The Student Government Association (SGA) removed two senators after they were voted out in a majority in two impeachment trials in the regular SGA meeting April 2.
SGA held two consecutive trials to impeach Freshman Class President Owen Braniff and Sophomore Class Sen. Charlie Leeds.
As per the current SGA Constitution, voting members of the Senate brought a formal statement to Stephen Weinstock, the director of the general judicial council. The General Judicial Council (GJC) then determined that there was cause for impeachment by majority vote March 31 and a special hearing was held April 2, the scheduled Senate meeting date.
Weinstock acted as the judge while the plaintiffs and defendant made their opening statements.
“My role as director of the GJC is to process complaints brought by senators,” Weinstock said. “I don’t act as an attorney general bringing a case unless it’s presented to me. So I don’t have any power within my own role to bring the case against someone.”
The Senate then held a round of questioning for the defendants and the plaintiffs, concluded with closing statements and held a private jury deliberation before heading to a vote.
Trial 1: Freshman Class President Owen Braniff
Freshman Class Sens. Eden Shimanek, Jack Quigg and Emily Espinosa brought the first case forward against Freshman Class President Owen Braniff, with Shimanek acting as plaintiff.
“I personally feel that we have definitely seen a sense of disparity in terms of how the responsibilities are being distributed amongst our senate,” Espinosa said. “I think Owen does an excellent job of going above and beyond to communicate with the student body and make sure they’re aware of what’s going on. That’s without a doubt. But in terms of how our responsibilities are being shared, there is a clear difference.”
Senior Class President Walden Hicks asked Braniff about his workload on resolutions throughout his tenure to which he mentioned that he worked with other senators on the Parking Party event.
“So I assisted in the parking committee in the beginning of the year working with Senator Iglesias and Moghaddasi,” Braniff said. “That was largely a learning experience led by senators Iglesias and Moghaddasi. Both of them wrote an exceptional resolution and I have a lot to learn in regards to that.”
Hicks also asked Braniff about his work within the freshman class Senate and whether or not he felt as if he contributed enough to SGA, working within his freshman class Senate.
“I was unable to attend the retreat due to work responsibilities, but I should have studied it more on my own,” Braniff said. “In terms of percentage of workload, it’s lower. Most of it was contributing ideas to our tabling events, where we tabled for Valentine’s Day, and the broad theme for Kahoot being my idea and then contributing to ideas for the fall freshman Tunnel.”
Between the private GJC hearing held Monday, March 31 and the trial held April 2, new allegations emerged of possible jury tampering where Braniff had contacted multiple voting members of the Senate to vote against the impeachment in exchange for his support of their initiatives.
“So I got a phone call from Senator Shimanek yesterday who received a text or a phone call from another member of the senate who said that Senator Braniff had reached out to them, urging them to vote no against the impeachment today in exchange for him supporting this other member of Senate’s, initiatives and things like that,” Vice President Michael Sugimoto said.
After the round of questioning, the trial ended with closing statements from the plaintiff and the defendant.
“It has been communicated to Senator Graham to step up, to act as a president that he ran for,” Sen. Shimanek said. “And so the reason why this is happening today is because enough time has passed and enough grace has already been extended, all throughout last semester and all throughout this semester.”
Braniff started his closing statement by stating that he wished the concerns from his Senate had been brought up earlier so he had more time to adjust.
“In terms of workload distribution, one conversation was had,” Braniff said. “I’d like to say that I wish this was brought up earlier last year because then time for improvement could have been, or could have been afforded to me.”
Braniff closed his statement by urging the voting members of the Senate to vote against his impeachment.
“I would appreciate your grace in this decision,” Braniff said. “I would also appreciate your consideration too. My stipend has been removed. I think that’s absolutely fair. My first-semester stipend has not been collected and I think that should also be removed, which I think is entirely fair.”
The jury then deliberated privately before voting in a majority to impeach Owen Braniff.
Trial 2: Sophomore Senator Charlie Leeds
Vice President Michael Sugimoto and Junior Class President Adrianna Canas brought forth the second case against Sophomore Sen. Charlie Leeds. Sugimoto was the first to call for Leeds’ removal and Canas had compiled anonymous complaints regarding Leeds’ absences and his lack of communication. Sugimoto acted as the plaintiff.
“This isn’t about personal relationships,” Sugimoto said. “It’s about holding each other accountable. Faithfully executing the goals that we all swore in at the beginning of the semester and showing up, participating, communicating. And, unfortunately, Senator Leeds hasn’t met those expectations. He’s missed five unexcused settlements, plus one excused, and one that’s been has been tardy twice. That’s a total of eight absences.”
Leeds made his opening statement with an apology for his lack of communication with the Senate and his absences during events and meetings.
“I underestimate the difficulty of having less days to work and trying to balance the rest of my tasks with less schedule to work with,” Leeds said. “And so, unfortunately, sometimes SGA, I wasn’t able to accommodate within my schedule for that.”
Sophomore Class Sen. Zayd Salahieh elaborated on his own experience working with Senator Leeds within their Senate.
“I believe his attendance in these meetings here is unfortunate,” Salahieh said. “But when we are together as a Senate, I’ve seen him work hard and he’s contributed a lot to this. I can’t speak on his attendance here.”
Sugimoto provided some examples from the pool of anonymous complaints against Leeds Canas.
“The statements are redacted so that people are anonymous to this,” Sugimoto said. “On this statement, it says, first example our recent town hall plan has failed to respond to all requests and he has not participated in the planning process. Before that, he fails to complete his assigned tasks in our group chat. Charlie tends not to show, and he’s not working five hours a week.”
Senior Class Sen. Vivianna Hernandez questioned the discrepancy present between the statements submitted for the case and some of the senators speaking for Leeds’ behavior within the current trial.
“There are some statements that seem to be coming for people who work with this with this person,” Hernandez said. “So I’m curious, just if any of you guys have an answer as to what the discrepancy here between the statements that were submitted and kind of what you guys are saying.”
Vice President of Administration Joanna Lee asked Leeds why he had not submitted a resolution nor seconded one to which Leeds had no answer.
“I’m looking at the resolution history and it says that last semester that you have a resolution, neither have you seconded one,” Lee said. “And then this year, you’ve seconded a resolution for the first time today. So why haven’t you written a resolution last fall when that was a constitutional amendment?”
The plaintiff and defendant then made their closing statements.
“I think it’s just important that we hold everyone to the same standard in accountability,” Sugimoto said. “We remove Charlie Leeds from the Senate. And if this was any of us, I hope you all be held with the same standard.”
Leeds closed with an apology to the Senate.
“I sincerely apologize to my senate and every other senate for my lack of communication,” Leeds said. “I believe there are other days where I just simply didn’t communicate.”
The jury then deliberated privately and voted in a majority to impeach Charlie Leeds.
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Contact Christy Thien via email: christy.thien@pepperdine.edu or by Instagram: @christy.e.t
