A third candidate has emerged for President of the House of Deputies, adding to an aura of uncertainty in the leadership of the church at a time when a new presiding bishop also must be elected.
Zena Link, a high school teacher, union leader, and lay theologian from Massachusetts, announced her candidacy on Pentecost Sunday on Facebook and on a campaign website. Link joins the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, a rector from Washington State and the current vice president of the house, in challenging Julia Ayala Harris, the current president, who was elected in 2022.
Link emphasized she is not running against Ayala Harris, she is running for president of the House of Deputies (PHoD). “I have a lot of appreciation for Julia and her leadership,” Link said, but there have been “a few missteps that have raised concerns.”
She declined to describe the specific missteps, but said “all of the things are going to come out,” because caucuses within the House of Deputies plan to arrange candidate forums between now and General Convention, which is June 23-28 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Link said the problems “have disproportionately impacted people of color,” and acknowledged that all three candidates are people of color. Ayala Harris is Latina, Link is Black, Taber-Hamilton is Indigenous.
Taber-Hamilton told TLC she is delighted that Link has entered the race. “It should send a message that there are people running against the incumbent,” Taber-Hamilton said, adding the leadership should be “highly collaborative” and open to a broad diversity of perspectives. “We have a leader right now who is doing everything possible to shut that down,” she said.
She cited Resolution A151, “Removal from the Consent Calendar in the House of Deputies,” as a mechanism for exerting control over what can be considered on the floor of the convention. The consent calendar is a mechanism for voting on multiple resolutions in a batch, without floor debate.
The resolution, designed to reduce the number of resolutions subject to floor debate, is listed in the General Convention’s “Virtual Binder” as being proposed by the PHoD.
But Ayala Harris told TLC that is not correct, that the resolution was proposed by a special committee on rules of order, which she appointed.
The dispute flared late last summer when deputies from progressive organizations argued that expanding the use of the consent calendar would silence the voices of people who feel strongly about particular issues.
Asked for a reaction to the growing candidate field, Ayala Harris said “we have three women of color running for president of the House of Deputies, and I think it’s wonderful. I trust that the house will discern the proper leadership.” She added that Link and Taber-Hamilton are “both leaders who represent critical voices that the church needs to hear.”
The Rev. Michael Barlowe, secretary of General Convention, will host a PHoD candidate forum two days before the first legislative session, on June 21. Asked if she would consider participating in forums scheduled before the convention, Ayala Harris did not rule it out, but said “my calendar is extremely full” in the runup to her first General Convention as president. “There’s very little time to devote to campaigning,” she said.
Taber-Hamilton will be vacating the office of vice president, so that officer must also be elected. Two priests, Charles Graves IV and Steve Pankey, have announced plans to run for vice president.
The current draft schedule shows the presiding bishop election on June 26, but does not specify when the House of Deputies elections will be held. Ayala Harris said the PHoD election will occur June 25, the day before the presiding bishop election, and the vice president election will be June 27. The president and vice president must be from different orders, so Graves and Pankey will be eligible for vice president only if Ayala Harris or Link wins the presidency. No lay deputies have yet announced for vice president.