Jonathan LeMaster-Smith

What is a minority report?

A minority report is when a committee votes one petition and there is a large enough portion of a minority to present a substitution to this.

In the first 2020 General Conference Minority Report, the financial Administration committee voted to amend a petition to increase the apportionments to annual conferences that would cover the cost of the General boards and Agencies.

A minority report came forward to substitute this amended petition with the original petition. This comes as a substitution, and we must first discuss whether we want to allow the minority report to become the main motion and delete the main petition (the amended amount). Minority reports allow people who disagree passionately with the main legislation to attempt to overturn it in the plenary.

In this case, the minority report prevailed, but we then have to do debate and vote on this.