Students to cast ballots for new SGA constitution

The Texas A&M University-Commerce Student Government Association passed a revised constitution in their first attempt to update and consolidate their documents. The revised constitution must pass a student referendum before it can be put into effect.

According to SGA President Taylor Fore, SGA is concerned with making sure that students understand the purpose of the revision.

"When most students hear ‘referendum' they immediately think about a fee increase, but this referendum has nothing to do with increasing student fees," he said. "Last semester, SGA started looking back at all of our documents, and they were outdated, repetitive and sometimes contradictory. We wanted to condense and update them and we decided to start with the constitution."

The students will have two weeks to review the old and new constitutions, which are up on the SGA website.

"Students can ask any senator, e-mail me or come by the SGA office," Fore said. "We have nothing to hide."

The revisions were accomplished by an ad-hoc committee and then approved by the SGA senate in their meetings.

"We have a lot to thank Adam Hayney, Tim Houston and the ad-hoc committee for in getting this thing going," SGA Vice President and Senate Chair Lauren Booe said. "They did a really good job."

The talks to begin revising the constitution began at the beginning of last semester, so the SGA senate has become very familiar with the revisions.

"The committee has been working on the revised constitution since the first month of last semester," Fore said. "The senate has debated it, and there have been a lot of changes back and forth."

Referendum voting begins at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 10 and closes Friday, Feb. 11 at 5 p.m. Students will be able to vote via MyLeo or at booths in the SRSC.