By Brandon Kutzler and Connor Radnovich
The Downtown student government passed a proposal at the last Senate meeting of the year Friday to put the universal constitution – which has been under construction since early summer – to a student referendum starting this week.
At the meeting, government members said they would have the referendum available on Monday and Tuesday and were working to set up online voting.
However, Director of Parliamentary Procedures Andres Cano would not confirm in an email late Sunday if the referendum would actually be held on time. Cano said he would respond by 11 a.m. Monday.
The universal constitution referendum proposal – which passed with a 9-3 vote – came under fire from several senators Friday, specifically regarding the amount of time students would be able to spend reviewing the constitution before having to vote.
“It’s Friday, there’s one weekend and they want it done by Tuesday,” said Dani Sandler, senator for the College of Nursing and Health Innovation. “Only giving students a day is not enough time. Nobody prepared them for the referendum.”
Sandler, along with Sens. Torunn Sinclair and Rachel Cassinat from the Walter Cronkite School and the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion, respectively, voted against the referendum.
The universal constitution was first written over the summer by the Presidents Council and has been edited throughout the semester. A small group of representatives – including President Joseph Grossman and Co-chairs of the Universal Committee Jessica Boehm and Stephanie Avalos – finished many of the final edits over the last month.
The constitution is designed to help the Polytechnic, West and Downtown campus governments work similarly to the Tempe campus.
Executive Board members and senators both said Tempe has a functional system that should be emulated to better the other campuses.
Most of the senators said the campus needs a new constitution, but a few said the government needed more time to work on the document and present it to students.
Grossman said the plan, if the constitution is passed by students, is to work with the constitution for nearly two months to see how it works and make final edits by Feb. 28.
If students pass the universal constitution, the current constitution will become bylaws, making stipulations in that document easier to change.
In the past senates have had trouble with wording and unclear passages within the constitution.
“We are in dire need of a new constitution for the Downtown Phoenix Campus,” said College of Public Programs Sen. Joey Amonett.
Friday’s meeting used up practically all of its 90-minute schedule, seeing the allocation of $2,350 to student organizations, but more notably a number of major rejections, including to the Programming and Activities Board.
PAB requested $10,314.58, on top of the $80,000 it already received earlier this semester. Senators noted that PAB did a good job of saving money during this semester and should have enough to get the organization through at least the first few months of next semester.
The Senate also requested more details of what the money would be used for events.
“(PAB has) enough to get them started, definitely,” Amonett said. “I would recommend that they would come back when they actually have specifics on what they are spending money for these individual events,” Amonett said.
Active Minds had two funding requests passed, for $200 and $300. The first request will be used for an end-of-semester party, while the second will be directed towards a “spring kick-off event.”
The Exercise and Wellness Organization’s request for $410 to go rock climbing was unanimously declined because their event would not enhance campus life for students.
Phoenix Soul’s funding request, intended for purchasing shirts and performance equipment, was approved after being lowered from $500 to $350.
The Senate also approved DPC Aware’s request of $1,500 to stage a play to “illustrate realistic scenarios of college students engaging in high-risk behaviors that might affect the way they relate to others.” DPC Aware is planning to hire disOrientation for this event.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ request for $3,099.10 was denied because a club representative was not at the most recent Budget Allocations Committee meeting and could not explain their request.
Halfway through the year, the Downtown student government has allocated around 83 percent of their budget for student organizations.
They still have $44,954.53 left for next semester.
With little time to spare, the meeting concluded by adding several BAC bylaws, including how much money the BAC will recommend be allocated to trips and not funding stipends until ASU administration deals with funding disparities Downtown.
Contact the reporters at bkutzler@asu.edu and connor.radnovich@asu.edu
