The Associated Students of Madison voted to revisit the possibility of creating a sustainability grassroots committee within the student government in a meeting Wednesday.
ASM will reconsider the committee in a Student Council meeting next week, and it will have to pass with a vote of two-thirds’ majority.
Last week, Student Council voted against the creation of this committee within ASM by a vote of 12 against and nine in favor. In order to pass last week, the proposal would have required a vote of two-thirds’ majority.
ASM Chair Andrew Bulovsky said because many representatives showed interest, it was expected ASM would revisit the idea of a sustainability grassroots committee.
“Revisiting doesn’t happen very often,” Bulovsky said. “It’s definitely rare.”
Bulovsky said voting next week will include new ASM freshmen representatives, who will be sworn into the student government at the upcoming meeting. He said it will be interesting to see if the addition of these voters will affect the results.
Bulovsky said approving the committee could be a two-week process. He said if the proposal passes next week, Student Council will then take a vote to approve the committee at the following ASM meeting.
If the proposal is voted down next week, Bulovsky said they will not be able to revisit the possibility of a sustainability grassroots committee again because the student government is only allowed to motion to reconsider something once.
As to whether or not a sustainability grassroots committee will benefit ASM, Bulovsky said it is almost impossible to say if it will be good or bad. However, he said the addition of this committee could draw attention to more issues on campus.
Bulovsky said generally, committees like this are almost never added to ASM. He said the four primary existing grassroots committees, including University Affairs, Legislative Affairs, Shared Governance and Diversity Committee, are much older.
University of Wisconsin student Trager Metge attended the meeting and spoke in open forum from the position of a concerned student in favor of the creation of a sustainability grassroots committee within ASM. He said he was there to represent other students who do not necessarily have a voice but need one.
“As ASM it’s your responsibility to represent what students are thinking about and what students are caring about,” Metge said. “These days it’s sustainability, it’s the way the world is turning and what more focus is turning to.”
UW student and member of F.H. King Girard Gorelick said in open forum he supports the idea of a sustainability grassroots committee within ASM as a tremendous opportunity for the student government and body.
Gorelick said because the UW Office of Sustainability wants to work with students, the creation of this committee would serve as a tremendous opportunity to have a direct voice from the student body to the university at such a high scale.
Gorelick said students want a voice to tackle sustainability issues in an institutional level beyond just an academic one.
“I think it would be a big step forward to create this committee, but I also think it would be a huge step backward not to,” Gorelick said.
