At the Mesa West Rotary Zoom meeting May 14, 2020, John will be discussing the Council on Legislation for his Rotary Minute presentation. He asked that this be published ahead of his presentation in case anyone had specific questions they would like to ask during or after the meeting.The latest by-laws can be accessed on the district website and are dated 22 June 2019. These by-laws call for a Council on Legislation (COL) annually; usually in a face to face meeting during the District Conference.
As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed there was some concern not only for the Rotary International Convention in Hawaii, but also for our District 5495 Conference in June 2020.
Here are the events and tasks leading up to the COL regardless of when it happens.
- Timeline is spelled out in the by-laws for clubs to submit proposed amendments to the by-laws. The deadline this year was sent to the clubs on 15 February with submittals due by 1 April.
- Clubs were notified on 29 April to submit names of delegates by 20 May. Additionally, the Agenda with all the ballot items was sent to the clubs at this same time for review amongst its members.
- Final ballots will be sent to each delegate on 21 May with a response due by 20 June.
- The results of the voting will be posted on the district website by 30 June.
Because of the pandemic several changes were mandated to even organize and construct the Agenda for the District 5495 COL.
- There had been some concern regarding getting the required number of delegates to the COL to form a quorum. Last year this was an issue.
- Some inquiry was made concerning the feasibility of electronic voting (E-vote).
- When it became apparent that the RI Convention would likely be cancelled, the research into E-vote intensified. Queries were made to other districts and some individual Rotarians. No one had any experience with this.
- Council Services at Rotary International did not have any documented methods for doing E-vote even though that is precisely what transpires for the RI Council on Resolutions. The COR is basically and up or down vote without debate on any issue.
- Council Services did recommend a commercial firm which was helpful.
- The commercial firm provided a pamphlet for conducting E-vote. This process mirrored the COR in that ballots are sent to delegates and votes received electronically and tabulated by this firm. The one thing noticed about this process was that they wanted all votes from a club to all be the same – they were not set up to handle split votes. This would eliminate the possibility for a club with 2 or more delegates to submit differing votes on an issue. This was viewed as a shortcoming. For the RI COR this is not a problem in that there is only 1 vote per district.
To establish E-vote for District 5495 several prerequisite events had to take place. The current by-laws did provide for the “Formulation of Temporary Policies”. To become permanent, these temporary changes would need to be reviewed by all district committee chairpersons and approved by the District Governor, and then submitted to the COL for the delegates to make them permanent.
Members of the By-laws committee reviewed the existing by-laws for possible impact. Several areas were noted, and a packet of the recommendations were circulated within the committee and then forwarded to the District Governor. The DG reviewed these recommendations with all district committee chairpersons and the Governor line officers. The DG did approve the changes and the by-laws committee then incorporated them into the Agenda for the district COL. To say that careful wording of the changes took multiple iterations would be an understatement.
Here is a breakdown of the votes for this COL. These are all YES or NO votes – no discussion.
- The votes to approve the “temporary policies” were deemed to be all connected and are presented as a collective vote for the 7 issues outlined in the Agenda. These involved changes to allow electronic voting and/or other than a face to face meeting at the COL. Basically it is an all or nothing vote for these changes. If not approved, these changes do not become permanent and would require further machinations should the COL in subsequent years face similar circumstances where a face to face meeting of the COL could not occur.
- Amazingly there were only 2 proposed amendments to the current by-laws:
- Expansion of the Nominating Committee from 6 to 9 members. This would facilitate establishing a well-defined succession plan for this committee with 3 members terming out each year.
- Additionally, the Nominating Committee felt it was prudent to establish that the current DG could not serve on the committee in the year following his or her year as district governor. This was not a reflection of the current DG.
- Election of candidates to the 5 standing committees
- Finance
- By-laws and Policies
- Nominating
- Strategic Planning
- Education and Leadership Development
- The Election of the Primary and Alternate Representatives to the Rotary International Council on Legislation.
I will bring a copy of the current by-laws, the COL Agenda (19 pages) and the Final Ballot.
I am happy to remain after the meeting to discuss any and all questions regarding these documents.
CLICK HERE to download the District Bylaws