ASB plans to revise constitution

This year, the ASB will make amendments to the constitution regarding officer election rules. A constitutional convention, including all ASB members, Samuel Liu (12) and Luke Salin (10), plans to revise the ASB constitution in late September.

Written by Satomi Ishikawa, Mabel Hsu, Sophia Cooper, Lauren Kuan, Tim Rollinson and Mac Hyde in 2008, the ASB constitution states what the student body stands for, the rules for ASB meetings and how the ASB runs elections.

Last year, students were confused about the number of ASB meetings they were allowed to miss. The constitution stated that ASB members must attend only three meetings to run for office the next year, but according to what last year’s ASB decreed, members must attend at least all but two meetings to run for office.

“A lot of people were stuck with weird situations, and people were going through chats to find proof that they had gone to meetings. It was just a really inefficient method,” ASB vice president senior Anup Kar said.

“People who really wanted to run weren’t able to, so we’re going to make the election rules crystal clear so that it’s fair to everyone.”

According to ASB treasurer senior Robert Eng, the constitutional convention may also revise other parts of the constitution.

“We'll endeavor to revise the elections qualifications and process, delineate some of the powers ASB has and some other general shuffling around of articles,” Eng said.

The ASB constitution will be revised in a process similar to the American constitution. Once the convention finishes revising the document, the revised version will require a two thirds majority in the Student Council, according to Eng.

The revisions will be written almost exclusively by students. Although the administration will advise the ASB, students will decide most of the changes.

“I would certainly advise them if they were going to put something totally inappropriate in the constitution, but by and large, it’s really student government, so students decide,” Mohnike said. “I believe the students have a lot of authority about how they are going to run [the ASB].”