“Good afternoon everyone,
As we started the process of revising our Student Government’s constitution it came to our attention that proper procedure had not been followed in amending the Constitution in 2013 and 2014. The SGA voted on, and approved, the proposed amendments in 2013 and 2014 as required by the constitution, but the proposed amendments were never presented to the student body for a vote. We do not know why this was not done, but the result is that those amendments to our constitution are invalid as they were never presented to the student body for ratification. As the official representatives of the St. Bonaventure University student body we have a solemn duty to preserve and uphold this constitution. The executive board, together with faculty advisors, has determined that the last legitimate SGA constitution was ratified in 2011.
In order to comply with the constitution from 2011 we have updated SGA’s legislative branch to fit the current constitution. Rather than having at-large senators, we are required by the 2011 constitution to have senators fill specific seats. No senator is losing their seat in SGA, they are merely being assigned to fill a specific seat. We have made sure that each of you are representing a group to which you belong. For example, the senator assigned to the west side senate seat resides on the west side of campus. A senator assigned to a club senate seat is a member of a club.
Today I am exercising my duty as SGA President and I am appointing 1 Chief Justice and 5 Associate Justices to our Judicial Branch. These justices will serve until this April. They will be tasked with updating the constitution and ensuring that the procedural errors do not occur again. I will also be announcing the members of this year’s constitutional revision commission.
We will ratify the constitution according to the time table displayed. I am calling two special meetings, one on February 16th and one on February 18th. On February 16th the Constitutional Revision Commission will present their amendments to the constitution. You will all have the chance to ask questions of the commission at this time. At the next meeting on February 18th our student senate will vote on whether or not to amend the constitution. We must then wait 60 days until April 21st which is the time for the student body vote. During this 60 day time period we will host a public hearing and post these amendments for the student body to review.
Thank you,
Rose Brown”
Letter by Rose Brown read at the Jan. 28 SGA meeting. The meeting left many questions, which could not be answered by press time for this edition. Check thebvnewspaper.com into the next week for updates and answers.
