bylaws/rules topics for discussion

[Joe Dehn]

There are several ideas that have already come up that might involve significant changes to the current bylaws/rules (and so would require significant work if we wanted to pursue them). Please feel free to add to this list by replying to this message.

I think it will be best for the actual discussion process if we have a separate thread (subject line) for each topic.  I will start such threads for each of the following in subsequent messages.

* dealing with electing delegates for a February national convention
* a mechanism for adopting state Platform planks
* having state convention delegates selected by the county organizations
* providing for candidates for delegate / party office to be rated (e.g., by Nolan Chart responses)

[Joe Dehn]

It's now been four weeks since I sent that message, and there has been only very limited discussion on three of those topics (and none on the fourth).  If we are going to have something ready to present for the convention we will need to speed up our work!

In addition, I can see another significant topic worth addressing, based on some of the discussion relating to the just-held EC meeting.  There are a cluster of issues that might be better addressed in our bylaws relating to scheduling of and participation in EC meetings.  Do we still want to require one in-person meeting per year?  Do we want to explicitly provide for "hybrid meetings", along with some sort of guidelines about how they would work to ensue that both remote and in-person participants can participate in a consistent way?  Should there be any rules relating to "transparency"?  Or participation by non-members (which, in my view, is a significantly different issue than "transparency").

Aside from these major issues, it's possible that there are some smaller, simpler issues that would be worth addressing in our report. If you believe there are, please speak up!

[Mimi Robson]

I have bylaws amendments already written up that didn't get heard at the last convention.  I can send those to this committee to see if we would like to put them on the report.  However, if they aren't on the report I will submit them on my own with advance notice.  

I do have one idea that I don't currently have written up as an amendment and would probably only do it if there is interest in putting it on the committee report.  I believe there really isn't a reason to still have an operations committee.  The reason for it originally is that the ExCom used to only be allowed in-person meetings, which happened at most quarterly.  The Operations Committee was there to be able to deal with emergencies that came up in between ExCom meetings, and they were able to meet by telephone, or postal mail.  After the ExCom was able to have email motions, it still seemed necessary for there to be an Operations Committee because email ballots could take as long as 10 days, whereas the OpsCom could meet almost immediately if all members were available.

Now that the ExCom can meet electronically, and can actually meet with very little notice, there is no longer a reason to have a lesser body.  So my proposal would be to eliminate Bylaw 14 in its entirety as well as all other mention of the OpsCom in the bylaws.

Mimi

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[June Genis]

This email confused me because I am not on the Bylaws committee. I assume I got it because I am signed up for lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss but that is not what the header says. Shouldn't the "-discuss" show up in the header field?

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[Mimi Robson]

Yes, it looks like you signed up for the google group for the LPC bylaws discussions.  If you would like to no longer get these emails you can either leave the group, or I can remove you if you want me to.

Mimi

[Mike Van Roy]

Ops Com: Would the proposal be to give the Operations Committee functions to the full ExCom or to the 4 Officers? Either way I don't really see a need to keep it.

In Person Meetings: I'm of the mind that the in-person meeting isn't really essential but doing away with it could result in longer and more frequent virtual ExCom meetings. 

For example Mimi's report was scheduled for about an hour because of everything that happened with the Treasurer function this term and the NationBuilder proposal would have had to be a separate ExCom meeting since it would be too long for a routine virtual meeting.

I also got the feeling from some that they didn't think the meeting was necessary except the bylaws currently say so, and there was an attempt to justify it by throwing everything into it that they could. 

I'm working on some ideas of my own, some substantive some trivial. I'll share my list tonight or tomorrow.

Mike

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[Mimi Robson]

My suggestion is that we get rid of the OpsCom because the ExCom can already have meetings with basically no notice (if all members attend and waive notice).  We could amend the bylaws to reduce the number of days notice for special meetings as well.

[Mike Van Roy]

I think we should. 

My main concern with the OpsCom is it's way too easy to use it to do an end run around the ExCom on things the ExCom would not want passed. I have some proposals in mind that would correct this. But getting rid of the Ops Com is cleaner. I'll still work on my ideas but they would be a fallback if getting rid of the committee doesn't work.

Mike

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-11-19 15:42, Mimi Robson wrote:

My suggestion is that we get rid of the OpsCom because the ExCom can already have meetings with basically no notice (if all members attend and waive notice).  We could amend the bylaws to reduce the number of days notice for special meetings as well.

 

 

Comparing the Operations Committee with the Executive Committee:

 

The former is one third the size (5 vs. 15).

The former can meet on shorter notice (3 days max, vs. 7 days max).

The former has some limitations on what actions it can take.

 

These all work together to serve what I believe was the original purpose -- to have a way to act quickly, when quick action is really needed, without delegating too much to a group that, being smaller, is less likely to be representative of the membership.

