Nashville, Tennessee: The Commission on the General Conference has devised a process for determining the order in which legislative proposals will be considered by the single legislative committee during the 2019 Special Session of the General Conference.
Petitions which compose a plan will be considered together as one unit. Petitions which are not part of a plan will be considered individually. On the first official day of the session, February 24, plans and petitions will be listed one at a time on the video screens in numerical order by petition number(s). Delegates will then be able to indicate whether they consider each a high priority or a low priority by pressing either 1 or 2 on their voting device.
New voting devices using smartcard technology will make voting simpler and more secure. Each delegate will have a smartcard which can only be used once. On-screen prompts give delegates easy instructions to direct them on what to do, how they are voting, and to confirm receipt of the vote.
Each plan or petition will be listed in order of the High Priority percentage. Results of the ranking will not be shown until completion of the process for all plans and petitions. At that time, the outcome of all the rankings will be projected, with all plans and petitions listed by percentage.
Legislative committee officers will prioritize the plans and petitions in order according to the percentages listed and the Legislative Committee will perfect them in that order. All petitions must receive a vote in legislative committee.
Items will be brought to the floor of the legislative committee for perfection and a committee vote in order according to the prioritization. Items receiving an affirmative vote in legislative committee will be placed on the appropriate calendar and brought to the floor of the plenary session for further debate and a vote according to the Plan of Organization and Rules of Order. All petitions approved by a legislative committee must have a vote by the plenary session.
The General Conference Committee on Reference has determined that 78 petitions submitted for consideration by the 2019 General Conference are in harmony with the purpose of the special session.
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About General Conference
General Conference is the top policy-making body of The United Methodist Church. The assembly meets at the beginning of each quadrennium to consider revisions to church law, as well as adopt resolutions on current moral, social, public policy and economic issues. It also approves plans and budgets for church-wide programs for the next four years. General Conference 2020 will take place May 5-15, 2020, at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis. A special session of the General Conference has been called for February 23-26, 2019, and will meet at The Dome of the America’s Center in St. Louis.
Media contact:
Diane Degnan ddegnan@umcom.org
615.742.5406(o) 615.483.1765(c)
