It’s starting to become a bit of a cliché. Last week, another student government organization met to vote on an important issue, but couldn’t gather enough members to actually hold the meeting.

The Council of Graduate Students had planned to approve its budget Wednesday, but the assembly was one member short of quorum - the minimum number of representatives required to be present to vote on issues. The group will try again June 26.

It shouldn’t be complicated to get quorum at a student government meeting. But MSU’s governing groups have struggled with the issue all year.

The Residence Halls Association was accused of spending much of the year misinterpreting its quorum guidelines, taking and enacting votes when it really didn’t have enough members present.

ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, had its own troubles. The ASMSU Student Assembly failed to get quorum the first time it tried to pass its budget for 2002-03. The group was one person short of having the required number of members, leaving some officials to wonder if ASMSU would even be able to make quorum at the later meeting.

Fortunately, the group did.

The situation with COGS, however, brings up another issue. Why is a student government group conducting business as important as passing its annual budget when so many constituents are far away from campus? While COGS officials probably meant well in scheduling this vote for summer, discussion of what to do with student tax dollars by governing groups should be done at a time when as many students are available as possible.

The graduate student government has many important issues to deal with in its next year, including how to handle a decreasing number of graduate students - and their accompanying tax dollars - and how to best work with the new Graduate Employees Union.

How can any of those issues be resolved if no one is there to vote on them?