[Lnc-votes] [Lnc-business] Proposal for LNC funding of candidates and campaigns (item for August LNC meeting)

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

As Brett Bittner, Sam Goldstein, Caryn Ann Harlos, Joshua Katz, Patrick McKnight, and (apologies to anyone I'm missing) I think others on the LNC have all noted, and as I've observed myself on multiple previous occasions, we need some kind of consistent method for allocating our limited resources among many worthy candidates and campaigns, instead of just reacting on an ad hoc basis when we get requests for funding, or favoring requests from our own states, regions, or persons with whom we happen to be acquainted.

Toward this end, I've taken a stab at creating a detailed proposal for establishing such a funding procedure. The basic idea is to create a multi-layered approach for screening and evaluating candidates and campaigns that  is designed to minimize the role of favoritism and give the LNC a strong yet sufficiently flexible framework within which to periodically allocate funds. 

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At the heart of this proposal is the creation of three separate new LNC sub-committees: An Application Committee, and two Evaluation Committees. Members of each of these three committees would serve for one candidate/campaign funding cycle, and then would be barred from serving on one of the three committees again until another funding cycle had passed. No person would be eligible to serve on more than one of the three committees simultaneously or during the same funding cycle, or to serve on one of the three committees while serving on the LNC.

Application Committee

This committee would be composed of up to 51 (but no fewer than 7) persons appointed by the LNC via open ballot ranked choice voting. It would have the following responsibilities:

• Establishing funding cycles (scheduling the periods during which candidates and campaigns could apply for funding, and deadlines for its own subsequent reporting to the Evaluation Committees, and for the Evaluation Committees to report to the LNC). The committee could potentially decide to have one funding cycle per election, or multiple cycles per election.

• Designing application forms for candidates and campaigns seeking funding, including each of the "Message" and "Effectiveness" criteria questions listed below (rewording would be allowed as long as essential meaning is preserved), along with any additional criteria it may add to either category at its discretion with the approval of a majority vote of the LNC

• Receiving applications for funding from candidates and campaigns during the time window established for that purpose

• Researching each candidate and campaign seeking LNC funding and preparing a report on the relative merits of the applicants based on their responses to each of the criteria questions listed below (and any additional questions added by the committee as described above), as well as the committee's own research

• Forwarding this report, including the application information provided by the candidates and campaigns themselves, to the two Evaluation Committees as described below

Candidate/Campaign Evaluation Criteria

The two Evaluation Committees would also each be composed of up to 51 (but no fewer than 7) persons appointed by the LNC via open ballot ranked choice voting. Each Evaluation Committee would, working separately and having no contact with members of the other Evaluation Committee, generate rankings of each candidate or campaign. These rankings would be largely based on committee members' evaluations of how candidates and campaigns measure up to each other on the basis of two broad categories of questions, lumped under the headings "Message" and "Effectiveness" for want of better terms:

(1) Message – This category will consider (as applicable depending on whether applicant is a candidate or campaign) the following questions and any additional questions in a similar vein that the Application Committee may add:

• Has the candidate signed the Libertarian Party's membership pledge?

• What are the candidate's detailed results and overall score on the "official" Nolan Chart used by the Advocates for Self Government (currently online at http://www.self-gov.org/ )?

• What are the candidate's detailed results and overall score on the more detailed Nolan Chart based "Quiz2D" quiz (currently online at http://www.quiz2d.com/ )?

• What are the candidate's detailed results and overall score on the more detailed Nolan Chart based "NolanChart.com" quiz (currently online at https://www.nolanchart.com/survey-php )?

• Does any of the candidate's or campaign's message conflict with the Non-Aggression Principle?

• Does any of the candidate's or campaign's message conflict with the Libertarian Party's platform?

• What specific actions or reforms does the candidate or campaign promise to take or enact?

• Does the candidate (or do the backers of the campaign) have a history in the Libertarian Party or the freedom movement, and if so what is that history?

• Is there anything in the message, history, or personal character of the candidate (or the campaign backers) that is at odds with the Non-Aggression Principle or the Libertarian Party platform?

