When the Student Government Association passes legislation, many students don't know what comes next so that the changes can actually be implemented on campus.
In SGA, there are four types of legislation that can go through senate: a bill, resolution, senate order and amendment, according to the SGA Bylaws.
- A Bill
- Creates official SGA policies, rules, and regulations
- Only used for matters within SGA
- A bill is something that creates rules for SGA members
- Resolution
- Formalized SGA opinions, views or calls to action
- Not limited to just SGA matters
- A resolution helps to make changes at Ball State that students feel strongly about
- Senate Order
- Formalized recognitions for on-campus individuals, student organizations and other groups
- A senate order gives recognition to individuals and organizations, such as custodial staff
- Formalized recognitions for on-campus individuals, student organizations and other groups
- Amendment
- Adds to the SGA Bylaws
- This adds or changes the SGA governing documents, but is rarely ever used because SGA reviews and rewrites the documents every year or two.
- Adds to the SGA Bylaws
Jack Hesser, SGA president, said the most common piece of legislation is a resolution because it calls to action student opinions.
“They formalize the ideas and write up students’ opinions, their feedback and it's written up and proposed in a way that it can move forward,” Hesser said.
He said just because the resolutions are written up and proposed in student senate doesn’t mean they will make it all the way through the higher channels.
It has to go through the legislation process first:
1. Legislation must be authored and sponsored by a senator
2. It must then be submitted to the chair of the Agenda Committee of Student Senate, where they will decide if the bill if ready to go to Student Senate
3. Student Senate will hear and discuss the legislation and go through three readings — one in Agenda and two in Student Senate
4. Student Senate will then vote on the legislation
5. Legislation then moves on to be signed by the SGA president
- If legislation is vetoed, senate can overthrow the veto with a two-thirds vote
6. Legislation then moves onto University Governance and repeats the process. It has to go through:
- Campus Counsel
- University Agenda
- Faculty Counsel
- University Senate
7. If passed by University Senate, the legislation goes to the president of the university, where it can be signed and implemented, or vetoed
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