Amendment #6: Substituting One Problem for Another One

The 2003 American Mensa ballot includes six referenda, each a proposal to amend the Bylaws of American Mensa, Ltd. (AML). Amendment #6 proposes to amend the portion of our bylaws that regulates referenda to modify the bylaws. Here's a summary of what this amendment would do, if passed, and why I think it should be defeated.

Amendment #6 proposes to redefine the required time notification of referenda provided to the membership. Currently the bylaws prescribe that certain notices be published in certain time frames prior to an election. Unfortunately, this has caused some difficulties for Election Committees, in large part due to the fact that the Bulletin is currently published 10 times per year, not monthly.

The amendment proposes to substitute issues of the journal for time in defining the required notice to the membership. This would, with the current Bulletin production schedule, ease the burden on future Election Committees.

In my humble opinion, this proposal would substitute one problem for another one—and, also in my humble opinion, the substitution is an unwise one.

The bylaws do not mandate how often our journal (i.e., the Mensa Bulletin) is published. The American Mensa Committee (AMC) can change the Bulletin to a quarterly publication, or to a weekly publication. (I suppose that in theory it could be annual or daily, but neither is realistic.) The amendment would make problems even worse for future Election Committees if the Bulletin were published less frequently. The amendment would allow notice of a referendum to be reduced to less than a month if the Bulletin were published more frequently.

In my opinion, AMC should have the discretion to decide how often to publish a journal; that sort of detail does not belong in the bylaws. On the other hand, I do not believe that AMC should have the "flexibility" to manipulate the length of notice provided to the membership of an impending referendum, which passage of this amendment would allow.

So, while I must (and do) support the decision to let the membership decide whether to adopt this amendment, I am urging anyone who will listen to join me in voting it down. While I sympathize with the problems the current set-up causes an Election Committee, I view this proposed cure as worse than the disease. There are five amendments to the bylaws on the ballot that, in my opinion, deserve to be passed, but Amendment #6 is not one of them.

—Rick Magnus