The Undergraduate Student Congress appointed a new Ways and Means Committee chair and revised the language of its election policy at its Tuesday meeting.
Appointing Ways and Means Committee chair
The news: Congress appointed new Ways and Means Committee Chair Mecca Fisher for the remainder of the semester, effective immediately. Fisher will replace Jacob Schonfield as the Ways and Means Committee chair.
Ways and Means Committee chairs handle the allocation and expenditure of student funds to registered student organizations through primary and auxiliary funding in accordance with the Code Annotated.
What they’re saying: Congress Chair Caleb Robinson said Fisher was appointed without interviewing anyone else because he is currently the vice chair for the committee.
“It doesn't seem appropriate for us to actually go for an interview process and take somebody to actually take the job. It is more appropriate to leave that actual decision to the next team,” Robinson said. “So we just offer to take the vice chair of the committee because this is a big decision.”
Fisher told OU Daily after the meeting he is looking forward to more projects like fundraising and sponsorship opportunities as well as expanding the committee’s mission.
“I really like the fact that we helped bring projects this year. I remember in previous years we didn't really do projects as much, we were basically just allocating funding,” Fisher said. “I really like that we’re helping expand our mission.”
Fisher said the Ways and Means Committee is looking for additional means of funding for registered student organizations other than auxiliary and primary funding, which includes funds gathered by the mandatory student activity fee and funds from sponsorships and fundraisers.
“At least in the past, it wasn't really our responsibility, recently we have expanded when it comes to what we were doing,” said Fisher. “Something I want to do is help expand what other funding sources that are dealt directly to ourselves, like Coca-Cola sponsorship."
The vote: Congress passed the resolution with a vote of 27-0-2. Fisher and Vice Chair Aaron Gilson-Bond abstained from the vote.
Election Language Revision Act
The news: Congress updated the Code Annotated to account for spring 2026 and future elections changes. According to the agenda, the change will better reflect the reality of SGA elections.
The revision added a “timeline” section to the Code Annotated, shifting the previous section about election academic weeks in the campaign subsection to the new section.
Filing for general elections has been changed from the last class day of the sixth academic week to the seventh. The mandatory candidate meetings have been shifted to the eighth academic week instead of the seventh.
Additionally, half of all currently filled congressional seats must be up for election during each election cycle, instead of the previous count of 24 seats out of 48. There are a lot of front loaded seats in the Fall, causing there to be 21 seats up for election this semester, according to Election Commissioner and author of the bill Andy Wang.
What they’re saying: Wang said the bill was passed primarily to clean up formatting, language and layout of the election subsection of the Code Annotated.
“This is actually going to have two effects. The first one is, like I said, just a basic cleanup… the second thing that this accomplishes is that it does certify this election as being doable, …” Wang said.
Wang said the change from 24 out of 48 seats to 50% of seats was due to recent changes in congress and to prevent issues in future sessions.
“The rule that always existed was that at least 24 of the 48 seats had to be up for election. Currently, just due to the shifting nature of the congressional landscape, this is not the case this election,” Wang said. “Just to prevent this from being an issue in future sessions… we decided we wanted a more flexible number.”
The vote: Congress passed the resolution with a vote of 29-0-0.
This story was edited by Macey Thaxton.
