A bill requiring all SGA senators to hold one office hour per week was struck down at the March 13 meeting.

The bill was amended at the March 6 meeting to include senators, University Program Council delegates, Freshman Forum members and members of the judicial branch. The bill was tabled to allow senators to get feedback from other branches before taking a vote.

UPC delegates and Freshman Forum members informally voted against the bill.

Informal votes do not have weight in determining whether a bill will pass or fail, but they allow senators to gauge the opinions of the other branches.

The bill was amended again on the Senate floor March 13 to remove Freshman Forum, UPC and the judicial branch requiring only senators to hold one office hour per week, beginning fall 2014.

Freshman Wendie Robinson thinks all SGA members should have set office hours to be available for students.

“Not only senators, but also UPC and the other branches should be in the office for students to come talk to them,” Robinson said. “What if I have a question for a UPC member about an upcoming event? I want to know who is voicing our opinions.”

The intent of the original bill was to apply it only to senators, said student senator Adam McCollum, co-author of the bill.

“We just wanted senators to be held accountable to students and improve visibility on campus,” McCollum said. “I don’t think we should require the other branches to spend an hour in the office each week if they don’t agree with that.”

If SGA members had voted in favor of the mandatory office hour each week, they would have needed to advertise their availability to students, said senior Megan Marks.

“I think if students knew about SGA members holding an office hour, they would go talk to them about what’s going on,” Marks said. “For any club on campus you have requirements you have to do — otherwise it’s just a resume booster.”

Finding out what students think about campus topics would be easy if SGA members just ask students what they think, said senior Caleb Hester.

“They could just go to the GUC or come to The Commons and just ask students what they think,” Hester said. “It would be more effective than letting them come to the office.”

McCollum said he will be working with senators to draft another piece of legislation requiring office hours for SGA members.

“We might come up a bill requiring just the chairpersons to have office hours before we take a bigger step to require all senators or SGA members,” McCollum said.