APMA News - May/June 2018 - 41

The 98th House of Delegates

The Nuts and Bolts of Your House

he 2018 APMA House of Delegates (HOD) meeting
took place March 17-19 in Washington, DC. Read a
full report on the meeting and its outcomes on page
42. Read on for a look at the inner workings of the HOD and
how this legislative and governing body is designed to represent the will of member podiatrists nationwide.

Delegates
The HOD is composed of certified delegates and alternates
from each component society. The number of delegates is determined by the number of members in good standing in each
component society (one delegate for every 100 members in
good standing or fraction thereof). Each state may have an
unlimited number of alternates.
States elect delegates based on their own processes and procedures. Each delegate has one vote. Some states require their
entire delegation to vote the same way on a given resolution,
while others allow delegates to cast differing votes.
Delegates and alternates serve a term of one year, extending from one regular meeting of the HOD to the next. In the
event that a special meeting of the HOD is called prior to the
next regular meeting, the credentialed delegates of the previous year's HOD would serve as the official voting body for the
special meeting.

Propositions and Resolutions
Preparations for the content of the HOD begin long before
the meeting itself. APMA solicits proposed changes to the bylaws, administrative procedures, and code of ethics almost immediately after the close of the current HOD because they
must be submitted by the first day of the fifth month prior to
the regular meeting of the HOD. After the submission deadline, the Bylaws and Procedures Committee reviews all submitted changes to APMA's governing documents to ensure they
are in order prior to publication. The propositions are then
published at least 60 days prior to the start of the meeting.
This year, because the Bylaws and Procedures Committee
had undertaken a comprehensive review and update of the
APMA Bylaws, the process was somewhat different. APMA
published proposed changes to the bylaws and held two webinars, advertised to all members, to discuss those changes
prior to the meeting, with an extensive discussion scheduled
for the HOD meeting.

Any member, component society or association, the Board
of Trustees, the Council on Podiatric Medical Education, or an
official committee of APMA may submit a resolution to be
considered by the HOD. There are two types of resolutions:
policy-related or directives-oriented. Policy-related resolutions
ask the HOD to ratify a position statement or philosophy proposed by the sponsor. A directive-oriented resolution calls for
a specific assignment or activity to be carried out.

Resolutions Review Process
As resolutions are received, the Resolutions Review Subcommittee begins to review them to ensure they are made
available to the membership as soon as possible. Resolutions
are made available in their original draft form to members of
the House of Delegates and component executives via a "resolutions in process" page on APMA.org. Once the Resolutions
Review Subcommittee completes its review of a resolution, it
is moved to the main HOD page on APMA's website.
The purpose of the subcommittee is to ensure that the sponsor has prepared the resolution correctly in order to avoid having the resolution ruled out of order; to ensure proper format;
to ensure sufficient background and supporting materials and
appropriate financial impact statements; to coordinate the consolidation of similar resolutions; and to ensure the resolution's
intent is clearly defined and understandable. Years ago, prior to
the establishment of this review procedure, the HOD considered many resolutions that were not in order as submitted and
first had to consider the resolution's structure before debating
its merits. The process was time-consuming and laborious. The
subcommittee greatly facilitates the processing of resolutions
and allows the Resolutions Committee and the HOD to focus
their attention on the intent of each resolution.
All information being brought before the HOD is made
available at www.apma.org/hod as soon as possible.
The Resolutions Committee convenes prior to the first
business session of the HOD to review all resolutions. The
committee may transmit a resolution to the HOD with any of
the following recommendations: do pass, do not pass, withdrawal, out of order, or no recommendation. The committee
is authorized to request that sponsors redraft resolutions that
are deemed unclear. Ultimately, the committee seeks to bring
clearly articulated resolutions before the HOD. Not only does
this review process facilitate the work of the HOD, but it also
ensures the language adopted by the HOD can be clearly incontinued on page 42
APMA News May/June 2018

http://www.APMA.org http://www.apma.org/hod

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of APMA News - May/June 2018