Mimi's Proposals

[Mike Van Roy]

I can't find where in the multiple​ email threads Mimi asked for feedback on her proposals carried over from the last convention so I started yet another thread. Her proposals are attached.

I don't have a problem with #1, #3 or #4. I can't support #5 because of the issue with voting ExCom positions vs ExCom members. As I said I'm not going to take action this year on it, bigger fish to fry, but I don't have to vote to make it worse either.

I'm confused on the new language in #2: The state or county Party "that collects annual membership dues from a new member shall retain 100% of that member's dues for the first year of membership."

*Are there actually county affiliates that collect new member dues themselves instead of using LPCA's electronic payment system?

*If so, how are these new members added to Neon, and how is the accounting reconciled with the state?

*If I read this right, if a county affiliate collects new member dues themselves they keep 100%. But if the county affiliate sends the new member to the LPCA website to join that way then LPCA keeps 100% and the county gets 0%.

I think I'm missing something here.

Mike

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 00:26, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

I'm confused on the new language in #2: The state or county Party "that collects annual membership dues from a new member shall retain 100% of that member's dues for the first year of membership."

 

*Are there actually county affiliates that collect new member dues themselves instead of using LPCA's electronic payment system?

 

 

Yes.  Some county parties have their own web sites which accept payment. Some people actually pay dues by check, or even cash.

 

 

*If so, how are these new members added to Neon, and how is the accounting reconciled with the state?

 

 

The county party has to tell the state party that this has happened, and then the state party takes that into account in calculating how much to "share" with the county party.

 

 

*If I read this right, if a county affiliate collects new member dues themselves they keep 100%. But if the county affiliate sends the new member to the LPCA website to join that way then LPCA keeps 100% and the county gets 0%.

 

I think I'm missing something here.

 

 

And if it's not a new member, then the dues are shared equally!  Yes, very complicated.

 

We have gone back and forth on this over the years.  There are reasonable arguments both ways. I doubt we have consensus within this committee about what would be best, and we certainly don't have time to have a big debate about it.  I think this is one that should be left to Mimi to present and argue for herself, if she feels it is important enough.

[Mike Van Roy]

OK, thanks for the clarification. 

Given that explanation, I’m a hard No on Proposal #2 unless it’s significantly reworked. As written, it effectively rewards the least consistent and least auditable methods of dues collection — manual processes, off-platform payments, inconsistent reporting, and all the risks that come with checks or cash changing hands. 

As an affiliate Treasurer myself, I think we should be moving in the *other* direction: toward uniform, reliable, and transparent dues processing across the state. The method of collection shouldn’t determine the split. 

I *could* get behind giving county affiliates 100% of first-year dues, regardless of collection method, if the committee wants to encourage local acquisition efforts. But tying the split to manual vs. electronic payment is — respectfully — a recipe for avoidable accounting headaches.

Mike

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 08:21, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

OK, thanks for the clarification. 

 

Given that explanation, I'm a hard No on Proposal #2 unless it's significantly reworked. As written, it effectively rewards the least consistent and least auditable methods of dues collection — manual processes, off-platform payments, inconsistent reporting, and all the risks that come with checks or cash changing hands. 

 

As an affiliate Treasurer myself, I think we should be moving in the *other* direction: toward uniform, reliable, and transparent dues processing across the state. The method of collection shouldn't determine the split. 

 

I *could* get behind giving county affiliates 100% of first-year dues, regardless of collection method, if the committee wants to encourage local acquisition efforts. But tying the split to manual vs. electronic payment is — respectfully — a recipe for avoidable accounting headaches.

 

 

It's not actually tied to "manual vs. electronic payment". There are probably people occasionally paying dues by mailing a check to the state "office" also, or handing the Treasurer $25 in cash at the registration desk if they discover their membership has lapsed when they try to sign in.

 

And some counties are collecting dues electronically, and in principle the county could be given credit even for new members who join through the state web site if they got there as a result of a referral from the county web site.  (I'm not sure if there is a provision for this right now, but we've done things like that in the past for certain kinds of contributions.)

 

Traditionally the arguments about how the state/county split should go have been more related to who "deserves" the money, based on how involved they were in causing the person to pay, or looking at it another way creating effective incentives for the county and state to both actively recruit. 

