Student Senate opens Constitutional Elections on the FSL Amendment and Protecting Democracy Amendment

The Student Senate has recently opened Constitutional Elections, opening on February 2nd at 8 am and closing this Friday, February 6 at 8 pm. The two proposed amendments to the Union Constitution prevent the Elections Commission from choosing a Grand Marshal or President of the Union on their own, and make it easier for Fraternity and Sorority Life Senators to be elected to the Senate. Both of these amendments were passed by the Senate on October 21st, 2025. These amendments also require a 20 percent voting turnout from Union members to go into effect. 

The Protecting Democracy Amendment closes a loophole in Article VIII Elections, Section 8 and Section 10 of the Constitution, where a Grand Marshal or President of the Union candidate only needs 40 percent of the vote to be chosen by the EC as the winning candidate. However, this can allow for two possible candidates having over that 40 percent threshold, thus leaving it in the hands of the EC to select the next GM or PU. The proposed changes to Section 8 would now take care of this, enumerating that “[u]nless otherwise specified in the Union Constitution, the candidates for all available positions that receive the most votes shall be elected.” 

The second amendment addresses the fact that the Senate currently has no Greek senators, primarily due to the lack of members on the Interfraternity Council, the Panhellenic Council, and the Multicultural Fraternity and Sorority Council. Several FSL students are not part of the IFC, RPC, or MFSC commons, and are therefore not represented by the current configuration of Greek representation in the Senate. This amendment would hopefully increase FSL representation in the Student Senate by making it easier for senators to be voted in.

The FSL Amendment to Section 1 and Section 5 would change the three Greek Senators into three FSL Senators. During elections, FSL senator candidates would be classified based on their chapter of FSL. Write-in candidates would be unclassified. If a candidate is part of more than one classification, they must pick one to represent. The candidate who receives the highest number of votes will receive the first senator position. The next candidate who has the highest number of votes and is part of a different classification than the first senator will receive the second position. This process repeated for the third senator position.

This Constitutional Election comes in preparation for this years' Grand Marshal Week, in late March. Additionally, the annual “Student Senate Survey” is also out. Both voting and the survey can be found in the respective hyperlinks, and in an email from Grand Marshal Tiburon “T” Leon Benavides G ’27 PhD to the members of the Union in their school inbox.