Registered student organizations will no longer be required to send representatives to Student Government Association meetings in order to receive funding.

After a heated debated in the SGA senate, the RSO bill passed with a two-thirds majority, after passing in the SGA House of Representatives several weeks earlier.

“This now allows RSOs to receive funding for events or conferences through SGA without actually having to send one of their members to our general meetings,” said Colleen McNeely, SGA vice president and Brighton junior.

Though RSOs won’t have to send a member to the general meeting, those who don’t have to submit the proper paperwork in order to receive funding.

“This basically creates two options so that students who want to participate in SGA are the ones who come and students who don’t want to participate don’t have to but can still be eligible for funding,” McNeely said.

House of Representatives member and Southfield sophomore Daryan Edmonds opposed the RSO bill.

“I still plan on going to the general meetings because they are only once a week and that isn’t a huge inconvenience. I represent one of the few predominantly black RSOs, so I feel it is very important to stay informed,” Edmonds said. “They shouldn’t have made it where you don’t have to attend any meetings. It would have been better for there to be a certain amount of meetings you had to attend per semester.”

The bill passed in the Senate was very similar to a bill voted down earlier in the semester. But the vote taken this time allowed all of the new senators to voice their concerns on the issue through their vote.

SGA President Vince Cavataio, a Shelby Township senior, supported the bill and said he views it as a step closer to making SGA a unicameral governing body instead of the current bicameral system.

“It’s better to have a small group of dedicated members than a large group of members who are forced to be here,” Cavataio said. “If many of the House members did unfortunately stop coming, we could add 15 more seats to the Senate and have a unicameral system.”

During the meeting, Mount Pleasant junior Alexa Holtgreive beat out two other candidates in a special election for the treasurer position.

The treasurer seat became vacant after former-treasurer Killian Richeson stepped down from the position because of personal reasons.

SGA is also now urging members of the Michigan Senate to not pass House Bill 4770. If passed, this bill would end the benefits for unmarried partners working at public institutions in Michigan, which includes Central Michigan University.

Benefits that partners would lose include health care.

“This proposed bill is a direct attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community,” said SGA Diversity Chairman Justin Gawronski. “This will prevent members of the LGBTQ community from staying in Michigan or bringing new talents to Michigan’s economy.”

“If this bill passes, it will affect 22 unmarried (CMU) employees’ partners who are currently collecting benefits,” Cavataio said. “CMU and the University of Michigan are the only 2 universities in Michigan that extend spousal benefits to partners and members of the LGBTQ (community).”

If a member of the LGBTQ community who works at CMU or U-M has been in a long-term relationship, their partners qualify for spousal benefits. If HB 4770 is passed, this will no longer be the case.

“Since marriage or domestic partnership isn’t offered as an option in Michigan, LGBTQ partners deserve to get spousal rights,” said Detroit sophomore Nakiya Watson.

SGA also moved forward with its plans to mail postcards to the Michigan Senate to show its support for the current Medical Amnesty Bill being proposed.

The postcards say, “I am a Central Michigan University student that supports SB 258, also referred to as the Medical Amnesty Bill,” and then in smaller print goes into detail on what the bill does and urges for bipartisan support for it.