After the SGA Senate’s comprehensive review and overhaul of the SGA Code of Laws near the end of the 2009-10 academic year, the SGA has driven into a second, larger initiative to start the 2010-11 year — a review and overhaul of the SGA Constitution, the SGA’s supreme governing document.
Wednesday night, members of the Constitution Revision Committee met to propose their revision, removal, and recommendation proposals to the committee’s non-voting consensus-builder, senior and SGA Attorney General Ryan Sprinkle.
“Starting this summer, we had an internal team of six members from SGA—two per branch, one greek and one non-greek—and they worked in teams of two to research SGA constitutions across the Southeast,” Sprinkle said. “From that work, they were able to put together reports and proposals of how we could update and revise our SGA Constitution.”
Sprinkle said these reports form the baseline of the initiative for this semester, and said the goal was to put the changes up for a vote in a special referendum for all students by November. Chief of Staff Meg McCrummen and Communications Director Ian Sams represented the SGA executive branch, Senators David Wilson and David Simpson represented the SGA Senate, and Chief Justice Hayley Strong and Associate Justice Aisha Mahmood represented the SGA judicial branch.
Among the initial proposals were removal suggestions from the executive branch. McCrummen and Sams initially disagreed on the issue of presidential line-item vetoes but agreed by the end of the meeting that the procedure should be disallowed completely for the president.
The executive representatives also suggested that a law calling for specific and sustained dialogue with the National Alumni Association should be removed.
“The reason we’re considering removing the relationship with the National Alumni Association is that it’s unique in being codified,” McCrummen said, adding that the relationship between other vice presidents and the external organizations they deal with aren’t codified.
“There’s no reason for this particular [group], the NAA, to be codified,” she said.
The executive representatives’ other suggestions mainly focused on updating the Constitution, including online integration of some executive branch actions and the replacement of references to Freshman Forum with reference to the relatively new First Year Council.
“I was six when they put this together,” Sams said, speaking of what he views as an outdated constitution.
The legislative branch representatives most notably advocated adding language that would require the SGA to make the student body aware of vacancies in SGA Senate posts.
“In the case of a vacancy, if someone was elected but cannot continue on in that position for whatever reason, in the past there has been a two-week period, and if no one puts their name forward if the Exec will just nominate someone,” Simpson said. “What we’re proposing is that in the future, to have a publicity campaign letting the student body know and be aware of openings for the Senate, so that they could potentially run for that open spot on the Homecoming election.”
Due to personnel changes, the judicial branch representatives will propose the majority of their changes in the coming meetings, according to Hayley Strong. The several proposals made Wednesday night included plans to refine wording and clarify the sections of the Constitution regarding the judicial branch.
