Former governor and parliamentarian Alex Stevens told the Board of Governors at the Bar Association’s September meeting that a proposed bylaw amendment should be removed from the consent calendar so it can receive a formal reading and final discussion.

Stevens said the bylaws “require a first read, and I believe also, interpreting to a second read,” and warned that placing a bylaw amendment on the consent calendar risks bypassing substantive debate and leaving members unaware of changes. “You talked about what you could do, and you could do it, but you never asked the question, should you do it?” Stevens said, quoting the movie Jurassic Park to underline his point.

Stevens characterized amending bylaws by consent as a “slippery slope” and urged a governor to pull the item from the consent calendar so it would receive explicit consideration. He said some members who were not present at prior meetings would not know a bylaw was being changed if it were passed as part of a multi-item consent vote.

The comment occurred during the member and public comment portion of the meeting; no formal action or vote on the bylaw amendment was recorded in the transcript. The Board did not state a decision on whether the item would be pulled during the excerpt provided.

Stevens made the remarks early in the meeting as a member and former governor; the transcript does not record any formal response or vote on his request in the provided excerpt.