Texas: Attempt To Remove Grand Secretary Fails

by Christopher Hodapp

Backroom intrigues continue in the Grand Lodge of Texas as their annual communication approaches in January. The Texas Masons For Truth website is reporting on an unsuccessful attempt by current Grand Master G. Clay Smith and Deputy GM H. Bart Henderson to remove Grand Secretary Justin Duty from office prior to their annual meeting.

During the weekend of the Texas Grand Chapter and Grand Council annual gatherings, a closed-door meeting of the Grand Lodge Trustees was called by GM Smith to accuse the Grand Secretary of mismanaging his office, and to remove him from his administrative duties. A majority vote of the Trustees is required to do so.

According to the website story:

Multiple Masons reported shouting coming from the room. At one point, RW Duty was seen waiting outside the room, presumably because they were voting on the matter of removing him.

G:M: Smith is not acting alone. P:G:M Reese Harrison and Bro. Russell Brown are reported to have requested G:S: Duty’s removal after an audit found benefits not deducted from G:S: Duty’s paycheck. This clerical error was corrected as soon as it was discovered.

While Masonic political allegiances change, it appears the relationship between G:M: Smith and D:G:M: Henderson has remained strong throughout this year. With G:S: Duty outside the door, the remaining Trustees would have been the G:M: Smith, D:G:M: Henderson, G:S:W: Raborn Reader, G:J:W: Jim Rumsey, and Grand Treasurer Richard Townsend. 

 

G:S:W: Reader, G:J:W: Rumsey, and G:T: Townsend must have voted against for [the] removal to fail, but we are still gathering details.

We are acutely aware certain Past Grand Masters have continued to work behind closed doors to undermine the will of the Grand West.* 

• P:G:M: Terry Stogner, as seen handing charges to the Grand Master during an open installation of Grand Lodge,
• P:G:M: Wendell Miller, as a member of Brooklyn Lodge where the charges against P:G:M: [Brad] Billings were filed, and
• P:G:M: Paul Underwood, known to be conducting off-the-record investigations at the request of G:M: Smith

* The Grand West is an unusual term used by Texas Freemasons to describe the assembled voting members of their Grand Lodge when assembled.

What's behind all this smellodrama? It seems that Grand Secretary Justin Duty has the intention of running for election as Grand Junior Warden in January, and is seen by many as being aligned with Past Grand Master Brad Billings and current Grand Junior Warden Jim Rumsey. Billings himself is also rumored to be running for the Grand Secretary's position. So the political maneuvering this year has been an ongoing scheme to prevent the "Billings team" from even coming up for a vote.

I suspect that, if one were to poll all of the men who voluntarily demitted from Texas Freemasonry in the past year, you'd likely find that a large swath of them would tell you they left because of the ongoing political infighting and backstabbing going on within the officers of their Grand Lodge. Texas politics have long had an ugly reputation for viciousness – precisely the sort of thing that shouldn't be going on within Freemasonry. And the longer these attempts to subvert the vote of their members go on behind closed doors, the more collateral damage will be suffered by the fraternity as a whole.

There's a good reason why many grand lodge jurisdictions don't permit nominations from the floor and don't permit actually "running for office." Politicking always leads to factionalism. In many jurisdictions, a sitting grand master (or committee) appoints a man to the bottom of the grand lodge line and he advances through the chairs, just as in a Masonic lodge. Over the course of the next 5 to 7 years, long range plans have continuity, men grow into the job (or drop the ball) with several years that permit removal if he's just not leadership material or can't handle the time commitment. Sure, allegations of cronyism arise over appointments and the seemingly un-democratic election process. But I think I'll take that over these kinds of ugly backroom battles and political allegiances. Masons who occupy the dark squares of the tessellated floor eventually move on (or pass on), but they leave way too much blood on the carpet on their way out.

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