The Illinois Student Senate will bring legislation to restrict concealed carry on Illinois college campuses to an Illinois General Assembly judiciary committee meeting Tuesday.

Senator Christopher Dayton, senior in LAS, will visit Springfield to present carry-free campus legislation to the committee. He hopes those restrictions can be included in the state’s final concealed carry law, which must be passed by June 10. State Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-103, invited Dayton to the judiciary hearing during a Feb. 10 meeting with him, Dayton said.

Dayton said he is bringing four recommendations to the hearing that he feels are both open and local. These suggestions allow for university and community colleges in the state to set their own concealed carry restrictions based on a framework provided by law.

Within the language Dayton is proposing, universities would be permitted to create restrictions on their property and buildings and areas around the institution’s property with a high student population. In addition, he proposes concealed carry can be restricted in any university or community college certified housing.

Fraternities and sororities would be required to follow a chartered policy created by their associated institution.

“All of this language is to create the ability for individual institutions to tailor policies of concealed carry for themselves,” Dayton said.

He said framework allows the University to define its own concealed carry restrictions.

ISS also discussed the implications of a statewide medical amnesty program. Student body President Brock Gebhardt said Jakobsson proposed a bill that went to the Legislature and has been referred to the rules committee on immunity for any citizen who is underage and suffering from alcohol poisoning. He said if an underage individual calls an ambulance for someone else who is suffering from alcohol poisoning, even if they are both underage, neither will be charged.

This bill is similar to the University’s “unwritten policy,” Gebhardt said. Currently, it is under a police officer’s discretion whether to follow the unwritten policy or not.

He said the senate wants to see the amnesty solidified and codified in Illinois state laws.

“An amendment like this can save lives,” Gebhardt said.

Gebhardt wants to see House Bill 1285 pass with broad support, and he said ISS will lobby members of the committee the bill has been referred to and will also lobby local legislators from their home districts. He said that during the senate’s lobby day trip in April, the alcohol amnesty bill will be a main focus.

Following Jim Maskeri’s resignation as chairman of the committee on academic affairs, former academic affairs co-chair Sarah Halko, sophomore in LAS, was elected to the vacant chair position against senator Tim Knudsen 16-12.

Halko, also a student member of the academic senate’s educational policy committee, said she wants to build more of a relationship between that committee and academic affairs. She also would like to get more students involved in the committee from outside of the senate.

The educational policy committee is working on legislation to mandate the University put certificates on transcripts, something that is not currently policy. Halko said she would like see academic affairs discuss this and bring a wider student perspective to the academic senate.

Tyler can be reached at [email protected].