 

Note that while both committees can in principle meet electronically with less than the full notice time, if everybody waives notice, the size of the committee affects the utility of that provision, All it takes, to block quicker action, is the opposition of ONE member of the committee.  And it doesn't even have to be intentional -- it could just somebody camping somewhere in the wilderness without a phone for a week.  Presumably the officers, knowing they might be called on this way, are expected to not be out of touch for very long, and the fifth member of the Operations Committee can be picked with that consideration in mind. But to get actual consent from every member of a 15 member committee, some of whom may have agreed to serve with no particular plan to be involved more than once a month -- much more likely to fail.

 

The alternative of just reducing the notice time for an online EC meeting would certainly make it easier to get things done, but if a meeting could be held with only a couple of days notice without anybody having to waive notice, that could create a different sort of problem, of something important being decided with a significant minority of the EC not having a chance to weigh in.  Notice requirements exist for a reason!

 

So what, exactly, is the concern with the current setup?  I know I feel uneasy about it, but I think the times when I have been troubled about it in the past were when the OC did something that seemed like it could have waited, or in some way that the rest of the EC never really was able to see how it was decided.  There has been too much of an information gap between the two committees, to a degree that seems inconsistent with the idea of the OC just being a way for EC-type actions being done quickly, in emergency situations,.

 

Perhaps we can come up with a hybrid mechanism in which all EC members have a chance to be involved if they care and are available, but action can be expedited through a vote of the smaller pre-selected group.  Essentially make an OC meeting more like a special type of EC meeting, in which all EC members have the right to participate, the same sort of minutes are kept, almost everything the same -- the only real difference would be in the voting, to allow a pre-selected subset to act without waiting for the entire EC to either show up or explicitly waive notice, when quick action really is needed.

 

 

[June Genis]

I'm not sure if the OPScom is helping with quick decision making anyway. You may recall that review of the Prop 50 mailer was assigned to the OPScom on the basis that a quick decision might need to be made. A meeting was never called. Loren sent the draft to the committee and I forwarded a copy to Dave since he presumably best knew the target audience. Loren, Dave and I were the only people that actually submitted feedback. A meeting with 3 day notice would have been totally impossible.

Back in the 20th century anyone who might need to be available on short notice carried a pager to which they were supposed to reply immediately. In theory a cell phone should be able to perform the same function now but I don't know what would be involved in setting up something like that. If we could make sure immediate notice got to the whole excom that a meeting was required, and we only required a % of people to respond that might take care of short notice problems.

Meanwhile, no one has yet responded to my message that no action has been taken by anyone so far to create the EIN Wire account that was authorized at the October meeting. Thus the communications committee has been unable to send out a release on the Trump resolution, or anything else for that matter. If we had an Executive Director I think it would be that person's job to ensure that there was prompt followup on anything that happened at a meeting. Since it is unlikely that we are going to be able to afford to fund that position any time soon it would appear that responsibility thus falls to the chair. Perhaps we need the last item of business at all meetings to be a review of action items generated at the meeting noting who is responsible for followup in what time frame. I don't know offhand what if any Bylaws changes would be needed to implement any of this.

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-11-23 08:55, June Genis wrote:

I'm not sure if the OPScom is helping with quick decision making anyway. You may recall that review of the Prop 50 mailer was assigned to the OPScom on the basis that a quick decision might need to be made. A meeting was never called. ...

I agree that it doesn't seem to be functioning very well now.  But I think it may still be useful to pre-define a specific small group, empowered to make certain kinds of decisions quickly, more quickly than would be reasonable to expect the whole EC to act, even given improvements in communication technology.  Communication technology is not the only obstacle to decision making, and now that it has gotten so good it may no longer be the main obstacle -- I am concerned about "human" factors, like how much attention people who agree to be on a committee are supposed to be paying to everything, all the time, and whether trying to rush things through a large group might lead to certain kinds of biases and mistakes that we would want to avoid.

 

Back in the 20th century anyone who might need to be available on short notice carried a pager to which they were supposed to reply immediately. In theory a cell phone should be able to perform the same function now but I don't know what would be involved in setting up something like that. If we could make sure immediate notice got to the whole excom that a meeting was required, and we only required a % of people to respond that might take care of short notice problems.

Yes, but if we require just a certain percentage, how do we know those people will be representative of the whole?  Do you really want our decision-making processes biased so strongly toward the sort of people who spend all day on Facebook and X?

If you think that would be a good idea, why stop at the EC?  Why have an EC at all? Why go through all the bother of defining and electing a committee, when there are plenty of people ready and willing to make the decisions for us using 21st Century technology? Why not just invite all dues-paying members, or all registered Libertarians, to join a signal chat and whenever anybody makes a suggestion as soon as 25 of the people in the chat attach a heart emoji to it that decides the matter?

 

I think ideas like committees and representation and deliberation before voting are still important, no matter how fast we can each transmit our thoughts to everybody else.  I agree that the time for a distinct "Operations Committee" may be past.  But I also think we might be able to construct a better mechanism for making certain kinds of decisions by continuing to make use of some of the ideas that made having an Operations Committee seem useful in the past.

 

[Mimi Robson]

I will fully admit that the problem with the OpsCom is that it hasn't been used properly for a while.  It seems that what happened recently is that there wasn't an OpsCom meeting (please note, there is no provision for the OpsCom to have email ballots, only meetings).  So it may be that there was just a misunderstanding on what the allowable ways of doing business?

