Senate Bill 5 was introduced and asked to leave within minutes at last week’s Ohio University Student Senate meeting, but this week, senate executives said they made a mistake.
Last Wednesday, State and Federal Affairs Commissioner Taylor Abbott requested to have a resolution condemning the wording of SB 5 to the agenda, but the motion was denied because Senate President Kyle Triplett said that not enough voting members supported the addition.
This week, though, senate executives said their mandate that two thirds of voting members needed to approve the addition was not in accordance with senate’s constitution or Robert’s Rules of Order, a guidebook for parliamentary organizations.
At last week’s meeting, 18 senate members approved the resolution’s addition, nine opposed it and eight abstained from the vote. Triplett initially said the 51 percent approval vote was not enough, stating the motion required a two-thirds vote in order to bring the resolution up for discussion.
Student Senate has since reviewed the rules and has determined that a two-thirds vote is needed for very few procedures. The SB 5 resolution is not one of them, Vice President Roger Jones said.
Robert’s Rules state that adding a resolution to the agenda requires only a simple majority vote — 50 percent of voting members plus one, Jones said.
Abbott said he contacted officials from Robert’s Rules in order to clear up the confusion and found that last week’s decision was incorrect.
“We did drop the ball with that one,” Jones said. “We do know that, and we do take responsibility for that.”
Triplett consulted with other senate members and made it clear before the vote at last week’s meeting that two-thirds of voters would need to approve the addition, he said.
“I take the fall,” Triplett said. “It’s completely my fault. I should have looked harder (at Robert’s Rules).”
Student Senate has used Robert’s Rules as a guide in the past, said Jesse Neader, last year’s senate president.
“I was a proponent of Robert’s Rules,” he said. “We have always used them. I tried to follow them to a ‘T.’ ”
Robert Leary, who served as Student Senate president during the 2009-2010 academic year, said he made decisions that violated Robert’s Rules as well.
“I know that I made mistakes with the parliamentary procedure, but there’s nothing really ever done that is irreversible,” he said.
Several weeks ago, Abbott proposed the SB 5 resolution for the first time, and Triplett chose to leave it off the agenda. Leary said that during his year as president, he never made that decision.
“If you keep it from appearing on the agenda, you squash someone’s voice,” he said.
Abbott said that, weeks after drafting the SB 5 resolution, he still believes senate should take a stance on the bill that limits public workers’ collective bargaining rights because it affects students.
“I guarantee that if this bill passes, the quality of service at this university will be dramatically decreased,” he said.
Triplett cited the belief of student organizations such as College Republicans, which urged senate not to pass the resolution because not all students agree on the bill, in his reluctance to have senate take a side on the SB 5 debate. He added that the task of responding to SB 5 should fall to a different legislative group at OU.
“I recognize that this is an important issue,” he said. “But this would be better dealt with in a Faculty or Classified Senate.”
The resolution will be introduced to the board again at tonight’s meeting, Abbott said. It will make the agenda with a simple majority vote.
However, many are looking forward to the end of discussing SB 5 in senate.
“Our focus this week is on other things,” Jones said. “We’re trying to move on. This last month has been dominated by SB 5. We’re trying not to have a quarter of SB 5.”
sj950610@ohiou.edu
— Alex Felser and Alex Westerh contributed to this article.
This article was corrected from its original form. It originally said Robert Leary said "there's nothing really ever done that isn't irreversible."
