Students feeling voiceless in the SGA legislative process might have an avenue to be heard. Lita Waggoner, a junior majoring in public health, introduced a bill to rewrite chapter 604.4 of the SGA Code of Laws to allow students to voice concerns or petition the Senate at the beginning of each Senate session. 

The Code of Laws currently affords students the opportunity but said students should have the opportunity to address the Senate “prior to the adjournment of” the meeting.

Waggoner first came up with the idea for the bill during her Senate campaign. 

“I didn’t like that students had to wait until the end of the meeting because that way they don’t have a set time that they’ve got to be there, and they’d have to sit through the entire meeting in order to get to the end of it to speak,” she said.

With the changes Waggoner’s bill makes to the Code of Laws, students would have the ability to speak at the beginning of each session for up to three minutes. Waggoner said this bill is more considerate of student’s time and allows them to voice concerns over legislation that may be on the docket that night.

“I just want [students] to have the freedom to be able to present themselves,” she said.

The same night that Waggoner’s bill was introduced, Speaker of the Senate Lance McCaskey introduced a resolution that would create a committee to rewrite the Code of Laws. Waggoner said if both pieces of legislation are passed, she hopes that her changes to the Code of Laws would be implemented if a new Code of Laws is written.

“I think everyone is really on board with this so I would imagine that it would probably end up in the next addition of the Code of Laws,” she said.

Waggoner’s bill must first be reviewed and discharged by the Rules Committee before it can be voted on.