JCD 1301

JHYPERLINK "http://www.umc.org/decisions/64864/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInNlYXJjaDpkZWNpc2lvbl9udW1iZXIiOiIxMzAxIiwiZXhhY3QiOiJzZWFyY2g6ZGVjaXNpb25fbnVtYmVyIn0" http://www.umc.org/decisions/64864/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInNlYXJjaDpkZWNpc2lvbl9udW1iZXIiOiIxMzAxIiwiZXhhY3QiOiJzZWFyY2g6ZGVjaXNpb25fbnVtYmVyIn0

 DEFINING THE APPOINTIVE CABINET

The Arkansas Annual Conference bishop has been challenged regarding his use of non-superintendents when appointments are being considered.  The Discipline does not contain the phrase “appointive cabinet” even though many bishops now bring their administrative assistants, conference program directors, or others chosen by the bishops to sit in with voice and vote on appointments.

Revisions of the Rules were passed by the annual conference among which was one small section to define the appointive cabinet and someone asked the bishop a question of law related to the legality of that small section.  

The bishop ruled it violated the Discipline and the Council agreed.  Interestingly, the problem was that the Rules’ terminology differed slightly from that of the Discipline, that being the “violation.”  As one might expect in our bishop-centric denomination, a major change in conference rules would not occur without the full support of the bishop.  Whether or not the Rules were Disciplinary, who he added to the “appointive cabinet” was not affected.  The new rules did not deny or abridge the bishop’s freedom to add anyone he wanted.  So it is interesting that he ended up in the position of being against a rule he probably favored and could show it violated the Discipline while, at the same time, not interrupting his stacking the appointment process with anyone he chose.

This commentary presumes this case is related to other Council cases related to the Arkansas “appointive cabinet.”  See JCDs 1279, 1280, 1293, 1294, and 1307.

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JCD 1307

 HYPERLINK "http://www.umc.org/decisions/64870/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInNlYXJjaDpkZWNpc2lvbl9udW1iZXIiOiIxMzA3In0" http://www.umc.org/decisions/64870/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInNlYXJjaDpkZWNpc2lvbl9udW1iZXIiOiIxMzA3In0

NON-SUPERINTENDENTS ON THE “APPOINTIVE CABINET’

This decision relies, unspoken, on the absence of prohibition from the Discipline about who may join the Cabinet in consideration of appointments.  It opens up the consultation process to outsiders, with one exception, the director of administrative services.  That would often be the conference treasurer.  That exception is taken in this decision to be “the exception that proves the rule,” that opens up the appointment consultation to whomever the bishop wants.

I disagree with this ruling on three grounds.  violation of the original intention of consultation, removing the right of the pastor and church to respond to the non-superintendents’ additions to the consultation, and episcopal overreach.

First, the consultation process began in Wisconsin and was shepherded by our delegates through General Conference in 1980.  Its purpose was to include the superintendent, Pastor-Parish Relations Committee, and pastor in a sharing of hopes, dreams, needs, and concerns so that a change or maintaining of an appointment was a shared decision. This was to counter the autocratic appointment processes used in many conferences which caused harm to the pastor and family and the local church.

Despite changes, failure of many Cabinets and some Judicial Councils to take it seriously, the consultation process has survived in church law and when done right has tended to be a morale building process for churches and pastors because their concerns were respected.  The negotiations were among the parties affected, with the superintendent mainly acting as moderator until a decision had to be made.  Then the bishop would finalize the decision by fixing the appointment, usually in line with the mutually formed decision of the pastor and local church.

The role of a non-superintendent in the negotiations of the consultation is a disruption since the non-superintendent is not related to either the pastor or the local church.  In fact, the non-superintendent is not even involved in those direct discussions among superintendent, pastor, and church.  Data kept by the conference statistician and treasurer have often been used by the three parties, especially the superintendent, in those consultations so those particular conference officers were not really needed.

The intrusion of non-superintendents violates the original intent of consultation.

