At its meeting tonight, Student Congress will consider “a bill to provide greater autonomy to the Carolina Athletic Association.” We believe they should pass it.
Under Title VII of the Student Code, CAA cabinet appointments are subject to the approval of the rules and judiciary committee. This might have made sense in the past when Congress and the CAA worked more closely together. But now, that is no longer the case.
Today, and for as long as anyone can remember, the CAA has functioned as its own organization almost completely independent of Congress.
It does receive a chunk of student fee money from the student athletic fee, but Student Congress does not have any oversight over that allocation.
If passed, the new bill would strike all of Title VII and recognize the CAA as an independent organization. The CAA would then be free to appoint officers without seeking the gratuitous approval of the rules and judiciary committee.
This bill is good because it gets rid of outdated red tape in the Code. The bill’s sponsor and rules and judiciary chairman Zach De La Rosa said both the members of the committee and the leaders of the CAA are in favor of the bill. The CAA even released a statement urging Congress to pass the bill.
From an editorial perspective, this question has an easy answer. Passage of the bill would be a win-win. The rules and judiciary committee wouldn’t have to waste time on the approval of officers in an independent organization, and the CAA would be free from unnecessary regulatory red tape.
We can no longer see any interest the rules and judiciary committee has in approving appointees, especially when CAA presidents are elected by the student body.
Student Congress should pass the bill at tonight’s meeting.