As far as the ability to have ExCom meetings more quickly, there could be a provision in the Bylaws that in the case of emergency the ExCom can meet for a special meeting within (fill in the blank time), so long as X number of members are present?  I could write something better than that, but I am just throwing out the idea.

Again, I think the OpsCom was originally there because the ExCom could only meet in person. . .that has changed so it means a small number of people can make decisions that should be left to the full ExCom (IMO).

[June Genis]

So how would such an emergency meeting be called? By the chair? A certain number of excom members? How much time would they be given to reply? Would they even have to respond or would it just be a meeting announcement to which they might or might not join? Would quorum requirements be the same as a regular meeting with advance notice or would there be a shorter advance notice requirement for an emergency meeting? If so, how short?

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[Mimi Robson]

The bylaws already define how a meeting can be called, and that wouldn't change.  The only thing I am suggesting is that we lower the time requirement for special meetings for emergency situations to be called.  If the meeting is for something that requires a 2/3 vote of all eligible positions (like if a contract is being signed, money is being spent, or someone is being disciplined) that would still need 10 votes regardless of the members present.  So in other words, if you don't have 10 people there then nothing can happen.

I can see how this doesn't seem ideal, but seriously, how many times does something come up that needs that kind of time frame?

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-11-24 11:53, Mimi Robson wrote:

The bylaws already define how a meeting can be called, and that wouldn't change.  The only thing I am suggesting is that we lower the time requirement for special meetings for emergency situations to be called.  If the meeting is for something that requires a 2/3 vote of all eligible positions (like if a contract is being signed, money is being spent, or someone is being disciplined) that would still need 10 votes regardless of the members present.  So in other words, if you don't have 10 people there then nothing can happen.

 

 

Right -- the bylaws already define, for the Executive Committee, things like how a meeting is called, the notice required, what constitutes a quorum, and how many votes are required to take various kinds of action.  But the problem we are discussing is: What if something must be decided that can't wait for all those conditions to be met?

 

Note that there are already other ways that decisions can be made quickly.  Certain kinds of decisions might be considered within the authority of the Chair to decide, especially an emergency. Everybody might think it would be better if the EC had a chance to make the decision, but if it's critical for the good of the organization that a decision be made most people will be willing to accept the Chair making the decision, maybe even if they disagreed with his decision, and sometimes even if it's not totally clear he had the authority, if the alternative were no decision at all.

 

Other decisions that we can foresee will need to be made quickly can be explicitly delegated in advance to an officer or another committee -- that approach can work both for general classes of decision that come up repeatedly or for a particular case ("move that the EC approve buying an X with the choice between vendor A and vendor B to be decided by the Y Committee").  Sometimes the Operations Committee has been used for that, but it doesn't have to be the Operations Committee -- in some cases some other committee would actually make more sense (e.g., the Convention Committee for a convention-related service, or the Website and IT Committee for a web hosting vendor).

 

I can see how this doesn't seem ideal, but seriously, how many times does something come up that needs that kind of time frame?

 

The problem is that the times when we need this sort of mechanism most, when doing it the right way is most critical, is when we can't foresee what sort of decision will need to be made, and so cannot delegate the authority in advance, through the bylaws or an EC resolution, to somebody specific based on the nature of the decision.  We need a general mechanism that we can trust to make a reasonable decision in an emergency, without having any idea in advance what sort of decision will need to be made.

 

The EC has the appropriate general authority to deal with almost any emergency and is designed to be sufficiently representative to exercise that authority.  But if we reduce the notice time, or the quorum requirement, or anything else that would procedurally prevent the EC from acting quickly, then we also lose the protections that those requirements were put in place to provide. An "emergency" is not a good time to forget about such considerations! A serious enough emergency might force us to do so, but we should avoid getting ourselves into such a situation if we can possibly help it.

 

The additional "feature" that something like the Operations Committee provides is pre-selection of the subset of the larger body.  Something might come up that really has to be decided when we can't get everybody together, or maybe even can't notify everybody -- because some people are asleep or on a plane or ... who knows.  But it really has to be decided NOW, and allowing just five people to make the decision is better than the alternative of not having the decision made at all.  But that still doesn't mean leaving it to the first file people who show up in the Zoom would be a good idea, or the best idea.  The Operations Committee, instead, defines a particular group of five people, presumably selected with this kind of situation in mind, as being suitable for acting on behalf of the larger body.  And given that, the fact that they have been pre-selected for that purpose, we can then more safely change the other parameters, like reducing the notice requirement.

 

But we might be able to take advantage of the availability of better communication technology to structure a solution that is even better than what we have been doing, with the Operations Committee structured as it has been up until now.

Let's say we keep the idea of a "pre-selected subset" for making the decisions, in cases where the normal procedures for calling a full EC meeting would take too long, but use the better technology to be able to get some of the benefits of participation by the larger body to the degree they can be reached in time. What benefits?  (1) Better "representation", to be able to take into account considerations or constituencies that the smaller body might miss. (2) More expertise/experience, that other EC members might be able to provide. (3) Transparency -- so other EC members don't feel they are being intentionally left out of how important decisions are being made.

