Unfortunately, I don't think it's a problem with Python as an organization, but rather an artifact of the popularity of Python and the legal protection it now must muster.
Kinda funny that the small, factual change, wouldn't legally benefit from a CLA anyhow.
Looks like a reasonable process to me.
Discussed last year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29814345
They migrated to Github Issues a year ago, so this is moot - https://discuss.python.org/t/github-issues-are-now-live/1496...
Yes it was a big, hairy investment for someone to submit a tiny change. But it was also the gigantic moat that kept bad actors away. I for one am thankful core python remains clean and safe because of this.