On Wednesday evening, the Student Association Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to support the Senate's efforts to recall SA Treasurer Sikander Khan. The decision was made after Senate Chair Darwinson Valdez implored the body to join with and boost the Senate's efforts.
"I'm thankful the Assembly agreed with the Senate, but I don't think it was good enough," Valdez said. " But I'm really grateful that Assembly is helping us and hopefully we can have something done by tomorrow."
When the Assembly last met, it decided to table any discussions surrounding Khan, his involvement with Virtual Academix, and how he almost spent $300,000 on a mobile application. But at Wednesday's meeting, the body was ready to take a stand.
The Assembly again chose not to exercise its constitutional right of initiating recall procedures because of the current timetable - there are only 11 days left in the semester and Khan's term - and because three-fifths of the body's members would have to sign the petition. Only 23 of the Assembly's 49 voting members were at Wednesday's meeting; 29 members would have to sign the petition to initiate the process.
Instead of taking its own measures, the Assembly wrote a resolution in support of the Senate's recall petition; the Senate chose on Sunday to act as individual undergraduate students and begin collecting signatures.
"The Assembly wanted to fulfill what we originally decided to do at our last meeting - pass a formal condemnation of Sikander's actions - while at the same time showing our support of the Senate-led recall," said Assembly Member Alex Dvorscak, one of the members who introduced the resolution. "In this resolution I feel that we accomplished both."
The Assembly toyed with the idea of suspending members that have missed two or more meetings this semester in order to gain a three-fifths majority during the meeting. The Speaker may suspend any member that has missed at least two meetings, and that member loses his or her voting privileges, as a result. The suspension is in effect as soon as the Speaker sends out a letter or email to the member, according to the SA constitution.
Essentially, Speaker Steven Jackson could have sent out suspension emails during Wednesday's meeting in order to obtain the three-fifths majority, but he ultimately chose not to take such actions; if he followed through with suspending members - while Jackson has that power constitutionally - he could have violated quorum rules and may have unjustly suspended members just to pass a political action.
"I'm not going to be removing anyone from the Assembly, mainly because it is late in the year," Jackson said. "On a personal level, I think we are doing the right thing, but ultimately it was up to the Assembly, and if the Assembly says we're going to go with the petition, then that's what I'm going to back."
The Assembly and Senate are now trying to collect enough signatures - 2,576, the number of voters in the last SA election - to present the petition to SWJ. Valdez hopes the bodies will be able to collect 3,000 signatures by 5 p.m. on Friday.
"The Speaker of the Assembly should have made the decision of removing those people that have missed two meetings because it is impeding them from doing their course of business," Valdez said. "Assembly could've either delivered by today or made a committee today and delivered by Sunday, in case we're not able to get the 3,000 signatures."
Students who wish to sign the petition can do so by finding any member of the Assembly or Senate, or they can stop in 350 Student Union and take a petition from the Senators' mailbox.
The Senate will meet on Sunday at 3 p.m., room to be announced. The Assembly has called meetings for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 8:20 p.m., room to be announced. Wednesday night's meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. in NSC 218. Jackson will cancel meetings as he sees fit.
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