The Illinois Student Senate tightened the attendance policy at the weekly meeting Wednesday evening in the Pine Lounge of the Illini Union.

The student senate passed a resolution to amend their bylaws, restricting the number of unexcused absences a senator can have per semester to five. If a senator exceeds this number, he or she can be removed from the senate.

The resolution was proposed Feb. 3. After being amended, it was tabled multiple times until being passed in a vote of 18-9.

“People have to realize that student senate is for the students, it’s by the students and for the students, and everything we try to do here is for them,” said Sam Barghi, student senator and co-author of the resolution. “At the end of the day we want a better University... The first way that we can go about doing that is making sure we’re at our meetings.”

The student senate has had relatively high absence numbers this school year and struggled to meet quorum at Wednesday’s meeting.

Yousif Al-Rawi, senator and co-author of the resolution, said the goal of the resolution was not to impose a very strict policy on the senators because he said he hopes, on the basis of trust, that members will demonstrate dedication to the senate. However, he said he still felt it was an issue that needed to be addressed.

Al-Rawi added that the low voter turnout of the March 2 and 3 campus elections displays a lack of confidence by the students in their student government.

“The students don’t believe in us yet. If we really have an influence on the students we would have more than a 15 percent vote when the elections come up,” Al-Rawi said. “This is the right first step toward getting the trust of the people, the trust of the students, for the ISS.”

Some senators expressed concern that many members of the senate will lose their seats due to the policy, which may cause the body to become less effective.

“The people who will be removed probably were not caring for the students anyway so as far as I see it’s not as affecting,” Al-Rawi said. “It’s going to be a smaller body that is actually more focused towards the betterment of the student and the representation of the student body.”

Barghi said the members lost because of this policy were not supposed to be there in the first place.

“If you don’t have the heart, you don’t have the commitment for this body, for the students, you don’t deserve to be here,” Barghi said.