Student Government President Cody Wells has been catching flack recently concerning his decision to neither sign nor veto the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history month resolution. The most recent critic is The Daily Reveille’s well-respected columnist, Xerxes A. Wilson.
Wilson lambasts Wells for his apparent irrational decision to not take any action on the resolution. However, there is a precedent for actively choosing to not sign a bill.
Presidents and governors have done the same thing in the past, issuing a non-signing statement to clarify the situation. However, it is the president’s duty to execute the legislative branch’s actions.
Therefore, in cases in which the president feels a bill may be constitutionally unsound, he or she must weigh all options and decide to act as an executor while also fulfilling his role as an interpreter.
This letter would not be warranted had Wilson stopped with his concern for President Wells’ actions. Unfortunately, Wilson continued his critique and inconsequentially dragged the entire LSU Student Government organization through the mud.
Wilson writes, “SG is a toothless organization with its stars carrying less name recognition … than the custodians who clean our bathrooms.”
First, I’d like to thank the custodians for their outstanding service and easy-going, approachable attitudes. Having said that, SG is not a talent show in which people try to show off and get ahead. For the most part, SG members are doing their best to make LSU a better place for current and future students.
Instead of listing every last thing SG has done this year — as I’m sure The Daily Reveille will soon publish its semiannual article reporting which pushcard initiatives our administration has accomplished to date — , I’ll focus on some relatively recent accomplishments from our academic department.
SG has been instrumental in introducing wintersession, creating the student scheduling wait-list system, extending the drop date by 24 hours and decreasing the approved workload during the concentrated study period by half.
Honestly, I don’t believe the majority of students know SG has accomplished these initiatives. With the possible exception of Wells and any of their involved friends, I don’t believe a majority of students could name anyone in SG. I don’t believe students really care to discover what we do for them.
The truth is apathy runs rampant in our society. For the most part, people, especially college students, don’t have any idea what the president is up to. Sadly, I don’t have to specify if this is concerning Cody Wells or Barack Obama — it holds true in both cases.
LSU Student Government is here to improve the lives of students on campus in any way we can. We could care less who reads about it in The Reveille or if our names get out there and are sung on high. All we care about is doing our part to ensure LSU’s continuing success.
John Parker Ford
Chief of Staff
LSU Student Government