wfn.org | Southeastern delegates pushing for fair representation at conference

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

Sept. 24, 1999	News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.    10-71B{487}

NOTE TO EDITORS: You may wish to use the General Conference logo with this
story.

By Alice Smith*

ATLANTA (UMNS) -- Southeastern United Methodists have long grumbled about
being underrepresented at General Conference, the denomination's governing
body that meets every four years.  Now a group of determined United
Methodists is getting serious about changing things.

Thirteen annual (regional) conferences - 12 of them in the church's
Southeastern Jurisdiction - are petitioning next year's General Conference
to change the formula used to calculate the number of delegates from each
annual conference to move it closer to the "one person-one vote" ideal.

"What we have tried to do," said Joe Whittemore of Hartwell, Ga., chairman
of the ad hoc General Conference Representation Issues Committee, "is come
up with a formula to get us about halfway between where we are now and where
we would be if the allocation was based solely on membership."

The resolution being forwarded to General Conference would not require any
constitutional changes, since it would guarantee that every annual
conference, regardless of size, would have a minimum of two delegates, one
clergy and one lay.  The overall number of delegates to General Conference
would remain at about 1,000.

The current formula calls for one clergy delegate and one lay delegate for
each 140 clergy members in an annual conference plus one clergy and one lay
delegate for every 44,000 lay members.  The new formula would give more
weight to lay membership and would allocate one clergy and lay delegate for
every 375 clergy plus one clergy and one lay delegate for every 26,000 lay
members. 

This would result in greater representation from the two most populous U.S.
jurisdictions, Southeastern and South Central, as well as for several of the
rapidly growing conferences in Africa.  The Northeastern, North Central, and
Western Jurisdictions would have fewer delegates.

Using 1995 membership figures, Whittemore's committee calculated the
Southeastern Jurisdiction would gain 10 delegates, the South Central, eight,
and the African conferences, 12.  The North Central, Northeastern and
Western Jurisdictions would each lose eight delegates, while the delegations
from the European and Filipino conferences would remain the same.

The current formula, adopted in 1968, was designed to calculate
representation based half on clergy membership and half on lay membership.
But the makeup of the denomination has changed drastically over the past 30
years, with the number of clergy increasing in most annual conferences while
lay membership has decreased in many areas.  The result, Whittemore said,
has been gross inequality in General Conference representation.

Some of the inequities he cited are:

*Alabama West Florida, with 142,094 members, has 14 delegates while Eastern
Pennsylvania (140,279) and California Pacific (104,549) have 16 delegates.

*Central Texas with 147,496 members has 12 delegates while five conferences
with fewer members have 14 and three smaller conferences have 16.

*Florida with 336,971 members and North Georgia with 295,579 have 26
delegates while West Ohio with 275,932 members has 30 delegates.  Texas with
278,412 members has only 22 delegates.

*Louisiana, which has 126,459 members and 10 delegates, is a larger
conference than all but three of the conferences that have 12 delegates and
is larger than three conferences with 14 delegates.

*Oklahoma has 254,215 members and 20 delegates, while three conferences with
fewer members -- East Ohio (192,684), Iowa (202,849) and South Carolina
(241,574) -- have 22 delegates.

The committee's calculations reveal the South Central Jurisdiction has one
delegate per 11,360 lay members; the Southeastern, one delegate per 10,785
lay members; the Northeastern, one delegate per 9,932 members; the North
Central, one delegate per 9,093 members; the Central conferences, one lay
delegate per 8,855 members; and the Western, one delegate per 8,112 lay
members.

"We believe this to be a compelling fairness and justice issue," Whittemore
said.  "The injustice of under-representation for two of our jurisdictions
(Southeastern and South Central) remains, and indeed has grown to be a point
of serious concern and discontent."

The proposed formula, Whittemore said, "will not eliminate all the injustice
and will even continue some injustice.  Any formula other than one based on
total membership will be deficient.  However, we believe it will take us
closer to equity among the jurisdictions, which is a first step."

The Southeastern Jurisdiction is the largest region with 2.9 million
members, followed by the South Central with 1.8 million.  The North Central
has 1.7 million members; the Northeastern, 1.6 million; the Central
conferences, 1.3 million; and the Western Jurisdiction, 454,000.

If the new formula is approved next year, several of the annual conferences
in the Southeastern Jurisdiction would gain General Conference delegates -
four for Florida and two each for Kentucky, North Georgia, South Carolina,
Virginia and Western North Carolina. 

The Mississippi and Memphis conferences would lose two delegates apiece,
while all the other Southeastern Jurisdiction conference delegations,
including South Georgia, would remain the same. 

Thirteen annual conferences - 12 in the Southeastern Jurisdiction plus the
North Texas Conference in the South Central Jurisdiction  - have all
approved the same resolution to General Conference asking for the formula
change. Any change would not take place until the next conference in 2004.

The question of representation to General Conference has been discussed
within the southeast for 20 years, particularly at the quadrennial meetings
of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference, Whittemore said. 

"I kept hearing under representation ...so I just got the information and
did the number comparisons ... and I was just floored by them."

During the representation debate at the 1996 Jurisdictional Conference,
Whittemore said,  "I started taking names.  Then I called Joe Peabody (now
pastor of First United Methodist Church, Marietta, Ga.) and asked him if he
would work with me and see if we could get a group of people really
interested in this subject.  We covenanted at the first meeting we would not
take up any other issue, that all we are about is the representation issue."

The 17-member committee includes representatives from the North Georgia,
Mississippi, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Kentucky, Western North
Carolina, North Carolina, South Carolina, North Alabama and Tennessee
conferences.
	
# # #

*Smith is executive director of the Georgia United Methodist Communications
Council.

 

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