WSFS Constitutional Amendments and "Lesser Changes"

Something that triggered a lot of discussion, both at this past WSFS Business Meeting and afterwards, was the concept of "lesser changes." Although those of us who have attended a bunch of WSFS meetings understand the concept, I think, it's clear from the discussion that people who are new to the process do not, and some of the questions I've fielded over the past few weeks suggest to me that I need to go into this in more detail.

( Cut for Those Allergic to Parliamentary Procedure )

The arguments about what constitutes a so-called "lesser change" (that is, what sort of changes to a pending Constitutional amendment do not increase the scope of change) have become so difficult that there have been some serious suggestions that we abandon the concept entirely and simply require the ratification to be an up-or-down vote, with no amendments allowed; or that any changes to an amendment pending ratification require an additional year of ratification. As next year's presiding officer, I won't take any position on such proposals, of course, but I will as usual help people construct such proposals and in fact have already done so. Whether such proposals make it to the floor next year is an open question.