 

My idea: Have the EC continue to appoint an "Operations Committee" (but we could also consider changing the name) but when they are called upon to act they do so in what would in other respects look like a special meeting of the EC (special in the sense of being called to deal with a particular matter).  The whole EC would be notified, both that a meeting is going to take place and the proposed action, and all be welcome to attend, and contribute their input to the discussion. But when it comes time to actually decide the matter, it would just be the Operations Committee members who would vote.  Why shouldn't the rest of the EC members be able to vote, if they show up?  Because, again, we don't want important decisions being made, even in an emergency (or maybe even especially in an emergency) based on who is quickest to log in, or who happens to have been looking at their e-mail at that moment, or who has a job during the day, or any of the many other things that might happen to make somebody unavailable at that moment.  All the procedures for notice and quorum for a regular EC meeting are designed to give everybody a chance to come so that they can all vote.  But if there isn't time for that, and the decision has to be made by a small fraction of the full body, it would be better to have that done by a pre-defined subset, rather than a random subset.  And of course by inviting the whole EC to attend, that automatically forces "reporting" of any decisions that the Operations Committee might make.

 

Variations on this that could further protect against potential abuse by the Operations Committee, relative to the interests of the full EC or the membership more generally, and specifically to address any concerns that the Operations Committee might act in the name of "emergency" when there really isn't one: (1) Allow some fraction of the full EC to "veto" the call of the meeting, if they believe the matter should be deferred to a meeting of the full EC. (2) Say that if some supermajority of the full EC (e.g., 4/5) does show up for the meeting, the meeting automatically becomes a meeting of the full EC, with the Operations Committee losing their special status with respect to voting, for that meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike Van Roy]

So a majority of the bylaws committee thinks the OpsCom is irrelevant at best, harmful at worst.

The question is do we want to reform it or abolish it.

My view is, even if we can reform it to make it workable, it still may not actually be necessary. We could give it's current duties to the Officer positions or to the ExCom as a whole.

BTW if someone is going to be out of contact for an extended time they should be telling people about it in advance. But with Starlink becoming standard for cell phone carriers even that may become a moot point.

RONR has a method of dealing with actual​ emergencies which is to let whoever has the ability to make a decision do so, but the body must ratify that decision at it's next meeting. If they fail to do so then the people who took action become personally liable. That, in theory, prevents people from declaring an emergency over things not actually emergencies.

Mike

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[Joe Dehn]

My suggestion for how to deal with the Operations Committee question was in the attached message, from about a week ago. The specific approach I am suggesting we consider can be found in the second paragraph from the end, beginning with "My idea:".  But it's at the end because the rest of what I wrote, above it, explains how I believe this would be a better solution than just shrinking the notice and/or quorum requirement for a full EC meeting, so you probably will want to read the whole thing to understand the point of it.

Also, it's probably worth considering that historically there have been multiple ideas about the role of the Operations Committee -- some people seeing it as useful for one thing, others for other things.  Roughly: (1) as a mechanism to enable action in an emergency; (2) to take care of mundane ("operational") management decisions without bothering the whole EC, (3) as a place to more safely deal with some kinds of decisions that might be better done without everybody watching. Personally, I think that purpose (2) can be better served by just delegating authority for the truly mundane operational decisions to somebody else -- one of the officers, or some other committee that already handles related topics.  And I'm not comfortable making it easier to deal with purpose (3) in this way -- in general I'd prefer our decision-making processes to be transparent, but if there is something we really must do in secret we have the option of the full EC handling it in executive session.

So I see the main reason for keeping the EC at all is if it can help us deal with "emergencies", as a body that is more representative than any single officer, but that can respond more quickly than the full EC.

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

Subject:	role/function of Operations Committee (was Re: [LPC Bylaws Discuss] bylaws/rules topics for discussion)
Date:	2025-11-24 16:43
From:	Joe Dehn <jw...@dehnbase.org>
To:	Mimi Robson <hmro...@gmail.com>
Cc:	LPCalifornia-Bylaws Discuss <LPCalifornia-...@googlegroups.com>

[June Genis]

How well the Operations committee can respond to emergencies is highly dependent on how responsive the committee members are. As I mentioned before, delegating approval of the Prop 50 mailing text turned out to be of little help as most members did not respond. The composition of the OPS.com is defined in the bylaws as being primarily composed of the officers which in turn is dependent on how responsive the people elected to the officer positions are. Perhaps it would be better if all members were appointed by the Excom based on how responsive they have promised or have proven themseves to be.

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[Mike Van Roy]

It seems like ending the Ops Com is like ending the Fed. Any reason is a good one.

If there really is an actual emergency that just can't wait for a full ExCom meeting, and this seems to be a hypothetical of what *might* happen *someday*, I think we can trust the officers (Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer) to make that decision, with later ratification by the ExCom, without creating a permanent committee just in case. I'm not sure adding one more person would make that much difference. The possibility of being personally liable if that decision isn't ratified is a feature not a bug.

