The Associated Students of Colorado State University convened for their 12th session of the semester Nov. 17. ASCSU ratified a new associate justice and elections manager and voted on five pieces of legislation.

Julia Patterson was unanimously ratified as an associate justice.

“My dream career is to be a United States supreme court justice, so I believe that this would be an incredible first step towards getting there,” Patterson said. “And it makes me very passionate about the position, which I believe makes me more qualified and I will dedicate everything I can to it because it’s what I want to do with my future. And as a political science major I understand the importance of a constitution and I believe I understand how it can be applied very well.”

Emery Jenkins was unanimously ratified as the elections manager. Jenkins spoke about how there is one demographic in particular that controls how elections are run.

“What I do have a problem with is that it’s such a small percentage of campus who’s actually making the decisions of who is actually in the positions that we are in right now,” Jenkins said. “And I think building a framework that other elections committees can use in the future is going to only serve to increase the number of voters we have year after year and make sure that more students have their voice heard every election cycle.”

ASCSU voted on Resolution 5106, “Dedication to Access,” which intends to dedicate ASCSU “to access and accommodations to itself and its constituents.” The resolution passed.

ASCSU also voted on Resolution 5104, “Faculty/Staff Pay, Salary, and Benefits Audit.” This resolution aims to have CSU address biases in regards to faculty and staff pay.

I trust you all in this space to follow your passions and to write legislation that you really want to write– Lizzy Osterhoudt, chair of the Budgetary Affairs Committee and senator for the Native American Cultural Center

The resolution seeks to have ASCSU encourage CSU to do an audit of faculty and staff pay, salary and benefits, and that this audit examine pay differences “through the lenses of race, gender, ethnicity, education and experience.” The resolution also seeks to have CSU conduct an audit every five years and publish each audit. The resolution passed.

Later, ASCSU voted on Resolution 5105, “Support for a Hunger-Free Campus funding.” This resolution endorses the Hunger-Free Campus Bill put forward by Swipe Out Hunger and asks the Colorado Department of Higher Education to pursue funding solutions to support programs such as Rams Against Hunger. This resolution also passed.

Next, ASCSU debated and voted on Bill 5101, “Senate Job Descriptions,” which updates the 2021-2022 senate job descriptions. ASCSU senate members discussed whether senators should be required to write legislation within a certain time period.

“I trust you all in this space to follow your passions and to write legislation that you really want to write,” said Lizzy Osterhoudt, chair of the Budgetary Affairs Committee and senator for the Native American Cultural Center. “And if it takes more than a year to write legislation, let it be more than a year. I encourage you all to grow into the people and leaders you are here and I don’t want to force you all to do anything that’s outside of your comfort zones and I really want to see great legislation here so I don’t want us to feel forced or hastened by this limitation.”

Senator Alex Silverheart spoke about how writing legislation shouldn’t be required.

“We’re here because we want to make a change and I don’t think we should be forced into making changes that we don’t necessarily believe in or have taken the time to really think about,” Silverheart said.

ASCSU ultimately decided to overrule the authors’ decision and pass the bill.

Lastly, ASCSU voted on Resolution 5107, “Recorded Lectures for Classroom Comprehension,” which aims to introduce mandatory recorded lectures by professors and teaching-assistants. The resolution passed.

Lizzy Osterhoudt also gave a presentation on the Budgetary Affairs Committee which included information on the ASCSU general discretionary fund, senate leadership fund and ASCSU fund balance.

Reach Piper Russell at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @PiperRussell10.