Students vote in Council referenda - Amendment B wins out over Amendment A

On Monday, the student body voted on two different Student Council (StuCo) Constitution reforms. At StuCo's weekly meeting Tuesday night, it was announced that the Student Council Constitution proposal known as Amendment B passed with 341 votes. The other proposal, known as Amendment A, received 231 votes, and 102 people voted for no change to the constitution.

Both of the amendments outlined different changes for the Student Council Constitution. Amendment A called for a clear division between policy issues and social programming. It transfers the responsibility of social programming from Student Council to the Hopkins Organization for Programming (HOP). Student Council's size would decrease from 29 members to 19 members, which includes four senators per class, as well as the Student Council chair, the HOP Chair and the Student Activities Commission (SAC) Chair. The senators would serve on different committees including Academic Affairs, Communications and Selection, Community Relations, Diversity and Homewood Student Affairs. The HOP would have 20 elected programmers that serve on a school-wide programming committee and four class programming committees.

Amendment B included a revision of Student Council's line of succession by outlining what to do in case of a permanent vacancy. For example, if the office of the Student Council President or any other Student Council executive office is vacant, then the remaining Executive Board officers would appoint a successor with the approval of Student Council through a majority vote. The amendment also reserves the right for Student Council to revoke the constitution and by-laws of all committees, therefore adding flexibility to add and change committees.

Students who voted for the proposals had to rank their choices for Amendment A, Amendment B and no change. Some students felt that they could not comment on the proposals because they did not know enough information about either one. Students did have the opportunity to look at summaries of the proposals, or at the proposed constitutions under each proposal.

Freshman Liz Kim said, "I looked over Amendment A and I think which was drafted everyone has an equal say under this amendment."

James Borod said, "I understand both amendments. I talked to a couple of Student Council members and I voted for Amendment B." "I've sat through Student Council meetings and we've gone over the amendments during those meetings. I voted for [Amendment] B," said freshman Monica Lai. "The drastic changes in [Amendment] A are too drastic for what they are proposing to do.'

The vote for Amendment B revealed varying opinions from StuCo members and the student body. Freshman class Representative Morgan MacDonald, who worked on Amendment A, said, "The voice of the student body has been denied."

Sophomore April Land, who also worked on Amendment A, commented that the writers of Amendment B used "scare tactics and misinformation."

Senior class President Stephen Goutman felt that the Board of Elections (BoE) and StuCo should speak out against negative campaigning. He said that students "need to be able to sort facts out first" and that "the student body deserves more." He felt that "students should stand up" against what has happened.

Junior Representative Chris Cunico, who helped draft Amendment B in December, argued that the purpose of the amendment was to "keep the basic structure" of the council while "taking a look at the bylaws." His disagreement with Amendment A centered around his opposition to the idea of "putting people in specific roles."

He and other proponents of Amendment B agreed that there was a negative tone to the entire process, but maintained that "negative campaigning" did not occur. "It got ugly," said Cunico. "I think a big lesson can be learned by both sides. It was not a good debate."

-- Staff writers Juliana Finelli and Marina Koestler contributed to this report