Second, the non-superintendents are not engaged in those primary consultation processes and so neither the local church nor the pastor gets to respond to any of their input.  The opinions of the non-superintendents cannot be countered by “on the ground” persons involved in the primary discussions.

While it can be argued that the superintendent involved in the pastor/local church discussions can respond on their part as would be done during a superintendents-only appointment session as has been the practice in the past, the non-superintendent has no “skin in the game” other than to be supportive of the bishop.  Superintendents are looking out for their pastors and the churches in their district.  

If the bishops have been using non-superintendents as a way of getting support to do what they want to do, and now making it a matter of open rather than subrosa practice as a way to stand up to the superintendents, then maybe the discussion ought to be brought up at General Conference to resolve whatever problems arose from only working with the superintendents on appointments.  There may be other alternatives that would actually be better personnel practices than concocting an “appointive cabinet.”  

The whole point of consultation was to bring in a measure of empowerment of pastors and churches over their own destinies in a system of episcopal appointments.  Since neither gets to talk to the non-superintendents to get their input, that empowerment is undercut.

Third, the traditional understanding of appointment-making was that it was the responsibility of the superintendents and bishop to seek the best matches of pastor and church with input by the churches and pastors as part of the consideration.  There has been no effort to bring legislation to expand that appointive group.  There has been nothing brought to General Conference to regulate such a group.  Rather, it has become an episcopal addition without review or balance-of-power elements.  Under this decision, the bishop is free to add as many non-superintendents as he or she wants, perhaps stacking the appointive Cabinet to where the superintendents no longer have authority to do their Disciplinary responsibility.  Being able to bring in non-superintendents to work on appointments is granting authority from one body to another without General Conference authorization or constitutional support.  That is episcopal overreach.

So far, some people in the Arkansas Conference are shining a light on this practice.  The Judicial Council has now looked at their situation in six interrelated cases, JCDs 1279, 1280, 1293, 1294, 1301, and now this one

The General Conference may be called upon to deal with this addition by 2020.  Overreach usually means overplaying their hand.  In a democratic system like ours, such usually is dealt with eventually.  It will probably be the cost of extra travel and meeting expenses which will trigger the petitions.  But at the heart of countering the overreach will be the sense of oppression and unfairness.

JCD 1293

 HYPERLINK "http://www.umc.org/decisions/61962/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyJ9" http://www.umc.org/decisions/61962/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyJ9

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NON-APPOINTIVE CABINET

The Council deferred requests for rulings from the bishop re: appointive Cabinet, a non-Disciplinary group bishops have formed by adding whomever they wished to participate in consultations about appointments along with superintendents.  The deferral was to give the conference secretary a chance to send all pertinent documents.  The Council saw the original written request was not included in the paper work and very nearly refused jurisdiction because it had not been presented at conference, thus violating the basic rules about raising questions of law.  But the questioner’s written request accompanied the other ruling asked of the bishop.  So the Council deferred and allowed the Conference Secretary a chance to find the written question if one existed.

Interesting thing: the secretary had forgotten to include the original request in the package.  How long have I been complaining about someone at the Council not pursuing all the documents as soon as there appeared to be something missing, which would be when everything was to be sent in, and not just before the meeting of the Council?

What makes this ruling really interesting is that there must have been a very strong discussion about jurisdiction of the Council once the concern for the original written questions was resolved.  The dissenting opinion, something rarely written unless the writer feels very strongly about the matter (some are unwise ego trips but that kind is even rarer).  This time the dissenting opinion pointed out that the conference had indeed dealt with the rules including who was to be on the appointive Cabinet.  The action was essentially just affirming the conference rules and policies without specific reference to the issue of membership on the appointive Cabinet.

Perhaps if the questioner had specifically tied the questions to that conference action, the Council might have accepted it.  With this Council, that is unlikely.  They want more specificity.

