Last Thursday the Student Government Asssociation voted down a constitutional amendment that would create a new senator for veteran students. To pass the amendment would have needed a supermajority, two thirds of SGA to vote for. The amendment garnered only seven votes in favor.

Bobby Robaina the senator for transfer students introduced the amendment, and said that it would be a great opportunity for SGA to pave the way as most university’s student governments don’t have a representative for veteran students. He continued to say that DePaul has more than 500 veteran students, which is greater than the amount of students that attend the Theatre School or the Music School which both have SGA representation.

The SGA Constitutional Revision Board however did not support the amendment after Roaina had proposed it to them. They argued that veteran students were already being represented by other senators that cover their year in the school or college that they are in. They also felt that there would be a lack of interest from veteran students in running for the position.

Sarah Rens, the vice president of SGA, compared the position to that of the senator for adult students which was eliminated at the beginning of their year because there was a lack of interest from students to fill the position.

Brandon Davis, the SGA treasurer, said he felt that creating the position would open the door for many other constituent groups to push for their own senator that fall under already established senators.

During the discussion several other members of SGA thought that creating the position was premature and wanted to see how the position of liaison for the Office of Veteran Services grew over the next year. The liaison positions were created by SGA this year to help represent voices from students groups that were underrepresented on the body. Liasions however do not get a vote in SGA.

The amendment failed to pass with seven votes for, 10 against, and five abstentions.