Resolve Affiliate Party Disputes Proposal

[TRowlette]

Please see attached proposal.

-Tom Rowlette

[TRowlette]

Before this gets discussed I'd like to change it up a little bit.  I'd like to take the words ", and that other groups are not," out of the main section 7.  It doesn't add anything and it would allow for a weird edge-case that I hadn't thought about before.

I'm still at a loss about something.  Let me just pour my brain out as the last thing I do tonight.

There should be two objectives to this proposal.  One is that affiliate disputes get cleared up in a better, or at least better defined, way.  The other is that it should prevent splintering the party.  It doesn't do that yet and I'm not sure what to add or subtract from the proposal to make it happen.

In 2016 I started making a list (with an involved spreadsheet, my favorite thing) of every political party that's ever existed in the United States.  While I was doing research on all of these parties, it struck how often there were splits in them and how often that led to them losing energy and either dissolving or becoming ineffective.  By split I don't just mean that some people stopped being involved, but that some faction started their own new group.  Historically it's a major cause of death for political movements and parties.

In 2016 I thought that somehow we were different.  The most splintered of the political parties were the communists and socialists, and I thought that maybe there was something inherent in their philosophy that made them more vulnerable to that, or that something about Libertarians made us immune to it.  Well, I don't think that anymore.

Regardless of who's right or who's wrong, I'd really like it if there was some way to encourage people to not go start their own new thing, but to stick around, build support, and try again in a year or two.  Maybe there should be a different proposal about a right of return or something like that.  Maybe not.

Splits might be as inevitable and unpredictable as cancer, but if there's some cure I'd like to know about it (invent it?) now.

[Secretary LNC]

I like your proposal thought I think it can be trimmed down.  I think the LNC has to determine which affiliate has the best claim "according to the affiliate's own bylaws and rules and the national bylaws" so there is an objective standard.  And I would not support that it is not appealable - I think it needs to be appealable though I am not certain by what means - automatic?  Petition of signatures?  

and how often?  If nothing has changed it would only be once

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

--
Committee members, download the Proposal Form here: https://tinyurl.com/2024Bylaws-SubmissionForm
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bylaws Committee 2024" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bylaws-committee...@lp.org.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/a40b2639-4c1c-4bf6-9abb-9563e7b9eee5n%40lp.org.

[TRowlette]

I understand the intent of adding "according to the affiliate's own bylaws and rules and the national bylaws" but I would rather not include that language.  The reasons:

• At least currently, the national bylaws don't have much at all to say about affiliate legitimacy.  Putting that in there doesn't add much.
• In the future if there does happen to be a conflict between the national bylaws and a states bylaws this makes it a more thorny issue.
• "The best legitimate claim" is already already mostly or completely determined by what the states bylaws say
• I'd personally like the LNC to have not much flexibility on this issue, but a tiny bit rather than none at all.  "Best legitimate claim" would have allowed the LNC to make a different decision regarding Delaware, for instance.

I'd also rather keep the JC out of it.  Mostly that's because it makes an LNC decision kind of redundant sense the JC would ultimately decide every affiliate dispute.

It's also because the LNC ought to be better equipped than the JC to make those determinations, and from a structure perspective I think it more naturally falls under what the LNC is supposed to do.  The LNC answers the question "How shall we operate? and the JC answers the question "Have we gotten a core philosophical issue wrong?"  The best legitimate claim of state leadership is more an operational issue than a philosophical one.  It also affects the type of person you would want to elect to the JC.

I'm willing to be overruled on those things by the committee and not be too upset about it.  The details aren't as important as getting a good proposal passed.

You said that it could be trimmed down.  What parts of the current proposal can go?

Also, instead of Libertarian National Committee should it just be National Committee?

[TRowlette]

In terms of how often this can be appealed, I am completely open to suggestions about what's most appropriate.

[Secretary LNC]

The national bylaws actually say quite a bit.  And affiliates are bound by national.  When there's a conflict, national controls.

I'm not willing to take that out.  We will have a much larger issue than we have now.

[Tom Rowlette]

What do the national bylaws say about state affiliate legitimacy other than in order to start one you have to have 10 people sign a petition and you can't endorse a candidate of another political party?

[Secretary LNC]

Way too much for email.  And things get added.  Affiliates are - parliamentary speaking - subordinate units when it comes to bylaws - though very autonomous in other areas.

I don't care for debating bylaws via email and don't feel it's the way to get the committee's considered judgment so don't present my argument much this way.

[Tom Rowlette]

I'm the opposite.  I'd much rather debate the merits of proposals over e-mail.  It gives me time to think and occasionally do research, and sort of adds time available for debate.

I do think that maybe not everyone reads all of these though ;) so Zoom debate has the advantage of making sure everybody's paying attention.

[Frank Martin]

I read all the emails but often do not find much value in doing so. The Zoom calls are pretty engaging though! I do enjoy going into the weeds with all of you. Its pretty remarkable how, um, granular the conversation gets to be. My autism is well-fed during these months with the committee, and I am grateful.

The most useful emails to me are those that contain proposals and amendments. It is also a useful medium for getting questions answered. Debate, not so much.

--

Frank Martin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/CA%2B6WXgVDi_%2B1g%3DDZDwS%2B2SXswuqMXhOr0kZbx_VnTsZmSo3d7w%40mail.gmail.com.