Four Reasons Why Bishop Lawrence's "Re-Convention" is Illegal
September 2010
Ignoring its own Constitution and Canons, our Diocese seems determined to create a crisis where there isn't one.
Earlier this month Bishop Lawrence and the Standing Committee called for a re-convening of last March’s Annual Diocesan Convention on October 15th. However, neither of them appears to have any authority to do this.
Even if they did, their proposed changes to the Constitution and Canons of the Diocese would be out of order.
As if this isn't confusing enough, it has recently come to light that several members of the Standing Committee have been serving and voting illegally since January with the blessing of the Bishop.
The following is a letter to Bishop Lawrence raising these concerns. Should he respond, his views will be shared verbatim on this site.
"Dear Bishop Lawrence:
I am writing to inquire about the authority you and the Standing Committee are relying on to reconvene the 2010 Annual Convention. There is nothing apparent in the governing instruments of our Diocese that permits either the reconstituting of that convention or consideration of amendments to the Constitution & Canons.
1. There is no provision in the governing instruments of the Diocese that allow a convention to recess for more than a day, and then reconstitute itself with authority.
According to Robert’s Rules that govern our conventions, a recess might last minutes or even a few hours. In rare circumstances, it might last a day: “A recess is an intermission in the day's proceedings, as for meals or for counting the ballots when much time is required; or in the case of meetings like conventions lasting for several days, a recess is sometimes taken over an entire day… A time for resumption of the meeting must be specified” in such a motion. (Art. III, No. 18)
According to Webster's New World Robert's Rules: Simplified & Applied, the purpose of a recess is “to take a short break and then resume business where members left off... A recess is generally short in duration. Although it may last several hours, it is never longer than a day. Organizations do not take long recesses, like the U.S. Congress. If members want to take a longer recess, they should set an adjourned meeting.”
I’d invite your particular attention to the last sentences in each of those quotations. There is most definitely no authority for a “recess” lasting seven months. There are numerous examples of motions to recess in Roberts’ Rules. All require that a specific number of minutes or hours for the recess be stated in the text of the motion.
If delegates pack up and leave town, there is no other way to construe such an action except as de facto adjournment … and adjournment sine die. In the case of this year’s convention, the delegates packed up and went home in March. Since they passed no resolution to either adjourn or recess until a specific date (the sine die part), the 2010 Annual Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina ended nearly seven months ago. There is no parliamentary option to get around that.
The notion that conventions can perpetuate themselves indefinitely by simply voting to recess is, not only without any basis in Diocesan governance, it is an invitation to chaos. According to this theory, we could actually have any number of conventions legally convening, recessing, and reconvening themselves, passing all kinds of resolutions, for months or even years.
The only other time this tactic was tried was when you were re-elected bishop. Objections were raised and, only after assurances were given that it would not become a precedent, did dissenters agree to reserve their right to object. We were also promised that an opinion of the Chancellor, citing authority for such a recess, would be published in the minutes, but none was forthcoming.
2. Even if this scheme were legitimate, proposed changes in the Constitution and Canons could not be considered by the re-convened body unless they had been introduced on the “first day” of an annual convention. They weren’t.
The first day of the 2010 Diocesan Convention began and ended in March. Any consideration of the six resolutions by a re-convening of the delegates this month would be completely out of order on that basis alone. The pretzel-like logic that a “first day” can somehow be interpreted as spanning seven months is imaginative to the point of being ridiculous.
According to Article VII of our Constitution: “No alteration or amendment of, or addition to this Constitution shall be made unless the same be proposed in writing and in duplicate on the first day of an Annual Convention and after reference to the Committee on Constitution and Canons, is adopted by a majority vote of the Convention at which it is proposed, and further adopted by a two-thirds vote of both Orders present at the next Annual Convention.”
In essence, the first opportunity you have to introduce these resolutions will be the first day of the 2011 Annual Convention. Even then, they cannot be enacted until the 2012 Convention.
3. The call of the Standing Committee to re-gather delegates to the 2010 Convention is also invalid in that several of its incumbent members have been serving and voting illegally since January. For that reason, the six resolutions the Standing Committee as proposed cannot be considered, even if the re-convention is legal.
My understanding is that those elected to the Standing Committee (and other important offices) in March have not been allowed to serve. Apparently they come to meetings, but have not been allowed to vote because the 2010 Convention at which they were elected did not formally adjourn. Instead, you’ve allowed the incumbents whose terms actually expired in January to continue to serve… illegally.
Your challenge here is two-fold:
a. The terms of Standing Committee members commence upon adjournment of the annual convention at which they are elected. However, the Diocesan Constitution explicitly dictates that their terms of office are a fixed number of years … not a fixed number of years plus however many months until their successors are elected.
According to the Diocesan Constitution, once that number of years has passed, the incumbent’s term expires regardless of whether a successor has been elected.
For example, the term of a person elected for two years at the 2008 Annual Convention on January 25, 2008 would have expired two years later on January 24, 2010. Any change in the length of that term would have required a change in the Constitution. Minutes of Diocesan conventions and Standing Committee meetings seem to come and go on the Diocese’s website. However, as nearly as I can tell, it looks like the terms of four of the twelve sitting members of the Standing Committee have been illegally extended since January, when they expired.
b. Another way to look at this is the way I described in the first section above… that the 2010 Convention did in fact adjourn sine die. In this scenario, which has the benefit of both logic and legitimacy, the new members could have taken their seats with full voice and vote after the March 2010 Convention. Since the delegates left town without approving an adjournment resolution with a fixed date for reconvening, it has no authority to reconstitute itself and vote on one now.
The bottom line, if you are going to follow our Constitution and Robert’s Rules, is that the terms of one-third of the Standing Committee expired in January 2010, and their successors were elected in March 2010. The fact that the incumbents stayed on with voice and vote for nine additional months, and their elected successors were not allowed to vote, means that the Standing Committee has been improperly constituted since January and therefore any actions it has taken since must be deemed unconstitutional and therefore, meaningless.
4. The Bishop and Standing Committee have no authority to dictate to the parishes who can serve as delegates to a Diocesan convention.
Delegates from each parish (deputies) take office -- and it is an “office” – immediately upon election by their parishes and serve until the moment their successors are elected. According to the Diocesan Constitution, the “terms of office of Deputies so elected shall continue until their successors are elected…”
The call for the re-gathering of the 2010 Convention delegates instructs the parishes that delegates be the same as those who served in March. However, there is no authority for the Diocese to preempt the right of parishes to determine who will represent them by arbitrarily extending incumbents’ terms beyond the election of their successors.
If any of the parishes have elected delegates to since March, these are the delegates who are authorized to serve, not the old ones.
I read that you’ve called this re-gathering of delegates based on your belief that the Presiding Bishop is acting in unconstitutional ways. From my perspective, failure to strictly abide by your own Constitution and Canons might not be the most credible way to make that point. This is especially important in that you are asking the parishes do something that will insure years of legal entanglements over the ownership of their property.
In the past, you’ve expressed disdain for litigation, yet by proceeding on this present course you are making it inevitable.
With kindest regards to you and Alison,
STEPHEN SKARDON JR.
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