News

ASM constitution nears completion

The Associated Students of Madison’s Constitutional Committee approved the second draft of their new constitution Tuesday and will release it today to be reviewed by students and student organizations in the coming weeks.

Most of the changes made to the second draft included rewording of the language to make the student government’s goals and intentions clearer. The committee also approved a motion that would require a two-thirds senate approval for a new vice president or president of ASM.

“We have almost everything else as two-thirds approval, so it just makes sense this way,” said committee member and Student Services Finance Committee chair Kurt Gosselin.

The committee also changed the wording of the draft to allow anyone to run for president who has completed at least one term in ASM and is a current ASM member. The old draft required a candidate to have been in ASM for two full semesters, which would have prohibited the current freshmen from running next year.

Another revision included establishing that the ASM president could only serve for two full terms. There was a small debate concerning the time limit because a few members said it would technically be possible for someone to serve three terms as president if they started as vice president and took over as president sometime during that term.

The third and final draft of the constitution should be on the special elections ballot sometime mid-February, according to committee member Hilary Minor.

Minor said the main purpose of Tuesday’s meeting was to go over and solidify the changes in the new draft based on the feedback the committee had received from the listening sessions.

“I think in general there were concerns about the drastic changes to the constitution,” Minor said. “Moving to a presidential system is a pretty drastic change.”

Minor also said a lot of General Student Service Fund groups were concerned about possible changes in the allocation of fees; however, she said the procedure for funding allocation will remain essentially the same.

Committee member Johnny Tackett said a lot of the rewording of the constitution had to do with making it more understandable for students.

“Sometimes there’s just a disconnect or misunderstanding because we have to use more formal language in the constitution,” Tackett said. “We just want to make sure we’re using the right language that people will understand when we’re making the presentations.”

Minor said she believes the new constitution will be a success for ASM, and she’s proud of the work the committee has done.

“We definitely valued student input and tried to incorporate it into the draft,” Minor said. “Hopefully by the third draft the students will value it as much as we do.”