After failing to meet quorum at their Friday meeting, the Illinois Student Senate will continue discussion of their new constitutional proposal that increases their power to pose referenda questions to the student body.

In the proposed constitution, if two-thirds of the student senate approves a referenda question, they will no longer be required to gather student signatures before their referendum appears on the ballot. The current constitution requires student groups and senators to gather 7 percent of the student body’s signatures before their referenda question will appear on the ballot, unless the student senate lowers its threshold to 5 percent with a two-thirds vote.

For those students not part of ISS, the proposed constitution will raise the threshold for putting referenda on the ballot from 7 percent to 10 percent of the student body’s signatures. It would also allow the senate to introduce referenda with a simple majority and the signatures of only 3 percent.

Vice President-external Jenny Baldwin said she thinks the senators will vote on the constitutional referenda Wednesday.

“I think it’s going to make senate a lot more efficient, but I can definitely understand why some senators have problems with it because it’s drastically different than the constitution we have now and it’s going to shift power in ways that people aren’t comfortable with,” she said.

Vice President-internal Shao Guo said this change might be one of the deciding factors in having the constitution passed Wednesday.

“It will also encourage more organizations to come and present referendum questions (to the senate),” he said.

If two-thirds of the senate endorses the proposed constitution, senators will be required to gather 5 percent of the student body’s signatures before it will appear on the spring election ballot, said Jim Maskeri, undergraduate co-chair of the Commission on Constitutional Reform. The deadline for the referenda questions is Feb. 19.

“That clock is ticking, but hopefully we’ll get everything in on time,” he said.

Guo said during the constitutional discussion, senators would be welcome to make amendments to the constitution in order to shape it to best suit the senate. He said he would like to see an explicit passage added forbidding slating during the student election, which is the informal grouping of candidates on a common platform.

“It alienates every moderate or essentially every minority and it goes against the idea of a truly representative government,” he said.

He said the Illinois student government has had issues with slating in the past, citing the pro-Chief Illiniwek versus anti-Chief factions during the early 2000s. 

Tyler can be reached at [email protected].