http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1349&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1229
LEGALITY OF NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE’S REORGANIZATION
A series of questions of law were raised at the North Carolina Conference about the failure to consult regarding the reorganization of the Cabinet and administrative staff which changed the location and role of superintendents.
The bishop responded that permissions for all the changes were made at the 2011 annual conference and by the respective districts.
The Council, however, found none of these claims of the bishop documented. Further, they were left wondering if the conference even had real district lines anymore. Under the plan, superintendents are to have assistants whose job description is vague enough that the Council could not determine where one role left off and the other began.
So the whole matter was remanded back to the conference for review and correction and then to be returned to the Council within thirty days after the 2013 annual conference session.
In this plan, it appears that all the superintendents are to have their offices in the conference center. Each is to have an assistant. I have no idea where the assistant is to live and I have no idea if the assistant is a part of the Appointive Cabinet.
But this sounds like setting things up so that the superintendents become much handier to the bishop and may actually fulfill the old joke about Cabinet meetings becoming personal support groups (for “hand-holding”) for an insecure bishop than the infrequent meetings required to work on appointments.
Having all the superintendents in one location with the bishop centralizes episcopal power logistically. Maybe this structure will lead to superintendents becoming the assistants to the bishop and the assistant superintendents will become a personnel committee to do the appointment-making independent of the bishop’s office, much like the Roman Catholic model.
Probably not…!
Showing posts with label Reorganization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reorganization. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
JCD 1225
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1350&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1229
REVIEW OF REORGANIZATION OF THE NORTH TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE
In light of JCD 1198, a member of the North Texas Conference shared the changes the conference believes fulfills the requirements of the Judicial Council regarding reorganization.
The Council appreciated the efforts of the officers from North Texas to meet the goals set in JCD 1198 but pointed out the new plans excluded Race and Religion, Status and Role of Women, and Archives and History. So the matter was remanded back to the conference to include those bodies.
My concern about the power accruing to the bishop stated in JCD 1198 is not mentioned either in the conference’s response or in the Council’s remanding.
REVIEW OF REORGANIZATION OF THE NORTH TEXAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE
In light of JCD 1198, a member of the North Texas Conference shared the changes the conference believes fulfills the requirements of the Judicial Council regarding reorganization.
The Council appreciated the efforts of the officers from North Texas to meet the goals set in JCD 1198 but pointed out the new plans excluded Race and Religion, Status and Role of Women, and Archives and History. So the matter was remanded back to the conference to include those bodies.
My concern about the power accruing to the bishop stated in JCD 1198 is not mentioned either in the conference’s response or in the Council’s remanding.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
JCD 1210
http://archives.umc.org/interior_judicial.asp?mid=263&JDID=1331&JDMOD=VWD&SN=1201&EN=1211
OVERTURNING THE REORGANIZATION OF THE DENOMINATION
At the instigation of the Council of Bishops with little or no input from the Boards and Agencies of the denomination, a wide-ranging plan named “A Call to Action” was developed over the past quadrennium. It had many features and many critics. By the time it reached General Conference, it had been broken up into various parts, as discussed in my posting on this blog of “April 25 – Dr. Chomingwen Pond,” under which I included a section called “A Call to Action.”
Right after lunch on the day it was passed (May 2, two days before adjournment), the plenary voted with no discussion to refer this variation on reorganization called “Plan UMC” to the Judicial Council. This was such a high profile set of legislation, having taken up all the oxygen in the room at General Conference that the Judicial Council took it up immediately.
As they have done with so many reorganization plans submitted from annual conferences, they discerned the primary flaw of this one, an attempt to move decision-making from the bodies granted it by the Discipline, and placing it in other bodies.
Here again, as I’ve written before, the Council of Bishops was seeking to gain control over more and more of the organizations of the denomination. Nowhere in any version of the segments of “A Call to Action” was there an effort to look at where the bishops in their duties may have contributed to whatever malaise they were trying to resolve with their plan. The problems of the denomination were with everyone else, as the plan clearly pointed out.
But the Judicial Council stuck with examining the plan for constitutionality, not for its inherent weakness. With care, they laid out the constitutional flaws of this reorganization attempt, the same ones they have explained over and over in previous rulings dating back to JCD 364, a decision given in 1972. See also the most recent, JCD 1198, from 2011.
One special feature of this decision is that it did not restrict itself to the possible constitutional issues identified by the one making the request. Under the general rubric of determining constitutionality, the Judicial Council found its own grounds for determining that the legislation lacked constitutionality. Again with careful argument, the Council was clear about what it found. Future efforts to reorganize the Church better take these into account.
