Enhance the League minority's procedural powers
A class of two is still a class. The rules should say so before the next parent has to sue.
The dispute now before the Court is about a draft time. The problem underneath it is structural. The league constitution vests all authority in one office, provides no mechanism for review, and treats every request for accommodation as a motion addressed to the Commissioner’s mood. That arrangement works until two people have the same conflict on the same night, at which point the league discovers it has no procedure, only a person.
The appellant’s answer was to create a court. That is one solution. It has the virtue of existing now and the defect of existing only because he said so. A better solution would be a rule.
Three modest proposals
A minority-call procedure. Any two members with a documented conflict may require a league vote on a scheduling change. The Commissioner keeps his discretion over everything else. He loses only the power to say “I don’t want to” to a class.
A real clerk. A designated member, not the Commissioner and not a receptacle, who must acknowledge a filing within 24 hours. Acknowledging is not agreeing. It is reading.
A standard. “Sole and gloriously arbitrary discretion” is funny once. As a governing standard it means the league’s schedule depends on whether the Commissioner has eaten. The appellant proposes abuse of discretion. That is generous. It still lets the Commissioner win almost every time, provided he writes a sentence.
Why this matters beyond Tuesday
The league is composed of lawyers. Every one of them will, at some point, have a child, a deposition, or a flight. The question is not whether the Commissioner should have granted this motion. It is whether the next one should have to become a docket number.