A board decision relating to the council on legislation / 

 - page 27-31 
<br/><br/> The Rotary Balita no. 715 (February 19, 1953) 
<br/><br/> With all of its 14 members from eight countries present, the board of directors of Rotary Inter- national met in Chicago, January 19-23. Noting the widespread interest Rotary clubs have manifested with regard to the Council on Legislation, the board has directed that its decision on this subject be distributed to all Rotary clubs. The full text of the decision is presented below.  The action of two or three Rotary clubs and individuals in circulating a warning that the intention of the board of directors of R.I. to offer for consideration at the 1953 Convention a proposal to improve the legislative machinery of Rotary is about to destroy representative government in Rotary has resulted in the Board's receiving communications from many of the Rotary Clubs in the United States and Canada.  Most of the statements and actions re- corded in these communications have been based upon an amazing and erroneous sup- position that changes might somehow be made before the clubs had the opportunity to examine the proposals a right guaranteed to them under the Constitution and By-Laws of R.I., which provide that copies of any proposed enactment must be sent to each club not later than 90 days preceding the opening of the Convention. Further- more, these statements have been issued and actions taken and the communications circulated before anyone, including the members of the Board, had even seen a draft of the proposal prepared by the Constitution and By-Laws Committee.  This prejudgment by a large number of Rotary clubs of a proposal not yet in the form of a first draft is unprecedented in Rotary. The prejudging has been so predominantly emotional that a fair and intelligent consideration of any proposal on the subject appears to be impossible at this time. Therefore, the Board will not present one to the Paris Convention.  So the defect in our legislative procedure still remains, and the need for a fair and intelligent examination of proposals to cure the defect is more evident than ever. There is no thought of proposing anything which would threaten in the slightest degree truly representative government in Rotary.  The defect is that the Convention is no longer a representative legislative body. The Convention has become a great inspirational meeting and one day's session of the Convention is all that can be spent in legislation, which is certainly not sufficient. Passing upon 22 proposals of legislation in one day at Mexico City, each proposal could have only 20 minutes' consideration, and that is not enough. It is not possible in the Convention to settle any question by a head count, for proxies can only be voted at the polls, and at many Conventions printing a ballot requires 36 hours, as was the case at Mexico City. In many conventions (Mexico City was one) the number of participating voting delegates varied from as many as 2,500 to as few as 500. The average number of clubs represented in person or by proxy at the last five Conventions is 51%; and that is not a truly representative body for legislation.  The best solution appears to be to substitute for the Convention the Council on Legislation which is a suitable legislative body. It is not too large, and any question can quickly be decided by head count. Its time can be extended to permit free debate and full consideration of every proposal. It is truly representative, being composed of men chosen by every district; and it is informed because its members are mostly present or past district governors. It would be more representative if its members should be elected in the districts before each meeting of the Council, but from Rotarians with at least the experience of a District Governor.  To have a Council on Legislation, in which every club is represented, instead of one Convention session, where only half the clubs are represented, will not destroy representative government.  To further ensure that representative government will not be endangered by making the Council on Legislation the final legislative body, the Board approves a re- commendation made by a member of the Constitution and By-Laws Committee that every enactment of the Council on Legislation be sent back to the clubs themselves in a mailed referendum and not become effective if in the referendum the clubs reject it.  In recording this decision, the Board directs that it be published in the "News Broadcast" and "The Rotarian" as a statement of the problem and of a possible solution, requesting the clubs of the world to study the problem and to make suggestions to the Board for consideration in the preparation of such enactment as may eventually the drafted.