On Tuesday in front of the General Assembly, Student Government President Andrew Learned proposed a complete revision of the organization’s constitution, which he said would give students more opportunities to make changes on campus.
This is the first major change to the Student Government Constitution since 2006.
‘The appropriation really started with Josh Murphy’s resolution over a year and a half ago when he started the Judicial Branch,’ said Learned. Josh Murphy was a former SG vice-president who proposed a Judicial Branch of SG.
General Assembly, which consists of a representative from each organization on campus, has been separated into committees with a chairman from the Executive Board.
The changes for SG will follow the model of U.S. Government’s system of checks and balances. Changes call for an Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch.
Chris McCarthy, who was a part of making these changes, believed that the three branches will work more effectively.
‘It’s definitely a step in the right direction,’ McCarthy said.
Learned said the Legislative branch will be separated into a House and a Senate.
‘When I ran for president last year, one of the things I said was [to get] the Constitution changed,’ Learned said.
With the new Constitution, each committee member will have a say in financial matters and where money is allocated. The total amount of funding available through SG is $870,000.
The Legislative Branch will still have the final say. Decisions for financial appropriations will now only take one night to go into effect, instead of three weeks to a month.
Administrative approval for changes will no longer be needed once the new Constitution is passed.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 was the First Reading for the new SG Constitution. Now it is up to the SG representatives to go back to their organizations and decide whether or not they approve the changes.
Changes are still being made and will continue to change until the Constitution is finally passed. Learned said the new Constitution will be posted online by Wednesday afternoon. Check out the proposed changes to the Constitution at www.utampasg.org.
“
