[The Living Church] 18 Mar 2007--The Rt. Rev. Kenneth Price, Bishop Suffragan of Southern Ohio and secretary of the House of Bishops, said it is his understanding, “based on private conversations held prior to the meeting,” that the number of votes necessary to depose bishops John-David Schofield and William J. Cox was determined prior to the house’s March 12 business session by David Booth Beers, chancellor for the Presiding Bishop, and the Rt. Rev. John Clark Buchanan, House of Bishops’ parliamentarian.
Bishop Price told The Living Church he was not consulted on the number of votes needed for a deposition and he does not recall the resolutions approving the depositions of bishops Schofield and Cox being “singled out” as requiring a higher threshold of consent prior to enactment.
Title 4, canon 9, section 2 states that the vote requires “a majority of the whole number of bishops entitled to vote,” a higher threshold than that necessary to conduct business. There were 116 bishops registered at the meeting at 6 a.m. on March 12. The total number of bishops eligible to vote is 294, according to online sources.
“None of the votes taken were unanimous, each having both negative votes and abstentions,” Bishop Price said. “However, the affirmative votes were so overwhelming that the Presiding Bishop declared them as having passed and no one challenged her ruling.”
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