by Bear in mind that the Final Judgment mandated that the Nominating Committee should “endeavor” to find 20 additional candidates for the board who were qualified (5+ years as a Life Member and conflict free) and who had not served more than one term of office on the Board prior to 2022. In other words, Judge Cohen didn’t want to see the same old 25 or so people being nominated for the Board of Directors year after year.
Part of the nomination process approved by the court was for the Nominating Committee in consultation with the officers to develop a list of attributes that they were seeking in candidates for the Board. I reached out to Buz Mills who is chair of the Nominating Committee for this list of attributes. With his permission, here is the list that was developed.
The following attributes were identified as skills particularly desired over and above those normally evaluated:
Gap Analysis:
- Insurance / risk management experience
- Finance / Investment review
- Competition Shooting
- Membership organizational experience
- Gun Collectors
- Minorities (Hispanic, Black, Asian)
- Younger individuals with business or program background
Other qualifications desired:
- Ability to communicate effectively
- High level of passion for the NRA and our advocacy
- Availably to dedicate a great deal of time to the Association
- Availability to commit to extensive travel
- Great social media skills
- Industry professionals
- Media influencers
If you know of someone who be a great Board member, nominate them! Nominations have to be in to the Nominating Committee by August 3rd in order for nominees to fill out the requisite paperwork and for the Nominating Committee to evaluate it.
If you would like to run by run by petition, you need to request the petition (and nomination) package from the Secretary’s Office. I would send an email to Laura Green, the Assistant Secretary, at lgreen@nrahq.org to request it. She will send you the packet and will set up your online link to your petition.
As I have said before elsewhere, the Board will only be as good as those we have on the ballot. To be brutally honest, write-in candidates have little to no chance of being elected. I could be wrong but the only person I know of who got elected by way of a write-in vote was the late Charlton Heston and that was almost 30 years ago.
Heston wasn’t elected as a write-in. He apparently received some write-in votes (in spite of not running any sort of campaign) and the powers that be decided that this somehow made him eligible to run for the 76th Director seat in 1997. He was elected of course. He was nominated by the Nominating Committee and elected on the mail ballot the next year and in subsequent elections.
Jeff, quick question, fair game for you too John or anyone else inside who wants to chime in.
Let’s say a member somehow drafted, got to vote and got passed a Bylaw amendment reducing the number of seats up for election by 2 or 3 every year (the idea being to ensure that the Board always have an odd number of members) until the Board finally reached a total of say eighteen on three-year terms plus one on one-year at NRAAM every year.
If such a policy were enacted, what kind of difficulties would be encountered in implementing it and a phase-down? I don’t have the bureaucratic chops to draft or White Paper this, just chucking out a spitball to inspire anyone who might have the horsepower and interest in grabbing the ball and running with it. Or to inspire a discussion and assessment about “where do we want to go, what are some ways to get there and what are the difficulties and side-effects to be expected of each.”
We can gripe like SOME people (wink and nod) or we can try to come up with constructive ideas for the new Board to consider acting on, or by Member Initiative. Would anyone disagree that the latter has a far better chance of producing a desired result than the former?
Diamondback, Bylaw amendments from the membership are virtually impossible under the current rules. That deck was stacked back in 2016 or ’17 when they pushed through a bunch of housekeeping amendments, and several others that had significant impact, including raising the number of signatures needed on nomination petitions, Bylaw amendment petitions, and recall petitions.
The signature requirements for recalls and Bylaw amendments are virtually impossible.
The most effective way for members to push a Bylaw amendment now is to find a friendly Director who’s willing to help draft and introduce the proposal.
As to your idea, I think it has some merit, but the argument would be that the Association has some 42 standing committees which need at least 6 or more members, with almost all of those positions filled by current Directors. Just whittling down the Board doesn’t account for manning those committees.
My answer to that is to transition the committee work to a separate group I call an “Advisory Board.”
There are other ideas floating around, and I’m studying all of them. I think a major reorganization is going to happen. I just don’t know how long it’s going to take or what it will look like in the end.
Thanks, Jeff. John and I were just having a similar discussion about an “Advisory Board” or college “Board of Visitors” equivalent by email.
It’s a BIIIG job, perhaps too much for a single person to take on, but maybe if we can get a good team of sharp minds (sharper than myself, minimum) working together fitting pieces in we might get the puzzle solved that way.
Thanks for that clarification.
He apparently received some write-in votes (in spite of not running any sort of campaign) and the powers that be decided that this somehow made him eligible to run for the 76th Director seat in 1997.
Amazing. Haven’t the powers that be now determined that write-ins aren’t eligible for a vote in 76th?
I get that policies can change, but that’s pretty pathetic to be that transparent in a willingness to do anything to win.
Yup Bitter, it never happened before or since.
After Heston, they initially set a policy of requiring a write-in to receive at least 250 votes (the equivalent of what was needed for petition nomination, in order to qualify for 76th), but later just phased out the whole idea, regardless of how many votes the write-in received.
Absolutely was designed to work for Wayne & company, never against them.
Also important to note that right before the ’97 Meeting of Members, there had been a major blow-up within the Board at their January meeting, with a majority of Directors wanting to fire Wayne. They couldn’t get to the 23rds majority that was required for that action though.
An aggressive campaign was launched against Neal Knox and his supporters on the Board, resulting in Dad going from number 2 or 3 in the voting in his previous election, down to number 22 or 23 that year. I don’t think any of his supporters who were up for election that year were elected. Then at the Members’ Meeting, they rolled Heston in to run for 76th. I was in line for credentials when Heston’s entourage strolled in and cut directly to the front of the long line.
The following Monday, at the Board meeting, Heston was nominated from the floor to run for 1st VP against Dad. Heston won by 4 votes, then immediately left the meeting to fly back to LA, where he did a radio interview and repeatedly stated that “AK47s are inappropriate for civilian ownership.”
Big fiasco… They eventually got Heston on script and he did some great things for the Association, but it was a dirty, inside job from the get-go.