Restructure LNC version 3 Proposal

[TRowlette]

Please see attached proposal.

-Tom Rowlette

[TRowlette]

Uh, of course I forgot to add the proviso that it would take effect in 2026 instead of immediately.  I did intend that to be in there.

[TRowlette]

Actually, this needs to be amended in another way too.  I'm going to resubmit.

[TRowlette]

OK, here's the proposal as I'd like to submit it.  Also, here's that spreadsheet of LNC motions from the last 6 years I put together.

[Secretary LNC]

I have a spreadsheets from 2018-2023 that includes email ballots. I could have saved you a lot of work.

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___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

[Secretary LNC]

I have a restructure proposal as well.  The events surrounding region 1 have changed my mind on this.

[Chuck Moulton]

I strongly support this proposal. A smaller LNC with all at-large and no regions is a far better setup than what we have now.

In liberty,

Dr. Chuck Moulton

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 23, 2023, at 2:26 PM, TRowlette <trow...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, here's the proposal as I'd like to submit it.  Also, here's that spreadsheet of LNC motions from the last 6 years I put together.

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[Secretary LNC]

I agree.  Though I have a plan B to propose.

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[Mike Seebeck]

I don't support this.

For starters, it won't pass. No state delegation will want their voice on the LNC removed.

Second, having 7 seat warmers doesn't solve the real problem of them being seat warmers. 

Better to go cabinet-style with specific duties.

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[Secretary LNC]

That's going to be my proposal Mr Seebeck.

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[David Roberson]

I concur with Mr. Seebeck entirely. Looking forward to the Secretary’s proposal on this.

David

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 23, 2023, at 8:18 PM, Mike Seebeck <mike.s...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Rob Latham]

Am also warm to the idea of eliminating regions and reducing the size of the LNC; let regional interests say their piece at national conventions (and in an ongoing fashion through individuals elected at national conventions and appointed to subcommittees).

But replace regional representatives and alternates with what?

Have favored at large representatives elected by proportional representation, so that there is both majority rule complemented by minority voices, but am intrigued by the cabinet structure proposals that have been floated. 

I would like to see some organizational behavior research on board governance that both fits the unique characteristics of the LNC and is best-suited to further our Party's purposes.

Recalling past proposals to educate the LNC on the "Carver model" of organizational governance -- now just called "Policy Governance," apparently. I don't have any understanding of that organizational model other than an awareness of it. It seemed like efforts to have past LNCs consider the Carver model kept getting pushed to the bottom of the agenda or tabled (which may have reflected the receptiveness of past LNCs to the subject matter).

In any event, I look forward to learning more about these proposals.

In liberty,

Rob Latham

P.S.: A search on the Brave search engine for "cabinet structure" and organizational behavior yielded one hit (but some interesting-looking "Related content") at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review/article/abs/cabinet-composition-collegiality-and-collectivity-examining-patterns-in-cabinet-committee-structure/66D06C242594B3E13A59B319C7E463BA

On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 1:26 PM TRowlette <trow...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Tom Rowlette]

I flirted with that idea too.  You have one IT rep, one fundraising rep, one media rep, one campaign support rep, ect.  The reasons I didn't go with that are:

• Because at-large is an unpaid position (and ought to remain so), for any position where there's enough work to do that it ought to be paid, either you have someone who's going to get burned out or the work isn't going to get done.
• Most successful boards select a CEO or an Executive Director.  The board gives general direction to the CEO, who is in charge of the staff.  In the scenario where you have the IT AT-Large, what's to stop that guy or girl from going to the IT staff and trying to be in charge of that department.  Your staff person then has two bosses who sometimes will give conflicting directions or priorities.
• If you're building a county or state LP board, you're trying to build a volunteer corps that has different skills, and most or all of whom are willing to show up on election day or during ballot access drives.  Not the national board.  The national board should not be a super-volunteer team, even if state boards should.  The LNC should be the person sitting in the back of the taxi setting the destination, not trying to be the driver.
• The system doesn't scale well.  If we ever do get really big, the board will either have to expand until it's too large again or it will be too small to accomplish its objectives.
• If you have a potential at-large candidate who is good at the core task of what the LNC is supposed to do - setting direction and evaluating progress - but doesn't have one of the specific skills, we don't get to have that person on the LNC.

If we go to a task-based at-large system I don't think it will be a disaster, but when I think of how I want LNCs to work and behave over the next 20 years I think it won't perform as well as we might hope.

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[Tom Rowlette]

By the way, the reason that I'm comfortable getting rid of regional representatives is that from what I can tell different states have different interests, but regions don't.  New Hampshire has different problems and opportunities from Verrnont, and Florida has different problems and opportunities than Georgia.

Having said that, regional reps tend to fundraise better.  I don't know that that's enough of a reason to keep them instead of the at-larges.

[Rob Latham]

Am recalling how negotiations for German coalition governments involved which coalition party member would occupy a certain cabinet position in exchange for supporting the coalition.

