By Amanda Falzon

Tired of senate members bailing out of Student Government Association meetings, causing amendments to the SGA constitution to be tabled over and over again, the senate passed legislation on Tuesday to remedy the issue.

Now, legislation that would have taken two-thirds of the senate giving a “yea” vote to pass, only requires with affirmative votes from five-sixths of senators present instead.

“I proposed this to deal with the difficulty the senate has been having on taking fair votes on passing amendments to the constitution and bi-laws,” Josh Lanier, the author of the legislation, said. “We have had this problem because so many of our senators have class or other places to be during the time of our senate meetings. The consequences have been that we need nearly unanimous consent of the senators who are present in order to pass any amendments.”

Although Lanier said he is concerned about senate members not being present at meetings, he said he believes this new amendment will help the SGA do what it is intended to do: be the voice of the students of the University.

“My intention was to make the senate more representative of the actual students and clubs we serve,” Lanier said. “I am concerned by the amount of senators who regularly cannot make meetings, yet, I believe that this problem has no easy solution that will prove to be practical. So, of course I will work to remedy this problem, but we must not sacrifice our primary goal as effective representatives of the students while we sort out our own bureaucratic entanglements.”

Carlos Cruz, the co-sponsor of the legislation, said the amendment is a temporary solution.

“It’s not addressing the problem, it’s addressing the symptoms.” Cruz said. “We don’t have enough senators that A, show up, or B, stick around.” He said when poor attendance and senators leaving early is no longer an issue, the fix-sixths rule will probably be appealed. “You don’t keep taking cold medicine when the cold is gone.”

Three senate members did not vote in favor of the amendment, including Patrick McDonald, the commuting students representative.

“It is bad policy to change long-term rules for short-term problems,” McDonald said. “Instead of accepting the fact that 12 senators simply disappear every week, we should be working to make those senators appear; we should not be muting the voices of people who may have legitimate excuses and neuter the minority of its rights, merely for the sake of expediency.”

Another senate member, Kathleen Hunker was also strongly against passing the amendment. “Personally, I think the principles of democracy come before efficiency and expediency,” Hunker said. “The senate doesn’t necessarily agree with the legislation, they just believe that something is necessary to be done in order to allow us to address legislation currently on the table.” Hunker said something needs to be done to address senate efficiency, but Lanier and Cruz’s amendment is not the answer, and it “is violating the principles of SGA [and] the principles of majority rule.”

Lanier, agreed his proposal is “fundamentally un-democratic,” but added it “will be beneficial for the students and clubs of Hofstra University.”