Last Sunday, the Student Association denied a bill that would require a record of who votes on what. Perhaps the SA denied the bill because they are afraid of students knowing the truth.

The proposed bill would have required any votes dealing with funding or salary increases to be recorded in a roll call vote. According to a Nov. 20 Northern Star article, some senators said making the votes available to the public would make the votes personal, especially if they involve an organization requesting funding. Other senators feared public results could hurt them in elections, but that’s the whole point of having an election.

SA senators are elected by the student body. Therefore, those students have the right to know how the senators are representing them.

If votes are made public, students can use that information to make an informed choice during the senate elections. If senators really care about the good of the student body, as they claim, then they should show the students what they are doing for them.

The SA also does not seem to understand ethics and its own bylaws. In last week’s meeting, one student said if the votes were to be made public and they had to vote on funding for an organization they were in, problems could arise. The obvious and ethical solution would be for that senator to abstain from voting and avoid that conflict of interest altogether.

The U.S. Senate records who votes on what bills and that information is open to the American people. Why should the SA be any different? It is not a private entity. The SA serves a public university and its voting information should be public.