# LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters Minutes_St. Louis Missouri_October 1 1976_S2
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

187. The Commission members seemed to be pleased over the outcome of the matters affecting the
Commission before the Board of Directors.
Herbert Mueller, Secretary

Minutes of the CCM Conference Call
October 8, 1976 - 1:00-1:35 p.m.
All members were on the line except Carl Eberhard who could not be reached.
188. Notice Re Opinion on AELC (Ag. 1119): In line with a mailed memorandum the Secretary
suggested, in the interest of building bridges, dropping references to the memorandum prepared by legal
counsel from the second paragraph of the notice previously adopted by the CCM. After some discussion it
was resolved to approve this so that the paragraph would now read: "After having considered the matters
presented to the Commission by Dr. J.A.O. Preps, the Synod's legal counsel, and others, the Commission
on Constitutional Matters came to the conclusion that its opinion of August 13, 1976 on the AELC is
valid."
189. Letter to Preps: The Secretary then suggested that the Commission send this revised notice to Dr.
Preus together with a covering letter in which the CCM would convey very clearly that it still disagrees
fundamentally with the rationale and conclusions set forth in that memorandum prepared by Synod's
counsel; that in the interest of building bridges, however, the Commission was eliminating reference to
that memorandum from the notice, since assurance has been given that the memorandum would not be
shared with other members of the Board of Directors except the Executive Committee; that the CCM was
hopeful that the members of the Executive Committee would continue to hold the memorandum in
confidence; and that a copy of this letter to Dr. Preus be shared with the members of the Executive
Committee of the Board of Directors. The Commission formally approved also this proposal.
190. Irvine Opinion: Again in the interest of building bridges, the Commission decided not to print at this
time the opinion regarding allocations for Irvine from the 125th Thankoffering. Among other reasons, it
seems that requests for information on this opinion have died down. The Commission did express general
approval of the idea that the Secretary might address a personal letter to the members of the Board of
Directors, enclosing an advance copy of the final wording of the Notice Re Opinion on AELC and, since
some members of the Board of Directors have been sensitive with respect to Point 1 of the Irvine opinion,
indicate that Point 1 was addressed to the basic question which had confronted the CCM, that the question
could not be avoided, and that the statement in Point 1 was intended to be neither gratutious nor
malicious. (Point 1 stated that the convention and not the Board of Directors is the highest legislative
authority.)
191. Eastern District Circuit Election (Ag. 1121): In one circuit meeting of the Eastern District eight
persons had voted for Pastor X and seven for Pastor Y and one person had turned in a blank ballot. The
chairman ruled that the presence of the blank ballot meant that the majority would need to be 9 instead of
8. Ultimately Pastor Y was declared elected by a vote of 8 to 7 over Pastor X, with no blank ballot
submitted. The congregation of Pastor X was protesting, stating that their pastor had received a sufficient
number of votes on the earlier ballot. The Secretary of the District had asked the Secretary of the Synod
for guidance in this matter before the deadline date for holding another circuit meeting. The undersigned
asked the Commission for its reactions to this problem. It was generally agreed that the earlier ballot in
which Pastor X had received 8 votes had been an effective election which cannot be invalidated by the
chair, since blank ballots are not counted in determining what constitutes a majority. (See Roberts Rules