I posted much of the following information in the entry below with the Excel spreadsheet of how the bishops voted on the question of deposing Bishop Duncan. Kendall has requested I make this a stand alone entry to ensure it gets visibility. –elfgirl
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In working on putting the roll call vote data into spreadsheet format, and adding in information about absent diocesan bishops, and reviewing the total number of eligible bishops, etc. I made several startling discoveries.
1. If I correctly understand Louie Crew’s House of Bishops data, there were 290 TOTAL bishops that were entitled to vote at the HoB meeting. Only 127 bishops attended the HoB meeting, not even 50% of eligible bishops.
2. ONLY 56 TEC diocesan bishops (or “acting” diocesans, see note below) — representing exactly 50% of the 112 TEC dioceses — voted YES to depose Duncan. In the remaining 56 dioceses, the diocesan bishop either voted No, abstained, was absent, or the see of the diocese was vacant. The breakdown is as follows:
29 Diocesans / Acting Diocesans Voted NO
4 Abstained
17 diocesans were absent (TEC only counted 15 as absent, I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy)
(among the absent diocesans are at least 4 who would almost certainly have voted No (Ackerman, Iker, Duncan, Wimberly)
6 sees are vacant with no acting bishop (including PA since Bennison is inhibited and couldn’t vote)
Among “Acting Diocesans,” I’ve counted Lamb (San Joaquin), Frey (Rio Grande), MacDonald (Navajo), Buchanan (S. Virginia) all of whom attended the meeting.
3. Finally, something else is very striking. A few dioceses had extraordinary clout in the vote. A mere 6 dioceses (Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Chicago, North Carolina and Maine) accounted for 21 of the 88 YES votes (nearly 1/4 of the total Yes votes). Wow.
Comments and questions welcomed, but I’ll be traveling for 2 days and will not be able to reply quickly. –elfgirl
You’ll find all the details in the revised spreadsheet here:
http://kendallharmon.net/t19/media/Duncan_Deposition_Vote_(rev).xls
This isn’t about math – it’s about power and bending the rules to get, consolidate and keep it. Until somebody or some group stays +KJS’s hand, she will continue to ‘interpret’ the canons in a way that bends the Episcopal Church to her vision – the rest of the Anglican Communion be damned.
“Only 127 bishops attended the HoB meeting, not even 50% of eligible bishops.”
Like in the election of the last PB the opinion seems to be that of seeking and demonstrating clarification of the lostness of TEC.
Over half the bishops have revealed to us their opinion that the TEC show is over; the curtain is closing. All that is left to be done is to usher out those remaining in the audience.
Don
[blockquote]
1. If I correctly understand Louie Crew’s House of Bishops data, there were 290 TOTAL bishops that were entitled to vote at the HoB meeting. Only 127 bishops attended the HoB meeting, not even 50% of eligible bishops.
[/blockquote]
Let’s be precise.
If the 290 is correct, then that is the number of bishops who have voting rights in the House of Bishops.
Entitlement to vote at a meeting, absent provision for voting by mail or proxy, requires presence at the meeting. (I understand that years ago the deposition for abandonment rule was based on a poll of bishops, but now it must take place at a meeting of the House as an action of the House.)
Perhaps Title IV.9 should be revised. Perhaps there should be a different procedure. Perhaps only diocesans should have vote.
I trust, however, that you would not commend a rule under which a bishop tied to life support in a hospital has what amounts to an automatic negative vote on the question. This, after all, is the concern when one raises the 290 in discussion unless there is provision for (1) bishops unable to attend by reason of infirmity and (2) retired bishops not present.
In 1967 when the GC voted *not* to censure Pike, the bishops had the, uh, guts to at least vote on it. They have rather less, uh, guts now. Anyone surprised?
