Tensions were high at the meeting of the 69th Senate of the Associated Students of New Mexico State University on Feb. 5, as arguments and suggestions spurred around the room in a whirlwind of discontent over a bill that would.
Bill 275 was brought to the floor with a lull of normalcy, but when questions or discussion were opened to the general assembly of senators, heat began to rise.
This bill was intended to specify what types of events could be sponsored and funded by ASNMSU, allowing funding for off-campus events within certain parameters. Additionally, the bill introduced the idea that any event sponsored by ASNMSU would not be allowed to charge admission due to the bylaw preventing the organization from charging admission at any event.
The room seemed perfectly content to yea the vote and move on until Senator Awlen Salazar brought up the fact that a lot of student organizations – such as Greek life – charge admission for events for the benefit of their charitable organizations. Begging the question, is it fair to deny them funding when they are charging for the benefit of charity?
Vice Chair Dylan Ortega agreed with this bill being “unfair,” bringing up his own idea of how the bylaw should be corrected.
“I think we can go back and add to that section that the events can charge admission, but it cannot be ‘for profit’ for the organization. I think that would be a nice compromise for everybody,” Ortega said.
Earlier in the meeting, Ortega mentioned that he felt the process for discussing bills was going too fast, that the senate needed to slow down their process and properly discuss the bills. His wish was granted as his amendment got a pass and was added to the bill, but the attention quickly pivoted back to Greek life when Attorney General Rahaf Ben Ali stood to make her case.
“The point of ASNMSU is to fund all the students, not just a specific group of students,” Ben Ali said. “Greek life does have their own other sources of funding, so if they want to host an event where they can charge admission, they can use different sources of funding, not ASNMSU.”
With that, a movement was made to return the bill to its original state, met by six hands raised in dissent and a prompt “wow” from Graham-Taylor. A discussion on exactly why there was so much opposition to Bill 275 continued, with everyone from senators to chairmen speaking up on the topic.
While most agreed that ASNMSU events should stay free to the public, a select group of senators stood their ground as to why it wasn’t fair to ban philanthropic events from charging admission with ASNMSU funds. No matter where these discussions led, they ultimately circled back to Greek Life, which a number of ASNMSU senators are a part of.
“Some frats are having events that are sponsored by ASNMSU, however, they are charging an admission fee in order to enter. All ASNMSU programs are supposed to be free to enter. So, Senator Baca is proposing to rewrite the bill to explicitly state that any organizations that are sponsored by ASNMSU cannot charge students to attend their programs. They must be free. A good handful of members are in frats, though, which I think is where most of the discourse comes from,” Said anonymous.
When Ben Ali finished making her case in the bill’s defense, Ortega rose once more to argue in its opposition.
“I see your sentiment, a lot of people don’t do their philanthropy events through ASNMSU, but I wouldn’t like to close that door for the future,” Ortega said.
Sergeant at Arms Saul Hernandez had a quick rebuttal to diffuse the tension with a compromise.
“Why don’t we just put that you can have a separate donation box on the side to donate if you can so you won’t be stopped from going into an event just because you don’t have money, because I know there’s a lot of people that don’t have money,” said Hernandez, receiving several nods of approval from around the room.
Other points of discussion were brought up that these organizations are allowed to sell things at their events for profit, reaffirmation of the donation box idea, and repetition that the Senate money is to help everyone in the student body – specific to the general student body. For most, it was agreed that allowing organizations to sell things or have donation boxes at sponsored events would be a “happy medium.” On the opposite side, the same argument continued; why shouldn’t philanthropic events be allowed to charge admission with ASNMSU funding?
The, according to Graham Taylor, “ridiculous and embarrassing” circular argument ultimately ended in a return to the proposal written in the bill initially, which prevented sponsored events from charging admission fees, receiving a due pass with 18 in the affirmative and eight in the negative. With everything still tense after the lengthy discussion, the Senate finished its meeting.
Before the final remarks, Ortega stood once more to conclude what was a difficult meeting.
“I’m not going to apologize for doing my job as a senator, and I think that when we hound on people for slowing down senate because we want to make sure a bill is correct and everybody knows what’s going on, that just promotes bad culture. So, I’m not going to apologize for slowing down the process to make sure it’s good and correct.” Said Ortega, yielding the last of his time for the closing of the meeting.
