Proposal to Modify Club Rule 3.3.4.1.2
Gentlemen,
The current Club Rule 3.3.4.1.2 reads:
In the election of a CoA, only members at the rank of Lieutenant General or General at the time the election Voting period begins may vote for the CoA representing their respective military group. The Election Committee will use the Department of Records to verify ranks to determine eligibility. Nominations for the CoA may be made by any regular officer subject to the restrictions in Rule 3.3.4.2.2, below.I feel a general re-writing of this rule is necessary to drop the required rank of Lt. General in order to vote. The vote should be expanded to all members of the CoA’s military group.
A basic history of this Rule should be included here so I will quote General Jeff Laub in his recollection of the creation of this rule.
When I first became Chief of the Armies for the Union 5 years ago (2005), we did not have elections for those positions in the Rules. I was an Army Commander, and when General Nelms decided to step down, I stepped up.
When the Rules were written during my time on Cabinet, it was decided to allow the Command structure of Army Commanders, Theater Commanders, sitting CoA and Training Academy Commanders (both War College and VMI/UMA) to vote in a CoA election - a total of 9 folks.
As we the (then) Cabinet went through other elections, I chaired a committee to take lessons learned from our earliest elections and make changes to the Club Rules based on our experiences. One of the topics that I felt strongly about was the CoA elections as they were written at the time. Here's why:
Since the CoA has the authority to appoint anyone he wants to commands, or remove anyone he wants from commands, he could cherry pick commanders to guarantee his victory in any subsequent election - the incumbent would always win, theoretically. So I wrote the current election Rules, and got them passed by Cabinet and membership. My intentions were as follows:
1 - To prevent the incumbent from controlling his voting base
2 - To recognize that, as a Lt General or Full General, those individuals have accomplished 2 things - served in a Corps level command or higher at some point in their career, AND had the longevity to earn enough points to get those ranks. To me, that represented a significant investment in our Club, and warranted a vote in deciding who runs their Army. As you pointed out, it expanded the voting base by 4 fold, from 9 to 38ish at present on the CoA side.
Those are the historical records of the CoA voting Rules up to the present. I believe the intent and steps taken were in the right direction but they stopped one step short. There is no reason why voting should not be expanded along the same boundaries as in the Presidential and Secretary processes. In both of those instances all concerned members, regardless of rank, are allowed and encouraged to vote. Only in the election of CoA do we retain such an undemocratic system that disallows the majority of concerned members from participating in the vote.
In the Club’s past it was argued by those that defended this stipulation of Rule 3.3.4.1.2 that it guaranteed only those competent, senior, officers could vote for CoA. Because these men had committed more time to the Club they alone should be responsible for electing the CoA. Stating it bluntly it assumed junior officers were not able to appreciate and understand what was involved in the running of the Club.
This is pure nonsense. In the past few years the Club has seen changes that were unthinkable just five years or seven years ago. In the CSA we have seen a Lt. Colonel and three Brigadier Generals be asked to run armies. We have had two Colonels appointed as Commandant of VMI. And we have had a Brigadier General lead a theater. The Union is also turning to younger leaders and recently elected a Brigadier General into the Cabinet and had appointed two Colonels to lead UMA. Not to mention the half-dozen or dozen Chief of Staff's that have held, and some still do, ranks far below even Colonel. Lastly, the Club elected a Colonel as President in 2010.
Yet under the current Club Rules NONE of the above people could vote for the CoA! Is this not outrageous? A Cabinet Member, a Theater Commander, Army Commanders, Academy Commandants,
the Club President… none could vote for the CoA! Oh, that’s right, we were junior officers… what could we know?
A member in good standing should always be allowed to vote for the representatives of his own side of the Club. To deny him this right is just downright silly. Our little Club continues to turn to the up and coming members for leadership and yet we declare them incompetent to vote for CoA?
In Laub’s history I believe that he and the Cabinet did a great service by making the CoA position an elected one. I believe they were absolutely on the right track by allowing more than just those assigned to command positions to vote as well. They expanded it to all Lt. Generals and Generals but stopped there. I do not fault them though as they made great strides for the growth of elected representation in the Club. I imagine they knew future members would re-evaluate the rule at some point and they may have even suspected the day would come when it was re-written to expand the vote to all members of that side of the Club. I believe that time is here – likely it is overdue. The CoA is a representative of every officer on his side of the Club. Therefore it only stands to reason that he should be elected by every member of his side as well. The Club should also recognize the many contributions of members serving below the rank of Lt. General and honor all of them by allowing them to vote for their own CoA.
I propose the deletion of the egregious wording in Rule 3.3.4.1.2 and the new Rule to replace it simply read:
In the election of a CoA all members may vote for the CoA representing their respective military group. Nominations for the CoA may be made by any regular officer subject to the restrictions in Rule 3.3.4.2.2, below.