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If students give the OK, ASUNM will have more senators in its assembly.
In a full Senate meeting March 27, the senators decided to put Bill 15S on the ballot for fall elections. The bill proposes to increase the number of senators that can be elected to the assembly from 20 to 24. Students will have the final say on whether the Senate will expand.
Sens. Brandon Meyers, Earl Shank, Damon Hudson and Taylor Bui sponsored the bill, which the Senate voted unanimously to put on the ballot.
Meyers said he backed the bill because he wanted to see the number of senators be more proportionate to UNM’s increasing student body.
“What we have seen in this campus is a large increase in every facet of how we represent our students,” he said. “This increase in the number of senators is directly proportional to that increase.”
Meyers said the number of student organizations at UNM has increased from 196 to 405 since 1992. Undergraduate enrollment increased from more than 15,000 in 2000 to 21,000 in 2012. ASUNM also added three more student services agencies, Lobo Spirit, Community Experience and Emerging Lobo Leaders, between 2000 and 2012.
ASUNM senators are required to join one of three Senate committees, so to accommodate the expanded senate the bill also increased the size-range of committees from five to seven senators, to seven to nine senators.
Meyers said students are ready to step up for the job, citing the 30 senatorial candidates for this semester’s ASUNM elections, which are set for next week.
ASUNM Sen. Cassie Thompson said she opposed the idea of adding more senators to the assembly because it did not seem feasible. But she said that after thinking about the bill more, she reversed her decision.
“But I do like this now because I think it’s a gradual change that is doable and easier to work into the system,” Thompson said. “I think that we need to change because we are a growing population and that’s not really something I could argue against.”
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