Student Senate ended without voting on legislation that would limit the power of the minority party early Wednesday morning after a five-hour meeting.
The Senate chambers were packed by senators and students, some of whom sat in the aisles.
Many came to speak against legislation, which would require 40 percent approval from senators present to add nominations for open committee and senate seats, in addition to those made by the Replacement and Agenda Committee.
Moreover, some spoke against the legislation that would strip senators of their ability to call a special meeting, such as the one called to pass a resolution in opposition to Amendment 2 on Oct. 30.
Power to call a special meeting would have been placed in the hands of only the Senate president and Student Body president.
The Orange and Blue Party, which holds the minority of seats in Senate, controls about 19 percent of the votes available.
Gator Party Sen. Jonathan Fager said the original rules about Senate procedure required about 67 percent of the vote to take action on the floor, and the rules were changed to 20 percent during the Oct. 14 meeting.
The legislation discussed Tuesday night is a comprise, requiring about a 40 percent vote, Fager said.
"The truth is letting the minority dictate policy is more than undemocratic," he said. "That is the definition of tyranny."
After relocating to the Reitz Union Auditorium, students and senators continued to share their opinions about lessening minority rights for more than an hour.
Several students from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences expressed their disappointment, suspicion and anger at the proposed measures. Some even did so via voice recording taken by Orange and Blue Sen. Melody Goodell.
CLAS is comprised of about 12,000 undergraduate students and is represented by four Orange and Blue Party senators and one independent senator.
Student leaders from Gators for Barack Obama, Gators for McCain and the Political Science Honor Society encouraged senators to shoot down the legislation.
David Lopez, president of the honor society, said the measures would be uniform with the minority procedures of the U.S. Senate, but they would be unacceptable for Student Senate because the Orange and Blue Party has 19 percent of the vote.
Some senators said marginalizing votes was out of place in a legislative body.
"It's not completely out of place in a government system, it's just out of place in democracy," said Orange and Blue Party Sen. Joe Bennett. "Just use your brains people, you're in a democracy."
Others said a minority party's status should not take precedence over the majority's - a balance determined by the students.
"It would be a mistake to think these Rules and Procedures were delivered to us from on high," said independent Sen. Eric Wolf, who was on the board that rewrote the rules to include a 20 percent minority protection.
Gator Party Sen. Ashton Charles, who represents District A but is a CLAS student, said 20 percent is too little to be a cause of such actions in Senate and encouraged students to communicate directly with their senators.
"Do not be deceived by theatrics and rhetoric," Charles said.
The Orange and Blue Party also submitted a nine-page minority report that stated Sunday's Judiciary meeting was a violation of Senate's rules because 24-hour notice was not given to the public.
While some senators argued that the meeting was only announced four hours in advance, others said an announcement at the weekly Senate meeting was sufficient.