• If the candidate is a current or former office-holder, what pro-freedom and/or anti-freedom votes did s/he cast while in office?

• Of the annual salary that the candidate would be paid if elected to the office s/he is seeking, what percentage, if any, does s/he pledge to return to the taxpayers or donate to the freedom movement per year if elected?

(2) Effectiveness – This category will consider the following questions and any additional questions in a similar vein that the Application Committee may add:

• How good a public speaker is the candidate?

• What obstacles stand in the way of the candidate getting elected (e.g. does s/he face two cartel party opponents, an entrenched incumbent, significant hurdles such as "top two" system or straight-ticket voting, etc.)?

• How is the candidate or ballot measure polling?

• What measurable positive results would accrue to the Libertarian Party if the candidate or campaign fell short of ballot box victory but achieved some lesser threshold(s), and how likely is it that the threshold(s) will be met?

• How willing is the candidate or campaign to cooperate with and seek to assist the Libertarian Party and its state affiliate party (and local party organization, if applicable) in his or her area, to the extent allowed by law?

• What positive but relatively non-measurable results is the candidate or campaign likely to achieve?

• Does the candidate or campaign have a website or sites, and how good is it (or are they)?

• How much money has the candidate or campaign already spent, and on what were the funds spent?

• How much money does the candidate or campaign have at the time of application (minus any debts or obligations)?

• How much money does the candidate or campaign plan to raise and spend?

• How realistic are the candidate or campaign's fundraising plans?

• How much time does the candidate plan to spend campaigning?

• What kind of campaign team does the candidate or campaign have?

• What press or other positive mentions has the candidate or campaign received?

• What endorsements has the candidate or campaign received?

• How does the candidate or campaign plan to spend any funds granted by the LNC?

Candidate/Campaign Evaluation Process

Each of the Evaluation Committees would prepare, within the time frame established by the Application Committee, a report to the LNC. These reports would give each candidate or campaign seeking funding three rankings – one for Message criteria, one for Effectiveness criteria, and an overall ranking based on an average of the other two rankings. It would be up to each Evaluation Committee to decide how much additional material to include in its report to the LNC explaining or justifying its rankings. 

These numbered rankings would be based on the total number of funding applications. For instance, if there were 120 candidates or campaigns applying for funding in a given cycle, each Evaluation Committee member would assign each of them a whole number ranking between 0 and 121 for each of the two broad categories of "Message" and "Effectiveness", with a lower number indicating a better ranking. The "Message" and "Effectiveness" rankings assigned by individual committee members would then be added together and divided by the number of committee members ranking them, to give each candidate an overall ranking. Multiple candidates or campaigns might receive the same overall ranking, in which case the total number of different integers assigned to the candidates and campaigns might be fewer than 120 (i.e. there might be lots of 2-way, 3-way, or even 10-way or 20-way ties).

Committee rankings for Message and Effectiveness criteria would be based on each committee member submitting his or her personal ranking list, with the averages of those rankings then compiled to generate the overall rankings which would appear in the committee's report.

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As an example of how rankings would be calculated, here is a simple hypothetical in which an Evaluation Committee has only 3 members (in reality each would have at least 7 members), and only 4 candidates and 1 campaign have applied for funding:

Committee member 1 ranks the applicants as follows:

Message Rankings:             Effectiveness Rankings:

1. Candidate D                      1. Campaign A

2. Candidate A                      2. Candidate C

3. Candidate B (tie)              3. Candidate A

3. Candidate C (tie)              4. Candidate D

4. Campaign A                      5. Candidate B

Committee member 2 ranks the applicants as follows:

Message Rankings:             Effectiveness Rankings:

1. Campaign A                      1. Candidate C

2. Candidate A                      2. Campaign A

3. Candidate D                      3. Candidate A

4. Candidate C                      4. Candidate D

5. Candidate B                      5. Candidate B

Committee member 3 ranks the applicants as follows:

Message Rankings:             Effectiveness Rankings:

