Allen also discussed SGA’s plans to help boost the number of students heading out to the polls and sending in absentee ballots this year. Throughout next week, SGA is sponsoring “Dorm Storms,” where SGA members will be going dorm-to-dorm with the goal of spreading the word about voting and distributing voter registration forms.

A new bill was also introduced before the body. The National Student Speech, Language and Hearing Association contingency bill proposed $775 to be allocated from the Student Allocation Fund in order to pay for NSSLHA conference registration fees for about three members. The bill stated that by attending the NSSLHA conference, students “will have the opportunity to represent the school in a positive way and bring back new and fresh ideas to JMU.”

The organization is made up of students interested in speech pathology, audiology and education of the acoustically handicapped. It was ultimately decided that the bill be sent to the senate’s finance committee for further review before it will be brought to the full senate for passage.

The meeting ended with a statement from Speaker of the Senate Stephanie Genco (Sr.). “We got through it and that’s how efficient we can be if we try,” Genco said.