Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:57:06 -0800
From: "Teri Pettit" <pettit(a)Adobe.COM>
Subject: [STATE-COORD-L] Proposed changes to our amendment process
USGenWeb Project members,
So many times very good suggestions have been made about things
we might do to improve the operation of our project, only to
run into the problem that they are incompatible with our Bylaws.
It is easy to say, "well, just amend the Bylaws!", but unfortunately,
the amendment process set up in the Bylaws is almost impossible
to get past. We've had these Bylaws with many widely recognized
and resented flaws for years, and they've never once been amended
yet.
So I think the only way we are going to get anywhere with real
project-improving amendments is to first amend the amendment
process. We may run into the same difficulties bootstrapping
it, but it's worth a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Please bear with me as I review the current amendment process,
what its major problems are, and what I think we might do to
fix them. Then, if you would, respond with anything that I've
missed or misjudged.
Quotes are from Article XVI, at the bottom of this page:
http://www.usgenweb.org/official/bylaws.html
| Section 1. These Bylaws may be amended by the membership of The USGenWeb
| Project through a two-thirds (2/3) majority of those members
| participating during the voting period.
This section is mostly fine. The only change I would like to make
is in the "those members participating" phrase. It is too unclear
as to whether people who vote "abstain" on an amendment, or who
vote in the election but who do not mark any box at all on the
proposed amendment, are considered to be "participating" for
the purpose of counting the vote total to be divided by 3.
On the one hand, the usual interpretation of English would be
that somebody who marks anything at all on a ballot, even on
a different issue, is "participating during the voting period."
On the other hand, if such members are interpreted as participating,
there is effectively no difference at all between voting NO, and
abstaining or not voting! Yet most people who don't vote or who
vote "abstain" intend to be saying "I don't care about this,
please do whatever the others prefer". If they wanted their vote
to be counted as a "no", they'd just vote no. So this section
would be more in line with what people abstaining intend to say
if it were phrased as "a 2/3 majority of those members who vote
either yes or no on the amendment."
| Section 2. Any state project may propose an amendment by sending their
| proposal to one or more of the Advisory board members
representing
| their region and including the exact wording of the proposed
| amendment. Upon receipt of the proposed amendment, the Advisory
| Board representative(s) shall request the Webmaster to post the
| proposed change on the national website and the National
Coordinator
| to post to the State-Coord-L List, and any other appropriate
lists,
| for dissemination to the members.
|
| Section 3. The proposed amendment, with the sponsor's name and date of
posting,
| shall remain posted for a period of at least thirty (30) days
| prior to the annual voting period of July 1-July 31. Any proposed
| amendment shall require a minimum of five (5) states as
co-sponsors
| to command that it be placed on the ballot. State projects
wishing
| to co-sponsor the amendment shall notify the Advisory Board
and make
| an announcement on the USGenWeb-All Mailing List.
These two sections present a nearly unleapable hurdle to amending the
Bylaws.
For one thing, while it is not specified what it means for "a state
project"
to sponsor an amendment, most members are uncomfortable with assuming that
a State Coordinator can presume to speak for the whole state, or even that
an informal announcement on the state email list along the lines of "how
do you feel about sponsoring this amendment?" is sufficient to gauge the
preferences of the state's volunteers. So generally speaking, most states
have felt it necessary to first hold a formal and secure vote of their
own membership, and get at least a simple majority, before listing their
state as a sponsor.
That is such a lot of trouble that it is seldom that 5 states even bother
to vote among themselves on a proposed amendment, even if a lot of their
CC's would favor it. They typically think, "leave it to the other states
to go through all that. I only want to go through this once."
So we need some process that does not require going through a two-stage
vote, once at the state level and again at the national level.
Yet we don't want to make it TOO easy for anybody to get an amendment on
the ballot, or project members will be flooded with vote on a bunch of pet
ideas that only a few of us are interested in.
What I propose instead is some kind of petition-based amendment proposal
process. A minimum number of signatures would be necessary to get an
amendment on the ballot. How many should it be? We want enough that only
ideas with widespread support get put to the vote, but not so many that
just getting the signatures becomes a vote battle in itself.
Furthermore, once a proposed amendment gets posted, what you ALWAYS have
happening is that people see it, and they point out lots of obvious flaws.
