wfn.org | Committee proposes bishops as legislative chairs

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

May 9, 2003 News media contact: M. Garlinda Burton7(615) 742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71BP{274}

By United Methodist News Service

The committee that establishes rules for the United Methodist Church's
lawmaking assembly has recommended that bishops - rather than elected laity
or clergy - lead the assembly's legislative committees, beginning in 2004.

The 10-member Committee on Plan of Organization and Rules of General
Conference, meeting in Chicago May 3, proposed that two bishops be assigned
as chairpersons for each of the 11 legislative committees that review and
recommend petitions to General Conference. If approved by the opening plenary
of the 2004 General Conference, the rule change would go into effect at that
session of the church's assembly, which meets every four years. The Rev.
Jerome K. Del Pino, top executive with the United Methodist Board of Higher
Education and Ministry, is chairman of the rules committee.

The current rules stipulate that, once legislative committees are organized
at General Conference, committee members themselves elect one of their own as
chairperson. Supporters of the rule change say the current practice is
problematic because committee leadership may be uneven, depending on who is
elected, and because it removes those chairpersons - elected delegates from
the church's regional units - from participating in discussion and debate.

Assigning bishops as chairpersons would foster more consistent leadership and
give all delegates a chance to participate in debate, proponents of the
change say. The recommendation by the rules committee would not allow bishops
to make reports to the full body at General Conferences, as is the current
practices of legislative committee chairpersons. Rather, a delegate -
possibly a recorder elected by each committee - would make those reports.

The recommended change surfaced last year, when an ad hoc committee of the
Commission on the General Conference was seeking ways to improve the
denomination's lawmaking process. The commission oversees planning and
logistics for General Conference, which includes about 1,000 delegates from
United Methodist annual (regional) conferences in Europe, Africa, the United
States and the Philippines. 

Currently, United Methodist bishops only preside and serve as
parliamentarians during full plenary sessions at General Conference. They
have no voice or vote in setting church law. Under the new rule, bishops
would chair the 11 legislative committees at the 2004 General Conference.

The Rev. Gail Murphy-Geiss, reporting for the ad hoc group to the rules
committee, said she hopes naming bishops as chairpersons will allow more
equal participation among the delegates during legislative committee
proceedings. She also sees it as a way to take some of the negative political
nature out of what should be "holy conferencing" by the church, lessening
divisiveness by eliminating the highly partisan election of chairs.
General Conference delegates can change anything in the denomination's Book
of Discipline except the church's Constitution. The 2004 assembly, meeting
April 27-May 7 in Pittsburgh, will have 11 legislative committees: church and
society; conferences; discipleship; faith and order; financial
administration; general administration; global ministries; higher education
and ministry; independent commissions; judicial administration; and local
church. 
Each legislative committee deals with petitions related to a series of
paragraphs from the Book of Discipline. Petitions related to the Book of
Resolutions are sorted by subject matter. A legislative committee can
recommend to the full delegation concurrence or non-concurrence with the
language as submitted, or the committee may change the language and then
recommend concurrence. Legislative committees can also submit majority and
minority recommendations.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org