[Speaking in my role as a ZIP Editor]
Staff of the Zcash Foundation (ZF) and Electric Coin Company (ECC) are ineligible for Zenate membership to prevent potential conflicts of interest due to their joint control of the Zcash trademark.
The Zenate SHALL have the authority to develop, vote on, and implement improvements to ZIPs.
I’d like to point out that as a practical matter, it is ECC and ZF staff who have the knowledge of the Zcash protocol and processes necessary to act as effective ZIP Editors.
The ZIP Editors as of https://github.com/zcash/zips/pull/707 will be me and @str4d from ECC, and @teor and @conradoplg from ZF. Other people from outside ECC and ZF are very welcome to join us, as I said in this post: Changing the ZIP Editors and ZIP 0 . However, I really don’t think that transferring the editing task to a body that ECC and ZF staff are excluded from is going to work, or would be in the best interests of the Zcash community or the future security of the protocol.