The Government of Student Body hosted Meet Your Government Day Monday, April 22, 2013, and gave students the opportunity to interact with their GSB senators in a casual environment.

Senators Barry Snell, Nathan Vos and Zachary Bauer worked together to plan and promote the event.

GSB and United Residents Off Campus funded the event, providing nearly 400 hamburgers, 1,000 hot dogs and 30 veggie burgers, various bags of chips and bottles of water. ISU Dining donated various Coke products. 

In under an hour, all of the hamburgers were gone and nearly half of the hot dogs.

The event was held in a tent on central campus in front of Curtiss Hall. Over 2,000 students stopped in to learn more about GSB and get some free food.

The Student Alumni Leadership Council is also hosting Senior Week this week. They shared the tent with GSB and hosted Wieners for Seniors and provided hot dogs and potato chips.

While several students entered the tent to participate in the Senior Week event, everybody was asked to fill out a GSB survey asking their knowledge about GSB and what GSB could do for them.

Even though students’ primary intention was not to attend a GSB event, 450 of the 2,000 students participated in the survey and agreed it was a successful event for them.

Senior Shane Bristol attended the joint event. “I came here for senior day, but I think this was an overall successful event for GSB.”

A few weeks ago, GSB passed the bill granting funding for Meet Your Government Day, and former President Jared Knight vetoed the bill the last day of the senate term.

However, a new bill went through the current senate allowing the event to go on.

Vos filed an injunction with the GSB Supreme Court because he felt that Knight’s veto was unconstitutional. Because the bill was vetoed on the last day of the senate term, there was no opportunity for the senate to overturn the veto.

The injunction would have led to a hearing and a ruling by the Supreme Court, but because a new bill was passed with the new senate, the hearing did not proceed.

“I didn’t actually file the injunction because I wanted the event,” said Vos. “I did it because I was actually seriously concerned with the constitutionality of the veto.”

Vos felt that the event was very successful and should occur more often.

“I hope this becomes a semester event,” said Vos.

Sen. Matt Herman felt that the event is vital for interaction wit

h students, but the weather would be better in the fall.

“I think it would be better to do it recurring in the fall. We had definite success, though; we had a line all the way to the steps of Curtiss,” Herman said.

“It goes to show GSB needs to get out there and do things on campus and show students this is what we do,” Herman said. “Here’s who we are. We’re never going to get anything accomplished if we don’t have any interaction if the only time they see us is at Senate meetings or our offices.”

Bauer agreed with Herman, and said talks of a fall event were already happening.

“All members of GSB are very excited about the success of the event, and we are in discussions already about having this event sometime in the fall,” Bauer said.