The 190th General Assembly tasked the Office of the General Assembly with smoothing the transition between moderators as had been recommended by the Committee on Stewardship/Elected Officers/OUO to which had been referred the Report of the Moderator (the Reverend Shelia O’Mara, retiring moderator of the 189th Assembly) and the Report of the Stated Clerk, among others. The committee’s Recommendation 7, which was passed by the assembly, instructed  “the General Assembly office review the process of transition of Moderator as to moving the time of election and/or installation of the new moderator to later in the week and consider other ways of improving the transition.” Refer to the Minutes of the 190th General Assembly, page 183.

The OGA decided the newly elected moderator would be better served to take office at the end of assembly and to serve through the end of the following assembly. The idea being, in this way the moderator would be familiar with the boards, agencies, institutions, and judicatories of the denomination before being asked to conduct business. The Permanent Judiciary Committee ruled in February 2022, that since the issues involved tradition but not rules, the change required no vote of the Assembly to take effect. The agenda was then adopted. A point of order was raised over this arrangement and various concerns were voiced. The point of order was eventually overruled by a two-thirds majority but not until after a division of the house had been called.