The president was granted the ability to veto legislation after changes made to the ASMSU Code of Operations from the passing of a bill September 2015.

Clemons said the veto power was added because the previous version of the code required all bills to be signed by the president, yet nothing was written for what would happen if the president did not sign a piece of legislation.

This potentially gave the president the power to indefinitely reject legislation without an official action and without a chance for the assembly to overturn the decision, which Clemons said was unfair.

However, according to the code the veto can be overturned if two-thirds majority of the assembly vote against the veto. This was the case Thursday night.

The bill that Clemons vetoed was written by vice president for academic affairs Lorenzo Santavicca.

It was in response to the Multicultural Business Program’s funding being cut by administration because of the handling of finances and other issues, the details of which were not fully available to the assembly.

“They’ve had their funding slashed for a variety of reasons, some well-merited, some questionable in recent years,” Eli Broad College of Business Representative Michael Booth said, who seconded the bill written by Santavicca.

“At the end of the day they serve as an enormous resource to students, and there have been campaigns from students to get the MBP (Multicultural Business Program) funded to its original state once again and offer all the services it used to be able to,” Booth said.

The assembly supported the measure, but after the veto Clemons and several others expressed concerns over advocating for funding the program since administration was involved with investigating it.

“The key thing here is to understand that we were advocating, and we are still advocating for full transparency in use of funding and other procedural things that need to happen in order for us to move forward in improving the MBP for students,” Santavicca said.

Santavicca and Booth said they both believed the use of the veto by Clemons was, in this case, unmerited.

“Ultimately I think there’s a great potential there to use as a safeguard, much like the U.S. Constitution,” Santavicca said. “However, I think that the exercise of the veto against the bill at hand tonight was a poor choice of using the veto.”

Now that his veto has been overturned, Clemons said his job is not to further oppose the measure, but to support it as it moves forward.

“The assembly has made a decision to overturn that veto, and as president it is now my duty to advocate on behalf of … the students,” Clemons said.