Joel Martin, a senator for the College of Liberal Arts and a candidate in this year’s ASUN presidential election, is set to face an impeachment trial in a future senate meeting.
The senate’s Committee on Oversight convened to make the decision shortly after 8 a.m. this morning. This was right as voting began online in the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno election this year. Voting continues until tomorrow until 5:00 p.m. and results will be made public later tomorrow evening.
The Committee on Oversight is made up of Aween Ali, speaker of the senate, Elijah Houghtelling, the senate’s parliamentarian, Carmina Aglubat, speaker pro tempore of the senate, and all of the senate committees’ chairs.
Aglubat and Ethan McNamara, a senator for the College of Engineering, are the presidential and vice presidential candidates in Home Means Nevada 2025, the campaign that’s running against Martin’s. Both Aglubat and McNamara came to the meeting to recuse themselves from the vote on whether to proceed with Martin’s impeachment, and left shortly before testimony started.
“We understand the implications of the election process taking place right now,” Aglubat explained. “…we value integrity and character above all else.”
Martin also recused himself because as the chair of the Committee on Government Operations, he technically has a vote.
In a charge sheet filed by Antony Kuhl, ASUN’s attorney general, Martin is accused of not properly booking meeting space for his committee meetings as chair of the Committee on Government Operations. The charge sheet is available in today’s meeting agenda here.
Kuhl listed nine meetings for the Committee on Government Operations that, instead of holding in the JCSU room listed on the agenda, Martin held just outside the room. Kuhl went on to argue that because Nevada Open Meeting Law stipulates a designated physical location for government meetings, Martin violated it by moving the meetings because he couldn’t get access to the room he meant to use.
Kuhl also argued that because this happened multiple times, “the legal obligation for transparency in our proceedings was ignored.”
Martin’s testimony acknowledged and apologized for the scheduling missteps, but he also argued that the committee was violating Nevada Open Meeting Law, too. Because he was served documents about the committee meeting last Wednesday, he said, he hadn’t legally received enough notice for his character to be discussed in a government meeting.
Martin also argued that his meetings didn’t violate Nevada Open Meeting Law because holding them outside the designated meeting location didn’t present any barriers for people trying to attend.
“There’s no requirement stating that it must be held in a booked room,” Martin told the committee over Zoom. “I never held it on the sixth floor of Ansari [Business] when I wrote ‘Room 420 in the JCSU,’ nor did I even hold it more than 100 yards away. It was always held right in front of the door where the meeting room was posted.”
Martin said the issue had never come up in his two ASUN sessions as chair of the Committee on Government Operations, and he argued he should’ve been told earlier if this was a problem.
Martin and Kuhl both left the meeting during deliberation. Committee members Ali, Houghtelling, Camille Levy, Joelle Pickrell, Steven Spurlock and Abigail Castro were present for the deliberation and vote.
The committee ultimately voted unanimously to move forward with articles of impeachment against Martin, weighing whether Nevada Open Meeting Law requirements had been communicated to him as chair, whether he was aware of the process for room reservations in the JCSU and whether Martin’s actions constituted negligence.
This means the full senate will vote on whether to impeach Martin at its meeting at a later date, despite the trial initially being scheduled for the senate meeting tonight. That vote will include discussion on what specific repercussions the senate thinks he should face.
Martin intends to follow up with legal action “higher than ASUN,” according to statements he made at the beginning of the oversight committee meeting.
Peregrine Hart can be reached via email at pe********@*nr.edu or on Instagram @pintofperegrine.
Correction, March 12, 5:50 p.m. This article has been corrected to reflect the fact that the trial vote for Martin’s impeachment has been moved to a senate meeting at a later date, announced at tonight’s senate meeting. Sandra Rodriguez, the university’s director of student government, explained, “I asked Speaker Ali to give Senator Martin somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 working days, so that there’s absolutely no concern about whether notice has been met.”
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