Update: after determining that there would not be enough senators in attendance, WKU’s Student Government Association has canceled its impeachment hearing for Tuesday, according to an email from Speaker of the Senate Nathan Terrell. The SGA’s regular meeting is also canceled. 

The Student Government Association will finish the academic year with an impeachment hearing for Associate Justice Annalicia Carlson, according to an email from Speaker of the Senate Nathan Terrell.

An impeachment petition was sent to the SGA senate, stating that Carlson “purposely thwarted name recognition of candidates on the Spring 2019 SGA Elections by inconsistently listing them by their preferred or legal name depending on the candidate.”

According to the petition, Executive Vice President Garrett Edmonds was listed as “James” in the TopNet election, his legal name. Edmonds’ last name was also misspelled as “Edmunds.”

The petition also argues that Carlson “overstepped her boundaries” as an associate justice during the confirmation hearing of Wood Brown to the SGA Judicial Council.

According to the petition, “Ms. Carlson informed the Senate only after his failed confirmation that the Judicial Council would be an inoperable body without a new Justice confirmed during that exact Senate meeting in order to usher in Erika Puhakka’s nomination.”

Carlson said that the reason why Edmonds was listed by his legal name was because a GPA check was needed for all the Spring 2019 candidates to ensure the candidates were able to run for office.

“I have been in SGA four years,” Carlson said, “I, with SGA being as important as it is, would never intentionally jeopardize it.”

Carlson is a senior at WKU and graduates on Friday. She said she feels that this impeachment is a waste of resources that SGA could use to help students during finals week.

“It kind of shows the pettiness of the organization to impeach a senior,” Carlson said.

The impeachment hearing is scheduled to take place after Tuesday’s regular student senate meeting.

Reporter Jack Dobbs can be reached at 270-745-0655 and [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @jackrdobbs.