The 67th Senate of the Associated Students of New Mexico State University met for the last time this semester on Thursday, November 9, 2023. Senators picked up where they left off at the last meeting, by voting on the controversial Bill 51, as well as some resolutions, which were tabled at the end of last session’s emergency meeting.
Senate passes Bill 51 after weeks of effort
Senator Hiram Camarena first presented Bill 51 to the senate at the previous session. Bill 51 is an appropriation bill to add more money to the Emergency Fund, which assists students in need. It was disputed because some senators argued it would have violated ASNMSU’s bylaws. In order to make the bill legal, Camarena wrote and passed Bill 64 in-meeting, which raised the minimum balance from $5,000 to $8,000.
Camarena presented Bill 51 again at senate. It was passed by the Senate and will now be sent to ASNMSU’s financial advisors.
“My whole point was to help students in need and I’m really glad it was passed by a majority,” Camarena said.
Senator Isaac Moreno-Carillo, an authoring senator on the bill, expressed his frustration about the process of getting the law passed.
“It was really embarrassing how inefficient ASNMSU was and how we pick and choose when we want to follow the lawbook and then when we do it ends up hurting students,” Moreno-Carillo said.
Meanwhile, some senators weren’t fully on-board with the lawbook change. Senator Christopher Hamilton remarked that he’s cautious about amending the bylaws after last year’s financial crisis.
“Personally, I’m not a big fan of amending the bylaws, because I feel like that’s a stepping stone to going into a financial crisis again, but the emergency fund is something that students need,” Hamilton said.
Resolutions 51 and 56 pass unanimously
Several resolutions were passed during the meeting, including Resolutions 51 and 56, which were tabled at the previous meeting.
Resolution 51, presented by Moreno-Carrillo, passed unanimously. The resolution was a letter to the NMSU faculty and administrators asking for the renovation of the chemistry building. Senators discussed various aspects of the chemistry building that needed repair, describing the conditions as “dangerous” and “disgusting”.
“Forty NMSU faculty members are in the top two percent of scientists in the world. And if we have statistics like this, we shouldn’t have buildings that are falling apart or equipment that’s not working,” Senator Tina Martinez stated.
Moreno-Carillo outlined how he hopes the Board of Regents and Government Affairs team respond to the resolution.
“I hope that the Governmental Affairs team in Santa Fe lobbies for money for the chemistry building, or the Board of Regents. I hope that they can because they allocate a lot more money towards ACES, and we should also do that for departments like [Arts and Sciences],” Moreno-Carillo explained.
Resolution 56, presented by Camarena, also passed unanimously. The resolution asked the parking services at NMSU to send students a notice about parking citations by email. The resolution was inspired by an experience that Senator Fateh Aswad had.
He parked illegally because he was late to class, and when he went to Parking and ID Services to get it waived, he found out that he already had a citation he didn’t know about. Camarena and Aswad wrote the resolution together to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
“It really could come in handy for students,” Camarena said.
One issue that was brought up with the resolution was how students would be notified if they parked illegally using someone else’s car. Senators wondered if the offendor would be emailed, or if it would be the person who owned the car.
“In that case, even if you’re driving someone else’s car, as long as you have the same parking sticker that you’ve been using, you’ll receive a citation linked to that sticker,” Aswad explained.
Former senators memorialized
At the end of the meeting, senators voted on Memorial 15 and on Memorials 2-12, which had been extensively amended in the Committee of the Whole, earlier in the meeting. The senators who are leaving senate this semester received memorials, which included inside jokes and stories about fun memories they made in senate.
“[The memorials were] really nice. They had really nice messages, specifically the one that was written by my friends. They included a lot of my achievements and I thought it was really cool,” Aswad said regarding his two memorials.