You can add Allan Bartlett to the acting column — he is “assisting” in PA
The vote has been taken. So be it. But the next two weeks may be very interesting. Can’t imagine that the PB was so anxious to depose Bishop Duncan before the Pittsburgh convention unless she has a plan to prevent the conventio seceding from TEC. I would guess that the HOB deposition of Bishop Duncan will increase the number of votes for leaving TEC. The really important votes will be the parishes that vote to follow Bishop Duncan. Recall the words of Jesus: many will call me Lord, Lord, but……. These are the votes that will determine the viability of an Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Statmann
Connecticut’s representation is especially interesting in light of this, which is still the first thing that pops up when one googles “Bishop Andrew Smith” and “Presentment”:
http://www.sc-acn.net/images/61622/CT-SixPresentment.pdf
Bishop Smith was, of course, exonerated of all charges by the committee picked by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to consider his presentment. While admitting that Bishop Smith had indeed violated canon law, the committee gave him a pass because his “intentions” were “good.”
Evidently, although Bishop Robert Duncan had not violated any canon laws, he could be deposed without the trial that Bishop Smith was at least offered. Clearly Duncan’s intentions were not good.
But, of course, Bishop Smith already had practice in removing clergy on unwarranted charges of “abandoning the communion.” He deposed Fr. Mark Hansen for “abandoning the communion” because of the grievous offense of taking a sabbatical without diocesan permission.
#6 Statmann you may well be on to something. I am sitting here pondering whether or not the PB will either a) allow the convention to take place, b) allow the convention, but remove the resolution to withdraw from the agenda, or c) (possibly far fetched, but) have the voting results declared null and void.
I would not put anything past 815.
#8 I can’t think of any parliamentary process to prevent a vote on realignment, but I’m sure there are any number of legal paths that 815 can take to make the diocese’s realignment very difficult. I would imagine a request for an immediate stay would be among them, but who would request that stay is hard to say. I would think somebody in the diocese would have to be 815’s agent, as 815 has no standing in this legal process (my opinion).
Looking at the spread sheet an interesting comparison (and exercize) came to mind.
A portion (not all) of the 36 who voted NO were also in the HOB back in 2003 and voted on the Robinson election confirmation.
Among the 36 who voted NO on deposing +Duncan this past week AND who also voted on the Robinson election, all but FOUR voted NO to Robinson’s election in 2003.
Those four who in 2003 had no problem with the Robinson consecration but now have a problem with the Duncan deposition are +Peter Lee of VA, +James Shand of Easton, MD, +Geralyn Wolf of RI, and +Alan Scarfe of IA.
+George Councell of NJ, who also surprisingly voted NO on the Duncan deposition, did attend the Robinson consecration but was not in the HOB when the Robison vote was taken.
Now, the two issues are not a one-to-one comparison and frankly I don’t know if any hard conclusions can at all be drawn. But it is worth thinking about; and perhaps asking what moved those four bishops to vote the way they did this past week.
[i]A mere 6 dioceses (Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Chicago, North Carolina and Maine) accounted for 21 of the 88 YES votes (nearly 1/4 of the total Yes votes). [/i]
According to the 2006 actived baptized membership stats, those dioceses have 12.9% of the active baptized membership. With 21 bishop’s votes out of 127, they had 16% of the bishop’s votes.
To continue my previous comment, I’d say that those dioceses had more than proportional representation, but not really extraordinary.
To me, the real story is that 27% of the bishops voted no. That could mean that as much a quarter of the church membership is not comfortable with this result. That’s a rout, yes, but not the sign of unanimity that the leadership speaks of. I wonder if the Presiding Bishop had any idea that anybody outside of the 6 ‘troubled’ dioceses and a handful of others would do this.
Sidney (#11), once again you are distorting the numbers here. In order to compare diocesan membership with the vote on a meaningful basis, you [i]have[/i] to take out the votes by the retired bishops who have no connection with a diocese, and who do not cast votes on their behalf. The diocesans, suffragans and assistants of the six dioceses mentioned thus accounted for 21 of the 78 votes cast by active bishops, or 27 % of their total. Since these six dioceses represented only 10% of the dioceses voting to depose (6/60), under a charitable interpretation of the numbers, the fact that their votes carried a 27% weight in the outcome is an obvious sign of a skewed vote.
