A New Way to Elect President?

On the Election-L list through the UUA, a conversation began yesterday, prompted by Mike Durall, about a different way to select a UUA President.

Come to find out, there's already a proposal to do just that. I missed this -- was there much talk in the blogosphere about it? If so, I was out to lunch.

Under the proposed changes to the elections process, the UUA would establish a Presidential Search Committee, which would choose two candidates for the presidency. The search committee would consist of seven members, with five elected by the General Assembly, one appointed by the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, and one appointed by the Board of Trustees.

The search committee would become the UUA’s sixth standing committee, alongside the Nominating Committee, the General Assembly Planning Committee, the Commission on Appraisal, the Commission on Social Witness, and the Board of Review.

Other individuals could run for the presidency by petition.

Tamara Payne-Alex, trustee-at-large from San Jose, Calif., chaired the working group that wrote the proposed changes. “Congregations are not present in the current process,” she said, because self-selected presidential candidates begin the process of seeking endorsements and fund-raising largely behind the scenes. “Congregations find out who the candidates are only after the slate has been presented. We wanted to make it more like a ministerial search process. We want to use this as an opportunity to energize and engage the electorate.”

... Under the new bylaws, the president’s and moderator’s terms would be shortened from a maximum of eight years (two four-year terms) to one six-year term.

I realize a whole lot of the blogger folks are at General Assembly, but I'll ask anyway: Thoughts?

Of course, this is just about the nomination process. The process of running for office, the money involved, the travel ... that's a whole other question.