Mike

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[Mike Van Roy]

I just saw something.

Getting rid of the Operations Committee in the bylaws is conceptually pretty easy. Just strike Bylaw 14 in it's entirety and make "conforming amendments" to Bylaw 11 (Officers) Sections 3, 7 and 9. That takes a 2/3 vote.

Bylaw 15 (Judicial Committee) Section 2 could be a problem. That Section requires a 3/4 vote to amend.

So in theory we could have a delegate vote that is 2/3 but not quite 3/4. That could leave us with an Operations Committee that exists on paper within the Judicial Committee Bylaw but would exist nowhere else in the Bylaws document.

Mike

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 14:23, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

I just saw something.

 

Getting rid of the Operations Committee in the bylaws is conceptually pretty easy. Just strike Bylaw 14 in it's entirety and make "conforming amendments" to Bylaw 11 (Officers) Sections 3, 7 and 9. That takes a 2/3 vote.

 

Bylaw 15 (Judicial Committee) Section 2 could be a problem. That Section requires a 3/4 vote to amend.

 

So in theory we could have a delegate vote that is 2/3 but not quite 3/4. That could leave us with an Operations Committee that exists on paper within the Judicial Committee Bylaw but would exist nowhere else in the Bylaws document.

This is actually an issue with the proposal about state Platform planks as well, since it includes adding Platform Committee to that section.  So I should probably break that off into a subsidiary proposal, to be voted on only if the main one passes. (And if the main one does pass, I don't think getting 3/4 for that adjustment will be hard.)

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 10:10, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

It seems like ending the Ops Com is like ending the Fed. Any reason is a good one.

 

If there really is an actual emergency that just can't wait for a full ExCom meeting, and this seems to be a hypothetical of what *might* happen *someday*,

 

 

This is something about which we should have some relevant facts.  How often has the Operations Committee been used this way, to deal with an emergency that really could not have been handled by convening the entire EC (currently requiring seven days notice)?

 

I am sure it was used in that way in past decades, before teleconferencing was so common and convenient.  But how about recently -- specifically in the past five years?

 

Do we have minutes of the Operations Committee meetings for the past five years?

 

If so, we should be able to review them and see what, if anything, that committee was actually doing that was useful.  And if not, if the Operations Committee has been doing things but we aren't sure exactly what, I would consider that itself to be a reason to make some kind of change.

 

 

I think we can trust the officers (Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer) to make that decision, with later ratification by the ExCom, without creating a permanent committee just in case. I'm not sure adding one more person would make that much difference. The possibility of being personally liable if that decision isn't ratified is a feature not a bug.

 

Well, given the way the Operations Committee is currently structured, it's pretty close to just "trusting the officers".  I suspect the main reason the idea of appointing one more person is in there was the concern about having an even number, i.e, to be a potential "tie breaker".

 

So if anybody thinks trusting the officers is good enough, I don't see why they would consider it urgent to change anything about this.

 

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 09:27, June Genis wrote:

How well the Operations committee can respond to emergencies is highly dependent on how responsive the committee members are. As I mentioned before, delegating approval of the Prop 50 mailing text turned out to be of little help as most members did not respond. The composition of the OPS.com is defined in the bylaws as being primarily composed of the officers which in turn is dependent on how responsive the people elected to the officer positions are. Perhaps it would be better if all members were appointed by the Excom based on how responsive they have promised or have proven themseves to be.

 

 

That's very close to how it was for most of our history, probably since the idea of an "Operations Committee" was first introduced.  It was defined to include the Chair, but not any of the other officers, by default.  Sometimes the EC would appoint some of the other officers, sometimes not.  And I am pretty sure that how available a person was likely to be on short notice was one of the factors that was typically considered (along with other factors, of course, like the person having a reputation for being responsible, reliably libertarian, and so on).

 

And I think it was clear back then that it was not necessarily the case that the officers would be the best choice, in any of those respects.  The officers are chosen, by the delegates, primarily for other reasons.  For example, they want to elect a Treasurer because he/she has experience with accounting, or a Secretary who is careful about keeping records. There is no particular reason that those skills should correlate with availability to attend meetings on a moment's notice.

 

This idea that it should be the four officers plus just one other person is very recent.  That change was only made in 2024!

 

So maybe that's a clue to what we should be doing now -- just propose putting it back the way it always was, until two years ago, with the explanation that this was something that was tried and didn't really work very well.

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 16:39, Joe Dehn wrote:

 

Do we have minutes of the Operations Committee meetings for the past five years?

 

If so, we should be able to review them and see what, if anything, that committee was actually doing that was useful.  And if not, if the Operations Committee has been doing things but we aren't sure exactly what, I would consider that itself to be a reason to make some kind of change.

There is a page on the web site (https://ca.lp.org/minutes/) that lists minutes of meetings -- including state conventions, EC meetings, and occasional meetings of the Operations Committee.  Whether this occasionality of the posted minutes is an accurate reflection of the occasionality of the meetings, is not at all clear. It's possible that there were meetings without minutes, or that the minutes were not posted consistently.  I have also heard that there were in fact other meetings, ones that may have never been formally reported on at all even to the EC. But it's at least a sample of some of what was going on during these years.

