Constitutional Amendment #40

Page 1

Presented to the Senate Floor on January 22, 2015.

Authored by: RIVILIS

Introduced by: Rivilis

Referred to: Internal Affairs Commission

Recommendation: Internal Affairs Commission

Constitutional Amendment #XX

Page 2

A Constitutional Amendment to distinguish between present and absent abstentions.

Section 1. The ASUCD Senate hereby places the following Constitutional Amendment on the winter 2015 ballot:

Distinct Abstention Amendment

Please vote for one of the following options:

______Yes, I approve of the Distinct Abstention Amendment.

______No, I do not approve of the Distinct Abstention Amendment.

An Act to amend the ASUCD Constitution by placing the following amendment before the vote of the ASUCD membership on the winter 2015 ballot.

BACKGROUND: The ASUCD Court released a verdict for Chen vs. Elections Committee on March 13th, 2014, stipulating that during a referendum, abstentions do not count towards voter turnout. Subordinate bodies of the ASUCD Senate have begun to follow the precedent of this court case, but it has led to nebulous situations where a bill can fail if the Court’s precedent is followed, even if voting members are absent. Passage of this Constitutional Amendment seeks to restore consistency in the voting process of the ASUCD legislative bodies by discerning between abstentions that a voting member participates in or is absent from.

Section 1. The ASUCD membership hereby enacts Article II, Section 17 of the ASUCD Constitution by

adding all underlined text as follows:

(1) / In the event of an abstention, all abstentions during voting in which the voting member is present will count towards the total vote count, and all abstentions that a voting member is absent shall not count towards the total vote count necessary to reach a threshold to pass legislation.
(2) / On recorded vote count, the abstentions shall be distinguished by a (P) next to the voting member’s name if the person is present during the vote, or shall otherwise be labeled as an (A) if the voting member was absent.

Finance: No Appropriation: None Vote: Majority