Proceedings And Addresses
January 2007 (Volume 80, Issue 3)
Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on By-Law Amendments for Nomination and Election Procedures of the Pacific Division of the APA on Amendments Recommended for the Agenda of the Spring 2007 Annual Business Meeting
[Pursuant
to the action recommended to the 2006 Business Meeting, and the actions
adopted by the 2006 Business Meeting, the Executive Committee appointed
an ad hoc committee to address the proposals of the petitioners who
had requested changes in the division’s by-laws. - See Minutes
of the 2006 Business Meeting in this Proceedings. This is the Ad Hoc
Committee’s Report.]
I. Context and Overview
The task of the committee was established by action at the annual business
meeting of the division on 23 March 2006: “to consider amendments
to the Pacific Division by-laws concerning procedures for nomination
and election of all officers, the executive committee, and the nominating
committee, and the terms of all such positions.” The committee
was invited, but not directed, to propose more than one alternative
to preserving the current by-laws unamended. We have chosen not to offer
multiple options of amendment. We have, however, chosen to divide our
recommendations into three motions. The primary motion concerns a set
of amendments to sections 1-4 of the current by-laws that speak to the
charge from the motion of March 2006 and address nomination and election
procedures. The second motion is an amendment to section 5 of the current
by-laws concerning the methods stipulated for amending the by-laws themselves.
The third motion concerns a schedule for implementation of the amended
by-laws if the first motion should pass.
The full set of amendments that we recommend are attached [or follow
after this narrative report].
In the Division’s current by-laws, amendments to the by-laws can
only be accomplished by a two-thirds vote of those present at an annual
business meeting. Therefore it is at the Division’s April 2007
annual business meeting that these amendments will be debated and voted
on.
II. The Recommended Amendments
In the proposed primary set of amendments, a key element is the Nominating
Committee. The composition of the committee is addressed in a new section,
1-c. The revised committee, like nominating committees in the Eastern
and Central divisions currently, would be comprised of five persons,
four of whom would be elected and one of whom (the immediate past president
of the division) would serve ex officio and would serve as the committee’s
chair.
The work and selection of the Nominating Committee are detailed in a
new section 3 (with the current sections 3, 4, and 5 then becoming sections
4, 5, and 6). This section stipulates that the Nominating Committee
nominate two persons for Vice-President, each at-large position on the
Executive Committee, and the representative to the National Board; this
would be similar to current Eastern and Central Division by-laws. Also
stipulated is that the committee nominate one or more person(s) to be
Secretary-Treasurer.
The last provision mentioned is similar but not identical to the Central
division, where “one” (though not “one or more”)
nominee is stipulated, and it is unlike the Eastern division where the
Secretary-Treasurer is not elected but appointed by the Executive Committee.
We believe that the Secretary-Treasurer is a different sort of position,
involving more administrative work for the Division and its Executive
Committee than any of the other offices. Although we can see advantages
in both of the other divisions’ models, we have decided to follow
more the Central than the Eastern Division model and recommend that
the Secretary-Treasurer be elected. We also recommend that while the
Nominating Committee should have the option of submitting more than
one nominee, it should not be required to nominate more than one.
A major element of the new section 3 on the Nominating Committee and
its work is that nominees for all positions will be announced in the
issue of the APA Proceedings that contains the program for the Pacific
Division annual meeting. This is more advance notice than is currently
required in either the Eastern or Central Divisions. We believe that
such advance notice would serve the interests of more thoughtful consideration
of nominations by the membership and that the deadline that it involves
is perfectly feasible for the Nominating Committee to meet. The option
for nomination by petition of division members that is currently part
of Pacific Division by-laws is preserved (with 5 member signatures required,
as distinct from the 25 and 10, respectively, required in the Eastern
and Central Divisions). Such nominations by petition need to meet a
deadline of seven days prior to the beginning of the annual meeting.
When people arrive at the meeting, they will then receive a complete
slate of nominees, including those whose source is by petition as well
as those from the Nominating Committee. This provides opportunity for
discussion of candidacies at the annual business meeting.
We have chosen to recommend that the nominations for election to the
Nominating Committee be made by that committee itself (last sentence
of the new section 3-a). This is similar to the Central division, but
different from both the Eastern division, in which the Executive Committee
makes the nominations, and the current Pacific Division, where the Nominating
Committee is not elected at all but appointed directly by the Executive
Committee. It seems to us that the Nominating Committee, with its experience
of reviewing numerous possible nominees for offices from among the membership
of the division, is best situated to make nominations for the Nominating
Committee—best situated to do this, at least, as long as any potential
for entrenchment of committee members is blunted by the recommended
limit of two two-year terms for any one committee member (section 1-d).
Also, candidacy for Nominating Committee positions is open to nomination
by 5-member petition, just as is candidacy for all other elected positions.
The term limits of all offices and positions are addressed in the new
section 1-d. We propose that the Secretary-Treasurer, unlike most of
the other officers and committee members, be limited not to two terms,
but to three consecutive terms. This office is different than others.
