Quorum not met at meeting
House postpones business, vote

By Melissa Christensen
Staff Reporter

The length of the House of Student Representatives meeting Tuesday had nothing to do with the length of the agenda. For the first time this semester, House did not meet quorum and, in accordance with Article 8, Section 1 of the House bylaws, could not conduct business.

The 31 of the 53 elected representatives present were one person shy of the two-thirds requirement. At last week’s meeting, the quorum was met exactly.

House Vice President Amy Render, a sophomore marketing major, said the executive committee did not anticipate the low turnout.

“It’s definitely the representatives’ responsibility to be at these meetings,” she said. “It’s never been the responsibility of the executive or administrative cabinets to phone representatives to get them here.”

Phi Gamma Delta representative Jarrod Hinton, a sophomore e-business and marketing major, said he was not at the meeting because it conflicted with a study session for a test he has today. He also said that although he was late last week, he served as the defining member to meet quorum.

“Meeting quorum is a concern, but everybody has their own busy schedule,” he said. “Some people’s priorities are scheduled a certain way.”

Hinton added that a student’s first responsibility at TCU is his or her academic obligations.

Render said the student body suffers when representatives don’t attend meetings, especially when business is inhibited by not meeting quorum.

“The representatives were elected with the assumption they would accept the responsibility to represent their constituents at every meeting,” she said.

Although no new business was scheduled, one bill involving changes to Student Government Association election codes was set for a vote, but was postponed. Parliamentarian Scott McCray, a junior finance and accounting major, said the postponed vote wouldn’t affect the measure.

“It would have been good to deal with internally, but it doesn’t hurt anything to delay that discussion for a week,” he said.

With two meetings left this semester, McCray said there would still be adequate time to conduct business.

“Unfortunately, we’re hampered because we didn’t have a meeting (Tuesday), but it won’t keep us from getting things done this semester,” he said.

Sherley Hall representative Emily Chung, a sophomore international business major, didn’t give a reason for missing Tuesday’s meeting.

“Actually, (meeting quorum) never crossed my mind,” she said.

Chung refused to comment on her plans to attend future meetings.

Executive officers asked the representatives in attendance to encourage those who weren’t there to come to the last two meetings.

“Their presence and their input is important,” McCray said. “Hopefully this will show them that if they aren’t here, we can’t do anything important.”

McCray said this is the second time in his three-year involvement that he remembers House not meeting quorum.

Melissa Christensen
m.s.christense@student.tcu.edu