 

 

Mike

 

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On Wednesday, 12/03/25 at 07:34 Joe Dehn <jw...@dehnbase.org> wrote:

On 2025-12-03 00:26, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

I'm confused on the new language in #2: The state or county Party "that collects annual membership dues from a new member shall retain 100% of that member's dues for the first year of membership."

 

*Are there actually county affiliates that collect new member dues themselves instead of using LPCA's electronic payment system?

 

 

Yes.  Some county parties have their own web sites which accept payment. Some people actually pay dues by check, or even cash.

 

 

*If so, how are these new members added to Neon, and how is the accounting reconciled with the state?

 

 

The county party has to tell the state party that this has happened, and then the state party takes that into account in calculating how much to "share" with the county party.

 

 

*If I read this right, if a county affiliate collects new member dues themselves they keep 100%. But if the county affiliate sends the new member to the LPCA website to join that way then LPCA keeps 100% and the county gets 0%.

 

I think I'm missing something here.

 

 

And if it's not a new member, then the dues are shared equally!  Yes, very complicated.

 

We have gone back and forth on this over the years.  There are reasonable arguments both ways. I doubt we have consensus within this committee about what would be best, and we certainly don't have time to have a big debate about it.  I think this is one that should be left to Mimi to present and argue for herself, if she feels it is important enough.

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[Mike Van Roy]

Thanks, Joe. I understand the incentive argument, but my focus is on what works well *now* rather than how things operated historically. 

Linking first-year dues retention to the specific method of collection introduces avoidable risks: inconsistent accounting, audit challenges, and added complexity. Changing the payment platform doesn’t eliminate those concerns. In practice, this structure could unintentionally weaken internal controls. 

For context: I joined in late 2024 through the LPCA website and selected Alameda as my affiliate. — Mimi, in situations like that, does Alameda receive the corresponding revenue credit and, if so, how much? 

A simpler and more reliable approach would be for affiliates to keep 100% of first-year dues regardless of collection method. Keeping the policy uniform makes it easier to manage, audit, and explain. And long-term, we should be moving toward greater standardization and modernization, rather than reinforcing older, inconsistent processes.

Mike

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[Mimi Robson]

I didn't read the full thread, and just want to be clear that I wrote the amendment to dues sharing as a direct response to Aaron Starr's proposal that we have BOTH state and county dues (meaning you need to pay for both).

The amendment is exactly what we had prior to 2020 when we changed dues sharing to be 50/50 regardless of who acquired the membership.  The reason I like the first year acquisition rule is because it gives the counties a greater incentive to recruit members, especially at higher membership levels.  As an example, the LPC has exactly one Beacon of Liberty member ($5,000 life member) and that was acquired by Santa Clara County, which means that LPSCC kept the full $5,000.  

I had planned on still presenting additional amendments to the secretary, but hadn't decided 100% if I would present this one.  It kind of depended on if Aaron tried to introduce his amendment again (the one to have separate county and state memberships).  However, the first part of that amendment should be presented regardless (and shouldn't be controversial).  It gets rid of a legacy date (July 1, 2013) and it is't the chair that state chair that approves of payment methods, it's the full ExCom.

Bylaw 8: Dues Sharing

The state Party and the county Parties are encouraged to actively pursue new members and renewing membership. As of July 1, 2013, d Dues collected by the state or county Parties shall be shared as follows:.

Section 2: Collection of Dues

Collection of dues includes receiving cash, checks, money orders, authorized billing information, or other consideration approved by the state Executive Committee Party Chair, as well as donations through online services that are initiated directly from the organization’s website or e-mail appeal. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/5F5Rpcd3adeUgVFj4FH_i4xCM4n-aGnuz2pY-P22AL_kQp37sISdDwCdVIFMIA9BfBPhAM-gR6lOd67mJgjLpuceCyG4rOH5tTzlbSIwIK4%3D%40protonmail.com.

[Mike Van Roy]

Does anyone have a copy of Starr's proposal from last time? 

I remember thinking it was ridiculous because 1) Any county that actually does impose dues will face a mass exodus to counties that don't and 2) Nothing in the bylaws actually prevents counties from imposing dues now.

