Musings from an overworked translator

Petition June 22, 2020

If you are a voting member of ATA my colleagues and I respectfully ask you to consider signing and submitting this petition by June 24 (that’s tomorrow) so that a Bylaws amendment to ensure voter choice will be presented for a vote at the 2020 ATA Elections.

I spoke with a former president about this very subject on Thursday, so I was able to gain some insight as to why ATA does what it does. [S/he] said they don’t want to have to put up a “straw man” when they already have a good candidate in mind for the position. That doesn’t sound very democratic to me. In order for an organization to be strong there should be an active exchange of opinions – even and especially opinions that aren’t unanimous. [S/he] didn’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt and have them decide not to run again. It’s business, folks; it’s not personal. When Bob and I weren’t elected last year I didn’t let it get me down. That isn’t why I’m not running this year. I (and several others) put my nomination in this year, and it wasn’t accepted. I then decided to stay off the board and be a loud, pain-in-the-ass, squeaky wheel instead. If someone chooses to run for office in a contested election there will always be a winner and a loser. Maybe people didn’t know them. Maybe their speech didn’t match what people wanted for a representative. It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t try again in the future.

ATA’s Bylaws allow competitive elections for President-elect as well as the other officers (Secretary and Treasurer). After Bob and I got over 100 votes each as write-in candidates, we sat in on the board meetings on Saturday and Sunday and witnessed the debate and the Board, at the Nominating Committee’s request, subsequently voting to eliminate the NC’s obligation to put forward multiple qualified members as nominees. There was quite a bit of confusion surrounding this vote, in fact.

Let’s clarify it for them. If you feel the Board should be working for its own members’ best interests, we need a vote to add a Bylaws amendment to ensure voter choice will be presented for a vote at the 2020 ATA Elections. Signing the petition will take two minutes at the most. Once you are finished please send the signed petition to atapetition@gmail.com. This ensures it will at least be put to a vote, as it should be.