If you were at the Illinois Student Senate meeting Wednesday, you would’ve seen the senate endorse a referendum for a new constitution. This new constitution is superior to the current one in flexibility and structure. It will add an executive branch, and the student government will be known as the Illinois Student Government, assuming it is approved by the students.

In its existence, the ISS had at least four attempts to rewrite the constitution. Long story short, only one of those attempts succeeded before yesterday. This resulted in our current constitution, which is highly unpopular to most student government members. 

The current ISS constitution, among other weaknesses, has holes within its structure. Only six standing committees are allowed in the student government, with their roles and duties spelled out. Having the committee system in the constitution limits liquidity and flexibility for the organization because it’s difficult to add or remove standing committees. 

There also are entities such as the graduate and professional student affairs committee, which should be standing committees but aren’t.

Our proposed constitution is better organized than the current one. It doesn’t spell out a committee structure, allowing the branches to create and eliminate sub-entities depending on the situation. Also, the president, vice president and treasurer would be elected directly by the students. A speaker of the senate will be the senate’s presiding officer instead of the president, much like the U.S. government. Instead of senators being both legislators and executors, an entire executive branch is created to execute the will of the students.

Due to trouble with our website, please feel to email any of the executive board members for a copy of the newly proposed constitution. Hopefully, enough signatures will be collected, and you can see it for yourself in the spring elections. 

Now, it’s up to the students to decide on this possible new government.

Shao-Hai Guo 

vice president-internal and junior in ACES