Lorne Owens, a Senate Appropriations Commision uFUND senator, was impeached during executive session.
With only one week left until Ohio University Student Senate’s last meeting of the year, one voting member is no longer serving in the body after Wednesday night’s meeting.
Lorne Owens, a Senate Appropriations Commission uFUND senator, was given an article of impeachment during executive session and was unanimously voted out of the body due to lack of attendance, Student Senate President Gabby Bacha said.
Another unidentified member of the body also received an article of impeachment for lack of attendance but was voted to be not in violation, Bacha said.
“Both are really good student leaders, they just came down to an issue of attendance,” Bacha said. “No egregious behavior or anything like that.”
Saira Brown, chair of senate’s Conduct and Discipline Committee, said she had been in contact with both of the senate members who received articles of impeachment due to their attendance since January.
“It was more of a neglect of duty and an attendance issue,” Brown said. “He was neglecting his duties.”
Landen Lama, lead parliamentarian and non-voting advisor to the Conduct and Discipline Committee, said Owens was given every opportunity to reach out to the committee.
“It is sad that we did have to have two cases of impeachment this evening,” Lama added.
Owens was not present at the meeting for comment.
Additionally, senate voted to pass a resolution to make its rules and procedures gender neutral.
“I’m really happy about the gender neutral rules being instituted,” Bacha said. “As our body expands and as we kind of expand our spectrum of people at Ohio University ... I think it’s one of the more inclusive things to make people feel welcome in the body.”
An example of a change that will be made would be changing “chairman” to “chairperson,” Lama said.
“It’s super important to become more inclusive within the body,” he added.
The body also voted to approve four budget resolutions, including purchasing an award for the Bobcat Medal recipient, cake for next week’s meeting, food and other supplies for “Finals Fest” and graduation cords.
“We’ll end the year very financially sound,” Hannah Clouser, senate treasurer and president-elect, said.
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Student Senate also voted to appoint members to the Senator Emeritus Committee, which will choose this year's senator emeritus, and to define the position of historian, who will have the duty of record-keeping.
The body also heard presentations about Bare on the Bricks and Senior Week, as well as about initiatives to reduce the amount of money students spend on textbooks from Brad Cohen, senior vice provost of instructional innovation.
In addition, senate discussed the Bobcat Readership Program and the possible introduction of a news app for OU students.
Clouser added that next week the body will probably vote on a resolution about the program.
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