Re: Re: Should the NomCom rules define CB voting behavior

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

--On tirsdag, april 01, 2003 13:57:36 -0500 Michael StJohns 
<mstjohns@mindspring.com> wrote:

> I also am more than adamantly opposed to any underspecification of the
> process which can lead to the PROCESS not completing.  For example, take
> the interaction of the DT's proposed language leaving the process for
> deciding how to confirm in the hands of the CB with the IAB's charter as
> mentioned by Brian.  Its possible for two IAB members to prevent the
> process from going forward. Period.  By that I don't mean that two IAB
> members can prevent a confirmation of a selectee, I mean that two members
> can prevent the IAB from making ANY decision for or against a selectee.
> In the mid-term case, there's a timeout - if the CB doesn't act, the
> person is considered confirmed.  In the normal case, no time out and no
> way of forcing the issue.  And, without saying too much, this is not an
> abstract issue.

Michael,

I don't believe your proposed amendment, or the current language in the 
document, fixes this problem.
Both cases speak to a required majority to confirm; they don't speak to 
anything about how the CB decides that it has decided.

If someone is seriously filibustering the CB's decision, there are lots of 
ways to do that under almost *any* set of rules.

The brutal mechanism that would fix this problem is specifying what happens 
at timeout - in this case, "deadlock = confirmation" - that a CB that did 
not return a rejection notice within the deadline is assumed to have 
confirmed the slate.

While I think of that as a mechanism of last resort, I think it's actually 
structurally better than having the nomcom specify rules for the confirming 
bodies' consensus processing.

(The question of whether the IAB should document its rules for deciding on 
a nomcom slate is a separate matter - I think it should)

                    Harald