The Wichita State Student Government Association began considering an amendment to the SGA constitution during Wednesday’s meeting.

“The constitution we have now is 10 years old,” SGA President Darren Beckham said. “It needs to be updated.”

The amendment responds to how SGA is organized, does business and governs itself. It is longer and more organized, with bulleted points and shorter sentences instead of long, chunky paragraphs.

The constitution is the work of Beckham, former legislative director Andrew Longhofer, current Legislative Director Brandon James and Justice Steele Estes.

One of the proposed changes is an increase in student representation.

“When I started my term, I wanted to increase student representation,” Beckham said. “This constitution does that.”

The constitution creates new student senate representatives.

Some of the new representatives would include an out-of-state senator, a military veteran senator, non-traditional freshmen and sophomores and others. The increase in representatives will lead to a larger senate and eventually the possibility of a two-tiered bicameral legislature similar to the Kansas House of Representatives and Senate.

At the meeting, SGA read through the new constitution and checked for spelling and grammar mistakes and unclear language.

An issue that would change with the proposed constitution is how to elect a new SGA president if the current president can no longer serve, resigns or is removed from office.

Before, if a president resigned, was removed or could no longer serve, the vice president moved into the president’s position without being voted in.

The proposed constitution calls for allowing the vice president to temporarily replace him or her until a “special election” is held with WSU students voting in the next president.

In the past three years, Beckham said two of the three SGA presidents have resigned.

This change prevents a president from resigning in order to give power to a vice president — who would never be a president otherwise. It also prevents a single person from controlling who leads or will lead SGA.

Most of the debate about the new constitution was about the language and structure — not the content. The SGA will vote on the constitutional changes next week.

If the amendment passes, it will be on the election ballot later this month.

SGA also passed two funding bills at the meeting.

SGA meets again at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, in the Rhatigan Student Center, Room 256.