The Student Government Senate voted down a resolution to “urge the Louisiana legislature to adopt the Flagship Coalition plan to sustain the competitiveness of Louisiana State University” at Wednesday night’s Senate meeting that lasted more than four hours.
 
Sen. Emily Landry, E.J. Ourso College of Business, was one of the authors of the resolution, and she said plans of the Flagship Coalition, a group of influential businesspeople formed to lobby to the Legislature on behalf of the University, would reduce bureaucracy. However, many questions were raised throughout the night about the effect the Flagship Coalition plan would have on increasing tuition.
 
Sen. Cody Wells, University Center for Advising and Counseling, said while the Louisiana Constitution says tuition increases must go through the legislature, raising fees is a loophole for “disguised tuition increases.”
 
Other senators said they wanted to look into the LA GRAD Act and propose as many options as possible before resorting to tuition increases.
 
Despite Landry’s claim that “we need to be competitive as LSU,” the resolution failed.
 
“We took a stand against the governor and against old-time politics,” Wells said, expressing his pride for the Senate failing the bill.
 
In other business, the Senate allocated $3,500 from the Student Senate Contingency Account to the LSU Chapter of the American Veterinary Medicine Association to attend the 2011 Student American Veterinary Medical Association Symposium.
 
More than 20 representatives from the Vet School attended the meeting in support of the bill and the senators commended the representatives for raising $6,000 by themselves to help cover trip costs.
 
“Exposure in the field in one of the most important things employers look for,” said Sen. Scott Sullivan, College of Sciences. “This is very important for them.”
 
The Senate also passed a bill to amend the SG Rules of Court concerning the procedures for issuing injunctions.
 
Sen. Chris Sellers, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said as of now, either the chief justice of the University Court or two associate justices can choose to injunct something, and once they have, they have formed an opinion on it. Thus, Sellers said, it is biased for them to sit on the UCourt when the case about the injunction is being heard.
 
Sellers said that the bill does not disrupt SG’s flow of checks and balances because the hearings themselves should be considered “checks,” not the actual injunctions.
 
“I think that this is going to strengthen the process of the judicial branch,” Sellers said.
 
Several UCourt representatives attended the meeting, and they spoke in opposition of the bill. One of their arguments was the UCourts at LSU’s peer universities operate in similar fashions, and the UCourt at University of Alabama has more power for injunctions than the University.
 
UCourt Chief Justice Danielle Rushing said if a justice does not recuse him or herself during a hearing in which he or she may have a conflict of interest, there can be a challenge hearing.
 
Rushing also spoke on behalf of Jacob Ecker, judicial aide, who was not present for the meeting. She quoted him as saying justices should have the power to look into legislation since they have the most expertise regarding interpretation and that the Senate should not question the impartiality of justices.
 
However, many senators, including Senate Speaker Brooksie Bonvillan, said the injunction process needed to change, and thus passed the bill.
 
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Contact Andrea Gallo at [email protected]