JCD 1128

http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1244&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1100&EN=1181

The Commission on the General Conference asked the Council to determine if there were any restrictions on the authority of the General Conference Secretary to determine the number of delegates from the various conferences. Unstated in this request is the question of how many delegates are to be allowed to Cote D'Ivoire in light of its huge membership numbers. The chances are extremely high that most of those delegates would be very conservative and greatly shift the balance of power between the liberal and conservative factions with votes at General Conference.

That was discreetly avoided in the decision as the Council reassured there were only two factors to be considered as restricting the General Conference Secretary; the number of clergy and the number of professing members of that conference. There are two other simple limits as well, that every conference have at least one lay and one clergy delegates and that the total number lies between 600 and 1,000 delegates.

Another amendment (6) being voted on in 2009 when this decision came down has to do with providing two quadrennia of transition between the entrance of a conference and its representation following the proportions indicated in the Discipline. The Council ruled only that the General Conference Secretary had the authority to determine the numbers to come to General Conference.