"We Didn't Get Rid of the Quotas!" -or- David Swartling, Keeper of the Matrix

I spoke with Rev. Dee Pederson, Chair of the LIFT Task Force for a bit on Thursday evening before supper with my Synod, and mentioned in passing the Assembly votes to get rid of the quotas for Church Council membership. Her quick reply was "We didn't get rid of the quotas!" Thus began a slow re-education on my part on how Church Council members are chosen, and how it will probably work in the future. Here's what I've pieced together so far, as I know I'm not the only one who had the misconceptions I did about what LIFT was doing re: Council membership. Of course all distortions are my own.

[UPDATE 9/4/11, see end of post] Chapter 5 of the ELCA Constitution (pages 23-25 of this document) does spell out the specific demographic targets, unambiguously in the cases of representation by "persons of of color and/or persons whose primary language is other than English" (at least 10%) and lay membership (at least 60%). The targets for a 50/50 gender balance within units are to be achieved "as nearly as possible", and "where possible, the representation of ordained ministers shall be both female and male" (5.01f). There are similar targets established for synods, which are mandated to "establish processes" to ensure same (5.01g). [This is my uncorrected, wrong interpretation: The resolutions advocating demographic targets for Council (CWA, etc.) membership were always aspirational in nature, and depended on the commitment of the Council and Nominating Committee to achieve their stated aims (i.e., the quotas weren't as "hard" as I thought).]

The churchwide organization has taken the responsibility for meeting those demographic targets very seriously so far, and there is no reason to believe that that will change.

Until now, standard procedure when a vacancy came up was for David Swartling (the Secretary of the ELCA) to consult "The Matrix," which is a table of demographic and regional priorities (which may or may not require a direct brain interface or the Key of Rassilon to access). At that point, he'd call up (for example) the Southwestern Minnesota Synod, and ask them to produce a Female Clergy candidate for the open Church Council seat.

The LIFT changes affected the process in these ways:

• The category of non-voting Advisory Members, funded by the churchwide body, has been done away with (this is probably where the notion of getting rid of demographic quotas came from, since this step has decreased and in some cases eliminated representation by some minority concerns)
• Now more conditions (apart from demographic and regional concerns) can be placed on nominees to the Church Council, depending on the current needs of the council (so for example, they could now ask a given synod for a Lay Female candidate with a background in Finance).
  
• The Church Council can now have more or fewer members within a set range, depending on the needs of the Council (and in the documents detailing the changes, demographic diversity is listed first among those anticipated needs).

I hope that clears things up at least a bit: whatever "quotas" there were coming into this Assembly were not weakened, and a bigger Council will provide more opportunity to meet our demographic commitments for that body. I expect that among the first priorities of the new wave of recruitment for will be for Youth representation on Church Council. Yes, signing Youth members up for 6-year terms will be difficult (though not as difficult as predicting their contribution to regional diversity), but the strong Youth showing at this Assembly has established in many minds a theme I've heard quite a bit lately in Lutheran circles: that youth members are not merely the "future of the church", but the present as well. [UPDATE 9/04/11: The youth/young adult representational targets could more fairly be called "aspirational", as they are presented as goals in a continuing resolution, calling for the Church Council to come up with a plan for at least 10% voting representation by youth (younger than 18 at the time of election) and young adults (from 18 to 30 at the time of election) at churchwide units (6.02.A09).]

Coming soon: the exciting conclusion of the Lutheran Youth Organization floor motion!

[UPDATE 9/4/11: This update was too important to just leave this post stand and post a new one. I got notice fairly quickly that the demographic targets were in fact in the constitution but I was holding off on a correction until I could get a reference (I had done my own obviously inadequate check of the Constitution looking for the targets, but I was looking in the wrong places). Someone in Chicago was able to provide the reference however, and hopefully it's all straightened out with this update. Now to finally kick this flu so I can finish my report!]