I sit on the state rules committee of a major political party. Like many such organizations, our governing instrument reflects several generations worth of hard-fought and often artless political compromise which have left it a bit ragged or disjointed here and there.
Recently we have been beset by a controversy over whether the following bylaws language implicitly deprives the chairs and vice chairs of our state standing committees of any right to cast votes in their committees:
At its organizational meeting or in its next official meeting, each Congressional District Committee [of which there are five, the membership of which is elected by the county central committees in population-adjusted blocks allocated among the counties that compose the district] and the [State Central Committee (SCC)] delegates and alternates acting as delegates [each elected by and representing their respective county central committees to the state-level organization] living in that district, elects representatives to serve on the standing committees of the SCC.
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Each Congressional District Committee, along with the SCC delegates and alternates acting as delegates living in that district, elects committee delegates and alternates to the standing committees in the following numbers: Budget Committee: Two delegates, one alternate; Credentials Committee: Two delegates, one alternate; [etc.]
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The Chair of the SCC appoints the chair, vice chair and one voting member of each standing committee. The chair of the standing committee may appoint one voting member of the standing committee, with approval of the Administration Committee.
The argument of the insurgent side of the dispute is tidily summed up by one of its proponents: "If the bylaws were meant to say all are voting members then they'd say one 'additional' voting member, but they don't."
We who find this interpretation surprising point to past practices, the basic assumptions about what committee chairs and vice chairs are and do, and the fundamental principle that basic rights of membership in the body cannot be deemed stripped from a class of members except by express provision in the bylaws that a specified right is so stripped.
What say you?