Petition demanding the recall of last spring’s Student Senate election reveals a division among senate members.
A petition to upheave this year’s Student Senate members and re-elect candidates to those positions has growing support, but such a recall election might not occur until months from now.
Those circulating the petition had only gathered just more than 1,500 signatures — about half of their goal of 3,000 signatures — by Sunday night, and the proposed amendment would have to be voted on by students. It could be months before OU’s Board of Trustees sees the amendment.
The process to amend senate’s constitution via a petition-drive is long and complicated. It is intended to remove senate President Megan Marzec from her position.
First, 10 percent of students currently enrolled on the Athens campus must sign the petition. Including undergraduate and graduate students, there were more than 21,500 students on the Athens campus last spring, according to the most recent numbers available.
After the signatures are gathered, the petition will be presented to senate which will host a vote for all students on whether to add the amendment to the constitution. If the 10 percent threshold is met, senate must allow a general election on the amendment to go forward.
Senate’s constitution says an election would not have to occur until the end of the next quarter, show
ing that section of the constitution has not been updated since OU switched to semesters in 2012.
In last year’s senate election, Restart won 21 of 34 seats on senate, but only 3,561 votes were cast.
It’s unclear when the election would have to happen under the semester system.
Then, if students vote for the amendment, it will come to the Board of Trustees for a majority vote on whether to amend senate’s constitution. Senate is an advisory body to the board.
Only then could students begin the new process to recall senate.
Senate’s LGBTQA Affairs Senator Taylor Hufford, who has signed the petition and is distributing it, said the initial goal was to present the petition to the board at its Thursday meeting. But the petition will not be presented until the 3,000 signatures are collected, she said.
LGBTQA Affairs Commissioner Ryant Taylor, who ran on the Restart ticket in the spring election, says he can see how petition holders call this a “democratic process” and a display of “student power,” but the push for this petition would result in a representative democracy — something he described as a “sluggish” version of how senate used to be.
“The way things have been in the past, students only involved themselves when things are personal and not when it’s issues that involve all students on campus,” Taylor said. “I feel that the people in senate now worry about issues that affect all students. Things like: tuition hikes, administrative pay raises, poverty wages, as far as working on campus and around Athens.”
Hufford, who was appointed by Marzec, disagreed with Taylor and said every senator who signs the petition is taking a risk because every position is recalled.
“There are people in ONE that are completely aware that by signing the recall petition, their position could be taken away and they will have to be re-elected into their spot,” Hufford said.
Taylor said he wishes more dialogue was present for “the sake of things being more open.”
“As a senate, we’ve been fighting toward being really open and honest with each other and not being afraid to be vocal,” he said. “For that to be revealed in a newspaper, instead of senate, was really surprising for a lot of people.”
West Green Senator Jordan Kelly, who signed the petition and ran on the ONE ticket in the spring, said the current senate would reject the petition to amend the constitution.
“We have tried, as members of ONE, to work with everyone in senate at the beginning of this year,” Kelley said. “We reached out and tried to make a really cool collaboration of our ideas, but oftentimes, if someone who didn’t run with Restart speaks in opposition to anything that they say, whether it’s a minor or a major opposition, we’re shot down.”
Senate Vice President Caitlyn McDaniel said she is disappointed with students within senate for “retreating to their tickets when people disagree with them.”
“Whenever I feel like someone’s been silenced, I’ve spoken out about it,” she said, calling for more active conversation within senate to resolve their differences.
@Alisa_Warren
aw120713@ohio.edu
