Of the 12 ballot measures Florida voters will weigh in on as they head to the polls in the days leading up to the Nov. 6 election, the last of these is arguably the most obscure: it doesnt implicate taxes or revenues, and doesnt address any controversial social issues.
If passed by 60 percent of the voters, Amendment 12 the Florida Appointment Process for State University System Board of Governors Revision Amendment would change the way the state selects the student representative who sits on the Florida Board of Governors (BOG).
Article IX, Section 7(d) of the Florida Constitution establishes the BOG to operate, regulate, control, and be fully responsible for the management of the whole university system. The Board has 17 members, 14 of whom are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. One of the remaining three officers must be a university student who is serving as the president of the Florida Student Association (FSA).
The FSA is a private, nonprofit research and advocacy organization consisting of each of the 12 state universities student government presidents. Until this year, the FSA required participating universities to pay thousands of dollars in membership dues, which Florida State University declined to tender. Amendment 12 creates a new council of student body presidents made up of all state university student government presidents, even if their schools are not members of the FSA. The president of this new group would be the student representative on the BOG.
Though dues are no longer imposed, the FSA could always decide to reinstitute them at a future date.
You shouldnt have to pay dues to a private organization in order to be a school from which we choose the student representative who sits on the Board of Governors, Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, tells Sunshine State News. This is a more fair, open, and transparent way of selecting that representative.
Montford sponsored the bipartisan legislation placing the measure on the ballot; it passed the Republican-dominated Legislature almost unanimously.
The system we have in place is a good one; I dont think we need to come up with another scheme to seat a student representative on the Board of Governors, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, one of the three legislators who opposed the measure, tells the News. If the system works and this, in my opinion, is working we should just leave it alone.
Montford doesnt agree. He suggests that the current method of choosing the student representative runs against the grain of the states democratic values.
Theres something unsettling to me, to think that a student government presidents school might have to pay dues to be a private association to be considered for appointment to the Board of Governors, he says. Thats just not the way we normally do things in Florida.
Reach Eric Giunta ategiunta@sunshinestatenewsor at (954) 235-9116.
