Last year's efforts to rewrite the Tufts Community Union (TCU) constitution in order to improve the government's connection with students have been continued by a TCU Senate committee this semester. The process for nominating the Senate president as well as the question of culture representatives' right to vote are the two major issues discussed thus far.
In the Senate's second attempt to draft a new constitution, a twelve-member reform committee, chaired by Senate Parliamentarian Ben Lee, is responsible for writing the proposed revision and gathering student input in January before the campus-wide vote in April.
A major proposed change in the new constitution is the method used to nominate and elect candidates for Senate president. The student body has little impact in the nominations process, as the 28-person Senate chooses two newly-elected senators to run. Committee members have discussed amending the process to allow any senator who completes a designated petition and receives a "vote of confidence" from the body to appear on the ballot. There would be no limit on the number of candidates from which students will pick.
"[The current system] takes the decision out of the hands of the students and gives it to the Senate," said senior Alessandro Terenzoni, who ran for the presidential nomination last year. "Students are smart enough to pick between candidates, so they should be able to do so."
The issue of whether the four culture representatives who sit on the Senate should have full voting power could be a point of contention during the referendum discussions. Currently these representatives may speak and give committee reports, but not vote on either in-house procedural nor regular votes. In the proposed constitutional revision, members of the reform committee plan to give the representatives the power to vote on procedural motions as well as in-house elections.
"We can speak on an issue, but not vote on it which is really frustrating," said Association of Latino American Students (ALAS) representative Anabella Nieves.
The Senate elects its own vice president among other officers, and Lee believes culture reps should have a say in that issue. This topic was highly controversial during referendum meetings last year, and has been a divisive issue during previous attempts at constitutional reform. An amendment to give culture representatives a vote was on the ballot in April 1996, but it failed by a narrow margin of 18 votes.
In order to avoid jeopardizing passage of the entire constitution on just this issue, the clause giving culture representatives a vote will be left out of the constitution and voted on through a separate amendment.
"The only fair way to do this is to have the whole community vote. It affects everybody," Lee said.
While the culture groups are excited about the prospect of having full voting power, former co-parliamentarian Jesse Levey, one of the leaders in last year's reform efforts, is strongly against it. "It doesn't make sense," he said. "As a junior, I have seven members representing my class. A junior [class member who is a] culture rep with a vote now gives my class eight votes. It's not fair."
Rewording the constitution to clarify ambiguities is another goal of the reform committee. Members of Tufts Students Against Discrimination (TSAD) attended the most recent constitutional reform meeting and hope to have the University's nondiscrimination policy directly stated in the TCU constitution. Constitutional references to class councils will be removed, as it is a division of the Programming Board and not student government.
The recent lack of student interest in the Elections Board has caused the committee to consider changing its role and structure. Director of Student Activities Jodie Nealley will be looking at how other schools run their elections over winter break in order to find a solution to Tufts' problem.
"Every year there is a lack of student interest and there are structural problems with the system," Lee said.
One area that was debated at length in last year's constitutional reform discussion, which is not being examined this time around, is the cloudy relationship between the Senate and the Committee on Student Life (CSL). The CSL is a faculty-student body that hears appeals of TCU Judiciary rulings, however there is no mention of the committee in the present constitution. While reform leaders last year sought to clarify the CSL's role, Lee said that the TCU constitution cannot simply include sections on the CSL because it is an independent group outside of Senate control.
"The CSL is above us. They can make policy as they wish," said Lee.
These changes are merely proposals, and the draft of the new constitution will most likely be altered once students are consulted.
Two constitutions were written during the referendum discussions last year, but neither made it on to the ballot because senators felt there was not enough time to get input from the student body. Lee made sure that the process began early this year in order to avoid the same problem.
"I want the process to evolve, instead of forcing it though," he said.
The committee hopes to have a new constitution voted on during next April's presidential election. A constitutional amendment requires a turnout of 20 percent of the student body with a two-thirds vote in favor. If 25 percent of students or more turn out on Election Day, only a simple majority of votes is required.
