Hour long debates among members of Student Government occurred at Wednesday’s Senate meeting over several proposed changes to its election code.
Students addressed their concerns for changes to the on-campus campaigning rules and the spending limits for general election tickets.
Lane Pace, a political science junior and the speaker pro tempore who authored the bill, said his main objective in changing the election code was to improve the University’s voter turnout.
“We have the lowest voter turnout in the SEC at 22 to 23 percent,” Pace said. Pace suggests that increasing the usage of social media in campaigns would improve the turnout.
Members of Senate voiced mixed opinions concerning the bill’s proposal for the removal of a rule prohibiting the SG president and vice president from publicly endorsing any campaign or candidate.
Public relations junior and Deputy Chief T. Graham S. Howell said the change is being made because there should not be a rule that prohibits someone’s freedom of speech.
“You can’t put a limit on someone’s free speech, it’s not interfering with education, it’s not any kind of LSU software and we can’t tell people what they can and cannot say,” Howell said.
But political science sophomore Christian Glorioso disagreed with the removal of the rule because the SG president is a representation of the student body.
“The president of the student body can’t endorse a ticket whenever he is in fact the representative of the entire student body [because] it’s almost like he’s casting the deciding vote by saying ‘I endorse this,’” Glorioso said.
Pane explained that the president would be able to endorse the candidate personally, but not on the behalf of SG.
“They still can’t say ‘I am the Student Government president, and I endorse this,’” he said.
Although Senate moved to postpone the passage of the bill for next week, Speaker of Senate Meredith Westbrook and Pace praised the senators for their strong debate.
Student Government did however unanimously pass a resolution to request a reevaluation of the emergency evacuation plan.
SG President Taylor Cox discussed how he and would like to create an emergency student fee for instances where a student has a death in the family and needs funds to travel home and attend the funeral.
