|
Report to the House of Delegates
of the
American Bar Association
by
Edward Haskins Jacobs
On a proposal to add to Section 6.12 of the ABA
Constitution
language requiring recording and publishing of
the votes in the House of Delegates
relating to proposals to amend the Constitution or
Bylaws
or to adopt, alter, or rescind ABA policy
I propose that at the August 12 and 13, 2002 Annual
Meeting, the American Bar Association Constitution, Article 6, Section
6.12 - Meetings of the House - be amended by inserting the following
language (between the quotation marks) after the last sentence of that
section:
"The Secretary shall keep a tally of total
votes in favor of, opposed to, and abstaining from, and the vote
of each member voting, for all votes on proposals or motions: (1)
to amend the Constitution or Bylaws; (2) to adopt, alter, or
rescind any Association policy; or (3) to amend or postpone action
on such proposals. Such tally and record of individual member
votes shall be included within the record of the proceedings and
shall be published within sixty days after the conclusion of the
meeting at which the vote was taken, in the Association website
available to members, and shall remain available on the website
for a period of at least one year."
Article 6 of the ABA Constitution is entitled "The
House of Delegates." Section 6.12 is entitled "Meetings of the House."
Once amended, section 6.12 would read in full as follows:
The House of Delegates shall meet during the annual
meeting of the Association and at such other times and places as the
Board of Governors may prescribe. Special meetings of the House shall
be called by the President at the written request of a majority of the
delegates. Forty days notice of a meeting of the House shall be given
to each delegate and to each section or committee chair. However, if
because of unusual urgency two–thirds of the members of the Board
eligible to vote authorize a special meeting of the House to be held
solely for a limited purpose specified in the notice, 15 days is
sufficient. Notice of the annual and regular mid–year meetings of the
House shall be deemed given when published in the American Bar
Association Journal. In addition, notice of special meetings of
the House shall be deemed given when sent by United States first class
mail, by special messenger or by facsimile transmission. Each delegate
has only one vote, which must be cast in person. A quorum is 150
delegates. The Secretary shall keep a tally
of total votes in favor of, opposed to, and abstaining from, and the
vote of each member voting, for all votes on proposals or motions: (1)
to amend the Constitution or Bylaws; (2) to adopt, alter, or rescind
any Association policy; or (3) to amend or postpone action on such proposals. Such
tally and record of individual member votes shall be included within
the record of the proceedings and shall be published within sixty days
after the conclusion of the meeting at which the vote was taken, in
the Association website available to members, and shall remain
available on the website for a period of at least one year.
[The new language is in bold
for the purpose of
highlighting.]
I am a member of the Association, but not a member
of the House of Delegates. I made a proposal at the August 2001 Annual
Meeting of the House to amend section 1.2 of the Constitution, the
"purposes" section, to add "to defend the right to life of all
innocent human beings, including those conceived but not yet born"as a
fundamental purpose of the ABA.
After the meeting I checked with the ABA staff to
get the vote tally on the ABA policy adopted at the meeting that
opposes the Mexico City policy re-instituted by President George W.
Bush. The Mexico City policy prohibits foreign nongovernmental
organizations receiving U.S. Agency for International Development
family planning assistance from using their own, non–United States
government funds to provide abortion-related health or medical
services, or to advocate for or conduct public education campaigns
relating to abortion.
The staff told me that the ABA did not keep a
record of the precise tally of votes in favor of, opposing, or
abstaining from this new ABA policy opposing the Mexico City policy.
So the House adopted a policy that no doubt is opposed by many ABA
members, but those members have no way of finding out through official
ABA channels what the breakdown of the vote was, for and against the
policy, let alone finding out through official channels how their own
local bar association ABA delegate voted on the policy. The ABA should
encourage "transparency" with regard to important votes by individual
House delegates for obvious reasons it is not necessary to detail
here.
It appears from a review of the ABA Constitution,
Bylaws, and Rules of Procedure of the House of Delegates that only two
sections deal directly with voting in the House of Delegates, section
6.12 of the Constitution, quoted above, and Article 46 of the Rules of
Procedure, which is entitled "Voting." Article 46 reads as follows:
§46.1 Voting. (a) Voting shall be by voice or
electronic vote, unless a written ballot or a roll call votes is
required. If voting is by voice, the delegates shall stand and be
counted when a division is called.
(b) When voting electronically delegates must
be in their seats or in the well of the House. If a division is
called, it must be called before an electronic vote is taken. The
Chair will ask delegates casting affirmative votes to stand while
casting their votes and will then ask delegates casting negative
votes to stand while casting their votes. No proxy voting is
permitted.
§46.2 Roll Coal Vote. At the request of 100
delegates, present and voting, a roll call vote shall be taken.
§ 43.6 Written Ballot. If there is more than
one nomination for an office of the Association, for membership on
the Board of Governors, or for membership on the Committee on
Scope and Correlation of Work, the election by the House of
Delegates must be by written ballot. The Chair of the House shall
appoint five delegates to act as tellers. The tellers shall
prepare, distribute, collect, and count the ballots. Balloting for
a contested position shall be continued until a candidate has
received a majority of the votes cast.
The American Bar Association House of Delegates is
a representative body. The American Bar Association itself purports to
represent its members and to be the voice of American lawyers in
general. When the American Bar Association adopts a policy regarding a
matter of national or international importance, its membership,
American lawyers, and the American public should be entitled to learn
by reference to the record of proceedings the vote tally. The
Association membership is interested in votes on amendments to the
Constitution and Bylaws, too. Some of these votes would be of interest
to American lawyers and the American public. Votes on matters of
substance in many types of representative bodies are recorded for
reference by membership, constituents, and posterity.
It should be easy to record the vote tallies. At
the 2001 annual meeting of the House, delegates were voting using
hand–held electronic voting devices. Immediately upon the vote being
declared closed by the Chair, the tally was displayed for all to see
on the video display screens in the front of the well of the House.
Making the vote tally a part of the record should be easy.
I would assume that the House could use electronic voting devices
where each device gives out a unique signal, so that the receiving
instrument can record not only whether the vote is "yes," "no," or
"abstain," but also the specific instrument from which the vote was
transmitted. If this assumption is correct, it should be an easy
matter to record the votes of each member of the House. If this is
true, the record of proceedings of the House should record the votes
of individual delegates on ABA policy positions and amendments to the
Constitution and the Bylaws. After all, the delegates are
representatives. Those being represented, whether formally because
they are members, or because they are American lawyers for whom the
ABA claims to speak, should be able to find out how each delegate
voted on these matters. Such knowledge may affect the election of the
delegates the next time they are up for election.
|
|
