Close Vote Expected on Burton Removal

Undergraduate Council members say this Sunday's vote over the impeachment of council Vice President John A. Burton '01 will be decided by a razor thin margin.

At last weekend's Undergraduate Council meeting, 34 members of the council--slightly under two-thirds--voted to overrule council President Fentrice D. Driskell '01 and proceed with the impeachment of Burton. This Sunday, a two-thirds vote will be necessary to remove Burton from office.

While a vote in favor of hearing the case against Burton is not necessarily a vote to have him removed from office, leaders on both sides of the controversy agree last week's vote is a harbinger of a close vote this Sunday.

"It won't be an overwhelming vote either way," Driskell said.

Council members from both sides say a number of factors--including the votes of new members chosen in council special elections, the vocal opposition to impeachment on the part of several campus organizations and the secret ballot voting mechanism--will make the outcome virtually impossible to predict.

They say the impeachment vote may be most complicated by the special elections, held to replace members who left the council during the semester. The elections will close tonight at midnight.

As a result of the elections, this Sunday's meeting will include 20 new council members. No one really knows how these new members will vote.

"[The outcome is] completely unpredictable, because...we don't know what their thoughts are about the allegations, and we don't know how much they know about the matter," said Kyle D. Hawkins '02, who is one of ten sponsors of a bill to remove Burton from office.

Even many current council members said they have not made up their minds about removing Burton from office, and so both sides are counting on their presentations in this Sunday's hearing to win council members to their side.

"It's going to be a matter of how tight a case is, and how it's argued," Driskell said.

The Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Association (BGLTSA) executive board opposes Burton's impeachment, a factor which could sway some council voters. Those sponsoring the bill to remove Burton have accused him of taking buttons from BGLTSA without permission.

"Although the BGLTSA is being invoked as having our rights 'willfully and knowingly infringed upon' none of the sponsors of the articles of impeachment ever contacted the BGLTSA to hear exactly what we might want done about the matter," BGLTSA Vice-Chair Anna M. Baldwin '01 wrote in an e-mail message.

"This lack of concern seems to indicate that the sponsors' motives may actually have very little to do with the BGLTSA or the rights of student groups in general and much more to do with their own political agenda," she wrote.

Another advantage Burton will have may be the political associations of his opponents.

John P. Marshall '01 and Frank X. Leonard '01, who will be in charge of prosecuting the case against Burton, will have to win over two-thirds of the council for Burton to be removed from office.

The two-thirds rule will require support from traditional Driskell-Burton supporters, as well as their political opponents.

In order to win these council members over, Marshall and Leonard say they will have to appeal to council members' ethical sensibilities: Burton did something wrong, they will argue, and should be punished for it.

"I think that most people on the council will understand that this is not political sour grapes," Hawkins said.

But Burton's prosecutors may have trouble avoiding that impression. As Burton and his supporters have pointed out, three of the ten sponsors of the bill to remove him from office ran against his ticket in December's presidential election.

One of those three, Leonard, will be prosecuting Burton's case before the council, which Driskell says may undermine the ten sponsors' ability to convince council members that they're not pursuing a political agenda.

"That puts one of the [fall election] candidates in the role of prosecution," said Driskell. "I think people will be very aware of that."

Non-council members may also affect the outcome.

Student groups, including the Black Men's Forum (BMF) and Black Students Association (BSA) attended last week's meeting to show their support for Burton, filling the back rows of Sever 113.

But Black Students Association President Alicia E. Johnson '01 said while most of the members of her organization she has spoken to support Burton, the BSA is not taking an official stand or planning an organized group trip to the meeting.

Johnson said she thinks apathy will suppress non-council members' attendance on both sides of the issue, as well.

"I think that a lot of people are probably just tired of the situation," she said.

Johnson said she is encouraging members to contact their council representatives to register their thoughts, but with a secret ballot, it is unclear how non-council members' actions will affect the proceedings.

And this week, BGLTSA executives said they were also unaware of plans to organize their members to attend the meeting in support of Burton.

Because council members will vote by secret ballot, however, they will be free to ignore non-council perspectives.

"Their effect will be tempered by the fact that there is an anonymous vote," said Krishnan N. Subrahmanian '03, a council member. "On the other hand, [student groups' presence] could make people realize that this is an actual person we're dealing with, as opposed to just rhetoric."

--David C. Newman contributed to the reporting of this story.