For most of the past six years there are NO minutes of Operations Committee meetings posted there.  Only for 2023 are there such minutes, for a total of five meetings.  Here is what they were about:

18 May 2023

appoint Adrian Malagon as LNC Representative

12 September 2023

approve minutes of the 7 December  EC meeting
accept resignation of LNC representative
appoint new LNC representative
appoint new LNC alternate

28 September 2023

approve minutes of the 28 December EC meeting (held earlier the same day)

9 December 2023

approve minutes of the 2 December EC meeting

20 December 2023

approve minutes of the 18 December EC meeting

I don't see anything that we would normally consider an "emergency" here. It is not essential that vacancies in positions like LNC representative be filled instantly. And whatever was going on there, the "emergency", such as it was, arose from internal shuffling.  There is nothing here to suggest that there was any urgent need to respond to some situation imposed on us from outside.

I was surprised to see this pattern of the Operations Committee approving minutes of the EC -- that seems contrary to the normal scheme of things.But I can imagine why it was felt to be necessary in at least two of the cases -- because there had been a change in Treasurer and some financial institution was probably demanding to see minutes.  But even for that a delay of seven days might not have been a problem. (And none of that would have usually come up in the middle of a term anyway.)

[Joe Dehn]

I have now added draft language relating to the Operations Committee.  There are three "parts", intended to allow for two different results.

The first part simply eliminates the Operation Committee entirely, by removing the Bylaw that defines it, and removing references to it from a few other bylaws sections. The second part ("part B") does the same for the section concerning membership of the Judicial Committee; I separated this so that the 3/4 approval requirement would not apply to adoption of the main proposal. This "part B" would only be presented if "part A" passes, and if we get to that point I doubt there would be any significant opposition to adopting it.

The second alternative, represented by "part C", would only be presented as a backup if the delegates don't want to eliminate the Operations Committee entirely. It would revert the membership of the Operations Committee back to what it had been since forever, until less than two years ago, with the EC able to appoint whoever they think would serve this specific role best. They could still appoint any of the other officers if they want, but they would not be required to do that.

Please review  (http://dehnbase.org/lpc/temp/bylaws-draft.html) and let me know if you see any problems with either the idea or the language.

There does not appear to be enough interest in my hybrid "an Operations Committee is an EC meeting with special rules" approach for me to bothe writing that up.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/b891168fe0955dd3b7bea404f7b965c7%40dehnbase.org.

[Mike Van Roy]

Those minutes - or lack thereof - show a disturbing pattern of the Operations Committee doing an end run around the Executive Committee for things that were not actually emergencies. That's what I feared the committee could be used for and it appears that fear was justified.

When I saw that I put on a pot of coffee and resolved to write the amendment proposal myself, only you beat me to it! It hit all the points I would have hit. 

I already have the rationale outline in Word so I'll continue that tomorrow.

Mike

Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/71abe0075014ffeb4b736f37bf0fac01%40dehnbase.org.

[Starchild]

Mimi,

Your suggestion here (and the thinking behind it that you discuss in your email below) make perfect sense to me. 

Perhaps we can come up with a hybrid mechanism in which all EC members have a chance to be involved if they care and are available, but action can be expedited through a vote of the smaller pre-selected group.  Essentially make an OC meeting more like a special type of EC meeting, in which all EC members have the right to participate, the same sort of minutes are kept, almost everything the same -- the only real difference would be in the voting, to allow a pre-selected subset to act without waiting for the entire EC to either show up or explicitly waive notice, when quick action really is needed.

It also sounds a bit like what Sandra Kallander was just suggesting to me about having a pool of people who can be called on as volunteers to help resolve county-level disputes, and what I’ve thought about as an organizational model more generally – let anyone who shows up, who has met some basic threshold of ideological eligibility (e.g. being a party member) fully participate in whatever decisions are to be made.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/ba4fb219ba4ffa6c0652ccbdc74bce0f%40dehnbase.org.

[Starchild]

I believe we should always have two full Executive Committee meetings at each convention: One at the start of the convention, with members of the outgoing committee, and another at the end of the convention with the newly-elected committee members. 

Executive Committee members usually attend our conventions, as do many other members. This allows us to have in-person meetings at which there is more opportunity for ordinary members to participate. Many of them will already be present to do party business at the convention anyway, and many of them are more likely to be paying more attention than at other times of the year. During the rest of the year, attending an in-person meeting requires a special trip, and few members not on the ExCom are likely to take the trouble to do so unless they are local to the area where a meeting is held.

This will allow each ExCom to have at least one in-person meeting per year, while still allowing us to minimize extra travel obligations for committee members by holding the rest of the year’s meetings remotely by videoconference.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

LPC Bylaws Committee member

(415) 573-7997

[Starchild]

"Perhaps we need the last item of business at all meetings to be a review of action items generated at the meeting noting who is responsible for followup in what time frame.”

