Special Election of Jurisdictional Reserve Delegates
At the opening of the 2023 Michigan Annual Conference, the Conference Committee on Rules and Order intended to make a motion to suspend the Conference’s Rules of Order to hold a “Special Election” of two Clergy and two Laity Reserve Delegates to the North Central Jurisdictional Conference. The election will occur during the 2023 Annual Conference. Due to changes in their professional and personal lives, two Clergy and two Laity members of the Conference’s General & Jurisdictional Conferences Delegation, which was elected in 2019, have resigned. These resignations have exhausted the pool of Jurisdictional Conference Lay and Clergy Reserve Delegates. Given there is still another year before the General and Jurisdictional Conferences meet, the Committee on Rules and Order, Commission on the Annual Conference, the Conference’s GC&JC Delegation determined it was prudent to elect Reserve Delegates.Why elections will not be held in 2023
On May 5, a decision made at the Council will have an immediate impact on our upcoming Annual Conference. In decision 1472, the Judicial Council ruled that annual conferences could elect new delegates for the postponed 2020 General Conference, to be held in 2024, “up to the maximum number of originally allocated delegates if they cannot be filled with reserve delegates.” The Council of Bishops understands this ruling to mean that persons cannot be elected as reserve delegates to General Conference. At our meeting, the Council has also asserted that by implication, the same should hold for Jurisdictional Conferences. Election for Jurisdictional Conference delegates should include election up to the maximum number of originally allocated delegates if they cannot be filled with reserve delegates, and therefore the election of additional reserve delegates would be out of order. The elections the Michigan Conference was planning to hold at our upcoming Annual Conference were for reserve delegates for Jurisdictional Conference. We will not be holding those elections. I am sorry that this was not clear even a month ago. I deeply appreciate those who have offered their names for consideration. I celebrate your willingness to be part of our delegation and regret not being able to move forward with this election.
Michigan Conference General and Jurisdictional Delegation with Bishop David Bard