The Student Association Assembly voted last night to put language for a new constitution to a campus-wide referendum, but even before the vote, community leaders were considering what the changes could mean for them.

Student Assembly Speaker Randal Meyer described the constitution, which would entirely replace the current version, as “a unique structure, and it’s a unique way of doing government.” He called the constitution, which will be voted on by the student body within the next month, “better, in my opinion.”

This constitution would dissolve the SA’s current legislative body and replace it with the Representative Council — a hybrid body that would be composed of five SA E-Board members and six other representatives. The Council would be further subdivided into three subsidiary councils: the Financial Council, the Rules and Governance Council and the Student Outreach and Advocacy Council.

One of the major changes to the constitution would be the way residential community governments are run. Each of the five living communities would have a total of five representatives to the new government’s three legislative bodies, down from the current number of six for the current legislative body, the Assembly. Representatives would also no longer be assigned to represent any single hall and they would no longer be required to give weekly reports in hall meetings.

Hillside and Susquehanna Communities would have one representative for each council, and Off Campus College would have four representatives in the Financial Council and eight representatives in each of the other two committees.

In a Hinman College Cleveland Hall government meeting, Meyer had admitted that the constitution was being rushed in order to meet a deadline. According to Meyer, the “time frame sucks but we have to line it up with the executive board elections.” He said this was to ensure the maximum number of students will show up to vote on the constitution.

Jessica Franklin, president of the Newing College Council, defended that statement, saying that “about 20 percent of the student body comes out to vote for SA elections.”

Any other vote tends to yield only a few hundred people, a significantly smaller portion of the student body, she said.

“A change to the constitution and the structure of the SA is too important to allow that to be decided by just a few hundred people,” Franklin said.

In that same Cleveland Hall meeting, one of Hinman College’s SA representatives, Ryan Stempien, said “one of my biggest grievances is it’s cutting away hall representatives.”

Stempien said he was worried because many students are unaware about changes now and losing representatives will make that worse.

“I think cutting hall representatives will further remove them,” Stempien said. He said he thought many members of the student government already feel distanced from what goes on in the SA and that reducing representation would only worsen the situation.

When asked how he felt about the changes proposed, Cleveland Hall President Jonathan McMahon said, “I don’t know anything about it. The way that the SA is run is not well publicized at all.”

Still, there are others who believe the changes will provide for new opportunities for community representatives to get things done.

“I support the incorporation of the SA, because under this new constitution, representatives will be able to accomplish more in less time, and the representatives who will be voting on issues will be experts on the topics,” said Johanna Sanders, president of Dickinson Community. “The new restructuring of the SA will be much more effective in terms of legislating and in terms of maintaining interest among representatives.”

Sanders is running for vice president of programming for the SA next semester, an SA E-Board position.

Sean Muir, president of Mountainview College, held a similar opinion. He said that, after speaking with some SA representatives, the new proposal “seems like it would help get more things done through the SA.”

When asked about what he thought about the notion of less representation, Muir said that at Mountainview, they are already on their way to figuring out how to get around that.

The president of the Newing College Council, Jessica Franklin, agreed.

“[The Constitution] would be more efficient,” she said. “It seems like it’s cleaning up a lot and making people accountable for what they do because when something happens it’s more concentrated in the power that they have, so people are held more responsible and more liable for the actions they do.”

Franklin also believes the specificity and shortening of the meetings will allow for greater discussion by the student body.

“Most people won’t wait three hours to just say a two-minute [argument],” she said. She also said the focused meetings “would encourage people to come out more and voice their opinions.”

Due to the cancellation of campus activities on March 7, the Assembly could not vote on these changes until yesterday. This means that the popular referendum will also be pushed back past the SA E-Board elections to run-off elections on April 12 and 13.