The Undergraduate Student Congress passed a motion to add a Special Vote of No Confidence to next week’s agenda and hosted a guest speaker during its Tuesday evening meeting.
Pre-med chemical biosciences junior Francesca Losh is a candidate running for the Campus Activities Council chair position and discussed her platform, “Soar Above,” which focuses on student experience, intentional outreach, accessibility, and retention and engagement.
Losh currently serves as the CAC executive treasurer and served as CAC Spring Family Weekend chair her sophomore year. She said, if elected, one of her concerns is reconnecting CAC with the other three branches of SGA.
“I know it definitely seems like we’re very far removed from the other branches, and I acknowledge that,” Losh said. “I (want to) tell the 13 Ventures (which are the 13 events CAC runs throughout the year) what SGA is doing and how they can get more involved in that because I feel like in the past, we've been so far we just don't know what's going on.”
Rep. Emiliano Perez raised a motion to conduct a Special Vote of No Confidence for Vice Chair Sidney May and her position during next week’s Special Orders. The regular votes of No Confidence in officer positions happened in the second meeting of this congress session on Nov. 30, in accordance with the SGA Bylaws.
Those in the proponent said they were concerned about May’s ability to execute her job and wanted to enter the executive session that would also be added to next week’s agenda, as stated by the Bylaws, to address the reasons for these concerns.
“Undeniably, Sidney is one of the hardest workers I’ve met. That is not in relation to congress, though,” Secretary Hadi Fawad said. “She holds two jobs, she’s always at the (State) Capitol, I have (the) utmost respect for her. I’m not wanting to vote her down, but I do think that we should see this just to get a better understanding of what the vice chair role should look like.”
Some newer members spoke as a proponent because they didn’t understand why the motion was raised and wanted more information.
“As somebody who’s fairly new to the body, I feel like I don’t really have the relationship that all of you do have with Sidney,” Rep. Austin Cappleman said. “It may not be (this way), but I feel like something’s being hidden from me. I don’t know what's going on. I just feel like something’s being hidden (and I) need to see why this was brought up, because it was brought up for a reason.”
Perez’s initial motion was met with objection and called to debate, with the proponent wanting to see through the Special Vote of No Confidence during next week’s meeting.
Opponents to the motion felt a special vote was “disrespectful” because May was out sick and couldn’t defend herself, and the vote was not the way or the time to address concerns about her work ethic as her term ends in three weeks.
“Three weeks is the turnover for any wrongs she’s done,” Sustainability Committee Chair Jake Lange said. “If you’re worried about going forward with her ability to perform her duties, we should have done this months ago. I’m not trying to impugn any particular character, but the action itself is kind of rooted in duplicity or rooted in just a needless way of accomplishing something that doesn’t need to be done.”
External Affairs Committee Chair Lacey Lewis said she understands people are confused and simply want information, but encouraged against holding a special vote next week.
“It’s still hindering her reputation by doing this, as well as it’s kind of cruel to put somebody through a vote of no confidence just to get information and just to see what the vice chair can do better for the next round,” Lewis said. “I think that we should have that conversation separately when we’re not trying to vote someone out of their position. Imagine yourself in (Sidney’s) position.”
With a vote of 15-8-1, the motion passed and the special vote and connected executive session will be held next week.
If the vote of no confidence passes, Parliamentarian Abby Halsey-Kraus said May would no longer be allowed to be a part of the congress body for an allotted period, stripping her of her vice chairmanship and associateship, and nominations for that position would open immediately.
Congress also saw an auxiliary bill, which allocates SGA funds to 19 OU organizations and associations, amounting to over $10,000. This bill passed unanimously and will move to the Graduate Student Senate for further consideration.
The organizations included the Investment Club at the University of Oklahoma, Lambda Delta Psi, the SGA Undergraduate Student Congress, the English Club, the International Advisory Committee, the SGA Student Environmental Coalition, the Pre-Optometry Club, the African Student Association, the Asian American Student Association, Alpha Lambda Delta, the World Literature Today Student Advisory Board, Oklahoma Intercollegiate Legislature, the Dialogues of Contemporary Sociology (DOCS) Workshop, the Student Planning Association and the Gamma Beta Fraternity.
