The Barometer Online

Issue date: 3/11/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Annie Miles Jerred Taylor, the ASOSU Senate Chair, types interview questions on Tuesday at the ASOSU office in MU East.

The constitution for the student government at OSU has gone through major changes, which will take effect summer term 2009.

Next year's student government can now expect to put new policies into place and participate in a system much more similar to that which is used by the U.S. Government.

Oregon State University has been run by a unicameral student government consisting of the Senate only.

Various changes have been made and approved recently, creating a bicameral government with not only a Senate, but also a House of Representatives.

The majority of changes have been made to help create a constitution that is applicable to the current student government needs.

"We just looked at how the student government is run and tried to bring the document to something more clear," said ASOSU Senate Chair Jerred Taylor, a senior in chemistry.

The many students that have been involved in this process have also worked to make the document more flexible to allow for changes as the environment changes.

The House of Representatives will consist of members that will serve for one year and will be elected based off of status (graduate or undergraduate).

The Senate will no longer have representatives from each college and will be open for anyone to run.

Senate seats will be for two years and there will always be six of the 12 seats carried over from the previous year to provide consistency.

This means there will be six seats this year that will be elected for only one year to be able to start this new system.

Taylor's position of Senate Chair will be replaced by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, which will consist of 20 undergraduate seats and five graduate seats.

"Whoever decides to be the Speaker of the House, they'll never have to deal with 60-plus people," said Paul Aljets, a graduate student in public policy and current chairman of the student government committee.

"That will be a lot easier."

The vice president will chair the Senate and help resolve ties in addition to holding weekly meetings that will replace the biweekly system.

Another big change is that senators will be required to be accessible over the summer since there is still a need for a legislative body during the summer term.

Continued...

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