The 68th Senate of the Associated Students of NMSU held their final meeting on April 24, 2025. Senators spent the meeting spending the student government’s remaining funds and discussed what legacy the 68th Senate will leave behind.
When the meeting began, the ASNMSU government had $150,000 left in its account. Senators sponsored multiple bills trying to utilize the remaining cash by sponsoring the trips, conferences and projects of various NMSU student organizations and departments. Two bills, Bill 385 and Bill 386, proposed funding NMSU’s women’s rugby team as they advanced to compete nationally in Maryland. That bill, along with other bills like it, passed.
Additionally, Sen. Hebah Alhalholy proposed Bill 268. The bill would impose a minimum requirement of bills that senators would have to author or co-author. Not doing so would result in them acquiring “penalty points.”
Some senators expressed a concern that requiring senators to write a certain amount of bills would create tension with their colleagues over who gets to author bills. Alhalholy explained this should not be an issue if senators took their job seriously.
“I guess that could be a possible situation,” Alhalholy said. “But I really do not think that should be a genuine reason to have any animosity towards each other. As senators, we should be reaching out to our constituents, not waiting for our constituents to reach out for us. This bill is supposed to make senators just do their job as they are supposed to.”
One of several amendments proposed was to address another concern that Bill 268 will result in more dummy bills, which are placeholder bills that are rushed through legislation and amended later, being sponsored. However, other senators expressed disappointment with their time being used up to add said amendments to the bill. Sen. Kolby Taylor said the current bill proposed by Alhalholy was fine on its own.
“We have senators who do not know what dummy bills are, or how they even work,” Taylor said. “I know for a fact that we have had the attorney general go through the ASNMSU’s entire document of all the bylaws multiple times to make the bylaws more concise, and to eliminate fluff. So, I feel like these amendments are just adding so much fluff to a bill that is already pretty clean and clear.”
One amendment that did pass changed Bill 268’s requirement from two bills per semester to one legislative bill and one reimbursement bill per semester. Some senators believed this would be easier for incoming senators in the 69th Senate.
Bill 268 passed with a majority vote and is expected to go into effect next semester.
Vice President Elida Miller, whose term is ending this semester, reflected on the legacy she hoped 68th Senate of the ASNMSU will have years down the line.
“A few meetings ago, we did pass the bill that approved the construction of the ACES windmill,” Miller said. “I want one of our legacies to just be how we supported their conference. They can look back and say ‘hey you know, the 68th senate made sure I was able to attend that research conference, or to that contest, and other things like that. Even with the small impacts that come from us giving funds to smaller clubs.”
The Senate was not able to finish passing bills that night and all senators were called to attend an emergency session on May 1, 2025, to finish spending ASNMSU’s funds.
