From: "Roger Swafford" <sagitta56(a)mchsi.com>
Date: 2004/04/29 Thu PM 12:49:49 EDT
To: STATE-COORD-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: [STATE-COORD] Re: Proposed Bylaws Changes
Some members have expressed concern with the following points regarding the
Bylaws Revision.
1. A change from 2/3 majority vote to a majority vote for approval of future
bylaws amendments if the revision is adopted.
2. The process to be used in presenting the revision to the membership for a
vote.
Re: 1
The ultimate authority of an organization is vested in the majority vote of
its members. When considering vote requirements for various actions to be
valid the rights of the following
must be considered - the majority, the minority, individual members and
absentees. Majority rule is the most basic principle of democracy. To permit
fewer than a majority to decide for the whole organization is to subject the
many to the rule of the few.
Consider the following from Sturgis pg. 131 -
"Some members mistakenly assume that the higher the vote required to take an
action, the greater the protection of members. Instead, the opposite is
true. Whenever a vote of more than a majority is required to take an
action, control is taken from the majority and given to a minority. For
example, when a two-thirds vote is required, the minority need be only
one-third plus one member to defeat the proposal. Thus, a minority is
permitted to overrule the will, not only of the majority, but of almost
two-thirds of the members. If a two-thirds vote is required to pass a
proposal and 65 members vote for the proposal and 35 members vote against
it, the 35 members have won; the 65 have been defeated. This is minority,
not majority rule."
Retaining the 2/3 requirement subjects the many to the rule of the few. A
majority is half (50% + 1 ). The example above clearly shows the existing
minority rule environment within our project.
Re: 2
An implication has been made that "they" are making up rules. The
"they" in
this case appears to refer to the BRC. The facts of the situation are;
- more then a few amendments are needed to accomplish an update to the
bylaws
- to subject the membership to endless rounds of amendment votes, rewrites
followed by more votes is neither practical nor desired
- the bylaws provide for use of parliamentary procedure in cases not covered
in the bylaws
- the current parliamentary procedure (Sturgis) provides information for
bylaw revision.
See.
http://home.mchsi.com/~sagitta56/PA.htm
The original bylaws were presented for a single vote to adopt or reject.
There is no valid reason the revision should not be presented in the same
manner.
Roger Swafford
BRC- Chairman
http://home.mchsi.com/~sagitta56/