1. Candidate D                      1. Campaign A (tie)

2. Candidate A                      1. Candidate C (tie)

3. Candidate B                      1. Candidate A (tie)

4. Candidate C (tie)              2. Candidate D

4. Campaign A (tie)              3. Candidate B

These individual member rankings would generate the following rankings for the Evaluation Committee as a whole (raw scores listed here for ease in understanding how overall rankings would be calculated):

Message Rankings (raw score):              Effectiveness Rankings:

1. Candidate D (1.66)                                1. Campaign A (tie - 1.33)

2. Candidate A (2)                                      1. Candidate C (tie - 1.33)

3. Campaign A (3)                                      2. Candidate A (1.66)

4. Candidate B (tie - 3.66)                        3. Candidate D (3.33)

5. Candidate C (tie - 3.66)                        4. Candidate B (4.33)

The committee Message and Effectiveness rankings listed above would generate the following overall rankings for the Evaluation Committee's report to the LNC:

Overall Rankings

1. Candidate A (1.665)

2. Campaign A (2.165)

3. Candidate C (2.495 – tie)

3. Candidate D (2.495 – tie)

4. Candidate B (3.995)

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So far I have not described the difference between the two Evaluation Committees. Here is how they would differ:

"All-Seeing" Evaluation Committee

This Evaluation Committee would receive from the Application Committee the complete version of that committee's report with names and locations of candidates and campaigns, and would also be free to conduct its own independent research as desired. Candidates and campaigns would be welcome to present additional information to the committee and lobby its members. All-Seeing Evaluation Committee members would be barred from voting on the ratings of candidates or campaigns from their own states, or with which they had any family ties or financial relationships (past or present). Committee members would be expected to thoroughly discuss and debate the relative merits of the candidates and campaigns, following which each member would submit his or her ranking of the candidates and campaigns seeking funding that cycle, which could be either independently prepared by the member himself or herself, or prepared by someone else and adopted by the committee member as his or her recommendations.

"Blind" Evaluation Committee

This Evaluation Committee would receive from the Application Committee a version of its report with all candidate and campaign names and locations redacted. If a member of this committee recognized a candidate or campaign from the description given, s/he would be required to recuse him/herself from rating that candidate or campaign. Contact between candidates or campaign applicants and members of the Blind Evaluation Committee would be prohibited, and committee members expected to try to avoid learning about Libertarian candidates or campaigns applying for funding during their terms on the committee (kind of like how jurors are typically instructed not to independently research the court cases on which they are called to serve). Members of the Blind Evaluation Committee would not discuss their proposed rankings with other members of their committee. Each committee member would instead submit his or her own rankings to the committee chair without any committee discussion or other outside input other than the redacted report of the Application Committee.

Role of the LNC

Upon receiving the reports of the Evaluation Committees, the LNC would have the choice of which Evaluation Committee's rankings to adopt. That committee's overall ranking order would then be binding upon the LNC in the following manner: The LNC would retain complete freedom to decide the overall amount of money to disburse for that funding cycle, but would be required to allocate more funds to the candidate or campaign assigned the best ranking by the Evaluation Committee whose rankings it adopted than to the candidate or campaign with the next best ranking, and so on. In any cases of ties, each equally ranked candidate or campaign would be required to receive the same amount of funding. For some candidates or campaigns (or hypothetically even all candidates/campaigns), the amount allocated could be $0, so long as no candidate with a poorer ranking received any funding that cycle either.

The LNC would also, with a 3/4 supermajority vote, retain the option to adopt neither Evaluation Committee's ratings. In this case, the LNC would instead allocate funding among the applicants by some different method of its own devising, e.g. a combination of various parts of the two Evaluation Committees' recommendations, or it could totally ignore the Evaluation Committee's reports and adopt its own priorities on which candidates/campaigns to fund (if any), based on LNC members' own preferences and judgments (i.e. the way we do it now).

Along with appointing the members of each of the three committees described above, the LNC would also appoint chairs pro tem for each of the three committees, who would serve until the respective committees chose their own chairs. A chair pro tem would be ineligible to become the permanent committee chair that cycle; his/her primary function would be to organize and preside over the committee's election of a permanent chair for that funding cycle. 

