SGA House and Senate passes resolutions on vending machines, excused absences on voting days
Two new pieces of legislation were introduced in the Student Government Association House and Senate tonight.
A Resolution in Support for the Implementation of VendingMisers and a Resolution to Support the Creation of a Policy Ensuring Excused Absences for Students who are Voting and the Suspension of Exams and Presentations on Election Day were brought before both bodies for the first time.
Both passed unanimously in the House. In the Senate, the Resolution in Support for the Implementation of VendingMisers passed unanimously while the resolution calling for excused absences on voting days passed with a 13-2 vote.
The first resolution calls for the installation of misers which would limit energy flow to the machines. Each vending machine costs Central Michigan University $278 per vending machine a year in energy costs, according to the resolution. With the miser installed, CMU could save up to $138 per vending machine by making sure parts of the machine, such as a light or a cooling fan, are on a low power mode when not in use.
“While the machine is at the temperature is to be at or when it can sense that the area (is a) low traffic area (where people are not walking by), the machine would shut off its light,” said Senator Derek Sturvist. “There are basically no negatives to (the resolution) outside the initial costs of $189 (for buying the misers).”
Sturvist said he contacted Facilities Management about the logistics of installing misers on the vending machines prior to the drafting of the resolution.
With minor, friendly amendments made to the resolution due to grammatical issues, the resolution passed.
The second piece of legislation brought before the Senate tonight, involving cancelling exams or projects on voting days, was not passed as easily.
This same resolution was originally introduced in the House and Senate on Feb. 1 and failed to pass because supplemental material was not added to the resolution to back up assertions made. This included naming organizations, such as workplaces, who do provide voting days off for their employees and naming the deans of academic colleges who supported the resolution.
Senator Austin Blessing and Charlevoix senior Taylor Ackerman co-authored the piece, and nine organizations, including College Democrats, College Republicans and Amnesty International, and three SGA sub-committees voiced their support for the resolution.
While many in the Senate liked the legislation, they were wary about what the resolution would accomplish.
“This legislation doesn’t give anyone any extra power to skip that they didn’t have before,” said Senator Ben Stowers. “Any (student) can skip on any given day for any reason, but we don’t because we pay for the class or whatever their reason is. It doesn’t give anyone the extra power to skip. It just takes away the power of a professor to assign something serious (like an exam or presentation) and require a student to be (present) on (voting days).”
After establishing that the resolution would specifically ask for days off so students could vote in the Michigan presidential primaries and the presidential election, and several grammatical amendments, the resolution passed.
SGA will hold their next general board meeting at 8 p.m. next Monday in Anspach 162. The Senate meeting, however, will be cancelled.
