The Government of the Student Body focused on two Veishea-related bills Wednesday.

The first of the two bills focused on the televising of the 2008 parade on KDSM Fox 17 across the state of Iowa. The second bill dealt with moving Cyclone Idol from the Durham Great Hall in the Memorial Union to Stephens Auditorium and keeping it free of charge for students.

Kyle Peterson, general co-chairman of the Veishea committee and junior in marketing, said Veishea requested televising funds during 2007 regular allocations but was denied, and it was suggested that a bill be drafted instead. In turn, a passing vote Wednesday allocated $5,000 to the Veishea committee to pay KDSM to televise the Veishea Parade.

Peterson said that, when the parade has been televised in years past, an average of 18,000 Iowans have tuned in to watch one of Iowa State’s biggest traditions.

“This is a huge tradition for ISU,” said senator Elisa Berzins, junior in marketing. “When freshmen come here, they may not know anything about ISU, but they already know about Veishea.”

Following debate over the bill for the Veishea Parade, GSB senators refocused on the movement of Cyclone Idol to Stephens Auditorium and keeping the event free of charge for students.

GSB Senator Daniel Finnegan, junior in aerospace engineering, reiterated on several occasions that unspent student fee money isn’t doing any good.

Finnegan cited the “box at the bottom of the agenda” as student fee money that is not being put to good use.

“This is a number that has irked me since I started on Senate,” he said. “When the money is in this box, it’s not doing anybody any good.”

After debate on the bill concluded, the bill was passed, allocating $4753.25 to the rental of Stephens, the fee for an emcee and prizes.

Although both Veishea bills were passed, debate roared on throughout the night regarding the worth of funding such bills. Views both right and left were stressed on numerous occasions on whether bills should be taken with a “rubber stamp” approach and passed without much debate. On the other hand, senators argued that the current surplus in the senate discretionary account is a product of GSB’s lack of initiative in seeking out projects around campus.

Senate Speaker, Paul Keppy, junior in political science argued that allowing Senate to lie on its laurels and allow finance bills to pass without debate would destroy the purpose of having a student government oversee the allocation of student fee money.

“It would be easy for us to sit here and pass every bill that comes before us,” Keppy said. “We can all sit here and rubber-stamp everything, or we can be fiscally responsible and go out and find projects . We need to take initiative on that.”