The ASUO Constitution Court ruled May 24 that former Student Senate President Sara Hamilton was rightfully removed from her seat following a grievance filed by former Sen. Erica Reiko Anderson.
Hamilton had asked the court to rehear the case and submitted as evidence previous court rulings that had not inflicted such a harsh penalty. The court said it was following the rules as laid out in the Green Tape Notebook, the ASUO governing document.
Hamilton was removed for non-fulfillment of duties because she had not sent out Senate agendas within 48 hours of regular meetings. For many rules, the Senate is expected to follow Oregon Public Meetings Law which requires agendas be sent 24 hours prior to meetings; however, the court found Senate rules to be more definitive in their requirements.
Hamilton said the ruling could influence how the Senate operates next year.
“It’s definitely going to be on Senators’ minds,” she said. “There’s going to be a rise of petty political grievances and it’s going to affect the way student government is going to serve students.”
ASUO President Emily McLain said she thought the ruling was “surprising and harsh” but that “it has given a catalyst for some revision.”
The court said although the matter could have been resolved through internal means, it has no choice in which cases it will hear, and all cases that come before it in the proper manner must be heard.
McLain said she didn’t think the grievance was the result of political maneuvering.
“I don’t think anyone anticipated Sara getting kicked off the Senate,” she said.
The court determined that Hamilton’s arguments suggested it has a choice as to which rules it will enforce.
“If this Court took it upon itself to decide what rules to follow and when, it would be creating a situation by which its unbridled discretion would allow for abuse,” the opinion reads.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Shon Bogar wrote that the court, being the highest authority in student government, must follow the rules as laid out before it.
“There is no appellate court. There is no supreme court. There is just the ASUO Constitution Court,” he wrote. “Thus, if the Constitution Court has the discretion to pick which officials it will remove, it will exercise that discretion without oversight, without appeal and completely unchecked.”
Bogar also wrote the Senate has the power to change its own rules.
“If the Senate thinks that the mandatory results are too harsh, it should change the rules that mandate that result,” he wrote.
In another concurrence, Justice Wally Hicks criticized student government for not taking responsibility for its actions.
“Moreover (Hamilton’s) approach of ‘admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations’ is symptomatic of a greater malady that infests pockets throughout the ASUO,” Hicks wrote. “As a whole the ASUO suffers from a serious deficiency of willingness to accept criticism.”
Hicks continues to lambaste student government by suggesting the organization could best begin to reform itself by accepting a level of “personal accountability for their own actions.”
Hicks wrote, “The ASUO and many of its money-hungry constituent groups purport to be obsessed with solving virtually every problem under the sun ranging from racism to the environment to global-nuclear politics. Instead of focusing ever outward the ASUO ought to shift its readily extended finger toward the mirror for a while and address some of its own internal shortcomings.”
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Constitution Court rules on Hamilton’s removal
Daily Emerald
June 24, 2007
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