Associated Student Body (ASB) officers are hoping that recent changes they made to the Paly Constitution will bring benefits to the student body and its government. According to junior class Vice President Becky Byler, ASB officials decided to amend the constitution to better reflect the ASB’s purpose.

“We decided to change the constitution because we wanted to make ASB’s mission more clear to all of Paly so that there will be no confusion about school policies,” Byler said. “We felt that the old version was outdated and not relevant to Paly today.”

The three major changes that have been made to the constitution deal mainly with officer removal, procedures in case of a tie for a position in student government, and homecoming court.

One of the most conspicuous changes is the addition of a new article that describes the causes and procedures for officer removal. It states that an ASB officer can be removed by request of the principal, the ASB adviser, the ASB executive board, or if he/she is suspended, expelled, does not attend ASB meetings, and does not fulfill his/her obligations. Previously the constitution did not specifically discuss the reasons for officer removal; it was the administration that dealt with situations involving removal of officers.

A new section was added to Article V, titled “Elections and Qualifications for Office,” that details the protocol in case of a tied election. It states that candidates who receive the same amount of votes can continue their campaigns for one week and a tie-breaking election will be held on the quad at lunch at the end of the week. Last year there was a tie between Olivia Diamond and Charlie Lin for the position of sophomore vice president. The elections had taken place later than usual and so the re-election took place two days later. The candidates for office felt that they did not have sufficient time to campaign and only one half of the students voted the second time opposed to three fourths the first time.

Originally, the constitution only mentioned the homecoming court, which includes the king and queen from the senior class and princes and princesses from the other grades, but now the entire procedure involving selection of the court has been outlined. The new rules state that all members of each grade shall have the opportunity to vote for members of the homecoming court and the top five nominees from each class will be notified one week before the final election so they can promote themselves during Spirit Week. The final election will take place on Friday at lunch and winners will be announced at the Friday after-school rally instead of at the homecoming dance.

“Earlier, the homecoming court used to be announced at homecoming and sometimes the winners would not be there, so we decided to change that this year and have the winners announced at the after-school rally instead,” Witte said. “Also, this way it is more climactic.”

The new constitution can be found at http://asb.paly.net/index.html