At Tuesday night's meeting of the Student Senate, the Unite Party passed a bill called the Executive Order Establishment Act, a bill that represents a serious threat to the democratic process within Student Government.
Myself and several other Orange and Blue Party senators brought up legitimate points against the bill, but the majority party passed it anyway.
First, the bill is illegal, as it attempts to force Senate to give up powers to the executive branch, which is illegal under the Student Body Constitution.
Second, it's just bad policy. We live in a nation that supports separation of powers in government, and we should not allow Student Body President Jordan Johnson to circumvent the Senate's authority to establish agencies and set their level of funding. And this year, the executive branch's budget proposal is structured so that President Johnson has almost unilateral power over funding, with a "slush fund" that he can give to agencies as he sees fit. Coincidence? I don't think so.
All this bill does is concentrate even more power in an executive branch that constantly oversteps its bounds. The bill's author said these provisions were legal at other universities like UCF and USF, but UCF and USF aren't riddled with SG corruption. After all, both of these schools have online voting for SG elections, so I ask the Unite Party, why don't we copy them in that manner as well?
The answer is clear: because online voting won't help the Unite Party. Irresponsibly increasing President Johnson's power does.
