Title: Editorial: One Member, One Vote: A Call for Real Democracy in APHA
Author:
Section/SPIG: Maternal and Child Health
Issue Date:
Now it can be said. The “Affiliates” (a euphemism for state associations of public health) have got to go. Two years on the Governing Council have convinced me that the fundamental problem with APHA governance is that APHA is fundamentally undemocratic. When the founders created the United State of America, they, too came up with an undemocratic structure, namely, the U.S. Senate. That compromise may have been necessary in 1787, but there is no justification for giving 50 votes on the Governing Council to the Affiliates regardless of how many of their state members may be dues-paying members of APHA. Those of us who actually pay dues to APHA and participate in Sections are rationed votes on the Governing Council according to the size of the sections. Votes given to affiliates have no connection with membership. This situation disenfranchises Section members and contributes to the sense of powerlessness and alienation frequently heard during Section business meetings.
This past annual meeting demonstrated how ludicrous the structure is as governance continues to spin out of the control of rank-and-file APHA members. The latest outrage was a proposed constitutional amendment to give the chair of the Council on Affiliates a vote on the Executive Board. The Executive Board is the most powerful governing body within APHA, taking action as it must between Annual Meetings. The members of the Executive Board are elected by the Governing Council, after very public campaigns that involve Section members. Giving a vote to the Affiliates’ representative, who already has a non-voting seat on the Board, would further remove governing authority from the Sections and their dues-paying members. Happily, despite the 50 vote block going nearly (but not entirely) unanimously for the amendment (our own Zsolt Koppanyi, the Georgia PHA Affiliate representative, being among the few exceptions), it was defeated. But the sponsor of the amendment was elected to the Executive Board (with fewer votes than Terri Wright, thank goodness), so the danger still lurks.
We have a unique opportunity, given Howard Spivak's leadership of TFAIR, a new, open-minded Executive Director and Terri on the Board, to insist on democratizing APHA. Giving voting power to Affiliates undermines the principle of one member, one vote. Rational governance would require all members of APHA to be members of Sections, and only Sections should have votes on the Governing Council, in proportion to their size. Then, when the Governing Council elects the APHA President and the members of the Executive Board, passes resolutions and amends the bylaws and constitution, the elections would truly be democratic. Let’s think of ways of creating joint memberships for state PHA members to join APHA at the same time as they join or renew their state memberships. Let’s insist that every SPIG or caucus member also join a Section or lose his or her representation on the Governing Council. The cumbersome structure of APHA is undemocratic and out of control, and the first pass through this Augean stable requires that we disenfranchise the Affiliates.
Jonathan Kotch
jonathan_kotch@unc.edu