Proposal MM - Clear up quorum issue and terms of office

[Secretary LNC]

Attached.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

[Mike Seebeck]

I see a problem here but not sure how to address it.

A common occurrence in the US Senate is a daily convene and immediate recess without a quorum call. Most of the time there is no actual quorum; it's a rubber-stamped formality.

The problem I see, and I understand why that wording is proposed, to prevent Officers and At-Large from not being elected and having those seats vacant, is that the "successors are elected" opens a door in the opposite direction, which is a corrupt Chair can do a New Orleans JC play and then stay in power indefinitely with a crony LNC. We've had way too much of the "Good Ole Boys" stuff in the LNC over the years. 

How to address that, or am I making perfect the enemy of the good here?

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[Secretary LNC]

Convention is ultimately in control.

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[Mike Seebeck]

They weren't in New Orleans at the end...

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[Secretary LNC]

They abdicated - nothing can stop that.  Better to still exist.

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[Secretary LNC]

And I didn't know RONR well then.  That was a rookie error.  Daryl trued to stop but didn't know enough to.

[Tom Rowlette]

Also 2020.  If they thought they could just skip elections for another couple of years they might have done it, just had the online president/vice-president session and then said see you later.

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[Secretary LNC]

That would be a decision of the LNC which could be appealed.

It's better than imploding the party.  

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[Secretary LNC]

The language I'm proposing is very standard and recommended.

The language we have now is awful and untenable.

If anyone can think of a mitigation against other scenario, I'm all ears.

[Tom Rowlette]

Lemme have some time to think on it.

The situation we're trying to prevent is a quorum call that's done on purpose, with a side benefit of making clear whether people can check out or not?

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[Secretary LNC]

We are trying to prevent a purposeful or incidental situation in which a convention is started but elections don't happen so that we still have an LNC (worst case) or don't just have a few regionals (or if we get rid of regionals, the above) selecting the entire LNC.

If a board purposefully didn't have elections, I think members could sue under DC nonprofit law.

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[Mike Seebeck]

A possible (but not necessarily tenable?) solution is Bylaws language that prevents adjournment sine die until LNC and JC elections are completed and winners announced.

I don't want to see an implosion. But I also want to see a peaceful and proper transition of power when it's supposed to be decided. It's a two-edged sword here, and we need to find a way that blocks both scenarios. 

On Wed, Sep 6, 2023, 12:04 PM Secretary LNC <secr...@lp.org> wrote:

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[Secretary LNC]

I'm more concerned about implosion.  Forestalling elections has legal remedy.  And if some LNC had enough delegates to do that, they have enough to win.  This is another reason we changed convention rules a few conventions ago to put LNC elections in middle rather than at end.

Could it happen?  Yes.  But this is standard language rather than the deficient current language.

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[Tom Rowlette]

OK, I've thought about it, and I've come around on the "until their successors are elected" language.  However, I don't think I'm in favor of changing total to maximum.  In my reading it would actually make the quorum requirement harder to achieve than it is right now and doesn't explicitly clarify whether or not delegates can check out.  The word "Total," in my mind, means "everybody who's registered right now."  The word "Maximum," in my mind, means "everybody who ever registered, or everyone who could ever be registered."  In other words, maximum seems like a bigger number than total.  I'm willing to be convinced that I'm wrong.

Even if I am wrong about that, I'm a little concerned that this proposal touches two things instead of one.  Quorum affects more things than just LNC elections, and if we change what a quorum is it has more implications than just preventing a void LNC.  I know that we have a million proposals already, but if we're going to do this I wish it was a separate proposal.

If we really want to clarify the issue of whether people can check out or not, we could instead add in Article 10 section 8:  ", and who have not checked out"  so that it would read "A quorum shall consist of 40% of the total number of delegates registered in attendance at the Convention, and who have not checked out."  Alternatively, to get the opposite effect we could add a sentence to the end of the section that says "Delegates who have checked out of the convention will still be counted toward quorum requirements."

I put together a little reference.  Now that I look at it I'm not sure it's relevant to this discussion, but here it is anyway if it helps anything.

From 2012:

"The list of voting delegates approved by the Credentials Committee included 299 delegates and 5 alternates with 304 people eligible to vote."

From 2014:

"As of 10:11 AM, there were 728 delegates and alternates entered into the delegate database. Of these, 687 were eligible to vote. There were 367 delegates and 1 alternate registered in attendance. With 368 voting members, quorum was 148 delegates, a majority of all delegates was 185 delegates, 2/3 of all delegates was 246 delegates, and 7/8 of all delegates was 322 delegates."

From 2016:

"The list of individuals certified by the Credentials Committee as being eligible to register at the convention contained 994 delegates and 340 alternates....  Ms. Salvette reported current registration as being 446 delegates and 35 alternates who are entitled to cast 481 votes. Quorum is 193."

From 2018:

"The list of individuals certified by the Credentials Committee as being eligible to register at the convention contained 1276 names (including delegates and alternates) from 51 affiliates.  Ms. Hogarth reported current registration as being 676 delegates and 21 alternates who are entitled to cast 692 votes. Quorum is 277."

From 2020a:

"By the deadline of Sunday, May 17, 2020, 1044 delegates and 601 alternates were reviewed by the committee. Three (3) submissions were found to be ineligible to serve. No contested seats have been brought to the committee’s attention. As of 4:30 p.m. this day, there were 905 delegates registered and entitled to vote in attendance. • 362 | quorum • 453 | simple majority • 604 | 2/3 • 792 | 7/8"

From 2020b:

"As of 6:28 a.m. on July 9, 2020, 1039 delegates and 650 alternates were verified and approved by the Credentials Committee. As of the last report this morning, there were 186 on-site delegates and 208 remote delegates for a total of 494 delegates; and 28 on-site alternates and 49 remote alternates for a total of 77 alternates."

From 2022:

"1032 delegates and 491 alternates were verified by the Credentials Committee as valid for credentialling." 

And then  "As of 9:15 a.m. there were 893 delegates registered in attendance and entitled to vote. Quorum is 358; a majority is 447; 2/3 is 596; and 7/8 is 782."

(several points of order, ect)

And then "As of 10:50 a.m. there are 997 seated delegates/alternates registered in attendance and entitled to vote. Quorum is 399; a majority is 499; 2/3 is 665; and 7/8 is 873."

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