I do not expect those who cobbled together “Plan UMC” will do any better when they try to revive this kind of thing for 2016.
The immediate effect of this decision had a serious impact, though, in three ways.
First, the years spent over the past Quadrennium working on “A Call to Action” suddenly were seen by many observers to be the waste they were. And the hours spent trying to keep it alive at General Conference despite its questionable objectives were not lost on the majority of the delegates in Tampa.
Second, the impact of this effort led by the Council of Bishops further eroded the respect with which they had been held by the rest of the Church. Many episcopal leaders expressed dismay at the lack of trust they were being shown by the actions of the General Conference. See my posting of May 29 on “Trust of Bishops.”
Third, two agencies, the General Commission on Religion and Race and the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, were preserved. Under Plan UMC, they would have been merged and would have had next to no resources to continue in any serious way, if at all.
In conversations I had among bishops during General Conference, I found every one of the bishops with whom I talked stunned at what had happened to their “wonderful” ideas meant to “enliven” the denomination. We can look forward to similar efforts for 2016, though this General Conference did not fund a new study. I do not see that stopping those energetic leaders from bringing many petitions professionally packaged to sell in the next conference’s prime time. The Judicial Council better be ready for more work in Portland, OR, in 2016.
OVERTURNING THE REORGANIZATION OF THE DENOMINATION
At the instigation of the Council of Bishops with little or no input from the Boards and Agencies of the denomination, a wide-ranging plan named “A Call to Action” was developed over the past quadrennium. It had many features and many critics. By the time it reached General Conference, it had been broken up into various parts, as discussed in my posting on this blog of “April 25 – Dr. Chomingwen Pond,” under which I included a section called “A Call to Action.”
Right after lunch on the day it was passed (May 2, two days before adjournment), the plenary voted with no discussion to refer this variation on reorganization called “Plan UMC” to the Judicial Council. This was such a high profile set of legislation, having taken up all the oxygen in the room at General Conference that the Judicial Council took it up immediately.
As they have done with so many reorganization plans submitted from annual conferences, they discerned the primary flaw of this one, an attempt to move decision-making from the bodies granted it by the Discipline, and placing it in other bodies.
Here again, as I’ve written before, the Council of Bishops was seeking to gain control over more and more of the organizations of the denomination. Nowhere in any version of the segments of “A Call to Action” was there an effort to look at where the bishops in their duties may have contributed to whatever malaise they were trying to resolve with their plan. The problems of the denomination were with everyone else, as the plan clearly pointed out.
But the Judicial Council stuck with examining the plan for constitutionality, not for its inherent weakness. With care, they laid out the constitutional flaws of this reorganization attempt, the same ones they have explained over and over in previous rulings dating back to JCD 364, a decision given in 1972. See also the most recent, JCD 1198, from 2011.
One special feature of this decision is that it did not restrict itself to the possible constitutional issues identified by the one making the request. Under the general rubric of determining constitutionality, the Judicial Council found its own grounds for determining that the legislation lacked constitutionality. Again with careful argument, the Council was clear about what it found. Future efforts to reorganize the Church better take these into account.
I do not expect those who cobbled together “Plan UMC” will do any better when they try to revive this kind of thing for 2016.
The immediate effect of this decision had a serious impact, though, in three ways.
First, the years spent over the past Quadrennium working on “A Call to Action” suddenly were seen by many observers to be the waste they were. And the hours spent trying to keep it alive at General Conference despite its questionable objectives were not lost on the majority of the delegates in Tampa.
Second, the impact of this effort led by the Council of Bishops further eroded the respect with which they had been held by the rest of the Church. Many episcopal leaders expressed dismay at the lack of trust they were being shown by the actions of the General Conference. See my posting of May 29 on “Trust of Bishops.”
Third, two agencies, the General Commission on Religion and Race and the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, were preserved. Under Plan UMC, they would have been merged and would have had next to no resources to continue in any serious way, if at all.
In conversations I had among bishops during General Conference, I found every one of the bishops with whom I talked stunned at what had happened to their “wonderful” ideas meant to “enliven” the denomination. We can look forward to similar efforts for 2016, though this General Conference did not fund a new study. I do not see that stopping those energetic leaders from bringing many petitions professionally packaged to sell in the next conference’s prime time. The Judicial Council better be ready for more work in Portland, OR, in 2016.
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