In 1985 Romney, who had been first counselor in the First Presidency to Kimball, was booted back to the Quorum of the Twelve by new President Ezra Taft Benson.
He was given the title Pres. of the Quorum of 12 but at the same time Hunter was named Acting Pres. of the Quorum and Romney was never heard from again.
Due to his age he wasn't really doing much. As members of the 1st Presidency (of SWK) aged and became incapable, they added a 3rd counsellor to the presidency. I mention this as evidence that Romney was more or less non-functional. That's probably why he was bumped.
For all practical purposes, Hinckley was the acting CEO of ChurchCo from the time he became 3rd Counselor in the early 1980s. N. Eldon Tanner died shortly thereafter. Romney was all but gone. The "prophets" that Hinckley served under were all feeble to the point of no return. Hinckley was running the show and it would have looked strange to keep adding extra counselors. Romney had to go to make room for Monson.
I doubt that Ezra T. had much to do with it other than to nod his head in acknowledgement of a decision made by others.
A similar thing happened when David O McKay died and Joseph Fielding Smith became president. Hugh B Brown was sent packing from the FP back into the Q12, and Brown was still in "pretty good" health. I don't think Smith could handle the more "liberal" Brown. Also felt that Smith at 93, was being manipulated by HBL who was next in line to ascend to the throne. HBL became Smith's FC in the FP.
In the case of Brown, there was lots of bad blood between Brown and Smith, as well as with Brown and Lee. Both were hard core. Both were opposed to giving Blacks the P-Hood, where as Brown was in favor. Brown was sent packing to the back benches.
Being a Counselor in the FP has no relationship to seniority in the QoTA. Senior members of the QoTA are not necessarily called as Counselors (Packer and Peterson, for example). Over the years, a number of Counselors wer not retained in new First Presidencies. And, some Counselors never officially served in the QoTA (J Reuben Clark who was ordained to the Office of Apostle but not to the Quorum).
ETB was PQoTA when Kimball died, so that spot was vacated upon ETB becoming First President. Romney was entitled to the PQoTA spot by virtue of having the most seniority in the QoTA, but incompetent as others have pointed out. Hunter was next in seniority and he was made Acting PQoTA at the same time.
It is interesting that after Hunter became President, Hinckley was PQoTA, but never actually served in the position because for the remainder of his life, he served as either a Counselor to Hunter, or as First President. Thus for the time Hinckley served as a Counselor, then First President with Monson as his Counselor, Packer was also Acting PQoTA between '94 and '08.
My grandfather's declining mental and physical health eventually (and relatively quickly) became a significant issue once he became chief of LDS, Inc.
His handlers wrote his speeches for him and walled him off from the press.
Eventually ETB's First Presidency counselors--Hinckley and Monson--had legal authority to run the Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS secretly transferred to them from ETB, by virtue of ETB's conveniently-available signature machine. ETB wasn't present for that transaction, but Church lawyers were.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2011 12:31PM by steve benson.
Slight correction on JRC. Clark was inducted as second counselor by Grant as a high priest (which is the only requirement but the last time employed in McKay's later years when Thorpe Isaacson was inducted). When Clark was advanced to first counselor in Grant's administration he was ordained an apostle and inducted into the quorum of the twelve. (See Quinn's Mormon hierarchy).