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The major downside of this proposal as I see it is that it involves a lot more overall time and work than the current system. Another downside is that some candidates or campaigns could be embarrassed or offended by the rankings they receive, or decline to seek funds in order to avoid the possibility of such embarrassment. The upsides are that it would mean LP candidates and campaigns seeking funding being vetted in a much more thorough and organized manner, make the funding process (though not necessarily the outcomes) more regular and predictable, go some way toward minimizing favoritism and subjectivity from the process, and by generating two independent sets of recommendations on which to base funding decisions, probably make it somewhat easier for LNC members to feel comfortable in making those decisions.

The large upper number of 51 members for each committee (chosen more or less randomly based on the LP having 51 state affiliates) is intended to enable us to take advantage of the "wisdom of crowds", and in the cases of the Application and "All-Seeing" Evaluation Committees, ensure there are plenty of members to do candidate research (hopefully we will have lots of candidates and lots of funds to hand out!), but the LNC would not be required to appoint that many members of the new committees if it did not wish to do so.

Since this proposal is somewhat complex and the issue is one that has defied easy solution (and thus it's quite likely there are things I've overlooked!), I'd like to give fellow LNC members and anyone else reading this on the reflector list or elsewhere some time to review it and propose changes and discuss it in person at our August LNC meeting (1 hour of time is requested). I'm hereby giving notice to have the language as currently written be considered as a motion with advance notice for the meeting, pending any possible changes. But in the meantime, please feel free to discuss!

Love & Liberty,

                                    ((( starchild )))

At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

                         RealR...@earthlink.net

                                  (415) 625-FREE

                                    @StarchildSF

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

I will support this if the committees are all 51 members each minimum and all members of the committee must be monthly recurring donors of $100/month or more.  They would then have the authority to spend up to $60,000 a year supporting LIBERTARIAN candidates without further LNC approval.

I actually only read the first 5 lines before I thought small governance at work.

Daniel Hayes

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Also we will have to up our LNC meetings to monthly just to get all the members appointed.

Daniel

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[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

Daniel,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I detect sarcasm! I realize committees aren't usually so large, but my language says "up to 51" members. Wouldn't have to be that many. But as I noted in another recent post, I think it would be smart to bring our volunteers into the committee structure, so that there is transparency and accountability. And properly researching large numbers candidates could be a significant amount of work, so why not enable many people to share it? Many hands make lighter loads.

Nevertheless, as the first concrete proposal attempting to craft a solution to a difficult issue, I'd be surprised if what I've written here didn't provoke various objections. It's a starting point for discussion. I hope you weren't serious about requiring committee members to be major donors however – I would oppose anything along the lines of "pay to play".

Love & Liberty,

                                  ((( starchild )))

At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

                      RealR...@earthlink.net

                                (415) 625-FREE

                                   @StarchildSF

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

Starchild, good idea albeit with the inherent constraint of consensus. I like Daniel’s suggestion that focuses on individual campaign contributions. Other alternatives include campaign fund-raising projects sponsored by the LNC, other Libertarian institutions and empowered individuals.

 

Thoughts?

 

~David

 

2018 Omaha Roads to Liberty Un-Convention

 

~David Pratt Demarest

LNC Region 6 Representative (IA, IL, MN, MO, ND, NE, WI)

Secretary, LPNE State Central Committee

Cell:      402-981-6469

Home: 402-493-0873

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

Daniel,

You have my admiration for have read that much of this opus.  When I have the time I will formulate a simple

one to two paragraph proposal to form a LNC Candidate Funding Committee and will submit it to the LNC prior

to the Kansas City meeting.

Sam

Sam Goldstein

Libertarian National Committee

Member at Large

8925 N Meridian St, Ste 101

Indianapolis IN 46260

317-850-0726 Phone

317-582-1773 Fax

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

Sam,

If we just turn LNC authority to decide which candidates to fund, and to what tune, over to another committee without any additional structure or framework, we won't be addressing the problem of these decisions being made on a subjective and ad hoc basis. The framers of the U.S. Constitution likewise could have simply created a single national assembly instead of a relatively intricate federalist system of checks and balances, but if they had done so, I don't think the results would have been as favorable.

