Senate refuses to debate removal of VP

After over an hour of deliberation and complex parliamentary procedure, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate voted last night not to address a motion to remove Senator Andrew Potts from his position as vice president.

At issue was the constitutionality of the motion, made by Historian Alison Clarke at the beginning of the meeting. An impeachment is supposed to be voted on by the Senate and then sent to the Judiciary (TCUJ) for a hearing. But a removal from a position _ but not from the Senate seat _ is not addressed in the TCU constitution.

TCUJ members said that since the motion was a disciplinary action, it fell into their sphere and the Senate should not decide it. Several senators, however, felt that since Potts was elected vice-president by an internal Senate vote, it was up to the Senate to remove him from that position.

The Senate voted 8-21-3 not to debate the motion, which meant that the reasons for discontentment with Potts were not discussed. These issues were revealed to Potts over the weekend by 13 senators who wrote him a letter asking him to resign from his post.

"Andrew is not fulfilling his role of vice president to our satisfaction," said Clarke, the senator who gave Potts the letter. But the vote indicates that not all of the senators behind the letter agreed with the constitutionality of last night's motion.

Senators' frustrations with Potts came to a climax on Friday when he did not come to the constitution reform meeting, which was attended by 23 out of the 33 senators. But Potts does not feel it should be the responsibility of senators to revise the constitution. The document is voted on by the entire student body, and there are no rules about who can reform it.

"I've worked on three constitutional reforms, and I'm tired," he said. "I'm graduating, and I love this school, but I don't have time to work on this."

Others, however, feel it is the responsibility of the vice president to deal with this issue because the conservative culture representative controversy earlier this semester proves that it is important to students.

"It's his job to care about what the Senate and students care about," Clarke said.

Potts was told by Clarke at several points earlier this semester that senators had criticisms about him, but he said he was never told of specific problems. In the letter, he was accused of not holding office hours regularly and of being inaccessible, allegations that he says are "smoke and mirrors."

Potts was involved in a somewhat similar situation two years ago, when he resigned his post as chair of the Administration and Budget committee at the threat of being removed from the position.

The vote last night solved little, and both sides expect further action to be taken to remove Potts from his position. The debate also caused passion and tensions within the Senate to explode. At one point, the debate became so convoluted that TCU President Melissa Carson had to call order and write on the blackboard in the room what was actually being voted on.

Additional questions were raised by the role of the TCUJ in this debate. TCUJ members had copies of Potts' appeal on the motion in their hands before the vote to hear it even took place. The TCUJ had a quorum of members in attendance at the meeting and was ready to enter any debate they thought they were involved in. Throughout the meeting, senators were confused about the role of the TCUJ in clarifying the constitution in this case.

Two members of the Senate executive board _ Treasurer Benjamin Lee and Clarke _ said that the vote not to debate the removal of Potts caused them to lose faith in the Senate and that they will consider reducing their roles as a result of it. Lee even stormed out of the meeting after the vote.

Both Lee and Clarke were angry that the real issue _ Potts' competency _ was not discussed because a constitutional roadblock was placed in front of them.

"I feel there is some huge error on the part of the Senate," Lee said. "The games that Andrew tried to play at the beginning of the meeting are another example of why he should be removed.

"It makes zero, logical, intuitive, any sort of sense that someone outside this body should be deciding on this," Clarke said.

But other senators heralded the vote as confirmation of the balance of powers in student government. "I came into this meeting feeling like student government was about to be torn down and rendered ineffective because we were assuming implied powers," Carson said.

In the debate over the constitutionality of the motion, Parliamentarian Adam Koeppel explained that the Senate could technically make any motion it wants and that the TCUJ cannot step in until an appeal is filed. But when the votes were cast, he came out against entertaining the motion.

"I don't like the reckless expansion of Senate power," he said. "The Senate tonight was moving in a way that was outside of the constitution."

Koeppel raised the possibility that a bylaw could be passed in a future meeting to settle the constitutionality of the issue. It is not yet clear whether the senators who are dissatisfied with Potts will attempt to pass such a bylaw or motion to impeach Potts.