This is a great idea, June! I’m not sure about putting it in the bylaws – the chair might not always be the most appropriate person to follow up on something – but it sounds like a good practice for the ExCom to implement.

Do you know whether the EIN Wire account has been set up yet and is being used now? Was the Trump resolution sent out and picked up anywhere?

Speaking of media outreach, I’m told Tara Young is the point person for social media. I emailed her a couple weeks ago (and am copying her on this message) but didn’t get a response. Do you have her phone number? 

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

[Starchild]

Joe, 

Your concern here is a very reasonable one:

Do you really want our decision-making processes biased so strongly toward the sort of people who spend all day on Facebook and X?

If you think that would be a good idea, why stop at the EC?  Why have an EC at all? Why go through all the bother of defining and electing a committee, when there are plenty of people ready and willing to make the decisions for us using 21st Century technology? Why not just invite all dues-paying members, or all registered Libertarians, to join a signal chat and whenever anybody makes a suggestion as soon as 25 of the people in the chat attach a heart emoji to it that decides the matter?

One possible solution might be to do just that (I favor opening decisions to members, not registered Libertarians, because anyone can register with our party regardless of ideology while with members at least there is some, albeit insufficient imho, assurance of ideological affinity via the pledge-signing requirement), but also maintain an elected body of representatives to review everything done by the people who are decision-makers simply by virtue of being the ones to show up, and who would be empowered to veto any actions they disagree with, as well as to restrict the ability of anyone putting forward really awful ideas from being part of this ad-hoc do-ocracy.

There would still potential pitfalls around things being done that are difficult to undo, or that caused immediate harm before they could be undone. Maybe some limits on certain types of actions would make sense? On the whole though, I think such an approach might get more done for freedom while keeping the Libertarian Party sustainably libertarian than our current practices.

Love & Liberty, 

((( starchild )))

On Nov 24, 2025, at 9:19 AM, Joe Dehn <jw...@dehnbase.org> wrote:

On 2025-11-23 08:55, June Genis wrote:

I'm not sure if the OPScom is helping with quick decision making anyway. You may recall that review of the Prop 50 mailer was assigned to the OPScom on the basis that a quick decision might need to be made. A meeting was never called. ...

I agree that it doesn't seem to be functioning very well now.  But I think it may still be useful to pre-define a specific small group, empowered to make certain kinds of decisions quickly, more quickly than would be reasonable to expect the whole EC to act, even given improvements in communication technology.  Communication technology is not the only obstacle to decision making, and now that it has gotten so good it may no longer be the main obstacle -- I am concerned about "human" factors, like how much attention people who agree to be on a committee are supposed to be paying to everything, all the time, and whether trying to rush things through a large group might lead to certain kinds of biases and mistakes that we would want to avoid.

 

Back in the 20th century anyone who might need to be available on short notice carried a pager to which they were supposed to reply immediately. In theory a cell phone should be able to perform the same function now but I don't know what would be involved in setting up something like that. If we could make sure immediate notice got to the whole excom that a meeting was required, and we only required a % of people to respond that might take care of short notice problems.

Yes, but if we require just a certain percentage, how do we know those people will be representative of the whole?  Do you really want our decision-making processes biased so strongly toward the sort of people who spend all day on Facebook and X?

If you think that would be a good idea, why stop at the EC?  Why have an EC at all? Why go through all the bother of defining and electing a committee, when there are plenty of people ready and willing to make the decisions for us using 21st Century technology? Why not just invite all dues-paying members, or all registered Libertarians, to join a signal chat and whenever anybody makes a suggestion as soon as 25 of the people in the chat attach a heart emoji to it that decides the matter?

 

I think ideas like committees and representation and deliberation before voting are still important, no matter how fast we can each transmit our thoughts to everybody else.  I agree that the time for a distinct "Operations Committee" may be past.  But I also think we might be able to construct a better mechanism for making certain kinds of decisions by continuing to make use of some of the ideas that made having an Operations Committee seem useful in the past.

 

Meanwhile, no one has yet responded to my message that no action has been taken by anyone so far to create the EIN Wire account that was authorized at the October meeting. Thus the communications committee has been unable to send out a release on the Trump resolution, or anything else for that matter. If we had an Executive Director I think it would be that person's job to ensure that there was prompt followup on anything that happened at a meeting. Since it is unlikely that we are going to be able to afford to fund that position any time soon it would appear that responsibility thus falls to the chair. Perhaps we need the last item of business at all meetings to be a review of action items generated at the meeting noting who is responsible for followup in what time frame. I don't know offhand what if any Bylaws changes would be needed to implement any of this.

Virus-free.www.avast.com

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-04 18:49, Starchild wrote:

I believe we should always have two full Executive Committee meetings at each convention: One at the start of the convention, with members of the outgoing committee, and another at the end of the convention with the newly-elected committee members. 

 

This has been standard practice for the LNC for as long as I have been involved with the LP (that they hold a meeting just before and just after each national convention).  But for some reason our EC does not seem to have felt the need for a pre-convention meeting, at least not on any kind of regular basis.  Before we considering making any rule saying they should do that, I would want to try to understand the difference.