The session of the Council also very likely had quite a to-do about the lack of Disciplinary support for there even being an “appointive” Cabinet.  The concurring opinion really wished the questioner had made a request for the issue to be for a declaratory decision rather than addressing it as a question of law to the bishop.  If the questioner had done that, there might have been a very interesting challenge to the Council of Bishops’ cavalier approach about doing things their own way rather than in compliance with the Discipline.  

I’m not the only one smelling something bad behind the question.  I feel bad that I was not in a position to do these commentaries until now.  Had I been timely, maybe the questioner might have gotten word to either bring a motion related to changing the rule about who could be on the appointive Cabinet or could have framed his question to go to the Council under Paragraph 2610 instead of under Paragraph 2609.  

Unfortunately, the dissenting opinion did not prevail and the questioner did not pick the right arrow out of the quiver.  Hence, the result was a “moot and hypothetical” ruling.

Will this become a warning to the bishops?  If I’m right about them, they won’t pay any attention.  They are above the Discipline.  It’s called “King of the Hill” syndrome or Success Sickness.  

JCD 1294

http://www.umc.org/decisions/61963/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyJ9

RETIREMENT RULE FOR MEMBERS OF AN APPOINTIVE CABINET?

The issues in this case, and its ruling are essentially the same as in JCD 1293 above.  Same problems of “moot and hypothetical,” having all the documents, etc.

The difference in this question of law was that it addressed retirement from the Cabinet requirements for superintendents and asked if those applied to non-superintendents.

Again, the Council bemoaned the fact that the bishop bothered to answer the questions even though he had already determined that they were moot and hypothetical.  I do not know who writes that kind of stuff for the Council but hopefully they will heed the concerns I raised about such treatment of bishops in situations where there was either ambiguity about whether or not to answer and the pastoral need to answer in order to avoid looking autocratic and dismissive.

We urge advocates seeking to bring questions under Paragraphs 2609 and 2610 to meet ahead of time with the bishop to work out the smoothest way to handle the floor “game” of getting the question raised.  Under those circumstances, the bishop could point out the problems with the questions re: “moot and hypothetical,” something I hope both sides will find more adequately addressed following revisions of Appendix A of the Council’s Rules of Practice and Procedure.

The decision was in favor of the bishop in the sense that the majority of the Council agreed that the questions were moot and hypothetical.  There are no rules requiring non-superintendents to retire after eight years as superintendents have to.

JCM 1279

http://www.umc.org/decisions/59640/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInJhbmdlLWZyb206ZGVjaXNpb25fZGF0ZSI6IjEwXC8yNVwvMjAxNCJ9

DEFERRAL OF QUESTIONS ABOUT NON-SUPERINTENDENTS ON THE APPOINTIVE CABINET 

Following the Arkansas Annual Conference, the Council received a bishop’s rulings and a brief based on a a request for a ruling of law on the matter of the tenure of members of the appointive Cabinets who were not superintendents.

What the Council did not receive was proof that said the request had been received in writing.  I hate it when that happens.

I have no information on the merits of the questions raised.  But I can imagine a Conference Council Director being a bishop’s right hand man and having an undue amount of influence when appointments are being considered.  In my years as a pastor, our conference had some very influential directors but the bishops, in those days, did not include anyone but superintendents to work on appointments.

There might be a real interest in these questions receiving benefit of judicial review.  The bishop lists all of the paragraphs related to appointment making, all referring only to the superintendents.  The one paragraph where he notes an additional person is Paragraph 608.6 which allows the director of connectional ministries with some restrictions.  In  other conferences, I am aware that the bishop’s administrative assistant is a major addition, though I see no disciplinary authority for a bishop to pick anyone s/he wants to sit in on making of appointments.  

In my opinion, limited as that is, I smell a game afoot among the Council of Bishops where the more staff a bishop has, no matter the cost to the respective annual conferences, the more stature s/he attains in the eyes of episcopal colleagues.

I hope a proper question is raised as a way of minimizing such game playing.  

In this case, the Council deferred until April, 2015, any action on this matter.