New constitution may put campus debate to rest -- for a while

Students will finally get a chance next Wednesday to vote on reforms to the Constitution that were proposed over three years ago.

In March 2000, members of student government met to discuss reforms to the governing document of the Tufts Community Union (TCU). They raised the issues of whether culture representatives should vote, whether nominations for president should be open to the entire student body, and how to clean up wording in the Constitution to prevent election controversies.

The new TCU Constitution sponsored by Alison Clarke, Chike Aguh, and Sam Dangremond represents the most comprehensive attempt at reform and compromise of any referendum in recent memory. Both Clarke and Aguh are TCU Senators, while Dangremond is a former editor-in-chief of The Primary Source.

But the question remains, given the constant flurry of amendment activity at Tufts, will the compromise last?

For the past four years, various students -- some members of student government and others not -- have attempted to change the Constitution because of disagreements whether culture representatives should have the right to vote in the Senate.

The new proposed Constitution presents an answer that students who have spoken out on both sides of the issue say they can accept: any student group wishing to have a community representative can petition to put the question on a ballot, and community representatives would be re-approved by the student body every four years. The representatives also can vote on anything but fiscal matters.

But given that the voting rights of Senate members who are not elected by the student body has been controversial for longer than even many administrators can remember, it is hard to say whether this year's changes will be enough to pacify critics in the future.

"I just think that in two years or so, other senators are going to get upset again, are going to push for voting rights, and are going to set off the whole cycle," sophomore Senator Adam Koeppel said. "I just hope students in the future will remember that it's a compromise and that both sides were happy."

The current four culture group representatives who sit on Senate will retain their positions in the new Constitution, but after four years the student body will need to vote on whether these organizations will get to keep their representatives. This guarantees another public argument on the necessity of special representatives to a democratically-elected body. By the time that debate is had in four years, all the students who remember just how major the initial compromise was will have graduated.

Additionally, not allowing community representatives to vote on fiscal issues could be a big deal, given that a majority of the votes in Senate are about how it allots the nearly-$1 million student activities budget.

That the TCU Constitution is so susceptible to change is not necessarily a bad thing, according to many student government leaders.

"Ten years from now, the Constitution probably won't be what the student body needs, because it will be a completely different atmosphere and a completely different student body," Senator and TCU Presidential nominee Joe Mead said.

Student government leaders who might have spoken against the document are supporting the new Constitution, simply because of the enormous amount of compromise between different groups and interests that has had to go into it.

"I think it's amazing that we have so many different people who put their input in on something and came to an agreement on it," said Senator Randy Newsom, the other presidential candidate. "It's a step in the right direction."

According to Clarke, the feedback to the ad hoc constitutional reform committee has been positive.

"The fact that so many people came to a compromise makes it a welcome change," Clarke said.