A week after about 11 people called for Student Body President Michael Murphy’s resignation during Senate, an SG senator emailed Murphy a resolution for his impeachment and handed it to him in his office Tuesday.
Inspire senators Matthew Diaz, Ben Lima, Colin Solomon, Claudia Tio and Zachariah Chou co-filed a resolution demanding Murphy’s removal from his position for “abuse of power” and “malfeasance,” which is wrongdoing by a public official.
The resolution was filed Tuesday in light of released emails between Murphy and Caroline Wren, a national financial consultant for Trump Victory, the president’s 2020 reelection committee, to bring Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle to campus Oct. 10.
Murphy did not respond to calls, texts or emails to comment. Diaz, who emailed the resolution, didn’t comment on Murphy’s reaction to the resolution.
Among the 107 who signed the resolution are people affiliated with Inspire, Gator Party, people not involved in SG, UF alumni and students who used to be affiliated with Impact, the former majority party.
Students and SG senators demanded Murphy’s resignation at the last Senate meeting and called him out for his actions. Inspire senators submitted the “Resolution Condemning the Use of Students’ Activity and Service Fees to Host Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle at the University of Florida” on Oct. 2 after the announcement that Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle would speak at UF.
Lima said the Student Body Statutes and rules do not designate a committee to review impeachment resolutions. Instead, impeachment resolutions go straight to the Impeachment Body, which is senators elected in Spring. If the Impeachment Body votes to impeach, Murphy would be suspended from office.
The Trial Body, which is senators elected in Fall, vote on removal. If the body votes against removal, his suspension would end.
“Our course of action is really to hold President Murphy accountable,” Tio said. “He directly violated the 800 codes, which state that Student Government… activity and service fees are not allowed to be used on expenditures supporting any political party or candidates.”
Tio and Diaz said the team of senators had precedent from a 2009 resolution calling for the impeachment of Student Body President Kevin Reilly. They followed the format used then, which requires the resolution be formated in a different way than typical SG resolutions.
“The goal, as I see it, is to represent students’ interests in whatever way that comes,” Diaz said. “At the end of the day, the senators were elected to represent a portion of the student body, so I have faith that they will act as representatives of the people.”
Diaz said the team of senators submitted the resolution to Senate President Emily Dunson, who the SG 300 Codes for legislation outline as the impeachment body chair.
Alana Rush, a Gator senator and member at large, did not say if she is for or against impeachment, but said the situation is difficult to deal with.
“It was wrong to use student fees for political purposes,” Rush said.
Caroline Pope, a 21-year-old UF sociology senior and Inspire Party volunteer, said she wanted to support the resolution after reading it.
“With everything that’s been going on our campus, especially with the use of our funds, that was kind of the final push for me,” Pope said.
Alyssa Feliciano contributed to this report.
