[council] Council Chair Election Process

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here is the suggested plan I sent to the Council list yesterday
regarding advance steps that we could take to identify a proposed chair
prior to the end of the vice chair nomination period.
 
1. Each SG should identify a lead spokesperson who would be the primary
representatives of their interests in the process and would also serve
as facilitators to keep the process moving; this would not have to
exclude other participants and/or alternates if desired. Either one
spokesperson should be identified as the House spokesperson or the two
spokespersons should serve as co-spokespersons for the House, however
the House decides. The spokespersons need not be Councilors. (The sooner
this happens the sooner step 2 can begin.)

2. The SGs in each House should identify possible chair candidates and
communicate them to the other SG in the House. Chair candidates may be
any Councilors including NCAs and, if possible, NCAs could be involved
in the process. During this process, collaboration among the two SGs
should be encouraged as well as collaboration with the SGs in the other
House if desired. (This could literally start happening now.)

3. The two SGs in each House should attempt to reach agreement regarding
support for one nominee along with involvement of the NCAs as possible.
If it is not possible to reach agreement, they could collaborate with
the SGs in the other House to possibly find out if any of the candidates
have greater chances of support from the other House.

4. As soon as a House identifies its nominee, it should be communicated
to the other House and a Candidate Statement should be requested. If it
is not possible to reach agreement on one nominee, then the House should
consider whether the nominee from the other House may be acceptable; if
so, then that candidate would be the proposed chair. If not, then the
two Houses should consider whether there is anyway to break the impasse
and obtain 60% approval from each House (5 votes of 7 for the Contracted
Parties House and 8 out of 13 for the Non-contracted Parties House) for
any candidate; if not, then the procedures for continuing the process
should be initiated as defined in the Council Operating Procedures and
the vice chairs will need to be elected before the chair per the Council
Operating Procedures. (To comply with the plan above, this step should
be completed as soon as possible but probably no later than 21 October,
the latter which would allow two days for vice chair nominations.)

5. The vice chair nomination process should begin immediately after step
4.

6. If a proposed chair candidate is identified, the candidate's
statement should be publicly posted NLT 23 October 2009.

7. If a proposed chair candidate is identified, the SGs in each House
along with the House NCA if known should ratify the identification of
the chair candidate for Council approval on 28 October. (Ideally, this
should happen before step 5 but probably no later than 23 October.) 

8. House elections of vice chairs would occur either on Saturday morning
in Seoul (Oct. 24) or on Constituency Day in Seoul (27 Oct.).

9. If a proposed chair was identified in step 4 and ratified in step 7,
the new bicameral Council would vote to approve the chair on 28 October;
if not, the vice chairs would co-chair the Council as defined in the
Council Operating Procedures.

We of course can change any of the above as we see fit and I welcome
suggestions in that regard.

Assuming that there is no objection to steps 1 & 2 above, I would like
to encourage each SG to quickly identify a lead spokesperson (or lead
spokespersons) as suggested in step 1 and communicate that info to this
list.  Also, I think it would be helpful if each SG would begin
identifying possible chair candidates for consideration in their House
as suggested in step 2.

Thanks for everyone's cooperation.

Chuck