Two weeks ago, Student Body President Cody Boyer dismissed Attorney General Melanie Mercado.
Last week, Boyer received three charges by the student government senate executive committee, accusing him of attempting to illegally add statues to the constitution, issuing an executive order to undermine the authority of the constitution, and discrimination in regards to his termination of Attorney General Melanie Mercado.
Before firing Mercado, Boyer created an executive order allowing him to fire both the attorney general and the chief financial officer, as he has the power to dismiss the rest of the members on the executive cabinet. Before the executive order, the attorney general and CFO could only be removed from office through impeachment.
In response to a petition lead by Chief Financial Officer Jozef Gherman, the Supreme Court ruled Boyer’s executive order unconstitutional and was promptly overturned on Wednesday, Oct. 29.
Mercado’s termination is also under review by the Supreme Court.
Mercado has begun a petition for a recall election of Student Body President. However, according to Student Body Vice President Taylor Russell, the recall election is bound to be a lengthy process.
“First, ten percent of the total student body has to sign a petition asking for a recall, including graduate students, which amount to about 650 students,” says Russell. “Then, there will have to be a ballot sent out that basically gives Melanie Mercado a chance to explain why she feels a recall is necessary, and gives Cody Boyer a chance to explain why he should stay in office. At that time, students will be able to vote to either keep Cody, or vote to remove him from office.”
The petition currently lacks sufficient support, but there is no time limit for gathering signatures; meaning this process is likely to be drawn out even longer than the previous impeachment proceedings.
“Usually, recall elections are used only to rectify an issue within the election process,” says Russell. “However, Cody went through two rounds of elections in the most seamless and professional election we have seen in quite some time. So in this case, they are using [recall elections] as a tool to remove an elected official from office without giving him a chance to defend himself.”
Boyer responded to the charges of discrimination regarding Mercado’s termination by claiming his quote#“The decision was made because of operational and cultural issues in the workplace”# was taken out of context and by arguing the fact that discrimination only applies to workers who were fired due to age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or creed.
Boyer also claimed that Mercado’s work and actions prevented the reconstruction of a legitimate, professional Student Government.
“Executive Order 3 clarifies statues, which is exactly what an executive order is supposed to do,” said Boyer. “If this is deemed unconstitutional, the function of an executive order needs to be re-evaluated.”
According to Boyer, the SG Senate is in the midst of a dire situation. Due to the culture in SG, many senators have stepped out.
“We only have one-third of the senate (10 out of 30) members that we are supposed to,” Boyer said.
With a full senate of 30 representatives, 16 senators must be present to make decisions. Because there are only 10 senators, only six must be present to make decisions regarding a student body of about 4,700 students.
“These six people are the ones who will decide what will be done with $1.2 million dollars,” Boyer said.
