By Vince Gasparini | October 28, 2024
At their weekly meeting on Wednesday (10/23) night, members of the University at Albany Student Association Senate voted down a bill sponsored by Senator Nic Feldman that had previously passed last semester.
Senators debate legislation at Wednesday night’s meeting.
Photo Credit: Vince Gasparini
The bill, titled the Constitutional Amendment Package, would have established two new Senate seats dedicated to transfer students, made a two-thirds Senate vote be required for impeachment and added a provision to the constitution to automatically put it up for a referendum in the spring general election every four years.
It received seven “yes” votes, 10 “no” votes and five abstentions; in its passage last semester, it received 18 “yes” votes, three “no” votes and two abstentions.
A bill needs passage in the Senate for two consecutive semesters in order to be solidified in the bylaws.
“The bill would have given necessary representation to underrepresented populations,” Feldman said. “It also would have brought parity to our impeachment process because that could very easily be used to target somebody as it’s currently written.”
Feldman also said that the language in the bill used for the constitutional referendum was pulled directly from the New York State Constitution.
Senate Chair Ethan Madappat and Senator Trevor Pettit were among those in the room who vocally opposed the bill, despite both having voted yes on its passage last semester.
“The constitutional convention is going to be up for an automatic referendum, and then through that constitutional convention, then we can change the constitution; although everyone in this room is understanding that, I’m thinking that 20 years from now, this is going to keep going up on the ballot every four years and there might be a mishandling,” Madappat said during debate at Wednesday’s meeting.
He also expressed concern over whether students voting on the constitutional convention would understand what they are voting for.
When asked why he argued against the bill after voting for its passage last semester, Madappat told the ASP that it was because he had heard new perspectives from other Senators on the bill, stating, “I believe a Senator brought up how creating new positions won’t necessarily increase Senators to come into the Senate.”
“Already we have issues with Senator retention, and we’re losing Senators seemingly weekly,” he continued. “And although adding new avenues for people to get involved is always great, we already have preexisting avenues that are not always utilized by students to get involved.”
Pettit argued that the constitution should be seen as a “pillar of stability” and that it is not something that should be able to be changed every four years.
“I think the constitution can and should be open to change, on a strict need basis. That being, if there is a is a specific reason we want to go about doing that, just because we can doesn’t mean we always should,” he said.
In a statement to the ASP, Pettit said he changed his vote because he doesn't think the Senate needs more seats, as they currently struggle to fill the existing ones, and that constitutional amendments should only be brought about for a "valid reason."
"I've grown a lot as both a student and Senator over the past year," he said. "And through these experiences I see a lot of shortcomings with this bill which have caused me to change my vote towards a no."
President Jalen Rose, when asked to comment on the failed bill, said that the arguments against the constitutional convention did not make sense as the constitution is already up for a referendum every two years.
“[The constitution] gets changed all the time because there are things wrong with it,” Rose said. “I think that argument was unfounded. I think a lot of people’s fears in these changes are not that the changes are bad but that they don’t like the way we already operate.”
Senator Marcos Perez also voted ‘no’ on the bill, but only to retain the ability to bring it back up at the next Senate meeting on Oct. 30.
“I’m not saying that you can’t change your vote,” Feldman said. “However it just is very frustrating that I was very blindsided by these concerns that were never brought up to me. If they were, we could have game planned and said ‘Okay, this is how we’re going to fix it and tackle it.”
Comments