Answer regarding RCW question last night

[Angyl]

I asked DMD:

Question!

Rcw 29a.80.020 lists “committeeman” and “woman”. Also only mentions county reps not LD.

1) is there an out of compliance problem with the gender neutral language at state/county/LD?

2) How do LD SCMs come in? State party charter? Does this relate to your talk at the 44th?

He replied and gave me permission to share:

1) No, there is no out of compliance problem.  The omnibus gender equity amendment I did to the Charter includes " For purposes of determining

whether a requirement that a male and a female be selected is met it shall be

sufficient that two people of different genders have been selected. Whenever the

phrase “of the opposite sex” is used it shall be understood to mean “of a different

gender.”  Charter VII.C.2 (last two sentences)

The Charter also provides in Article V.A.1 that "State laws relating to Party operations shall be observed unless in conflict with this Charter and other provisions adopted pursuant to this Charter."  And in Article IV the statutory committee (the only thing the statute refers to) delegates all its authority to the central committee by bylaw.  So even if the statute had an impact it would simply create a vacancy in a body that has already delegated all of its authority, including the ability to elect a chair, to the Central Committee created by Charter.

2.  Yes, the Charter created LD organizations and LD SCMs.  The litigation was to force the new central committee that included them to be called into session and to elect officers, etc.

The Charter gender equity amendment was expressly written to override all other documents immediately without waiting for legislatures and other related organizations to clean up their rules.  I wanted to be sure it was in force for the reorganiazation that just occurred rather than have to wait till after the Presidential election.

-Angyl

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[Scott Alspach]

Thanks for tracking down the answer!  It looks like whoever mentioned that we have a statutory committee that just delegates all of its authority was correct.

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[Annabelle Backman]

Hmm. This leaves me with several more questions:

1. Is there an amended copy of the party Charter and WSDCC bylaws? I still can only find the ones from 2018-09-16, which I'm led to believe are out-of-date?
   
   
2. RCW 29A.80.020 states "Each political party organization may adopt rules governing its own organization and the nonstatutory functions of that organization" (emphasis mine), which suggests to me that the party org has no inherent power over the Statutory State Committee. Article IV in the party Charter imposes a number of rules on the Statutory State Committee, but where is the Charter's authority over the Statutory State Committee derived from?
   
   
3. Does the Statutory State Committee actually meet for re-org? Are there bylaws adopted by the Statutory State Committee that explicitly defer and delegate authority to the SCC? If so, where can I find them? :)
   
   
4. I don't understand how this statement in the Charter can be valid:

1. 
   
   "State laws relating to Party operations shall be observed unless in conflict with this Charter and other provisions adopted pursuant to this Charter."
   
   

1. This reads to me as "We will follow state law, unless we disagree with it." That's not how laws work. Am I misreading this?
   
   
2. The phrase "of opposite sexes" occurs twice in the RCWs, applying to the Chair and Vice Chair of the Statutory State Committee and each County Central Committee. The party Charter cannot unilaterally declare the meaning of that phrase within the context of statutes. Is there any legal precedent for:
1. Interpreting this phrase (in the RCWs) as meaning "of different genders"
2. That gender is self-asserted (as opposed to being determined by birth certificate or state ID)
1. (The state's protections against discrimination based on gender identity might apply in this case, I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head)
3. That a non-binary gender is "of opposite sex" or "of different gender" to both a male-gendered and female-gendered person?

–

Annabelle Backman

Vice Chair for Technology | Washington State 43rd District Democrats

https://www.43rddemocrats.org/

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[Angyl]

Hi David, more questions! I took a stab at some of them but please correct me if I’m wrong.

1) I TOTALLY spaced that part. David, the link on the State page goes here:

https://www.wa-democrats.org/sites/wadems/files/documents/Washington%20State%20Democrats%20-%20Bylaws.pdf

Where can we find the one with your updates? Who should I contact about getting the Page updated?

2,3) I’m guessing the “SSC” as County sans LD rep body gathers at Reorg and immediately passes Bylaws, which delegate their power to the larger WSDCC as defined? I’ve never actually been to a state reorg yet.

4) I’m interpreting what DMD said as like, there might possibly be a challenge there, but if there was, it would impact the SSC which in Bylaws has already passed authority to WSDCC. That new authority designates and legitimizes the nongendered position assignments. So you could theoretically challenge the seating of a non-binary SSC Member, but even doing that wouldn’t block the rest of the authority passing?

5) Not even going to guess there.

- Angyl

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[Angyl]

That was wonderful! Thank you so much!

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On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 4:07 PM, McDonald, David <david.m...@klgates.com> wrote:

Angyl, attached please find a two page memo that I did for Tina last fall (and which was distributed to party chairs in advance of reorganization) that addresses the point raised in 4 and 5 below and has citations to the cases.

 

From: McDonald, David
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2019 3:53 PM
To: 'Angyl'; Annabelle Backman; Scott Alspach
Cc: byl...@43rddems.org
Subject: RE: Answer regarding RCW question last night

 

Hi Angyl,

1.       I don’t think they are out of date.  The Charter and Bylaws posted say “as amended… on September 16, 2018” which is the last meeting of the WSDCC that amended anything.

2.       SSC stands for statutory state committee and it only impliedly meets these days.  It did all the “shall” actions in Article VI of the Bylaws a long time ago so there is no reason for it to meet.  In terms of the underlying question, it is framed backwards.  The question is where is the State government’s authority to create any entity with any political or operational authority over the committee that is established by the Charter.  The US Supreme Court says the state has no such authority unless it demonstrates a compelling need and then only if its regulation is narrowly tailored.  The case is Marchioro v Chaney, 1979.  I can get the cite if you need it but that’s the basic case between the WSDCC and the State of Washington.

3.       See 2 above

4.       Yes, you are correctly reading the Charter and that is a perfectly appropriate and necessary statement in connection with first amendment law and political parties.  If the parties do not object, then state law is presumed to be valid.  If the party objects then state law regulating a political party is unconstitutional unless the state can prove the statute is narrowly tailored to advance a compelling state interest.  Washington has no compelling interest that it wants to assert for fear that doing do would allow us to get the Top Two primary declared unconstitutional.

5.       Yes, the party can unilaterally interpret a statute related to its organization or simply ignore the statute.  Recently a Republican PCO sued the GOP because the King County Republican Party appoints district chairs and there is a statute that says they are to be elected.  The State Supreme held in favor of the Party because the state has no authority to tell a political party how to organize itself.  And, the Attorney General urged the state Supreme Court to make that holding because, as I said, there is no compelling interest of the state in regulating political parties in this state. (That case is Pilloud v King County Republican Central Committee, I believe, decided last fall).

This electronic message contains information from the law firm of K&L Gates LLP. The contents may be privileged and confidential and are intended for the use of the intended addressee(s) only.  If you are not an intended addressee, note that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this message is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact me at david.m...@klgates.com.-5

[Annabelle Backman]

Thank you for clearing this up for us, David! I feel a lot better about this knowing there is plenty of precedent supporting it.

I imagine that we're not the only bylaws committee that could benefit from this memo. It'd be great to get it (or a distillation of its salient points) up onto the State Party Documents page. Or maybe into some kind of bylaws development toolkit? Maybe Amy could follow up with State, or at least find out who the right person is to contact about this?

–

Annabelle Backman

Vice Chair for Technology | Washington State 43rd District Democrats

https://www.43rddemocrats.org/