I've heard the story, KE, and I'm not willing to take it as gospel based on the word of one person who had a huge dog in the fight. If it's true, though, then any number of individuals should have been strung up by their thumbs. I've also got to speculate that if it could have been proven then there would have been legal action undertaken. I believe that such fraud would have been a criminal act, not just liable for civil action. And before anyone jumps in here and accuses me of esssentially calling someone a liar, I'm not. there's just not enough information available to convince me to buy into it.
Mitchell, that's just too bad you don't buy into it. Unfortunately, the late Earl Witt, AMA President at the time, is not available to substantiate the information. John Worth is, however I seriously doubt that he will attest to it. Dave Brown was there, and he knows the story. Will he tell it? D_mn if I know. The AMA Staff Director, Joyce Hager, was there. Will she admit to the story? Since if she did, her lifetime job would probably evaporate like Carl Maroney's job did, and not long ago. I am sure she can evade that part of her memory.
BTW, Earl Witt was in the same situation. The INCUMBENT PRESIDENT was also left off the ballot when I was. Since then a change was made to the Bylaws to make it more difficult for such to happen again. Don't forget I was on that nominating committee, but the 3/4 requirement was not in effect then. I did NOT vote to keep either myself off or Earl Witt off. Earl and I were together on 99% of the issues. The Ex. director despised the both of us.
The next year, 1981, I was very much pressured to vote to keep McNeil off the ballot.
I refused to do so. Yep, another of those "hard to work with situations."
It had been done to me and I was NOT going to do it to someone else. IMO, that is the duty and responsibility of the membership to vote Out and In, not the EC.
John Worth used AMA funds to send Michelene Madison to a school for Parliamentary Procedure. That is where the use of Standing Rules came from. Bylaws take time and effort to change. The EC can change a Standing Rule at a meeting or between meetings by telephone or mail vote. So Easy!
While YOU, Mitchell, want this to be a discussion about suggested changes, I am not so naive as to think that anything could ever come of such items. Only an EC person, not afraid to stand up, be counted, and report back to the membership concerning the problem areas, will ever be able to just possibly effect some changes that may give the membership some small bit of say in how the EC operates and controls things.
Now that recent events indicate the Staff seems to be calling all the shots, well Mitchell, I think your big venture with this thread is
simply a diversion from the main subject of this year's election. In all my AMA years, this EVP election has created more attention to AMA election processes than any election I can remember, including Pres. [>:]