Many times the authors of the proposed amendment even agree that those
are flaws! But there is no process here for amending a proposed amendment,
once posted. So all the potential co-sponsoring states, and all the voters,
must vote only on the original statement of the amendment. The proponents
end up saying "well, it's better than what we had before, so vote yes and
then we can amend it again", and the opponents say "look how hard that's
been. Let's reject it and wait for one that says what we want it to say."
Enough people fall in the latter camp (heck, I probably would) that even
fundamentally sound ideas get rejected due to minor flaws in wording.
Yet, again, having votes on "proposed amendments to the proposed amendment"
wears people down. They want to have a say, but they very quickly tire of
formal elections. So what I propose is that, while an amendment is posted
but before voting begins, any changes can be accepted to it by submitting
an email signed by 50% or more of the original petitioners. Or perhaps
the original petitioners, at the time they first propose the amendment,
can authorize some small subset of authors to make any changes to it.
The authors could then listen on the discussion lists, and make any changes
that would correct flaws in their statement while still preserving their
original intent. By the time the ballot reached the general membership,
any remaining opposition should be due to basic disagreement with the
principles behind the proposed amendment, not simply technicalities that
the authors didn't foresee.
| Section 4. Voting on any proposed amendment to the bylaws shall be
during the
| annual voting period of July 1-July 31 and a two-thirds (2/3)
| majority, of the members voting within that time frame, is
required
| for the amendment to pass.
|
| Section 5. In the case of an urgent matter affecting the well-being of The
| USGenWeb Project, the Advisory Board may propose an
amendment and
| disseminate it to the membership without the required
co-sponsorship.
| In this case, the proposed amendment shall be posted to the
national
| website and disseminated to the membership within two (2)
business
| ays. The proposed amendment shall remain posted for a
minimum of
| three (3) business days. A special ballot shall be prepared and
| voting shall be for a period of five (5) business days. A
two-thirds
| (2/3) majority, of The USGenWeb Project membership, voting
within
| that time frame, shall be required for the amendment to pass.
These sections have the problem that most matters requiring an amendment to
change are not "urgent" enough to require an immediate vote (although no
maximum time to the election is specified, the clear implication is that
the special ballot should be prepared as quickly as technically feasible).
After all, if we've lived with a problem in the Bylaws for years, even
if it is widely recognized as a problem it is hard to argue that it is
"urgent" to change it immediately.
Yet, on the other hand, waiting for up to a year to vote on an amendment
seems daunting. So what we have happening is that nobody formulates any
amendments until the election is almost at hand, and then we get a flurry
of them, but there isn't sufficient time to get co-sponsors or tweek the
wording, so none or almost none make it onto the ballot.
Both of these sections should be replaced by a medium-length time period
(on the order of one to three months) after a proposed amendment is posted
during which the amendment can be discussed and tweeked. If a regular
election
is upcoming near the end of that time period, then the amendment should go
on the regular ballot, otherwise a special election should be held. But no
more than two or three such special elections a year. This should encourage
batching proposed amendments, while still permitting progress to be made
when the next regular election is far away.
| Section 6. Any proposed amendment, not obtaining the required
co-sponsorship,
| may not be proposed again until the next regularly scheduled
| voting period. Any proposed amendment not obtaining the approval
| of the membership after appearing on the annual ballot three (3)
| times shall be considered a dead issue.
This section is unenforceable. Nobody is going to propose exactly the
same amendment with the same words twice. And if any words are different,
it will be impossible to get agreement as to whether it is the "same"
amendment wearing a new cloak, or truly a new one.
So long as it isn't too easy to get a poorly supported amendment on
the ballot in the first place, we shouldn't need to worry about the
"same" amendment being proposed a fourth time. Nobody is going to
have the stamina to propose the same basic idea with no important
modifications after being rejected three times anyway.
So just scrap this section and don't replace it with anything. (Not
that it really hurts to be there, but it's fluff.)
Of course, we have a chicken-and-egg problem that for now, we must
work within the existing amendment process. So, do I hear 5 states
willing to work together to construct and co-sponsor a formal
amendment along these lines?
Teri Pettit
CC for Rowan County Kentucky since June 1996
Advisory Board Member, CC Rep for SE/Mid-Atlantic region