The Illinois Student Government will convene special meetings today and tomorrow to put the finishing touches on a proposed new constitution that, if approved by the student body, would be the most significant overhaul of the University's student government system in almost a decade.

The proposed constitution, presented by the ISG's Committee on Effectiveness last week after a year of research, would strip ISG of all its legislative powers and give them to the Student Senate Caucus, a 50-member group that is part of the Urbana-Champaign Student and Faculty Senate.

Separate and independent judicial and financial branches would also be created to ensure accountability and effectiveness, as well as fight corruption — issues ISG critics have expressed concern with in recent years.

ISG assembly members said the reforms will make student government more effective and help to counter a negative image of ISG held by some students.

"The 2003 election said (students) wanted reform — this is it," said Committee on Effectiveness chair Andrew Erskine.

After being submitted to the Student Election Committee, the new constitution would go before students in a Nov. 11 referendum for approval.

The existing structure of student government has two main branches: the ISG assembly, which advocates student views through legislation and meeting with administration officials, and the Student Senate, which works with faculty to set University policy.

The ISG assembly is made up of 21 members — 15 elected by the student body and six committee chairs elected internally. Student senators are elected through each college.

The assembly is led by an executive board, composed of a president, vice president, treasurer, chief of staff and two ISG assembly members. All are elected by the student body.

The new student government would have four separate branches — legislative, executive, financial and judicial — each providing checks over the other three.

The Student Senate Caucus would take over ISG's legislative powers while remaining part of the larger UC-Senate. The 50 members would be directly elected by the student body as a whole.

All six ISG committees, meanwhile, would be dissolved and reformed as cabinet departments, each headed by a director and an assistant director elected directly by the student body. These 12 officials, along with ISG president and vice president, would comprise the executive branch.

A new financial branch, headed by the treasurer and eight directors, would regulate all student government spending and audit all student government bodies to ensure student funds are being spent appropriately.

Finally, a judiciary commission, composed of seven student justices, would regulate the integrity of student government members as well as address constitutional issues.

Though most agreed with the proposal in principle, some assembly members feared that the proposal was being rushed through to make the Student Election Commission's Oct. 28 deadline for fall referendum proposals.

"I don't want to go through things too quickly," said ISG Chief of Staff Ben Wagner. "The report was just finished a week ago. I would like to see as much discussion and, I guess, contemplation about it as possible. It's hard to balance that out with making the SEC deadline."

Vilas Dhar, a leader of Reform ISG, a group pushing for the abolition of ISG, said the proposed structure would "be better than the status quo."

However, Dhar said Reform ISG would continue to push for a separate referendum question asking if ISG should be disbanded altogether.