501(c)(3) status and Conversation with FairVote

[Bruce Skarin]

Greetings,

So we currently have two options for standing up the CEA initiative. The first is to use a fiscal sponsor, which would handle all the legal accounting for a fee, but provide us with complete autonomy to do what we want (within the law of course). The second option is to find an appropriate parent organization that is willing to take this one-year initiative on. The advantages of the first are fairly obvious, whereas with the second we would likely give up some degree of control in exchange for in-house legal and admin support and a wider network of volunteers and advocates.

This morning I had a really good conversation with the FairVote legal director Drew Spencer (who also did a lot of work on the RCV Act) and their development director Nathan Nicholson about the possibility of them being the parent organization. They had a lot of really good questions about our process and plans that we should go over in our next phone conference. Overall they are very interested in the idea and want to support the CEA as experts regardless of how we go forward. They need to discuss everything with their whole team, but should be able to get back to me later next week.

Christopher B also had some contacts at the Sunlight Foundation that he would talk with as another possible option.

I will also try to get more details on the fiscal sponsor route, in particular what the fee entails.

We will need to decide what our bare minimum budget should look like. From our discussion with Finnur, I think we really need at least a few folks working on this full-time. As the process picks up, it may also be worth having full-time coordinators and experts. During the kickstarter we will also ask for volunteers so that we can have a sense how much we can get done going that route. Down the road it may also worth considering holding representative elections with a fellowship/stipend for a committee similar to what they had in Iceland. Much of this can be decided after seeing the initial public response.

If you have particular thoughts or suggestions on any of this please voice it here.

Lastly, if you would like to join the next call, please let us know if there are any particular days/times that are best for you.

Thanks!

-Bruce

[Barry Rafkind]

Thanks, Bruce. While I'm thankful for the encouragement and enthusiasm we've received from FairVote, I'm hesitant about the idea of having them be our parent organization since I think that would align us to folks representing a particular solution (RCV) to the gerrymandering problem. While I agree that Ranked Choice Voting could be used to accomplish the goal of achieving proportional representation, it is not the only such voting system [read more on Wikipedia about proportional methods]. How about letting the states experiment with different voting systems as long as they accomplish the same thing?

Although you've mentioned that the CEA would be informed first by experts, it was my understanding that the CEA was just a concept initially and that the details would be worked out through this crowd-sourced initiative. To say that the CEA will use FairVote's RCV Act (as currently stated on citizenequality.us) seems premature given the CEA's early status. That is a bold and specific plan put forth without any crowd-sourcing. It raises the question of how open and inclusive the CEA will really be and why such details were settled so soon.

Furthermore, I would say that the CEA can best maintain its integrity in this early phase by ensuring that any fiscal sponsor not have as its mission the adoption of specific electoral or political reforms. Once the details are hammered out, I would see no problem in having a fiscal sponsor that then officially promotes some or all of it. So, for now, I would support us seeking a different fiscal sponsor so we can remain independent.

Thoughts?

[Bruce Skarin]

All great points, but after a few good conversations with FairVote they have decided to focus on their mission. I'm going to get details on fiscal sponsor used by NH Rebellion.

Christopher, any word on the Sunlight Foundation front?

Thanks,

-Bruce

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[mislavkos]

Bruce, you mentioned a call in your post. Is there a recurring call that's been set up, and if so, how can find out the call-in details?

-Mislav

[Clay Shentrup]

On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 9:31:37 PM UTC-5, Barry Rafkind wrote:

While I agree that Ranked Choice Voting could be used to accomplish the goal of achieving proportional representation, it is not the only such voting system

Indeed, some members of The Center for Election Science (myself included) believe IRV is actually a fairly poor way to advance PR, since it doesn't erode two-party duopoly. We argue as such here.

http://asitoughttobe.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/

And there are a number of better and/or simpler PR methods than STV. E.g.

http://ScoreVoting.net/RRV.html

http://ScoreVoting.net/Asset.html

http://scorevoting.net/CanadaSA1.html

http://scorevoting.net/CanadaSA6.html

Clay Shentrup

Co-founder, The Center for Election Science