Legislative Council Drives Rule Changes at League

By Dr. Mark Cousins, Athletic Director | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 10:07 AM

For more than 70 years, the UIL Legislative Council has been the driving force behind rule changes for the University Interscholastic League. Although the League has been around for more than 100 years, in the early years of existence, the rule making processes were handled through the University of Texas.

The Legislative Council is a peer-elected group of school superintendents that represent various size schools and geographic regions of the state. There are 28 total members on the Legislative Council. There is an elected representative from each of the four regions, in each of the five conferences (1A-5A). The chair of the Council then appoints eight additional members to the Council to ensure diversity in terms of school size, geographic location and ethnicity.

Although many in the school business are fully aware of the process for making rule change proposals for UIL, there may be others who do not fully understand how the process works. First and foremost, it should be understood that no UIL staff members are allowed to vote, nor do they serve as members of the Legislative Council.

Any person, group or entity is entitled to make a proposal to the UIL Legislative Council and there are multiple avenues by which this could occur. Within its structure, the UIL Legislative Council is divided in committees – Academic, Music, Policy and Athletics – with each committee primarily responsible for dealing with proposals pertinent to its particular area. Proposals can be made in person either at the committee meetings held each summer or at the full UIL Legislative Council meeting that is held each year on the third Sunday in October. Additionally, the UIL allows for submission of rule change proposals electronically through its website for those who either do not choose to or are not able to attend the meetings in person, but still are interested in making such proposals.

Once a proposal is made, it is referred to an appropriate committee where the members of that committee evaluate each proposal. From that point, the applicable committee will decide how or if to proceed on each proposal. The committee can choose to approve the proposal for the full UIL Legislative Council to consider, can table to reject the proposal or if additional information is needed, the committee can ask the UIL staff to monitor or study the proposal and return with additional information for a future committee meeting.

In the process of approving a proposal, UIL rules require certain information to be available for any change being recommended to the Council. This information includes a brief explanation of the proposed rule (including the factual and policy justifications and/or implications), the text of the proposed rule prepared in a manner to indicate the words to be added or deleted from the current text, if any and an indication of the potential fiscal impact of the proposed rule to member schools.

The full 28 member UIL Legislative Council will consider any proposal forwarded to it with approval by one of the committees. The UIL Legislative Council can choose to approve the proposal, reject the proposal or could direct that the proposal be submitted to the whole of the UIL membership for a ballot of superintendents. Even if approved by the UIL Legislative Council, the process does not end there. Once approved by the UIL Legislative Council, any changes to UIL rules must also be submitted to and approved by the Commissioner of Education of the Texas Education Agency (TEA). If approved by the TEA Commissioner of Education, the rule changes would be implemented on the effective date as approved by the UIL Legislative Council.

The current proposals that have already been considered and approved by one of the UIL Legislative Council committees are posted and available on the UIL website, and some of the proposals are discussed in other articles posted in this Leaguer. Included in this group is a proposal to amend the 2014-2016 UIL Reclassification and Realignment Policies to recognize a six-conference alignment in the sports of Football, Cross Country, Basketball and Spring Meet (Academics [including One-Act Play], Golf, Tennis and Track and Field). Currently, UIL participates in six conferences in Football, Basketball and Track and Field, but recognizes that participation within only five conferences with conference 1A being split into six-man and eleven-man in football and division one and division two in both basketball and track and field. If approved by the UIL Legislative Council and the TEA Commissioner of Education, this amendment would be effective for the 2014-2016 alignment period, and while it may not be the six conference alignment some envision, would provide schools and UIL staff with some clarity and flexibility in the alignment process.
For all proposals, go to: https://www.uiltexas.org/policy/league-governance/proposals