Review of stated clerk’s election will cover a process without many rules

While the COGA investigation was ignited by what happened in this year’s stated clerk’s election, the context in which it will be conducted is broader than that. Assembly veterans are well aware that part of what’s being alleged here — that questions commissioners were to ask of candidates were planned and circulated in advance — has been common practice for years in moderators’ elections. Advocacy groups within the church openly acknowledge that they try to influence commissioners’ thinking both before and during the Assembly (some groups, for example, advertise daily “briefing” sessions they offer to commissioners). And the idea that there would be a floor strategy as commissioners discuss controversial issues during committee meetings or a plenary session would not take Assembly insiders by surprise at all.

What could be asked in this investigation, however, would be whether anything happened this time that went beyond the norm — that would or should be considered out-of-bounds.

And it may be a time to ask, too, whether in an increasingly politicized process in an intensely divided church, the rules as written now are sufficient, or need to be changed. One commissioner, for example, drew applause when she said she was tired of mean-spirited, anonymous flyers being placed in her mailbox — don’t do that any more, she said.

It’s also not clear what precisely are the allegations of possible funny business involving the July 2 election. There was mention — first by candidate Linn “Rus” Howard — of a list he said he fished out of a garbage can giving “friendly” questions (presumably, friendly to one or more of the candidates) to be asked during the one-hour “question-and-answer” session.

And later Timothy Harrison, a pastor and commissioner from Elizabeth presbytery, said he had “grave concerns” about the process used and made a motion, which eventually passed by a whopping margin calling for the investigation. Harrison referred to a list with suggested questions for the candidates and the names and seat numbers of specific commissioners who were to ask them.

“This deeply grieves and concerns me,” Harrison said, adding that he feared the voices of some commissioners could be marginalized if the process for calling on commissioners during the question period were not fair.

But there are many unanswered questions — including whether the commissioners Harrison mentioned on the list were actually called on to ask their questions.

Even if some were, there’s also the question of whether that happened because some kind of shenanigans were involved — some effort to intentionally skew the asking of questions — or because those people did an exceptionally expedient job of getting to the microphones in the plenary hall first.

In an interview, Rick Ufford-Chase, who is moderator of the 216th General Assembly and was in charge of calling on questioners at the microphones, did provide some answers.

First, he said he has never seen any list of questions to be asked or people who were to ask them. If such a list matched the order in which he called on people, “it would have to be a phenomenal coincidence,” Ufford-Chase said. “I had no idea there was any such list.”

Second, Ufford-Chase supports the investigation — he said so to the Assembly.

Third, during the question-and-answer session, Ufford-Chase made his own decisions about which microphones to call on in which order, and he did so trying to strike a balance of calling on ministers and elders, men and women, commissioners and advisory delegates, a balance he told the commissioners explicitly at other times that he was trying to achieve.

“I can tell you categorically the moderator was making his own calls about who to call on,” said Gradye Parsons, associate stated clerk and director of operations of the Office of the General Assembly, who was assisting on the platform during the election. “He had no input from anybody but himself.”

Fourth, in his own campaign for moderator Ufford-Chase was advised that it’s common practice for candidates’ supporters to organize in advance questions to ask — he said he was told, “This is what everybody does and you should do it, too.” But “I refused to participate in that,” Ufford-Chase said, because it didn’t feel right to him, and “tactically I felt it was entirely unnecessary,” that things would go just as well if he answered whatever questions happened to come up.

Kirkpatrick said during a news conference after the election that he had seen a copy of the prepared questions mentioned by Howard, but had not been involved in preparing the questions nor had he requested that particular commissioners ask questions. “I think that does happen from time to time,” Kirkpatrick said. “Half the questions (the candidates were asked) were those on the list.”

It’s also arguable whether the questions that were asked did inherently favor any one candidate over the others.

The candidates were asked, for example, what does it mean to preserve and defend the denomination’s Constitution, as the stated clerk is expected to do? What advice should be given to young adults frustrated by bickering in the denomination’s leadership? What are their hopes and expectations for the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA)? What experience have they had that would prepare them for managing the Office of the General Assembly (it was after this question that Howard referred to finding the list in the garbage can, saying that three of the four questions that had been asked so far came from the list, and adding: “I thought this was an unscripted debate.”)

In the closing hours of the Assembly there was a motion made to send the investigation to a group other than the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly — with the suggestion that there might be an appearance of impropriety, of too much closeness between COGA and Kirkpatrick — but that proposal failed after it was pointed out that COGA is an elected body of the General Assembly.

COGA will meet next in October and likely will discuss then how to proceed with the investigation, said Steve Grace, an elder and lawyer from Michigan who is COGA’s new moderator. But there already has been mention of the possibility of changing the standing rules.

Grace said that group would probably decide how to proceed with the investigation. The Stated Clerk Review and Nominating Committee, on which he served, also has concerns about the standing rules. “We were worried about the politicizing of the election” this year, he said, and about the lack of clear guidance to candidates about how to conduct their campaigns.

Currently, there are no formal rules governing campaigns for stated clerk — unlike with the every-Assembly elections for moderators, where the standing rules specify, for example, spending limits and when campaigning can take place (basically, it’s usually a “meet-and-greet” the candidates for a few hours in a hallway at the convention center before the Assembly starts).

But the stated clerk’s election takes place only once every four years, so there’s been less attention given to rules for that election. Asked if this year’s election was more political than such elections have been in the past, Grace responded: “Oh, I think so, sure.”

