Illinois Student Government assembly members decided to remove ISG president Marcia Fuentes from office, to abolish the Constitutional Review Board and to replace most members of the Student Elections Commission at Thursday's assembly meeting.

Assembly members hailed the moves as upholding the ISG constitution and reflecting the will of the student body, while opponents called it a blatant abuse of power designed to force out student government officials who disagree with assembly members on an upcoming referendum that could abolish ISG.

Thursday's actions now pit ISG assembly members against the Constitutional Review Board — each side claiming they voided the actions of the other side.

Fuentes was removed from office Thursday for not fulfilling her office-hour requirements, according to a press release from ISG Chief of Staff Ben Wagner.

ISG by-laws state that executive board members must maintain 10 office hours a week, Wagner said.

"After a member of the assembly accumulates four unexcused absences," the press release said, "he/she will be 'automatically and immediately removed from office.'"

Wagner said he sent a letter and two e-mails to Fuentes last week informing her of her possible removal.

"It's absolutely not political at all," Wagner said. "She did not fulfill her duties as specified in the ISG by-laws."

Fuentes refuted the charges of shirking her office hours, and said she received no letters or e-mails about her office hours.

"They're lying," Fuentes said. "It's because they're mad that I don't play their game."

In August, she temporarily suspended voting rights of all six committee chairs, citing what she said was a "suspicious" election process. Last week, Fuentes refused to issue an executive order to place an ISG-created reform proposal on the fall ballot, against the wishes of the ISG assembly.

"When you have an elected body, and 100 percent of that body is prevented from doing their job by an individual ... I'm going to fight to remove those obstacles," said assembly member Dave Fried.

Assembly members refused to let Fuentes chair Thursday's meeting, calling security when she initially refused to leave. Fuentes left before security arrived.

Sherwin Yen and Andrew Fitzgerald, the other two executive board members, then issued an executive order making Felipe Hillard interim vice president and Joe Kaylen an executive board member. Yen was named interim president.

Assembly members also moved to abolish the Constitutional Review Board, and fired eight SEC members on the grounds that members of the two boards were partisan.

Wagner said he made the eight SEC appointments under extreme pressure from Fuentes and former SEC chair Matt Cheney.

The Constitutional Review Board upheld an appeal by Fuentes last week to preserve her refusal to submit the ISG reform proposal for a referendum. CRB chair Josh Rohrscheib then came to last week's ISG meeting and scolded ISG assembly members for their treatment of Fuentes.

The CRB met after Thursday's ISG meeting, and declared the removal of Fuentes and the actions of that evening's meeting unconstitutional.

The assembly's actions "invoke pure tyranny and just Orwellian rules on everyone," said CRB member Laura Engle.

"It's like the U.S. legislature disbanding the Supreme Court," said CRB member Dan Sledz.

ISG assembly members disagreed, and said they would introduce a plan for a new CRB next week, as well as work to delay a referendum scheduled for next week until next semester. The referendum would decide whether to abolish ISG.

Yesterday's moves ensured a small group of students "can't train wreck the future of student advocacy," said assembly member Andrew Erskine, who resigned at Thursday's meeting.