[statecom] [Procedures] Have added new state committee members to statecom and statecom-discuss lists

[Merelice]

Dear StateCom,

I will respond to Jim on the Procedures Committee list where we are
both members. For the moment, this is not StateCom business unless
Procedures and/or AdCom decides to recommend that the StateCom
consensus is against Party bylaws and the issue requires further
StateCom deliberation.

Merelice


On 7/17/08, Jim Hammerman <jim_hammerman at terc.edu> wrote:
> Hi Merelice,
>  I didn't mean to push on a sensitive spot. And I didn't intend to
>  pre-judge whether or not including such delays in proposals to seat
>  StateCom members is out of order. That's clearly what the Procedures
>  committee needs to decide and I will express my opinion about that there.
>
>  All I was saying was that there may be severability issues in what was
>  passed--that if one part of a proposal is acceptable according to our
>  bylaws, while other parts go against our bylaws, then the parts that are
>  acceptable can still be accepted and we'll need to decide what to do about
>  the parts that are not acceptable. And we can use the intent of the
>  proposal as a guide to determine how to rectify the situation in case we
>  happen to decide that such delays were not allowable instead of throwing
>  out the whole proposal because one part of it is deemed unacceptable.
>  Especially if by throwing out the whole proposal we would exacerbate the
>  very issue that is unacceptable, i.e., the delays. Such delays may be
>  allowable or they may not--that's for Procedures to discuss and decide.
>  But I don't think determining whether or not they're allowable in general
>  needs to hold up seating these delegates, since if the delays were deemed
>  unallowable, then our default procedure would be to seat them immediately
>  (on June 29), which time has already passed. Or, we might say that
>  StateCom had decided _in this case_ to institute a delay, and therefore
>  seating these delegates on July 15 (which time has also already passed)
>  would be allowable, but that this couldn't become a precedent for future
>  delays in seating delegates.
>
>  If there's a case to be made that you think that StateCom was not only
>  choosing to delay seating these delegates but also to make a policy that
>  such delays were acceptable practice in general, and therefore deciding
>  against such delays was really undermining the _entire_ proposal, and
>  therefore the delegates shouldn't be seated at all until StateCom revisits
>  the issue, I'd like to hear you or others make such a case. But maybe that
>  can wait till the Procedures Committee meets, too.
>
>  Best, Jim
>