And again, excluding retired bishops, and counting abstentions as equivalent to “No” votes, there were not 27%, but 33.33% votes (39/117) against +Duncan’s deposition.
#13 Chancellor, ok, take out retired bishops. But if you’re going to take out retired bishops from the list of 88, you need to take them out of the list of 21 as well. I think that takes out three? For my calculation, 18 votes out of 117 is 15.4%, about the same for my calculation.
I’m puzzling over why the elf included Maine (2 votes) instead of Connecticut (3 votes.)
Oh, CT was included! I need to go to bed…
It was too late for both of us, Sidney (#14 and #15). In the clear light of morning, I have posted this on a similar thread at StandFirm:
[blockquote]The numbers are a little skewed because of the inclusion of retired bishops, who have no jurisdiction and thus do not represent any diocese. If we take out +Knudsen of Maine and +Dixon of Washington on that ground, that leaves each of those dioceses with contributing only one “yes†vote. Then it would make more sense to include the Dioceses of California (+Andrus and +Charleston), Florida (+Howard and +Keyser), Maryland (+Sutton and +Rabb, but not counting +Ihloff [Ret.]), Olympia (+Rickel and +Rivera) and Southern Ohio (+Breidenthal and +Price).
With the votes of the ten retired bishops removed from the count, there are then just 78 “Yes†votes from dioceses themselves, and one could say either:
A. Los Angeles (4), New York (3), Connecticut (3) and North Carolina (3), or just four dioceses, contributed 13 out of 78, or one out of every six votes (16 2/3%, or rounding up, 17%) to depose Bishop Duncan, AND/OR:
B. Those four dioceses, plus another five who contributed two votes apiece (California, Florida, Maryland, Olympia and Southern Ohio) contributed contributed 23 votes out of 78, or nearly thirty percent (29.49%) of the votes to depose.[/blockquote]
The latter point would mean that just 9 dioceses, or less than ten percent of all dioceses with seat and vote in the House, contributed nearly thirty percent of the votes to depose.
One factor seems to be overlooked in all this analysis of the numbers, specifically the number of bishops who did not show up at the meeting (mostly retired bishops) and whose absence is construed as rendering the vote invalid.
It was widely publicized that the deposition vote on +Duncan was goign to happen at this meeting. It was just as widely calculated that the vote was likely to come out in favor of deposing. A few of the retired bishops who were not there may have had health issues or other factors interfering, but for the most part there was not one blessed thing preventing them from coming to the meeting and casting a vote.
Any system where an absence counts as a No vote is broken. If you can’t be bothered to show up and vote, you don’t get a say in the outcome. 127 bishops cared enough to be there and cast a ballot, and a majority of them voted to depose. If there were a large enough bloc of retired bishops who would have voted No to swing the vote the other way, then they should have shown up and done so. They didn’t. So it is.
RE: ” If you can’t be bothered to show up and vote, you don’t get a say in the outcome.”
Well no . . . not according to the canons.
According to the canons the deposition of a bishop is so important that it must occur by a majority of all bishops entitled to vote, which in this particular case would have been 146 bishops.
But it doesn’t matter what the “canons” say anyway.
What matters is what is needed to occur according to the Pennsylvania property laws.
What matters is what KJS [i]must have[/i].
What matters is [i]the will to power.[/i]
That’s what matters.
Thankfully, I suspect that most of the Anglican world recognizes that.
Sarah (#18),
[blockquote]
According to the canons the deposition of a bishop is so important that it must occur by a majority of all bishops entitled to vote, which in this particular case would have been 146 bishops.
[/blockquote]
No, not 146. A bishop not present is not entitled to vote even though he has vote under Article I as I previously pointed out in this reply to you: http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/16278/#279869
See also the more extended discussion, May 31 — June 3, in T19 [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/12932]article 12932[/url].