The Undergraduate Students Association Council president called on students to approve changes to the USA Constitution at a Thursday debate.
The USA Elections Board and the Daily Bruin co-hosted a series of debates between candidates in the upcoming USAC election. Several parliamentary adjustments to the USA Constitution – which were proposed by USAC’s Constitutional Review Committee and passed by the council – are on the upcoming ballot.
USAC President Diego Bollo is the designated campaign representative for the amendments. Amendments require approval from two-thirds of voters, and more than 10% of all eligible student voters must participate in the election.
The proposed amendments remove redundant language from the constitution and align some sections with Robert’s Rules of Order – a manual of nineteenth-century parliamentary rules – as well as existing USAC practices, according to the ballot proposition. The amendments would modify Constitution articles II, IV, V, VIII and XII.
“The USAC Constitution is the most important document we have,” said Bollo, a fourth-year labor studies and political science student. “These are not minor edits. They touch the architecture of student power at UCLA. Every office we hold and every vote we cast and every dollar we allocate – it all flows from this Constitution.”
One amendment would allow the Elections Board to approve election results without USAC approval, which the student body already approved through another proposition in the 2021 election cycle – the most recent cycle that included constitutional amendments. The change on the 2026-27 ballot would eliminate a contradiction in the constitution, according to the ballot proposition.
[Related: Student body elects Breeze Velazquez as president, fails to pass relief referendum]
Another amendment would give USAC supervision over USA affairs and allow them to establish committees, task forces, commissions and boards necessary to do so. The council already abides by this rule, according to the ballot proposition.
Bollo said this provision would allow USAC to create commissions and a task force related to the 2028 Olympics. UCLA’s campus is the planned site of the Olympic Village.
The proposed amendments would also require summer USAC meetings to have at least half of officers in attendance in order to vote on agenda items, and permit the ASUCLA executive director – who often cannot attend council meetings due to time constraints, according to the proposition – to choose a representative to serve in their place at meetings.
Bollo said there is currently an unofficial representative who serves as a liaison between the executive director and USAC, but the amendment would create an official ex-officio council member to represent ASUCLA.
The ballot proposition would also remove the USAC President from the ASUCLA Board of Directors and Communications Board – which oversees UCLA Student Media, including the Daily Bruin – in accordance with those boards’ constitutions and practices.
Another provision would remove a line about appointed council member votes, since appointees already cannot vote, according to the proposition.
The amendments would also clarify that the ASUCLA Communications Board is governed by its own constitution rather than the USA Bylaws.
Proposed amendments – and a notice of the election – must be posted to the Elections Board website and social media accounts at least a week before the election, per the Election Code.
“This amendment is not just paperwork,” Bollo said. “It determines who has authority, who coordinates action and who is accountable when things go wrong.”
Students can vote in the election on MyUCLA starting May 8 at 8 a.m. until May 15 at noon.
