Emergency Constitution and Statutes Minutes February 23rd, 2015 John E. Sapp Conference Room 5:45 PM – 6:30 PM Chair: Senator President Pro-Tempore Grantham I. Call to Order Meeting is called to order at 5:48PM Roll Call – Acting Vice-Chair II. III. Quorum is established with 5 voting members. Approval of Agenda Senator Gomez: Motion to approve tonight’s agenda. Second. All in favor. Moved. Remarks of the Chair – sgaspt@unf.edu IV. If any of you have any proposed legislation, something we could do is suspend the rules if you see that fit. V. Old Business VI. New Business a. CR-15S-2840 – Legislative Officer Elections - Chairman Grantham: The only things that have changed are in section 3. It reads that the senate shall change its officers in the Spring. In section 5 it adds Spring and the word all to the members of the legislative cabinet who are up for re-election in the Spring. Senator Ascanio: Motion to pass CR-15S-2840. Second. Discussion. Roll call vote: 5-0-0. Motion passes. b. CR-15S-2845 –Article II Revision - Chairman Grantham: This is a piece of legislation that Matthew Harris and myself put together. I’ll go over the changes that were made in this. In section 10, in subsection C it will add “and may with 2/3rds concurrence remove a member as prescribed by law. Essentially this will move quicker, which doesn’t require judicial process. It gives the senate the ability to remove someone. o - Senator Gloster: Does this include officers? If you move someone from their office position, they would still have their senate seat? - If the senate wanted to remove a chair, they would vote them out altogether. Chairman Grantham: Maybe we could specify this to only absence points. It is quite an extensive process to go through. One thing with trying to remove the impeachment process, this would limit the students from impeaching someone since this would be an internal process. o Senator Gomez: What is the value of impeachment, if you could motion to have someone removed from 2/3rds? - If you get rid of impeachment, it would exclude others from filing articles of impeachment if they are not in legislative. o Senator Ascanio: I think the whole intention of this is to make this specific for absence policy. So other bigger things can go through the extensive process. o Senator Gloster: If we limit this to absence points, wouldn’t this not let you impeach a legislative member, I thought the intent of this was to add a section to remove a legislative officer? - That is always there to be able to remove a member. My main thing is to fix the absence policy. I don’t think it needs the big removal process in the absence policy. I think that this would solve this issue altogether. o Senator Gomez: How does this come into play with the interpretation from last semester? - This is in the constitution, which would trump out what was in the statute. o Senator Motes: If we passed this as is would we have to change it in the statutes? - We would need an SR to fix it in P&P’s. o Senator Gloster: This would remove an officer from senate as a whole; they should still be able to be in senate? - The court could rule if they could keep their senate seat or not. o Senator Ascanio: We are talking about specifying this about absence points, it doesn’t matter if you are an office or a senator, and it shouldn’t matter. If you have absentee points it shouldn’t matter if you are a senator or an officer. o Advisor Shore: Your constitution is just the bones. When it comes to getting rid of officers, you are looking at something serious. If they do something that they need to be gone for, then you need to go through the impeachment process that is already in place. Senator Motes: Motion to amend CR-15S-2845 to read in section 10, subsection C: “and may with 2/3rds concurrence may remove a member due based on absenteeism as prescribed by law”. Rescinds motion. Senator Ascanio: Motion to amend CR-15S-2845 in section 10, subsection C by striking out as prescribed by law and for it to say: “and may with 2/3rds concurrence may remove a member due to the excessive accumulation of absence points”. Second. All in favor. Moved. VII. Senator Rader: Motion to approve CR-15S-2845 as amended. Second. Roll call vote: 4-0-1. Motion passes. Announcements VIII. IX. If you have any discretions please bring them up in senate tonight. Final Roll Call – Acting Vice-Chair Quorum is reestablished with 5 voting members. Adjournment Meeting is adjourned 6:19PM. Minutes taken by: Leah Tolisano, Senate Secretary.