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The Price of
Voice and Vote

by Leah Ellison Bradley

As any Presbyterian will tell you, the best conversations happen in hallways—and parking lots and bathrooms and hotel lounges—any space that’s adjacent to a place where Presbyterians conduct business.

One of those hallway conversations prompted this article. Beth Snyder serves as moderator for Presbyterian Women (PW) in the Synod of Lincoln Trails. She is also a member of PW’s national staff and my coworker. One afternoon, I passed Beth in the stretch of hallway that connects our offices and heard her grumble, which prompted me to ask what was wrong. She shared with me the disappointing news that PW in her home presbytery (Ohio Valley) just lost voice and vote at presbytery council meetings.

After additional conversations with Beth and interviews with other members of Ohio Valley Presbytery, I learned that PW’s position on the presbytery council, which granted PW voice and vote at council meetings and presbytery meetings, was eliminated as part of a reorganization of the presbytery. “This action erases decades of recognition of the significant role Presbyterian Women has played and continues to play in support and interpretation of the mission of the church,” Jane Parker Huber wrote in a newsletter article for PW in Ohio Valley Presbytery.

Apparently, the loss of voice and vote for Presbyterian Women at the presbytery level is an increasingly common occurrence these days. Many times councils and/or presbyteries eliminate voice and vote due to restructuring, reorganization or the simple streamlining of presbytery business. Add to that the number of presbyteries who never have granted PW the privilege of voice and vote at presbytery and/or council meetings, and the landscape of PW involvement at the presbytery level looks more like the church our mothers grew up in than the PC(USA) of the 21st century.

In an effort to determine who has voice and vote, who doesn’t, who lost it and who never had it, I interviewed PW synod moderators, PW presbytery moderators, executive presbyters and stated clerks in each presbytery in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Surprisingly, responses sometimes varied within a presbytery—a PW presbytery moderator reported one thing, while the presbytery’s stated clerk or executive presbyter reported something else. So I chose to use responses received from presbytery stated clerks—the secretary/parliamentarian and official “final word” at the presbytery level—to create the charts and reports of voice and vote status for Presbyterian Women that accompany this article.

Leah Ellison Bradley is an associate editor for Presbyterian Women and a minister member of Southeastern Illinois Presbytery.

Where does Presbyterian Women stand in your presbytery? Learn about the trends in voice and vote for PW across the country, enjoy a timeline of important events for women in the church and find your presbytery on the voice and vote map! Read the full text of this article in the July/August 2004 issue of Horizons. Call 800/524-2612
or click here to
or click here to the July/August 2004 issue (HZN-04-230; $4 plus shipping) now.

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