Jose Gonzalez-Campelo/The Cougar
On Wednesday, concerns of a possible Supreme Court case led to the early dismissal of the Student Government Association session, which had already been delayed.
Biology sophomore Aihanuwa Ale-Opinion addressed the Senate with a presentation evaluating the removal of Sen. Gerald Ramirez.
According to the SGA Bylaws, any Senator that is absent from two Summer Senate meetings will be removed from Summer Senate. Therefore, removal of Ramirez is justified; however, there were two other senators who had also violated this bylaw but had yet to be removed.
The bylaw considers absences, regardless of whether they are excused or not. If the two invalid senators voted on any legislation that passed during the meeting, it could be challenged in court.
“They technically cannot be voting members of the Summer Senate, meaning that anything which is voted on today could potentially result in a Supreme Court case,” Ale-Opinion said.
After this violation was presented, several senators including Sen. Jordan Jones, Sen. Grecia Ledezma and Sen. Jesus Nieto expressed frustration over lack of transparency and accountability from the Senate Chamber and Speaker of the Senate, Sebastian Ballesteros, as it is the speaker’s job to remove senators once they have exceeded the absence limit.
“So my question to the speaker is why haven’t you removed the two senators that have exceeded that limit?” Jones said. “Why haven’t you gone over the bylaws and figured out that you cannot excuse absences during Summer Senate?”
Nieto continued to push the urgency of this violation, spotlighting an earlier suggestion by Ale-Opinion to table the voting and continue when all the senators hold valid votes.
“This meeting is illegal and any votes or motions that are taken at this meeting will be illegal and will be prosecuted in the Supreme Court,” Nieto said.
The meeting continued on for another hour until Nieto motioned for a recount of roll.
As the motion was passed, several senators including Nieto left the meeting so that the organization would fail to meet quorum and avoid invalid voting and prosecution in the Supreme Court.
