Bill 62-83, which passed with 20 votes in favor, one against and five abstentions, specifically establishes a Presidential Election Implementation Ad-Hoc Committee to explore and prepare a transition towards a direct election of the ASMSU President. This bill was created as a hope for improvement since spring 2024, when the General Assembly held a referendum to establish direct popular elections of the President, which passed with 80.2% approval. 

An Implementation Ad-Hoc Committee created under Bill 61-19 in Fall 2024 lacked coherence due to a lack of participation. In spring 2025, the committee became inert after a referendum vote reinstating the General Assembly’s parliamentary election process for the president. 

During the Thursday meeting, ASMSU President Kathryn Harding mentioned the impact of the lack of engagement from the last committee and how the quorum couldn’t be met. Those conditions, Harding said, forced the committee to operate informally. With those factors, implementing popular elections by 2026 became infeasible.

“Now formalized through Bill 62-83, this ad-hoc committee is going to continue the necessary legwork to develop a feasible, clear, and implementable framework for a direct popular election of the ASMSU and Student Body President,” Harding said.

The bill will amend ASMSU governing documents to establish a direct popular election for the ASMSU president, requiring full implementation by Spring 2028. The updated Ad-Hoc Committee will include: The Vice President for Internal Administration, The Vice President of Academic Affairs, The Chair and Vice Chair of the Policy Committee, The Chair of the Academic Committee, The Chair of the Finance Committee, One General Assembly Representative,The Recruitment and Engagement Coordinator, ASMSU President, Graduate Assistant and Advisor.

Former Representative Shaurya Pandya, who publicly commented in support of the bill, said the current bill contains much needed structure that was lacking the first time ASMSU attempted to implement the change.

“This bill has more structure to it,” Pandya said. "Whereas last time I think the assembly just handed it off (…) This bill gives a lot more of a targeted deadline and gives structure to what ASMSU needs to do, but they really need to hold ASMSU accountable in that process.” 

The General Assembly Representatives of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Representatives Jacob Mason and Mason Taylor brought this bill forward. While they understood why the previous effort to change the election process languished, they said, it still didn’t feel right for them to keep the elections as they were.

“We worked proactively with everyone at ASMSU to find out what went wrong last time, how we can improve on it, and how we can make sure the mistakes aren’t repeated,” Representative Taylor said. “I do really feel good about this, I think it’s the right way to go about it and do the heavy lifting now and once that’s complete and put on a referendum again so students can vote on it and it’s ready to go.”