Student senate passed motions proposing a new constitution and creating a secretary position in club coordination council Wednesday.
The order proposing the new Constitution of the Undergraduate Student Body will not affect the way senate operates.
Sophomore William Huffman, senator for Stanford Hall, asked junior parliamentarian Colin Brankin about how the new constitution will affect the running of senate.
“Like actual, practical [changes]?” Brankin said. “Nothing. Not really anything.”
The changes in the new constitution have been passed over the course of the year, including a provision to make quorum a consistent 2/3 among all of student government and changes to formatting throughout the constitution.
“The problem with the old constitution is that a lot is kind of jumbled up,” Brankin said. “Now … there’s consistency so you can easily read the constitution. And a lot of the archaic language is cleared up to make more sense.”
The new constitution passed with one opposition and one abstention.
The proxy for O’Neill Hall, freshman Jake Marcionette, was the only vote against its passage. Marcionette was filling in for junior O’Neill senator Sebastian Lopez.
Eduardo Luna, sophomore senator from Knott Hall, abstained from the vote.
After the order passed, Luna asked for clarification about the function of the “power of the purse” as stated in the constitution.
Brankin, senior Judicial Council president Matt Ross and senior student body vice president Sibonay Shewit explained how the budget is allocated.
“There’s a section of the Committee on the Budget whose responsibility it is to approve the allocation [of the budget],” Ross said.
“Each branch has a representative,” Brankin said. “All the leaders of the organizations are there to approve these budgets. That’s how it’s been, always.”
Luna asked if senate has a budget.
“Yeah,” Shewit said. “That’s how we pay for Jimmy John’s and apparel.”
Luna then yielded his time, saying he was “just keeping you guys in check.”
Senior and Club Coordination Council president King Fok presented a proposition to create the position of club coordination council secretary.
“Right now there’s no secretary and the controller’s been taking the minutes, but that’s been really difficult,” Fok said. “He’s supposed to be managing all of the clubs’ finances.”
The order passed with one opposition and no abstentions.
Marcionette was again the only opposition. He said Lopez, O’Neill Hall’s usual senator, did not instruct him to oppose every order.
Sophomore Breen-Phillips Hall senator Eve Takazawa announced that there will be a presentation to the student senate by an administrator March 21 regarding the housing policy.
“They’re working on a waiver system and they’ve had discussions with the student advisory board so far,” Takazawa said.
The senators spent the rest of the meeting in committee time. Student senate meets every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Notre Dame Room of LaFortune Student Center.