And cabinet position holders could be removed/replaced/repurposed by the entire LNC if necessary.

Seems like it would be more problematic to remove directly-elected cabinet-style position holders (as recent history shows).

And an 11-member LNC-driven taxi can be like: 
https://www.limostar.com/listings/mercedes-benz-sprinter/  😉

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[Paul Bracco]

Mr Rowlette,

At the time this proposal is moved, I plan to move to strike the existing proviso and replace it with the following:

Proviso: The regional representatives and alternates, elected by the final adjournment of the 2024 National Convention, or their replacements according to their regional agreements, will serve until the adjournment sine die of the 2026 convention under the rules of the national bylaws as they existed when the original representatives and alternates were elected. No regions will be formed for 2026.

This replacement proviso will make it clear that regional representatives that are elected at the 2024 convention may serve out the 2024-2026 term despite the provisions for regions no longer existing in the bylaws. It also allows a region to fill vacancies in the event that a regional representative or alternate elected at the 2024 convention resigns before the end of the 2024-2026 term.

Under the existing proviso (Proviso: This amendment shall take effect upon the final adjournment of the convention at which it is adopted.) I think this is highly likely to be interpreted to mean that all regional representatives elected in 2024 effectively never take office, as their office is abolished simultaneously with their prospective term beginning. 

I believe that the proviso above will need some additional language to make sure that the extra two (from 5 to 7) at large positions are left vacant for the entirety of the 2024-2026 term. I would appreciate any suggestions on how to add to the above proviso to accomplish this.

Sincerely,

Paul Bracco

Vice Chair - Libertarian Party of Virginia

------- Original Message -------

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[Tom Rowlette]

I like your proviso better than mine, and I'll give thought to how to make it clear what the effect is.

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[TRowlette]

I know what everybody wants!  Another spreadsheet!

In this one I got the names of the top 100 nonprofit organizations in the US by revenue and then I looked up how they selected their boards of directors and how many of them there were.

Right off the bat, I know that this is a very flawed spreadsheet to base 100% of our decisions on.  First off, even though a lot of my reasoning for grabbing the top 100 nonprofits by revenue was that if they're that big they must be doing something right, the needs and ideal structure of a large organization might be different than ours.  Just going by revenue, the smaller organizations on here are about 100 times bigger than us, which means that any lessons we can draw from this might not apply very well to us.

Second, more than half of the organization have "unknown" governance types in this spreadsheet.  For each organization I did about 5-10 minutes of research using the top few results on a Google search.  The organizations which I couldn't find information on had a lot of things in common with each other, and the types of organizations where I could easily find bylaws or other evidence of how they select their boards also had a lot in common with each other.  So we're getting a pretty skewed look at governance types, along with a pretty incomplete one.

As always, if anybody knows more about any of these organizations or wants to contribute to the spreadsheet, please do.

Third, there's reason to believe that these boards have different functions. If a board has more than 50 members and a lot of them are celebrities, that board's function is probably a lot different than the food bank with 15 members who are also listed as volunteers.  Which of these boards use the super-volunteer method was impossible for me to figure out given how much time I was willing to put into the research, even though my guess is that very few of them are really doing that.

Still, there's a lot to learn here.

First off, Ken's proposals where the affiliates choose the board is more widely used than I had assumed it would be, and it seems to function well enough.  I no longer think that it would necessarily cause more dysfunction than we already have.  I'm less certain that it's a bad idea now, even though I still have some problems with it.

Next, regardless of whether it works well or not, we should not attempt the internal selection model.

Third, I had heard many times and from many places before that our 25 member board was way out of line with what any sane organization would have.  It turns out that 25 members is on the larger end, at about the 62nd percentile, but it's not anywhere out of range.

Pretty much this research has given me more questions than answers.

Not reflected in the spreadsheet but just something I noticed, is that a lot of these organizations had advisory boards.  In fact, pretty much all of them except the local food banks did.  I wish I'd taken notes on that now.  The members of the advisory boards, from what I can tell, don't get to make decisions but do get to offer input and have prestige.  If we're going to think about members of the convention electing people based on subject matter mastery, we might think of doing that instead.

[Secretary LNC]

Everyone wants Proposal P.  That's what everyone wants.

We have factions in the Party.  That's a reality - like it or not.  Unless we are banking on the dominant one from Reno having less than 1/3 attendance - nothing that increases size of board will pass.

Perhaps due to factionalism nothing impacting structure of LNC will.  

So there are no surprises, I'm just letting you know that I intend on making motion to postpone indefinitely any motion touching structure.  I am not doing that to "kill" as it is usually used for bit to put it off to last IF there is time.

IMHO we have many issues to fix that are more likely to pass and we already have too many.  We will have very hard decisions to make very soon.

To me, the notice provisions are far more essential to be heard to protect our party from duopoly takeover and are such a glaring hole.  Electronic voting.  How to resolve affiliate disputes.  Those are all far more important - YMMV.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/7221e032-d528-49d3-b49d-4588fd599d0an%40lp.org.