Someone stuffed anonymous flyers in commissioners’ mailboxes decrying Kirkpatrick’s “Failed Leadership Record,” referring to the PC(USA)’s budget cuts and membership losses, and stating, “Our denomination is failing due to ineffective leadership.” Another referred to public stances the denomination has taken — saying, for example, that “We support the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings” — and said that under Kirkpatrick’s leadership, ” this is how the PC(USA) has come to be known. Vote for a change in leadership. Stop the slide and recapture the spirit.”

Signed letters also were placed into commissioners’ mailboxes noting Kirkpatrick’s endorsements by more than 20 former General Assembly moderators, by all the presidents of the Presbyterian seminaries and by 93 of the presbytery and synod stated clerks. All of this sparked a lively hallway discussion of what’s fair and what’s not.

One thing that representatives of advocacy groups seemed to agree on was that some level of trying to win commissioners’ support has, for years, been common practice at the General Assembly.

If questions were suggested for commissioners to ask, “quite frankly that type of thing is done often and there’s nothing sinister or upsetting about it,” said Jim Berkley, issues analyst for Presbyterians for Renewal, an evangelical group that ardently supports the PC(USA)’s ordination standards. “That type of thing has been done over the years by all different sides.”

Pam Byers is executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a group working to try to change the PC(USA)’s ordination standards to allow gays and lesbians who are not celibate to be ordained. Asked if questions have been suggested to commissioners before, Byers answered: “That’s been known to happen … with a view to raising up issues that commissioners ought to know what the candidates think about them.”

Bob Davis, the second-place finisher in the stated clerk’s race, said, “It’s fine to have commissioners with questions prepared” and in previous years, “I’ve done it. I’ve helped commissioners frame questions. It’s in large part to be of service to the Assembly,” because as a result “we’ve seen a reduction in the number of frivolous questions, throwaway questions, that take up time.”

And people involved in past campaigns said candidates typically practice in advance answering the types of questions they expect might be asked — both “friendly” ones and those that could put them in a tough spot. The questions asked this year “seemed reasonable for a stated clerk’s election,” Davis said.

How far all this should go, however, isn’t always something on which people necessarily agree.

Berkley, for example, wrote some weeks ago — before the Assembly — in his online “Berkley Blog” that a group of commissioners who served on the National Issues committee at the 2003 Assembly in Denver was “practically vilified” for consulting together before they arrived in Colorado about the controversial “Families in Transition” paper. The committee ultimately approved a draft of the paper that those commissioners presented, rather than what was originally proposed to the committee, Berkley wrote. And the commissioners had counsel from “seasoned observers,” Berkley wrote — people who were not commissioners, but who assisted them as they wrote their alternate draft. After the Denver Assembly, Alan Wisdom from the Institute of Religion and Democracy — a conservative special interest group — was added to the team charged with further rewriting the Families paper, and is said to have played a significant role in its revision.

Berkley argued in his blog that “commissioners NEED and deserve such appropriate counsel, and should not be browbeaten into shunning input and collaboration. Why would we ever want decisions made only on the spur of the moment by the ill-prepared and poorly informed?”

And he said in an interview that he hopes any rules changes that might be proposed would not cut off such contact by advocacy groups with commissioners — which usually takes place, Berkley said, when particular commissioners indicate that they’re open to the conversation. “Resourcing commissioners is absolutely fair,” Berkley said. “Talking with commissioners, stating one’s points of view, getting information before them” and explaining the weaknesses of the other side’s positions helps to make better-informed commissioners, he contends.

And Berkley said the “red badges” do it too — meaning national staff members of the denomination, who typically wear name tags with red backgrounds.

“There are some people who have this purist idea that nobody has any influence over commissioners at all,” Berkley said. “It’s ridiculous … Commissioners still make their own decisions. They are not children.”

There are some limits, however. Only commissioners and advisory delegates (and a few technical support types) are allowed into the commissioner seating area of the plenary hall. And there are not supposed to be communications with commissioners while the Assembly or the committees are in session — although the cynics tell stories of hand signals and of commissioners who leave the voting area to consult with people at the back of the room. And there’s at least the technological potential for such things as instant messaging or text messaging on cell phones, although representatives of the advocacy groups say they have not detected that happening — and say if that were being done other commissioners might notice and complain.

And Berkley is not alone in arguing that, as long as the rules are followed, it is appropriate for advocacy groups to try to make their case with commissioners.

Byers, of Covenant Network, said her group provides what she calls practical, procedural advice to help commissioners — many of whom are attending their first Assembly — understand the issues and how to do what those commissioners want to accomplish.

And “of course we’ll offer opinions” on particular issues, Byers said, adding that those opinions are usually published and publicized in advance.

But there is a line, a delicate balance, Byers said, between assisting commissioners and manipulating them. ‘What we do not do is write speeches for people,” Byers said, “especially YADS,” meaning youth advisory delegates.

“One of the clear ethical guidelines we operate from is honoring a person’s conscience,” said Michael Adee, a field organizer for More Light Presbyterians. “We really strive as faithfully as possible not to cross lines that might suggest that if a person doesn’t vote a certain way … they’re not a good Christian or not a faithful Presbyterian.”

Adee also said “we strive to maintain a transparent method” — speaking at the open hearings, sharing personal stories, leaving background materials with More Light identification in commissioners’ mailboxes, and being especially vigilant not to cross any lines of propriety with youth advisory delegates. “I’m concerned that we not intimidate commissioners or try to control things so much that the (Holy) Spirit cannot be at work,” Adee said.

Davis, who leads the Presbyterian Forum, said “I think there have been episodes in the past where individuals have gotten out of line but have been reined in” by the advocacy groups. “If you cross the line, it backfires,” Davis said. “To get lost in the Mickey Mouse” of improper manipulation means “you lose your integrity and you lose your ability to effect the kind of change you want to effect.”