For a President and Executive Committee to best execute the work of
the division, continuity in the Secretary-Treasurer’s office has
distinct advantages. We note, however, that only rarely has a Secretary-Treasurer
served more than nine years in either of the other divisions. We believe
that a limit of three elected three-year terms has the merit of combining
considerable continuity with opportunity for choice by the division’s
membership.
The latitude of the Executive Committee to establish committees, including
the Program Committee, is spoken to in section 2-c. With a different
framework for the Nominating Committee addressed in the new sections
1-c and 3, specific mention of the Nominating Committee in section 2-c
is deleted in our recommended amendments. On the role of the Secretary-Treasurer,
we recommend that the Executive Committee’s latitude be expanded
to include the discretion of having the Secretary-Treasurer serve ex
officio on any committee appointed by the Executive Committee, but that
such ex officio service not be mandated.
The proposed revisions of existing section 3 (which becomes section
4 if the by-laws are amended) address the timely election of officers
and the Nominating Committee by mail ballot. To eliminate multiple mailings
in situations where more than two persons stand for election to a given
position, the method of “transferable vote” (“preferential
voting”) is stipulated. Reference is made specifically to the form
of preferential voting described in Robert’s Rules of Order; Robert’s
Rules stipulates that a specific form of the method must be mentioned
in the by-laws if preferential voting is going to be used.
Our recommended second motion concerns the procedure established in
the by-laws for amending the by-laws (current section 5, in the amended
version section 6). While this was not part of our charge in the authorizing
motion of March 2006, we believe that it would be inconsistent to move
from vote at the annual business meeting to mail ballot for the election
of officers and certain Executive and Nominating Committee positions
while retaining the existing process of amending the by-laws only by
a vote at the annual business meeting. Amending the by-laws should be
by mail ballot, too, if the election of officers and selected committee
positions is. (The Eastern Division, which elects officers by mail ballot,
requires a mail vote for by-law amendments.) Moreover, if our recommended
first motion that speaks to all the other proposed by-law revisions
should fail, this second motion would technically still be in order.
III. A Future Matter: On-line Voting
On-line voting will no doubt come up in the future as a desired ballot
vehicle. If the Pacific Division were to adopt on-line voting as a permissible
or preferred form of voting for elected positions instead of mail ballot,
actual execution would still be dependent on the capacity of the national
office. The membership databases of the national office are currently
not set up to make on-line voting feasible. Questions may also be raised
concerning whether one division should use on-line voting when the others
are not yet willing to. Moreover, exactly how to state such provision
in the by-laws is not entirely clear at this time. Our ad hoc committee
is receptive to this form of voting for the Pacific Division, but because
of these and other concerns, we have not included provision for it in
our recommended by-law amendments. We think it best to leave this matter
to later potential amendment.
IV. Implementation
We recognize that implementation of any by-law amendments that pass
is the responsibility of the Executive Committee. Often when amendments
are passed, however, a timetable for implementation is also adopted.
The Ad Hoc Committee recommends that, if they are passed, the changes
we have recommended become effective on 1 July 2007. We believe that
the most practical way to execute the change in the year of transition
would be for the Nominating Committee for 2007-08 to be appointed before
1 July 2007 and by the Executive Committee (as the Executive Committee
does in the current by-laws). That Nominating Committee’s one-year
term would begin 1 July 2007. Though it will have been appointed by
the Executive Committee (as in the current by-laws), it would then conduct
its business under the newly adopted by-laws. The Nominating Committee
would do its work throughout 2007-08, and the first officers and Executive
and Nominating Committee members selected under the new by-laws would
be elected by mail ballot in April 2008.
Admittedly, this manner of implementation would have the oddity, in
relation to the current by-laws, of the Executive Committee appointing
a five-member Nominating Committee before 1 July 2007; the current by-laws
that govern until then only have the Executive Committee appointing
a three-member committee. The committee that the Executive committee
is appointing, however, would be a committee that comes into existence
only after 1 July 2007 when the new by-laws would be in effect. That
would seem to argue for the appointment of a five-member committee for
the first year, even if that committee is appointed by the Executive
Committee. Of all the implementation scenarios we have been able to
imagine, we believe that this approach of the Executive Committee, before
1 July 2007, appointing a five-member Nominating Committee for the first
year that begins 1 July 2007 harbors the fewest dislocations in making
the transition from the current to the new by-laws.
Further details of implementation should be worked out by the Executive
Committee in the spirit of the newly adopted by-laws.
We thank the Executive Committee for the opportunity to serve the division
by making these recommendations. We look forward to the discussion of
these by-law changes at the April 2007 annual business meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Patricia Hanna (University of Utah)
Bernard Linsky (University of Alberta)
Paul Menzel (chair, Pacific Lutheran University)
Robert Pasnau (University of Colorado)
Ronald Sundstrom (University of San Francisco)
Alison Wylie (University of Washington)