Every week for the past month or so, throngs of students have appeared at the otherwise sparsely attended Student Senate meetings to argue their points either for or against a proposed resolution regarding certain language within Senate Bill 5 (also known as Issue 2) that directly affects students.
This past Wednesday, a motion to vote on the resolution was brought up — and failed to pass.
What was most disturbing, though, was the way it failed. There were more votes for the motion than there were against it, but a large enough quantity of senators abstained from voting to prevent the majority required to pass the motion.
There might be various reasons why voters abstained. There were a few proxies, filling in for senators who were mysteriously absent, though those senators could have certainly made their opinions clear ahead of time.
A few might have felt that they didn’t have enough constituent input — despite the numerous students who turned up to the meetings to defend their sides of the issue and despite the fact that senators had almost a month from when the resolution first appeared to talk to their constituents.
But what the refusal to vote suggested more than anything was that the senators just didn’t care. It re-enforced the stereotype that the current collegiate generation is plagued by indifference, and it belittles the work of the hundred-plus students who took hours out of their study time to appear in front of the senate and discuss the resolution.
I am exceedingly disappointed and frustrated that Student Senate does not care about the opinions of the students it allegedly represents.
Jack Obora is a freshman who has yet to declare an area of study.
