ARTICLE 3 Membership

3.1 Eligibility

Except in the case of an incidental vacancy, members of the assembly must also be members of the constituency associated with their respective seats. Changes of status with the university do not alter the statuseligibility of a member to serve as long as that member remains an employee of the University.

A voting member of the assembly may not serve concurrently as a trustee of the University.

3.2 Seat allocation

Increase size of the Assembly to facilitate better operations, especially within committees. Remove statutory/endowed classifications and expand unrestricted at-large seats to make filling positions easier. The aAssembly consists of thirteen employeesnineteen voting members, of whom six represent endowed unitsexempt employees, six represent statutory unitsnon-exempt employees, and one represents the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, hereafter referred to as the Geneva campus, and six represent all employees, regardless of job classification or location.

Within the endowed and statutory units, two members represent exempt employees, three members represent non-exempt employees, and one at-large member represents all job classifications.

3.3 Ex-officio members

The following serve as members of the assembly ex-officio without vote:

1. the Employee Elected Trustee,
2. the Editor of PawPrint, and
3. the Vice President of Human Resources or a designee.

3.4 University Assembly

The assembly appoints five employees, of whom at least two are also members of the assembly, to serve on the University Assembly before May 1 of each year.

3.5 Vacancies

3.5.1 Vacancy Defined

A regular vacancy occurs when the term of a member expires, and may be filled by election.

An incidental vacancy occurs when:

1. a seat remains vacant after a regular election;
2. a member resigns or is removed from membership; or,
3. a member ceases to be eligible for membership.

These instructions are already provided further down. An incidental vacancy is filled by automatic appointment of unseated candidates from the most recent election according to the order of succession provided in this article. Should no eligible candidates remain from the most recent election such vacancies may be filled by appointment.

3.5.2 Filling Regular Vacancies by Elections

The Elections Committee conducts elections according to the following process:

Limits voters to elections for populations of which they are part. i.e. Ithaca employees would no longer vote in Geneva elections. This is easy to arrange with e-voting.

1. The assembly reviews and approves election rules, procedures, and a publicity plan for elections in the semester prior to the elections.
2. Candidates may run only for the seats that match the constituencies to which they belongstand for election only to those seats designated to represent their own population.
3. All employees may vote for all candidatesEmployees may vote only in elections for seats designated to represent their own population.
4. To mitigate potential conflicts of interest, the Elections Committee resolves any disputes raised regarding election rules without review by the assembly.
5. Elections must be completed and results tabulated no later than the last day of April.

3.5.3 Filling Incidental Vacancies by Automatic Appointment of Candidates from Most Recent Election

Limit automatic seating to unseated candidates from election for the particular seat. This is easier to describe and to implement and avoids having runners up arbitrarily seated without opportunity to recruit more appropriately situated representatives. Should an incidental vacancy occur for any seat, the assembly seats the highest-ranked, unseated candidate from the most recent election for the seat.:

# the same seat; # any at-large seat, should no more eligible candidates remain and the seat be an at-large seat; # any exempt seat, should no more eligible candidates remain and the seat be an exempt seat or an at-large seat; # any non-exempt seat, should no more eligible candidates remain and the seat be a non-exempt or an at-large seat; # any endowed seat, should no more eligible candidates remain and the seat be an endowed seat; # any statutory seat, should no more eligible candidates remain and the seat be a statutory seat; and, # any Ithaca-based seat, should no more eligible candidates remain and the seat be an Ithaca-based seat.

!!!!! 3.5.4 Filling Incidental Vacancies by Appointment

Should an incidental vacancy occur and no eligible candidates remain to be seated from the previousmost recent election for that seat, the aseemly may fill the vacancy through appointmentAssembly may seat a member to fill the vacancy by the following process:

Eliminate cumbersome procedure limiting discretion of Assembly in determining appointments. The Assembly may consider these factors, but should not be obliged.

1. The assembly solicits interest from the employee community within two weeks of the vacancy’s occurrence. The solicitation proceeds for no less than one month, and continues until it is closed by the assembly.
2. At the next meeting after solicitation has been closed, the Vice Chair for Internal Operations presents a slate of eligible candidates to the assembly for a vote by the same procedure as for the election of officers. If no candidate is eligible to fill a vacancy, the assembly may proceed through:
   ## any exempt candidate, should no candidates remain and the seat be an exempt seat;
   ## any non-exempt candidate, should no candidates remain and the seat be a non-exempt seat;
   ## any endowed candidate, should no candidates remain and the seat be an endowed seat;
   ## any statutory candidate, should no candidates remain and the seat be a statutory seat; and,
   ## any candidate employed on the Ithaca campus, should no candidates remain, unless the seat is the Geneva campus seat.
   
3. To conduct the election the chair of the meeting:
   1. allows each candidate to make an opening statement of specified duration;
   2. allows all members present to ask questions of the candidates, including the candidates for the office, for a specified period of time;
   3. closes question and answer period;
   4. moves to a vote by secret ballot; and,
   5. repeats voting as needed until one candidate receives a majority of votes cast, eliminating the candidate receiving the fewest votes in each round of voting.

!!!!! 3.5.5 Terms of Members Who Fill Incidental Vacancies

Members who fill incidental vacancies shall serve the full remainder of the term.

3.6 Term

The term of membership is two consecutive sessions of the assembly. Terms are staggered such that only half of the members’ terms expire each year.

3.7 Removal

Any member of the assembly may motion to impeach another member for conduct that is unethical, illegal, disruptive, or otherwise in conflict with charter and bylaws of the assembly or the University. The assembly must allow the impeached member to attend any discussion, deliberation, or vote related to the impeachment and must inform all members at least one business week in advance of any meeting where it will consider such a motion. The assembly may remove the impeached member by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the seated membership.