Both GSS and UHR have been facing issues with meeting quorum in their meetings.
The longevity of the Senate sessions, which causes the meetings to extend past 12 p.m., has forced representatives to leave for class, and has been the cause of bills in GSS being prolonged to a vote until the next meeting.
UHR also failed to meet quorum last Tuesday due to the number of absences by its representatives. Because two-thirds of the active members of the body failed to convene, the body could not discuss or vote on any of the bills organizations had come to present. Speaker of the House Mike Mosgrove attempted to reach quorum through texting and emailing absent representatives and by reducing the number of representatives needed for quorum through resignations and impeachments.
The body began to discuss the resignation of Kelliann Morrisey as her absence from the meeting was thought to have put her over the threshold of absences required to consider impeachment, which was not the case. The subject was dropped as they would still not have enough for quorum even with her resignation, although she could still be impeached at the following meeting.
In closing, Mosgrove called the incident “highly embarrassing” and gave warning that failure to meet quorum at the next meeting would make their organization look even worse.
“I think it’s a little disappointing,” said Representative Eric Chiu after the meeting. “I can’t say it’s not expected though because the break is this week, so a lot of people leaving town. It’s still disappointing to see people not reporting to the Speaker of the House.”