Referendum season is upon us, and if you’re one of the vast majority of students, you have no idea what that means. It means that in efforts to get special votes on the ballot, groups like the Illinois Student Senate are sending out their petitions with vague and imprecise language like this:

“Do you approve of the Student Government as the Official Voice of the Student Body (Illinois Student Senate) through a new Constitution and Transition Document as proposed by the Commission on Constitutional Reform and adopted by the Illinois Student Senate?”

Missing from the Illinois student government’s referendum petitions that the body is circulating online are any and all details of what that constitution actually contains.

The Daily Illini’s reports should give you a clearer picture. Although ISS has proposed making the president directly elected by the student body, this comes at a considerable price to the abilities of the student body to affect change on campus.

Referendum questions are, by and large, students’ most effective way of implementing a policy change. Student votes don’t bind the University to action, and aside from a couple notable exceptions (like Chief Illiniwek support), most have brought about some policy change, often either through new student fees or some new campus policy — the Illini Media fee or the smoking ban. But to get the question to the ballot, students have to collect a certain number of signatures endorsing the question: 5 percent of the student body, or about 2,000 signatures, for ISS members — 7 percent, or about 2,800, for everyone else. 

With the new constitution, senators would not need signatures: They would only need a two-thirds vote among themselves to put something on the ballot. At the same time, the constitution will require anyone else to collect 10 percent of the student body population, up from 7 percent.

For the Illini Media Company, the parent company of the DI, raising the bar from 7 percent to 10 percent of the student body’s signatures would have meant an additional 1,200 signatures (for a grand total of 4,000) last year to get only 3,000 people to vote on a $3 fee to support the company.

When student voter participation is exceptionally low, this new policy requires students with views contrary to the student senate to gather additional signatures on scales that are comparable to the splits between yes and no votes, which is no easy feat.

The motivation behind the change? 

“It will also encourage more organizations to come and present referendum questions (to the senate),” said Shao Guo, vice president-internal of the senate.

And there you have it. Make it more difficult for students to put their own questions on the ballot, so that you essentially have to bring your proposal to ISS. Then, ISS exercises a great deal of control over what you have to say and what is put up to student votes.

So if you’re asked to sign this petition, ask about this aspect of their proposed constitution, and consider this last point: Out of the 27 spring referendum questions that have appeared on the ballot in the last decade, only two have failed to pass. Are you sure you want to give that power to the ISS?