UPDATE: Feb. 13, 12:58 a.m.
Student Government’s structure will remain the same after the SG constitutional reform referendum failed to pass on Feb. 12.
If passed, the referendum would have allowed SG to dismantle itself and create a new Student Association.
597 students voted “yes” while 409 voted “no.” A ? majority was required for the reform to pass, according to an SG press release.
This referendum results saw an increase of 408 student votes, compared to the last referendum vote in Dec. 2008, according SG Board of Elections Chairwoman Chloé Profit. Profit resigned from the BOE after releasing the vote results.
“To say that we got over 1,000 votes makes me really proud to be an AU student,” said Alex Hoffman, SG senator for the campus at large and campaign manager for “Students for Transparency,” a group of AU students who opposed the constitutional reform. Hoffman was the only senator to vote against creating the referendum.
The reform would have replaced the Undergraduate Senate and the Judicial Board with a Board of Representatives and created four vice president seats for advocacy, programming, communications and finance, The Eagle previously reported.
The four vice president seats would have been automatically filled without reelection by the student body, Hoffman said.
AU Dems opposed the referendum because it would have cost students through tuition and student fees, according to AU Dems’ Jan. 23 statement.
Looking ahead for SG
The Senate members who supported the referendum will continue to work for reform, according to the “AU for SA” Campaign Manager and SG Comptroller Joe Ste.Marie.
“It’s time to actually do some advocating, because students are facing bigger issues than ever before, and that has to be our priority,” Ste.Marie said.
The failure to pass the referendum will also allow the reform to be discussed more publicly, according to Hoffman.
“Even though we [Students for Transparency] won, almost 60 percent of people voted for the constitution, meaning they want to see change in SG.... We agree that SG needs to change and we agree that it’s broken, but we just want to do things differently,” Hoffman said.
SG will return to focusing its attention on advocating for students, despite the failure to pass the referendum, according to former SG President and Class of 2013 Sen. Sarah McBride.
“Let’s get back to work,” McBride said.
The next election for SG is its spring nomination convention for president, vice president, comptroller, secretary, class councils and school councils on Feb. 27, SG Communications Director Rosemary Cipriano said in a press release.
Staff writer Zach C. Cohen contributed to this report.
kschneck@theeagleonline.com
