Chuck and all, Are the bylaws clear about what (or whose views) a council member's vote expresses - whether it is an individual responsibility (e.g., based on the rep's understanding of the issue at hand and that of the values/interests of their counstituency, whcih can sometimes differ among reps of the same constituency) or the mere expression of constituency discipline? Or does one model apply for some types of decision, and the others to the rest? What are those types of decision? I think this is important to clarify. Again (I've said this before,) not all consituencies enjoy the same level of homogeneity as RyC, and you may wrongly be taking your assumptions as valid across borders. If the bylaws are silent about that question, then this should be fixed one way or the other, or we should make it clear that it is up to each constituency to decide and mandate its reps the way it wants them to do their job in representing it in the council decision-making processes. BTW, when I once asked about why one could no longer use proxy vote, one of the reasons Bruce gave me as explanation was that, council members need to engage in the whole discussion with their colleagues, hopefully in a constructive approach, in order to determine a final decision/position. Such reason would not make much sense within the context of constituency discipline. Unless one suspends any decision on that issue and gives at least a month to the reps for a pedagigical exercise while playing a detailed remake of the discussion to their constituency. If such such argument had any theoretical sense, the transaction costs would obviously be high enough to take it away. The irony is, sometimes like in san juan, I hear criticism of the council having a parliamentary mode of functioning, and some other times the parallel with a parliamentary model comes across as positive. It is totally irrational and confusing. Mawaki --- "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@verisign.com> wrote:
I definitely agree that we should not overly complicate this but I do believe that what was done previously may need to be tweaked. It is one thing to use a proxy when the sole reason is because of inability to attend; it is a very different situation when someone uses a proxy when a conflict of interest exists. In the latter case, I personally think that the Board approach is much more appropriate, i.e., to abstain. To give a proxy to someone who would vote for a position that you would support, seems out of order to me if you have a conflict of interest. Taking that one step further, I also think it would be inappropriate for a councilor to intentionally be absent from a meeting to be able to use a proxy instead of having to abstain in a case where a conflict existed.
Regardless of whether proxies are reinstituted or not, it seemed like a no brainer to me that no constituency that has developed a constituency position on an issue should be denied a vote if a rep is unable to attend a meeting. If we really believe in bottom-up processes, why would anyone oppose this? Doing this could be as simple as having a constituency officer (chair, vice chair, etc.) send an email to the Council secretariat and/or chair in advance, with cc's to the constituency reps, validating the constituency position and thereby allowing any one rep to cast all votes on behalf of the constituency. This would in no way require constituencies to adopt positions in advance, but if they did, it would ensure that their positions were fully supported whether all reps were in attendance or not.
The way the RyC has dealt with this issue when we vote on critical issues where we want to make sure that all members have opportunity to vote is that we allow the option of extending voting on our email list. Not sure this would work for the Council. And like my proposal above, there may be an issue with the Bylaws, as Philip noted.
Chuck Gomes
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-----Original Message----- From: Ross Rader [mailto:ross@tucows.com] Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 1:08 PM To: Gomes, Chuck Cc: GNSO Council Subject: Re: [council] Point for Discussion
I don't know that this level of rigor is required or necessary. The only problem with the previous proxy arrangements was that they weren't permitted under ICANN's bylaws. I don't believe that there was any indication of abuse, or other problems associated with this method, other than the fact that it wasn't technically permissible.
I would like to see proxy's come back, but I don't think that we need to construct anything more elaborate governing their
use than we previously used. i.e. a proxy can only be assigned by the person who holds the vote and that the GNSO Secretariat needs to be made aware of the assignment by the person passing the proxy prior to the start of the meeting.
Gomes, Chuck wrote:
I fully understand the reason for eliminating proxy voting on the Council and support it, but I would like to propose the following for consideration by the Council.
It seems to me that no constituency should be denied any of their votes in cases where the constituency as a whole has taken
on an issue and one of their Council representatives cannot participate in a meeting. In such a case, it seems reasonable to allow any one constituency representative to case all the votes for the constituency provided an officer of the constituency confirms that the vote indeed reflects the wishes of the full constituency as determined through the constituencies established
envision this, it would only apply in cases where a vote was announced in advance, a constituency considered the choices and the constituency as a whole provided direction to its reps regarding how to vote; otherwise, we would simply be back to proxy voting as
a position processes. As I previously used.
I am not suggesting this because of any recent or
anticipated issue
but rather think that it is a procedure we should define before we encounter such a situation.
Thoughts?
I am not suggesting this as an agenda item for tomorrows meeting but simply one for list discussion. Depending on the discussion that follows, we could put this item on a future agenda.
Chuck Gomes
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-- Regards,
Ross Rader Director, Retail Services Tucows Inc.
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