At the March AMC meeting, among other last-minute items put forward by the Nominating Committee was the following bylaws amendment proposal (emphasis added mine):
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1a. Moved BECKER , MARK AND REIGER: The following is passed to a referendum of the membership on the next regular ballot after the 2013 election:
Article VI, section 3 of the bylaws of American Mensa are amended as follows: In the first sentence, "No later than the October 1st preceding each election" is changed to "No later than one month before the deadline for submitting candidate petitions"; also in the first sentence, "the nominees(s) for the position of Chairman" is changed to "all nominees for Executive Committee positions"; and in the second sentence, ", and the list shall be published" is added at the end of the sentence; and the third sentence is deleted. The resulting section will then read:
(3) No later than one month before the deadline for submitting candidate petitions, the Nominating Committee shall nominate one or more candidates for each of the elective offices of American Mensa Ltd., of whom all nominees for Executive Committee positions shall (unless no individuals with the requisite qualifications are willing to run for that office) be members of the American Mensa Committee then in office, or have served at least one year on a prior American Mensa Committee. The Nominating Committee shall submit a list of the nominated candidates to the American Mensa Committee and to the Election Committee, and the list shall be published.
EXPLANATION: This is the first of two motions to implement a recommendation from the Nominating Committee Process Review Task Force. It allows the nomination and election process to be shorter than it is currently. It also extends the requirement of at least one year experience on the AMC to the entire Executive Committee.
FINANCIAL IMPACT: The cost of putting a bylaws amendment on the ballot and tallying the votes.
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Given how close to the meeting itself this and the other Nominating Committee-originated proposals came out, the AMC only had a brief discussion on the items, but voted to postpone an up/down vote on each of the proposals until their next teleconference, sometime before May 31.
I strongly urge you to contact the AMC (at least your RVC) to ask them to vote AGAINST this proposal.
It goes the wrong direction with respect to requirements for nomination. Currently, the bylaws require that candidates put forward by the NomComm for the position of Chairman must either be serving on the AMC at the time, or must have previously served at least a year. This precludes people who have relevant outside experience from even being considered by the Nominating Committee. This also assumes that the only way to have good knowledge of AML is to have served (or be serving) on the AMC itself. While it certainly gives you *more* insight than you would have otherwise, it isn't necessary to have that, in my opinion.
And, rather than removing this requirement (like MIL did with a similar requirement that used to be in the Constitution), this proposal would expand it, applying to the positions of First Vice Chairman, Second Vice Chairman, Treasurer, and Secretary, too.
Also, it seems like the timeline would be narrowed *too* much. (Some is certainly welcome.) As it currently stands in the bylaws, the candidate petitions are due on Feb. 1. Therefore, the list from the NomComm (per above) would be due on Jan. 1 and published. While there are lots of people who would be able to see any e-mail/online notification, there are plenty of members who would not, and would require seeing it in hard-copy. The amount of time they would then have to collect signatures on petitions (either for themselves or someone else, prompted by seeing one or more names they think should be run against) is unduly short. Sure, in the ideal world, people would have already been gathering signatures before the announcement, but there are times where it is only the knowledge of the nominated candidates that galvanizes some people to take action.
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