In junior “House of Cards” fashion, the house of delegates were upset to discover that its refreshed codes didn’t make it out of the student senate’s rabbit hole in one piece. Somewhere between the house passing the codes and the senate voting on them, the language had changed, but so far no one has been willing to call it anything more than a miscommunication.
We get it. People make mistakes. To err is human, but apparently, to dodge responsibilty is governmental.
The original codes recognized the house of delegates as its own independent entity and established the body itself. They also mandate that the student senate could not alter the house’s legislation without the explicit consent of the house. But that clause seems to have been lost in the mix. After realizing there were gaps in the original codes, the House passed Chapter 7 as an addendum. Once the chapter made it into the senate’s hands, changes were made, reflecting a lack of rapport between the two bodies. They were made without any approval from the house.
To make the melodrama worse, the senate passed the new chapter before anyone realized there were discrepancies. This means that Chapter 7 and the 700 codes are both active, which is unconstitutional.
Ultimately, the whole affair appears to just be sloppy, but nothing that time won’t solve. A proverbial bandage will mend Student Government’s boo-boo. If anything, the unapproved changes are only a slight embarrassment.
But what’s most concerning is the lack of accountability. If Student Government wants to be taken seriously, they need to take themselves seriously, and that means someone needs to accept responsibility for making a mistake.
We aren’t trying to kick them while they’re down; we just want them to know how they can pick themselves up from issues like this.
Student Government has done a great deal of good for the school and are a valuable addition to college landscape, but sometimes they make mistakes, too.
In this case, the biggest challenge is simply acknowledging the error.