Wolfpack Students and Student Government both live to fight another day as the Student Senate heard and voted against bills on Monday night to terminate the Wolfpack Students Facebook group and also to abolish Student Government as a whole.
The Wolfpack Students Termination Act failed with two senators voting for the bill and only one senator speaking in its favor.
Many senators, including one of the bill’s sponsors, referred to the termination bill a “nuclear option,” claiming that action must be taken to limit the use of speech on the internet that does not conform to the ideals of Student Government.
“While the nuclear option should always be on the table, it’s not always the right option,” said Sean Harrington, a junior studying political science and proxy for Jack Pashby, a senator representing the College of Engineering and a junior studying nuclear engineering.
Other senators emphasized the student body’s disagreement with the plan to terminate the Facebook group. Madison Maloney, a senator representing the College of Engineering and junior studying aerospace engineering, cited a poll on Wolfpack Students asking members of the group to vote on whether WPS should be terminated. Maloney stated that 183 voted to keep the group up and running while 16 voted to terminate the group.
“If we’re representatives of the student body, we have to vote no on this bill,” Maloney said. “If you vote yes, you don’t represent the student body.”
Coleman Simpson, a senator representing College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and sophomore studying agricultural education, spoke about the importance of having conversations like these and, while he didn’t support the bill, emphasized the need to explore all options.
“We need to keep the conversation going, deleting it ends the conversation,” Simpson said. “I strongly urge everyone to vote no on this bill, but I strongly urge everyone to talk to their constituents.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Mitchell Moravec, a senator respresenting College of Humanities and Social Sciences and senior studying psychology and materials science, sponsored both the Wolfpack Students Termination act and the Student Government Termination Act. The sponsoring of the latter bill led to the Moravec Censure Act, an act attempting to censure Moravec for what the sponsors of the bill call an abuse of his power as Senate president pro tempore.
While the Moravec Censure Act was sent to committee, the Student Government Termination Act was fast-tracked to be voted on with 49 against and 0 in favor.
While Moravec was the bill’s only sponsor, he said that he was not in favor of it passing, explaining that the only reason he chose to sponsor the bill was to bring to light this specific student concern.
“I do not support this bill in any way shape or form,” Moravec said. “We should be held accountable to what students think.”
Moravec ended his discussion by urging all senators to “please vote no.”
Three students who helped write the bill were present at the meeting and declined to speak publicly, but agreed to an interview with Technician.
“It started as a joke after the WPS termination bill,” said Dustin Bizub, a senior studying aerospace engineering. “We did it to kind of poke fun at how seriously [the senators] take their jobs.”
Bizub, along with John Crick, a senior studying applied mathematics, and John Larson, a senior studying electrical engineering, agreed that they knew the bill was going to fail but they just wanted it to be read on the Senate floor.
Bizub brought up other concerns he has with Student Government including the questionability of what Student Government does with student fees and how much power Student Senate actually has, claiming that in his years at NC State, he has never heard of any important legislation the Senate has passed.
“We pay student fees and they don’t do anything of value with it,” Bizub said.
Jacob Trubey contributed to the reporting of this story.