608. Petitions to General Conference--Any organization, ordained minister, or lay member of The United Methodist Church may petition the General Conference in the following manner:
1. Three copies of the petition must be sent to the secretary of the General Conference or a designated petitions secretary.
2. Each petition must address only one paragraph of the Discipline or, if the Discipline is not affected, one issue.
3. Each petition must be signed by the person submitting it, accompanied by appropriate identification, such as address, local church, or United Methodist board or agency relationship.
4. All petitions submitted to the General Conference, except those submitted by individual members of The United Methodist Church and local Church groups, which call for the establishment of new programs or the expansion of existing programs will be invalid unless accompanied by supporting data which addresses the issue of anticipated financial requirements of the program.
5. Petitions must be postmarked by a national postal service no later than one hundred twenty days prior to the opening session of the General Conference.
6. If petitions are transmitted by a means other than a national postal service, they must be in the hands of the petitions secretary no later than ninety days prior to the opening session of the General Conference.
Exceptions to the time limitations shall be granted for petitions originating from an annual conference session held within forty-five days prior to the opening session of the General Conference, and for other petitions at the discretion of the Committee on Reference.
7. Petitions adopted and properly submitted by annual conferences, jurisdictional and central Conferences, the National Youth Ministry Organization, or general agencies or councils of the church, provided that they have been received by the petitions secretary or secretary of the General Conference no later than 120 days before the opening of General Conference, shall be printed in the Advance Edition of the Daily Christian Advocate.
8. Petitions and/or resolutions not printed in the Advance Edition of the Daily Christian Advocate shall be printed or copied and provided to the appropriate legislative committee in sufficient quantity for every committee member to have a copy. Where the content of petitions is essentially the same, the petition will be printed once, with multiple authors listed.
9. The petitions secretary shall arrange for the setup and maintenance of an electronic bulletin board system that has the contents of the Daily Christian Advocate and the Advance Edition of the Daily Christian Advocate. The information on this bulletin board system shall be maintained and updated for the period of time that the various editions of the Daily Christian Advocate are published for the General Conference and until such time as the new edition of The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church is published. This bulletin board system shall be available to all who are interested in the business of the General Conference.
General Conference Webmaster: Susan Brumbaugh
PETS Creator: John Brawn
1992 Book of Discipline: ¶ 608
1996 United Methodist General Conference