<ir="ltr">Because she missed three CSA meetings this term, former Senator and Inter-Campus Liaison Jerrilyn Goldberg ’18 was impeached from the CSA on Monday, May 13. As mandated by CSA bylaws, a Senator with three absences undergoes an automatic hearing and subsequent impeachment vote. The Senator is removed from CSA if two thirds of Senators vote for impeachment.
The impeachment hearing was not open to the public and the vote was conducted via secret ballot. Senators also had the opportunity to discuss the impeachment, while Goldberg was not in the room.
“This is an internal CSA procedure, and we wanted to make sure that it is conducted with respect,” said CSA President Tiffany Thet ’17. Goldberg declined to comment.
As a result of the impeachment, Goldberg cannot run for a CSA position for one academic term, and her seat is now vacant. As a result of the impeachment, appointments committee will handle the appointment of the replacement for the last few meetings of the term.
Based on the minutes available on the CSA website and in the college archives, there have been 30 impeachment hearings since 1999. All of the hearings were due to absences. Only two officers have been expelled from office during this time. One officer missed five meetings and another missed six meetings.
Prior to Goldberg’s impeachment, the most recent impeachment hearing happened on February 22, 2016. Although Senator and Inter-Campus Liaison Robert Kearney ’17 had missed three meetings, CSA did not vote to impeach him.
“According to the CSA bylaws, Senators who miss more than three meetings must have a mandatory impeachment hearing and enter impeachment procedure,” Thet said. “It’s a way of keeping senators accountable – out of respect to the student body who is relying on us to do our job.”
In addition to being impeached for absences, it is possible for Senators to be impeached for neglect of duties, misconduct in office or actions contrary to the character of the college, according to the CSA bylaws. According to Thet, no one has ever been impeached from the CSA for reasons besides lack of attendance.
CSA added the clause about automatic impeachment for three missed meetings in January 1986. Before then, it was up to the discretion of the Senate as to whether or not it wanted to impeach someone who had missed more than two meetings.
This change was made because “absences make the Senate ineffective, and have been a problem at times. But nobody wants to be the bad guy who proposes expelling a Senator,” CSA members wrote in a 1986 memo for proposed bylaw changes.
