SGA VP faces impeachment . . . again

For the second time in four months, VP Sheppard confronts impeachment

Impeachment papers have been filed against Student Government Association Vice President Ross Sheppard for the second time this school year

SGA senators voted 15-7 on Wednesday to call a hearing next week to see if Sheppard should be referred to the Student Judicial Board.

Sheppard was charged with DUI last August. A month later, SGA began the first impeachment process involving Sheppard. The hearing resulted in an 11-12 vote against impeaching the vice president.

This week’s impeachment proceedings began Tuesday night when an anonymous senator submitted a motion to be presented by the Senate Rules and Oversight Committee.

SGA President Pro Tempore Maxwell Pichan said the senate has the right at any time to file impeachment articles for any issue that it considers an impeachable offense.

“Certain members of SGA obviously felt that this is still a lingering issue and that it warranted a second try,” Pichan said.

The new filing accuses Sheppard of violating the Student Code of Conduct, acting in a manner that is unbecoming of an Executive Board member and failing to perform his constitutional duties.

Sheppard declined to comment for this story, but at Wednesday’s meeting he acted as if the accusations were a waste of time.

SGA’s bylaws list 15 duties that the vice president is obligated to fulfill during his term in office. It could be any of these several duties that Sheppard is being accused of not fulfilling.  A full list of these duties can be found on The Colonnade website.

Pichan says that the papers are presented to the senate through the committee purely as a formality.

“Running impeachment papers through Senate Rules and Oversight (Committee) is protecting people from standing up saying, ‘Here, this is me, I’m bringing these forward,’” Pichan said. “It’s a way to kind of keep it professional. … Part of senate rules and oversights is to take the lead on this sort of thing.”

SGA President Evan Karanovich said the bottom line is that these papers were not submitted under the same circumstances as the previous impeachment papers – the ones that came up after Sheppard’s DUI charge.

“These are separate articles for separate issues, not from Student Code of Conduct violations as in breaking the law outside of SGA,” Karanovich said, referring to the first impeachment hearing. “This is breaking the law inside of SGA.”

Late Wednesday, Karanovich said, “We will let the facts speak for themselves as they are presented at the session.”

Review SGA Bylaws Here: SGA Bylaws

Posted by Lauren Davidson on Jan 19 2012. Filed under Lead stories, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.