[Secretary LNC]

I meant the first sentence as a joke btw.  I love our final result on P.  We don't have the luxury of having another 4-5 meeting long proposal.

[Secretary LNC]

To put in perspective- we hoped to be done with main proposals by mid January.  With holidays and town hall these means we have about maybe 8 more working meetings. We already have 36 or so proposals - though many may be combined - some may be separated.  Getting 20 heard is VERY ambitious.  And that's mostly simple ones.

[TRowlette]

I'd say that this is slightly more important than ranked choice voting but WAY less important than resolving affiliate disputes.  I'm fine with having these be the last things the committee takes up, and even putting them as the last items in the report we make to the convention.  I do hope at least one of them makes it in though.

[TRowlette]

By the way, am I remembering correctly that we'll have a full day of bylaws this time around instead of just half a day?

[Secretary LNC]

I think we are getting six hours but that's not final.  Let me check with CoC.  I did ask for as much time as they could give us.

I think Rob will cage match you about RCV though.

[Secretary LNC]

I have to tell you, thinking of putting all our things in a logical order that delegates will follow and pass is giving me night sweats, lol.

I've done complex reports though in Colorado.

Ask Mike about how I got the entire platform rewritten in one convention plank by plank.

[Secretary LNC]

And we together got a constitution/bylaws combination as a member proposal against a hostile bylaws committee :)

[Sylvia Arrowwood]

Remember Chair stating we were being allotted four hours.  That's about half a day.

Maybe it would be good idea to split it into two sessions?  Four hours is a long, long

time and delegates will get bored and that's to be understood. Perhaps two hours and

lunch and then finish or somehow break it up?

Too believe some of these items will not pass muster of the delegates but it could

be we would be laying the ground work and planting seeds for the future.  Certainly

that would be a good thing and not a waste of our time as would make life easier and

more fruitful for Bylaw Committees that follow. 

---

From: "TRowlette" <trow...@gmail.com>
To: "Bylaws Committee 2024" <bylaws-com...@lp.org>
Cc: "TRowlette" <trow...@gmail.com>, "secr...@lp.org" <secr...@lp.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2023 1:54:23 AM
Subject: Re: BYLAWS-COMMITTEE Re: Restructure LNC version 3 Proposal

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/78553f64-d0dd-4656-a1db-943cb2a05b1cn%40lp.org.

[Secretary LNC]

We don't control the agenda.  It is a standing convention rule and would require 2/3 to change and the CoC has to plan far ahead of time.  I will not be advocating spoiling their best attempts to run the convention according to a known schedule.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/d/msgid/bylaws-committee-2024/1522885848.11217237.1693116689697.JavaMail.zimbra%40homesc.com.

[Secretary LNC]

On the issue of planting seeds, third parties are quite volatile.  There is a core of people that attend convention after convention, but if I had to guess that is less than 20%.  It would go up to close to half to those who have been to one before, but not the immediately prior one.  I personally think it is a mistake to view national bylaws committees in the same way it might happen with far more insular and tight knit state parties.  

Just my view.  Others here have more experience with many national conventions than  I do.  This will be my fifth consecutive one though.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

[Mike Seebeck]

Yeah, after I raised holy hell about seriatim even though neither of us understood what that was at the time. 😄

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[Mike Seebeck]

Yes, because we both channeled our stubbornness into it and had the support to do it.

Fixing Alabama's Bylaws will be a lot harder because they're far messier.

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[Mike Seebeck]

Planting the seeds is fine, because it does build foundation for recognizing problems to get fixed. 

Same for Platform. 

2024 has a different schedule than 2022 because of Presidential nomination activities. That cuts into time, but it's also important party PR.

We deal with it.

Frankly, I think we might be able to get Platform time reduced in favor of Bylaws since Platform is in decent shape minus a couple of holes, but we'll see how that pans out (assuming I get on there!)

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[Secretary LNC]

I already got Platform time reduced by CoC.  There's no further time to reduce.

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[Tom Rowlette]

I don't think the delegates will pass everything we put forward.  I do think they'll follow it, if by follow you mean understand the logical order of how we propose it.

I remember 2018 when there were a million motions to suspend the rules to consider something out of order.  That ate time that we'll want to have back if that happens.  We might be able to help ourselves out with that by putting standing seconds fairly close to the top.

Anyway, yeah.  I'm down to postpone indefinitely all the restructure the LNC proposals together, but I intend to reconsider the motion to postpone indefinitely before we're done.

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[Mike Seebeck]

Didn't know that. 

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[Secretary LNC]

Agree.  I think we may need to radically restructure the way we think about presentation this year and not do a typical survey.  I'm not saying NOT do a survey but do it more concept by concept rather than by granular proposal while still giving links to entire proposals if anyone wants to read. 

Doing proposal by proposal starts 

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[Secretary LNC]

I mentioned it early on but can see how it got lost.

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