After almost a month without an ASUO president, Laura Hinman is back in office. This comes more than two months after the grievance that resulted in her vacating her seat was originally filed. Now, ASUO Vice President Nick McCain is left wondering if the process works.
“I think it was really just a lot of unnecessary stress on all of us,” McCain said. “It made us look bad as a whole, and shows we can’t effectively govern ourselves when this is happening.”
So what happened between then and now? Why was McCain doing the jobs of two people for about a month? Did it even make a difference?
“There wasn’t actually a hell of a lot that I had to pick up that she had to stop doing,” McCain said. Because Hinman had spent so long working with certain programs on how to handle budgets as they entered budget season, she continued to work with them — but only as an executive representative. “I was president in duties when it came to anything that needed a signature,” McCain said.
On Dec. 3, former Katie and Alex campaign manager Joanna Stewart filed a grievance against Hinman claiming she hadn’t met the deadline to appoint an Elections Board Chair or Board by the Nov. 1 deadline or in the three weeks after. In doing that, she would be in nonfulfillment of her presidential duties, and could ultimately be removed from office.
Fast forward to Jan. 16 — the Board Hinman presented to ASUO Senate was approved. However, since she had appointed the Elections Coordinator too late, Constitution Court decided to vacate her position on the 22nd, after her grievance hearing three days earlier. McCain would take over her duties as president.
“Basically, I didn’t think the ruling was valid or appropriate,” McCain said. At the time, he felt like all he could do was take action to reverse the ruling. That is, until former ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz went to Con Court asking to clarify if Hinman could eventually resume office. Before that, he wasn’t even sure what the difference between “vacancy” and “impeachment” was.
“I knew something was off when they didn’t name me president,” McCain said.
On Jan. 31, Con Court sent out a clarification that Hinman could resume office if McCain did what she had previously neglected to do.
So, just over a week later, Hinman was back in office.
McCain remembers being so cautious with every step because it was mistakes in their process that got them in trouble in the first place. In his eyes, the first Con Court opinion was wrong.
“I understand that there is a need and importance for accountability,” McCain said. “This was more nitpicky than accountability.”
Despite that, McCain hopes that student government can move forward, regardless of whether or not they agreed with the decision.
“I want to come together and improve student government,” McCain said. He wants to help clarify the Green Tape Notebook to make sure that situations like this don’t happen again.
“Now I’m catching up on sleep, and celebrating a little this weekend,” McCain said. “I hope we can move forward with our vision that we set forth to do more than a year ago now. I’m more excited and relieved going into week seven.”