Sunday’s meeting of the Student Association brought an important idea to light. Senator Jeff Meyer proposed a bill that would require the SA to bring executive staff members before the Student Senate for approval within two weeks of hiring. The SA voted to waive a second reading in a 17-15 vote Sunday.

The bill states that potential staff members approved by the senate would receive payment for their previous two weeks of work. If they are not approved, then the executive staff members would not be payed at all. This is an essential bill because it would hold the executive staff accountable. It also can protect students from unchecked executive staff actions. Because the senate would have to deal with executive staff on a regular basis, anything involving a system of checks and balances certainly is welcome.

The SA also should consider passing this bill to ensure that vacancies within the SA executive staff would be filled in a timely, responsible manner as is possible with the SA.

Before now, staff members were not approved until the latter stages of the semester. This bill should be viewed as a safeguard to ensure senate votes on appointments. Likewise, if a person is interested in attaining an executive position, then that person only should be paid if he or she is approved by the senate.

The bill does present some problems, however. Notably, what happens to those potential executive members who are hired over the summer? Speaker Kevin Miller pointed out the hypothetical question that if a potential candidate gets nominated over the summer, yet does not get the job when the senate reconvenes in the fall, does that mean that the candidate would have to forfeit a summer’s pay?

The senate, however, should not take advantage of the power it may have over the president if the bill were to be passed. This bill should not be used as a weapon against the president, or any agenda the senate may have against him or her.

On that note, this bill could be viewed as a new beginning for SA cooperation. While the senate can understand that it may have leverage over the president, it would not use this power to stonewall nominees.