The Undergraduate Student Government voted to approve the $75-per-semester facilities fee Tuesday night, making it the third campus to pass the measure.

The West and Polytechnic student governments have approved the fee, while the Downtown student government voted against the legislation last week.

The $75 fee would fund the construction of new student services facilities on all four campuses. According to the fee proposal, students would not begin paying for the fee until the facilities officially open.

Sen. Jacob Goulding began Tuesday’s fee discussion with a motion to limit debate time, giving USG members 20 minutes to debate the issue.

USG President Brendan O’Kelly reiterated statements made in previous facilities fee meetings, saying if students do not take control of the fee right now, ASU administration will jump in, build the facilities and charge students through either a tuition increase or its own fee.

Sen. Christopher Hoopes of the W. P. Carey School of Business asked his fellow senators to look toward the future and think of the students who will attend ASU in 30 years. Those students will be the ones using the facilities, he said.

“This is a long-term decision with long-term benefits and long-term costs,” Hoopes said. “But I believe the benefits outweigh the costs in the long term.” Sen. Athena Salman, also of the W. P. Carey School, argued on the grounds of college affordability, saying the fee will be an extra financial burden to students.

Paying $150 a year over a course of five years will take a toll on students’ wallets, she said.

Sen. Chuck Conley agreed with Salman, adding that the facilities fee will lead to more fees, and the price of schooling will go up.

“To me, that’s like dirty jokes,” Conley said. “As long as you keep listening to dirty jokes and keep laughing to dirty jokes, they’re going to keep bringing dirty jokes.”

Immediately before the vote, Conley raised his electronic voting device in the air, making it clear to the other senators his thumb was over the ‘no’ vote button.

Both Matt McCoy, president of the Polytechnic campus student government, and Andrew Clark, president of the West campus student government, attended the meeting to express their support for the fee before the Senate.

The fee would benefit West and Polytechnic campuses because of the lack of adequate student services facilities on those campuses, Clark and McCoy said. They asked the Senate members to consider these campuses in their votes.

The fee passed in a 12-6 vote.

The Graduate and Professional Student Association, the last student government to vote on the fee, will consider the measure on Friday.

McCoy said the student government presidents might urge the Downtown campus to reconsider its opposition to the fee proposal in order to gain unanimous support.

The meeting also featured discussion on legislation to approve language on a student vote in favor of a $1.50-per-semester refundable fee to fund the Arizona Public Interest Research Group.

More than 25 students from PIRG, a nonprofit lobbying group that promotes political and charitable activism on college campuses, attended the meeting to show their support for the bill’s passage.

O’Kelly vetoed a similar bill last week.

“[The veto] had nothing to do with the merits of the organization,” O’Kelly said. O’Kelly said he vetoed the bill because the language was misleading.

“I signed literally every bill of support that has come out of this Senate for PIRG,” he said.

Rather than overriding the veto, Senate members introduced a new bill that gave a more extensive description of Arizona PIRG in the student referendum.

The bill was approved by the Senate, as was another bill for the referendum to take place April 6 and 7 on the Tempe campus in conjunction with USG elections.

Reach the reporter at kyle.daly@asu.edu