 

 

Executive Committee members usually attend our conventions, as do many other members. This allows us to have in-person meetings at which there is more opportunity for ordinary members to participate. Many of them will already be present to do party business at the convention anyway, and many of them are more likely to be paying more attention than at other times of the year. During the rest of the year, attending an in-person meeting requires a special trip, and few members not on the ExCom are likely to take the trouble to do so unless they are local to the area where a meeting is held.

 

This will allow each ExCom to have at least one in-person meeting per year, while still allowing us to minimize extra travel obligations for committee members by holding the rest of the year's meetings remotely by videoconference.

 

But the current provision in the bylaws specifically mandates an in-person meeting that is not held in conjunction with a convention, i.e., which will involve "extra travel" for many people. That's what the proposal we are preparing to present would change. So do you support that change?

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/69E3DE22-9D26-4782-B184-F8C670CCFE90%40earthlink.net.

[Starchild]

Joe,

I favor eliminating the requirement for the Executive Committee to meet in person at other times not at convention, but want to amend our proposal to require two in-person meetings at each convention as described below. That should help make eliminating the requirement for a separate in-person meeting more palatable.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

LPC Bylaws Committee member

(415) 573-7997

[Mike Van Roy]

I'm surprised this isn't standard for us. It is in most organizations. It doesn't add much in terms of travel inconvenience because they're already traveling anyway. In principle I agree with it but procedurally I think it would have to be a separate proposal.

Mike

Sent from Proton Mail for Android.

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

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/08C1B959-527B-455E-A233-94439A8FFAD6%40earthlink.net.

[Mike Van Roy]

Just to clarify I'm not suggesting we force the EC into a meeting they don't think is necessary. In fact that's the rationale for getting rid of the in-person meeting they have now. But I am surprised that they don't think a pre-convention meeting the day before is necessary since they're likely in town anyway.

Mike

Sent from Proton Mail for Android.

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

[Honor (Mimi) Robson]

When would a pre convention meeting happen?  I believe the LNC does it the day before the convention and it’s a 3-4 day convention so people are there all week. If we still had a three day convention it would be different, but as it is we run out of time to get everything done in two days. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 5, 2025, at 11:08 AM, Mike Van Roy <mikev...@protonmail.com> wrote:

I'm surprised this isn't standard for us. It is in most organizations. It doesn't add much in terms of travel inconvenience because they're already traveling anyway. In principle I agree with it but procedurally I think it would have to be a separate proposal.

[Mike Van Roy]

This past convention was my first, and according to Adrian it was stripped down, but assuming others follow the same basic formula there is an optional Friday night reception and business meetings Saturday and Sunday. I could see it either during the reception or a few hours before.

But again that's assuming the EC sees a need for it. 

Mike

Sent from Proton Mail for Android.

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

[Honor (Mimi) Robson]

I personally don’t see a need for it. I think the important meeting is the one after the convention with the new board. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 5, 2025, at 12:44 PM, Mike Van Roy <mikev...@protonmail.com> wrote:

This past convention was my first, and according to Adrian it was stripped down, but assuming others follow the same basic formula there is an optional Friday night reception and business meetings Saturday and Sunday. I could see it either during the reception or a few hours before.

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-05 11:08, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

I'm surprised this isn't standard for us. It is in most organizations. It doesn't add much in terms of travel inconvenience because they're already traveling anyway. In principle I agree with it but procedurally I think it would have to be a separate proposal.

 

 

I'm not sure why there is this difference, between the LNC and the state EC.  It's possible that there is something about the way that the national party operates that makes it more useful for the LNC to have that additional meeting, for it to be more likely that there is "unfinished business" for an outgoing LNC to deal with. But I have served many terms on both bodies and attended a number of other pre-convention LNC meetings as an observer as well, and I still can't pinpoint the difference. 

 

Possibly it is a matter of traditional creating necessity.  If you expect there to be a meeting at that time, you plan other things accordingly, resulting in things that need to be done then, creating the need for that meeting!

 

And as Mimi noted, there is that difference in convention length, with the national convention usually being three days of business plus other stuff being scheduled for at least one more day.  So it's easier to fit in one more meeting on the day before convention business starts.

 

Note (for anybody trying to understand all this who hasn't been around for decades), that the LPC did also used to have some meetings during the day on the Friday before the convention, specifically the final meetings of our Bylaws and Platform Committees (back when they operated more like what Starchid is now advocating, with no requirement that their reports be published in advance). But even then I don't think we normally scheduled an EC meeting on that day.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/f6bvxBOay4Q0V9DEPHZcqSbWAascfEJ_5SRkQMRIADVllkma7SBXXJj4v8-TBF1-x9Poy5iQKQ5Q70LC3T2ZM1EGZ11KM1p4OLSW3kFfqeU%3D%40protonmail.com.

[Starchild]

For a typical two-day, Saturday-Sunday convention, I imagine it would happen Friday afternoon before the reception. Or it could happen opposite the reception. Ultimately whatever most ExCom members preferred.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

LPC Bylaws Committee member

(415) 573-7997