USA faces ongoing constitutional crisis - Beyond the Test World at Cricinfo

The trouble started when the USACA asked for yet more time to write and approve its constitution. The current deadline was November 20, which itself had been a postponement from the original date of July 2006. This time, said the ICC, the deadline would be March 2007, but that would be it—no further extensions would be granted.

In fact, USACA’s Constitution Review Committee (CRC) had already produced a draft for the USACA. Its existence, however, had been a well-guarded secret. No one outside the USACA executive and board had any idea when it had been prepared, let alone what its contents were.

Then came the bombshell. An alert board member noticed that a draft USACA constitution had indeed been posted on the web site, but it was completely different from the CRC version. Moreover, this “new and improved” draft was a complete mess; it was riddled with errors and inconsistencies, contradicted itself on many key points, and used arbitrary formulas for counting member votes that made no particular sense.

The biggest problem with both the CRC and the new version of the constitution was their abandonment of any democratic principles in the operations of the USACA. Up to this point, the USACA has functioned as a national association of cricket clubs, which elected their representatives to a board of directors, which, in their turn elected a president and executive. The CRC version stayed within those parameters, although it tightened things up in a few decidedly undemocratic ways. The new version simply made cricket clubs and their leagues irrelevant; regional boards would consist of league representatives and any number of appointees, all aspects of cricket would be “controlled” by a central organization, and there would be a paid chief operating officer who would answer directly to the president. As one cynic put it, Hitler could not have come up with a more authoritarian constitution … assuming, of course, that he would bother to write one.

All this has led to a flurry of activity in US cricket circles, which is one good thing that may come out of all this skullduggery. Within the USACA, Laks Sampath of the Northwest Region and Shelton Glasgow of Mid Atlantic teamed up with Aron, a lawyer and one of the writers of the CRC version, to see if they could rewrite the new version to a more satisfactory format.

Meanwhile the Council of League Presidents, which has been in hibernation for a year, is cranking up its web site and has also produced a formal list of 12 amendments to the “new and improved” constitution, which it has sent to the USACA group as its contribution to constitutional reform. There has, of course, been no word from the USACA executive on any of these developments … and none are expected in the foreseeable future.

If history of ICC inaction is any indication of what is to come, then when March rolls around, not much will be forced on USACA. This is what Dainty's Gang is counting on, history to repeat itself. The ICC's stated policy is not to become involved in the internal operations of a governing body. But what if there is no governing body? USACA governs nothing and does nothing. It is time for USACA and Dainty's Gang to go. Will the ICC have to balls to remove USACA and Dainty. Speed needs to write to Dainty again, this time openly for all the world to see instead of a 4th party leaked letter.

Why is the principle of clubs being the members of the association flawed? It is the MOST democratic option available. This was initially proposed by the USCF (in the mid to late 90's constitution) because of a history of corruption within the USACA. The old constitution made it easy for one person or group to influence and control the Board since a) the Leagues were members and b) League presidents appointed a Regional vice-president to the Board. The old executive routinely bribed or intimidated the few voting members to do as they wanted. Having the 700+ clubs be members of the body effectively put an end to that wonderful tradition. Yes, it does have flaws of its own, but it was better than the alternative. In any event, it looks like we're heading back in that direction so why should anyone take the USACA seriously anymore - if anyone ever did for the last 5 or 6 years anyway. BTW, the heftiest blame for all of this does not fall on Dainty or his cronies, but on Richardson, Mani, Dalmiya and others at the ICC (at the time) who had the opportunity to replace the USACA with a competent organisation (the USCF) and chose not to. We Americans are left to suffer for it.