ASUNM President Jaymie Roybal vetoed a bill she said she did not believe “was in the best interest of the student body,” instead of letting students vote on the issue.
Senate Bill 6, a bill recommending raising the ASUNM student fee from $20 to $25, passed the ASUNM Senate in March and would have gone before a vote of students as a constitutional amendment during Wednesday’s elections. The amendment would have required a two-thirds majority vote of students to pass, according to the ASUNM Constitution. Roybal said she did not know the bill would have required a two-thirds vote of students in order to pass.
Roybal said she vetoed the bill on the last day permitted by the law book, which would have left senators with two days to call an emergency meeting had they wanted to override her veto.
The deadline to submit a bill to be included on the ballot for Wednesday’s elections was March 26, according to Elections Director Claire Mize.
Roybal received the bill on March 8, a Thursday, and waited six school days to veto it, as allowed by the law book. But spring break ran from March 11-18, and Roybal wasn’t required to veto the bill until March 22. Once senators had a chance to review the veto on the 23rd, they would have had just two days following the 24-hour required notice to re-pass the bill by the 26th.
The amendment would have increased funding availability for student groups on campus.
Roybal said she opposed an increase in fees for students who already face financial hardships to attend school.
“I did not believe raising the ASUNM fee was in the best interest of the student body as a whole,” she said. “The Senate could have called an emergency meeting and overridden the veto, but they didn’t.”
When asked why she did not believe students should vote on the issue, she declined to comment.
ASUNM Sen. Tyler Crawley, who was one of the bill’s sponsors, said there was not enough time to override the veto, despite support for the bill. The Senate originally passed the bill 16-1-1.
“We didn’t find out she had vetoed it until Friday at the Budget Summit,” Crawley said. “We would have had to get a majority of senators by that afternoon, call an emergency session that day, to convene on Monday by 5 p.m. There was not enough time.”
While the law book does not prohibit emergency meetings on Saturday or Sunday, Crawley said he was not aware he could have called a meeting over the weekend.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
ASUNM Sen. and Finance Chair Isaac Romero said some Senate members had considered an emergency meeting, but it was never officially proposed.
“There just wasn’t enough time to put it back in,” he said. “I think people considered calling an emergency meeting, but that would have taken one-third of the senators, or the president or vice president … she signed it at the last possible second.”
Crawley said he is working with other members of the finance committee to create a new bill dealing with student fees that will be more flexible, rather than resubmitting the bill this year.
“I want to develop our funding source so that it grows or decreases with the needs of students and ASUNM,” he said. “We shouldn’t … have to do this with a constitutional amendment every 10 years.”
Sen. Brandyn Jordan, who also sponsored the bill, said he is looking at how other universities allocate student fees to try to develop a more comprehensive model.