Also, my proposal isn't really that long. It looks longer than it is because I included explanatory comments and examples, and because the bullet points listing evaluation criteria are spaced out. Compare the word count of the actual proposal to a typical meeting report and I don't think you'll find the length abnormally excessive.

Love & Liberty,

                                  ((( starchild )))

At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

                       RealR...@earthlink.net

                                 (415) 625-FREE

                                    @StarchildSF

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

Thanks, David. I'm definitely not proposing this to the exclusion of other means for campaigns to raise money. Overall, I continue to feel that more of the national LP's revenue stream ought to come from crowdfunding, merchandise sales, and events, and any of those means could certainly be used to fund candidates and campaigns.

Love & Liberty,

                                  ((( starchild )))

At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

                       RealR...@earthlink.net

                                 (415) 625-FREE

                                    @StarchildSF

On Jun 16, 2017, at 4:42 AM, David Demarest wrote:

Starchild, good idea albeit with the inherent constraint of consensus. I like Daniel’s suggestion that focuses on individual campaign contributions. Other alternatives include campaign fund-raising projects sponsored by the LNC, other Libertarian institutions and empowered individuals.

 

Thoughts?

 

~David

 

2018 Omaha Roads to Liberty Un-Convention

 

~David Pratt Demarest

LNC Region 6 Representative (IA, IL, MN, MO, ND, NE, WI)

Secretary, LPNE State Central Committee

Cell:      402-981-6469

Home: 402-493-0873

 

<Untitled attachment 03334.txt>_______________________________________________

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

It seems to me that the questions you have proposed would make up the application criteria already...in that case, why do we need three (3) other committees? Why not just set up this application process online, and let the candidates submit accordingly? Then, we could review them (or establish a review committee) and approve/reject based on that criteria ourselves...as they come in.

If we establish a review committee, I do prefer that the committee report to the LNC on their findings and recommendations for approval...at least until we see that the committee makes good calls...at the end of the day, the LNC is responsible for those calls. 

While I see the rational for a ranking approach, I don't think I support it. I prefer to evaluate each campaign's request independent of the others, and on its own merit. 

Also, campaigns need money at different times during their existence, and some of them might gain traction after we have rejected their request, so I don't favor a hardlined application period deadline.

Whitney Bilyeu

[lnc-...@hq.lp.org]

Whitney,

Thanks for your input. I don't believe there are any current application criteria. At least I have no recollection of such being mentioned on any of the occasions we've received funding requests.

Your point about campaigns needing money at different times is a valid criticism. In my proposal, the Application Committee would be able to set multiple funding periods during a campaign cycle. We could add some mechanism to allow funding requests to be considered outside the established process under extraordinary circumstances which significantly change a candidate or campaign's prospects in ways that could not have reasonably been anticipated – an opponent dying, for instance – but I'm not sure the best way to include such a provision so as not to invite abuse (i.e. everyone trying to claim extraordinary circumstances). Any thoughts on that?

As for reporting, the proposal covers that:  "Each of the Evaluation Committees would prepare, within the time frame established by the Application Committee, a report to the LNC."  Did you have something different in mind?

 

You suggest simply reviewing each request as it comes in, and "evaluat(ing) each campaign's request independent of others, and on its own merit". That sounds good in theory, but wouldn't it leave us just where we are now, with no objective basis for giving more money in one case than another? I think it's inevitable that we will compare candidates and campaigns anyway when funding requests come in – I've often seen such comparisons made. Ranking would simply provide a predictable, rational framework for those comparisons. We have a limited pot of money, and giving more to one candidate or campaign means giving less to others, or to other budget priorities if we expand the overall portion of the budget devoted to candidates/campaigns, so it seems to me we really can't consider each independently "on its own merit". Honestly I'm not even sure I even understand what that phrase means in this context. But perhaps you can expand on your thoughts, or suggest some specific alternative mechanism(s) that enable us to do triage in a fair manner without the use of rankings?

Love & Liberty,

                                 ((( starchild )))

At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

                     RealR...@earthlink.net

                               (415) 625-FREE

                                  @StarchildSF