Oh, law students. Undergraduates are so happy you are here.
You probably have more ambitious concerns than undergrad-centered student governance, but you too will pay about $600 a year for the collective promotion of cultural and physical development of the student body. And paying that most incidental of fees allows you to exercise some power on campus — posts including a currently vacant Senate seat reserved for a graduate or law student and, perhaps more germane to your interests, a few open seats on the student government’s court that you could occupy for the remainder of your time here.
It may sound silly, but if you give it a try within two months you could decide whether to topple a progressive student body president who won a landslide election, or approve new policies that could shape student government for years. Constitution Court justices have “supreme and final authority” on interpretations of the ASUO’s constitution and “any rules promulgated under it,” including every question affecting spring elections.
This is fortuitious timing, really. The five-member court currently has only two members and is on recess until the second Monday in September. It takes three justices to make a quorum. To get another justice, the ASUO president must nominate someone and the Senate must confirm. The Senate will not meet until the end of September or beginning of October. But one little caveat that makes things awkward: The appointed justice(s) will immediately decide whether to kick the president out of office.
Yeah, about that.
President Emma Kallaway, who bested rival Michelle Haley by nearly 10 percentage points, is the target of a a grievance filed by Haley that asks the court to declare the presidency vacant. Last week the ASUO Executive announced that Vice President Getachew Kassa will oversee the process of interviewing and selecting new justices while Kallaway and Chief of Staff Ella Barrett, who is also mentioned in the grievance, are out of town. The executive also promised to have nominees ready for confirmation at the Senate’s first meeting, prompting some protests that the only students who will be around to apply are dreaded “insiders.” But those critics clearly forgot about law students — two justices have to be second- or third-years — who might actually be able to provide some impartial guidance.
The basis for declaring the presidency vacant, Haley says, is that Kallaway failed to follow section 5.17 of the ASUO Constitution, which reads in part:
“The President shall establish and publish his or her own criteria for fulfillment of duties within one month of taking office. The President shall also perform all duties as required by this Constitution.” Another provision states that non-fulfillment of duties for three weeks “will be considered a vacancy of any office elected or appointed.”
Kallaway’s term began May 25, but she did not release her criteria for fulfillment of duties, typically a political document that reiterates campaign promises, until July 20. This is the most substantive charge of the five Haley makes, which include a jab at Barrett, who many suspect could be a future presidential candidate, not being selected with proper affirmative action hiring practices. Neither Haley nor the court could prove the accusation, but it’s a delicious irony given that Haley and her cohorts probably care about affirmative action about as much as Kallaway does about the location of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
Kallaway’s response to the grievance says removing her from office would be “a harsh punishment that does not fit the allegations.” The grievance is moot, Kallaway argues, because the duty in question was fulfilled more than two weeks before the grievance was filed. Conservatives privately express indignation of the unchecked nature of an executive’s power if this was the standard for following the constitution.
Kallaway also says that retroactively declaring the presidency vacant is “unprecedented for this Court in the history of its existence.” The last time the court ruled on whether to remove a president, the majority decided taking away President Emily McLain’s stipend pay for one month was a speedier resolution. Kallaway suggests the court “could choose a similar punishment” for her, without mentioning that the previous punishment didn’t fly. Vice President of Student Affairs Robin Holmes stepped in and gave McLain her stipend, saying the court could not take it away. (This despite the aforementioned “supreme and final authority” clause and the description of the court as having “broad powers to impose sanctions in order to compel compliance with its rulings.” Good luck.)
In 2004, according to Kallaway’s response, the court said sanctioning President Maddy Melton for non-fulfillment of duties “would defeat the spirit of the ASUO constitution.” There is considerable lingering bitterness about a case that came between those two presidential grievances, in which the court removed Senate President Sara Hamilton from office for non-fulfillment. Former Chief Justice Shon Bogar, who would later dissent from punishing McLain at all, wrote a scathing concurring opinion in Hamilton’s case that if the court “has the discretion to pick which officials it will remove, it will exercise that discretion without oversight, without appeal and completely unchecked,” which he called “a dangerous proposition.”
The con court is as politicized as any judicial body. If anyone outside the grip of campus politics can help settle this mess, it would be greatly appreciated.
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