Optimism: Security Council members nominated by the Lead, subject to Token House veto

The Optimism Foundation is proposing to ratify an updated Operating Manual, a new Security Council Charter and a Security Council Member Selection Criteria document, which together change how Security Council members are chosen. The Foundation posted the proposal to the Optimism Collective forum on 22 October 2026, in a thread. As of 28 October 2026 the thread carries one detailed reply, from cp0x, and no ratification vote date has been posted. The change matters because it replaces two of the Council's three elections a year, for its Cohort A and Cohort B members, with appointments by the elected Lead, which changes who chooses the signers that hold the protocol's upgrade keys.

What it changes

• The Token House continues to elect only the Security Council Lead; the Lead can be removed at any time through a Representative Removal proposal.
• The Lead recruits, interviews and nominates Council participants against the published Security Council Member Selection Criteria; nominees must clear Foundation KYC/KYB screening first.
• A new proposal type, Council Appointment, confirms each nominee separately: optimistic approval, with a one-week review period and a one-week veto period, and a nominee seated unless 20 percent of active votable OP supply vetoes it.
• The Security Council's Cohort A and Cohort B elections are discontinued; going forward only the Lead is elected.
• Operating Manual v2.1.0 also shortens the review period for proposals to one week and removes references to the Citizens' House.
• If ratified, the Foundation merges the three documents into the Operating Manual's GitHub repository; the changes take effect at the start of the next Security Council Lead election, and current signers stay seated until their replacements are confirmed.

The case for it

The Foundation frames the change as a fix for a recruiting problem under the current three-election system. On why strong candidates opt out, it writes that "The most qualified candidates are often uninterested in campaigning and the political side of an election, and opt out as a result." Its proposed fix concentrates search and nomination in the Lead role: "the Foundation proposes that the Security Council Lead is given the task of interviewing, evaluating and proposing Security Council members. The Token House retains the ability to block any individual nominee."

The objections

cp0x, replying on 26 October 2026, does not dispute that recruiting is a problem but objects to how consent is removed: "Our main question is why better selection requires removing delegates' active consent to who holds the upgrade keys." The reply argues the 20 percent veto threshold understates how much support optimistic approval actually needs, noting that recent quorum figures put it at "around 11M OP, which equals roughly 38-55% of the voting power that took part in this year's votes we looked at (20-29M OP)." It also raises questions the documents do not answer: whether appointed members serve fixed terms with reconfirmation, how commercial ties to the Foundation or OP Labs should weigh against independence, whether a no-confidence mechanism exists for the Lead separate from proving a Charter violation, and whether the active votable supply figure behind the veto threshold is published in a reproducible form. It closes by asking that Security Council appointments instead require "votes for exceed votes against and a quorum of votes in favor set and justified in advance."

Where it stands

The proposal is in forum discussion on the Optimism Collective governance forum; the Foundation has not posted a ratification vote date as of 28 October 2026. Under the proposal's own action plan, ratification would be followed by the Operating Manual, Charter and Selection Criteria changes being merged into the Operating Manual's GitHub repository, and the new appointment process would take effect with the next Security Council Lead election.