Luke Wadley, Taylor Weeks, Alex Cabrera, and Noelle Trotter preside over the Student Senate meetings.
The Student Senate met last night for the second time in October, and the Rules and Administration Committee confronted what R&A chairwoman Erika Allen calls “a very serious problem for SGA” — the Student Senators’ lack of duty and responsibility to their constituents in the form of SGA participation. How? By filing articles of impeachment against 32 Senators — or 58% of the entire Senate. More after the jump.
Half of the Student Senate is in danger of impeachment as of Thursday night. The reason: neglecting their obligations, said Rules and Administration chairwoman Erika Allen.
This is not the first accusation levied against the Senate of this nature. The second meeting of the fall semester saw the 48th Student Senate receive a long reprimand from SGA Chief Justice Stuart Williams, who presides over the judiciary branch of the SGA. His over-30 minute lecture to the SGA reinforced and justified opinions that he cited as “at-large” regarding the student body to the SGA: by his account, the Senators are lazy, uninterested in student affairs, and only interested for their own benefit.
The Texas Tech Student Government Association’s legislative branch, the Student Senate, is comprised proportionally of Senators from each academic college. These Senators are elected by ballot in March of each year to represent students in the SGA, and one of their primary administrative powers is “the power of the purse” — they are able to appropriate money gained through student fees each academic year to student organizations and other contracts that SGA negotiates, such as the Citibus routes around campus. The FY2013 budget can be found here. Or at least the gist of it.
The campaign for more senator involvement, responsibility, and accountability continued last night, when the SGA Rules and Administration Committee put 32 individual articles of impeachment onto the senate’s list of first readings. Articles of impeachment are used to accuse senators of crimes against the SGA, including — according to the Senate Rules handbook— malfeasance (wrongdoing by a public official), neglect of duty, or misconduct. Also according to the Senate Rules (Rule VIII, Section 9), ALL senators are to be impeached AUTOMATICALLY by the R&A committee if they accrue more than four unexcused absences in a session (school year), whether they are consecutive or not.
After introducing all 32 articles of impeachment on the Senate docket, Senator Erika Allen took the floor to explain why. She explained the R&A’s leniency and reluctance to impeach before as attributed to “technical difficulties.”
“The Rules and Administration Committee,” she explained during the meeting after introducing the legislation, “has decided — we talked about it — that that’s way too many, you guys. It’s quorum. We can’t impeach all of you, and most of you I know don’t have excuses like Senator Pippen and Senator Acosta that say you were in the office all the time.”
“Quorum” is the amount of present senators required for the Senate to have a meeting. If each of the impeachment resolutions were to go through and all 32 found guilty of neglect-of-duty, the Senate would not even be able to function.
“This should be a huge wake-up call to all of you,” she continued. “It’s appalling that we’re not all there doing what’s required of us.”
Senators Matt Pippen and Stephanie Acosta were among those filed against, and were both given the opportunity to defend themselves against the resolutions on the floor. They explained the problem as technical, having to do with the system used by the Senators to swipe their IDs to clock their required office hours. Both Pippen and Acosta told the Senate that their absences would be reconciled with a statement by the President of SGA, Alex Alston.
This, however, has not been the case in the 48th Session until last night, despite some senators having five or six unexcused absences on their record.
Chief Justice Williams had a statement to share with KTXT regarding the situation.
“While I can appreciate the expediency—both political and timely—of the impeachments handed out this evening, I must say that — on a personal note as Stuart Williams, as a student, and most importantly as a former senator with a profound respect for rules — I am quite disappointed in the action taken tonight excusing clear violations of the Rules of the Senate. I cannot comment on each or any case in particular, but it seems to me that if the rules warranted the proposal of these resolutions, then the requisite investigations and discussions should have been had. The students’ representatives have the wherewithal to run their body any way they see fit, but actions like these — in my personal opinion — endangers the safety, dignity, and respect of the Senate and the rules which affect its ability to protect and work for the students’ interest. As an officer of the students and the Constitution, I will continue to advocate — on behalf of the students — for the full and constant enforcement of the rules.”
Senator Allen, the chairwoman of the R&A committee, reiterated a number of times that these absences “are not set in stone,” but reinforced that those senators who do not satisfy the committee’s standards for excused absences will be filed against next session, November 8, at 6 p.m.
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