Mike

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[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 11:37, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

Does anyone have a copy of Starr's proposal from last time? 

 

See link at the bottom of the page at: https://lpedia.org/wiki/California_Convention_2025

 

 

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 11:02, Mimi Robson wrote:

 However, the first part of that amendment should be presented regardless (and shouldn't be controversial).  It gets rid of a legacy date (July 1, 2013) and it is't the chair that state chair that approves of payment methods, it's the full ExCom.

 

Bylaw 8: Dues Sharing

The state Party and the county Parties are encouraged to actively pursue new members and renewing membership. As of July 1, 2013, d Dues collected by the state or county Parties shall be shared as follows:.

Section 2: Collection of Dues

Collection of dues includes receiving cash, checks, money orders, authorized billing information, or other consideration approved by the state Executive Committee Party Chair, as well as donations through online services that are initiated directly from the organization's website or e-mail appeal. 

 

None of this language is currently in the bylaws.

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 10:52, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

Thanks, Joe. I understand the incentive argument, but my focus is on what works well *now* rather than how things operated historically. 

 

I am not arguing for one policy or the other -- I don't think the historical experience actually makes a strong case for that either way. I was referring to historical policies to illustrate some of the complexity of the issue -- and also as a warning that since this is something on which we have switched back and forth in the past I think it would be a mistake to assume that even if we all agreed that one policy would "obviously" be better, it won't necessarily be an easy sell at the convention, because there are a lot of past arguments that will still be in people's minds.

 

Linking first-year dues retention to the specific method of collection introduces avoidable risks: inconsistent accounting, audit challenges, and added complexity. Changing the payment platform doesn't eliminate those concerns. In practice, this structure could unintentionally weaken internal controls.

 

 

But as long as we have any kind of sharing, including, there will be issues of this type.  Are you also proposing that renewal dues payments only be kept by whoever collects them? And if we don't have any sharing at all, we then have a different "internal control" problem -- what's to stop a county party from just giving away memberships and not collecting any dues at all?

 

 

For context: I joined in late 2024 through the LPCA website and selected Alameda as my affiliate. — Mimi, in situations like that, does Alameda receive the corresponding revenue credit and, if so, how much? 

 

 

I don't think just selecting a county will give the county credit for "collecting" the dues. Everybody should be "selecting" a county regardless of how they first join.  (Actually, I think that should be the default -- to "select" the county corresponding to the address that you provide.) If you did it following a special link it might -- or at least we have talked about doing something like that in the past.

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lpcalifornia-bylaws-discuss/5F5Rpcd3adeUgVFj4FH_i4xCM4n-aGnuz2pY-P22AL_kQp37sISdDwCdVIFMIA9BfBPhAM-gR6lOd67mJgjLpuceCyG4rOH5tTzlbSIwIK4%3D%40protonmail.com.

[Joe Dehn]

On 2025-12-03 00:26, 'Mike Van Roy' via LPCalifornia Bylaws Committee Discussion wrote:

I can't find where in the multiple​ email threads Mimi asked for feedback on her proposals carried over from the last convention so I started yet another thread. Her proposals are attached.

 

I don't have a problem with #1, #3 or #4. I can't support #5 because of the issue with voting ExCom positions vs ExCom members. As I said I'm not going to take action this year on it, bigger fish to fry, but I don't have to vote to make it worse either.

 

I'm confused on the new language in #2: The state or county Party "that collects annual membership dues ...

 

 

I have now added to the collection of drafts (http://dehnbase.org/lpc/temp/bylaws-draft.html) one corresponding to Mimi's #3 (regarding suspension of EC members).

 

I previously included drafts corresponding to her #1 (concerning reinstatement of members who resign) and her #4 (concerning executive sessions).

 

In each case I made some slight changes in the wording, but nothing that changes the intended effect.

 

Please review these and confirm that you are still OK with them.

 

I have not done anything with her #2 or #5.  (She seems fine with that, as she still can submit those on her own if she thinks that will make sense depending on how things develop.)

 

 

[Starchild]

I like simplicity when it comes to dues-splitting. I would even favor just making it 50/50 between the state party and the county party in every case, no matter who gets the new member. That may be slightly unfair to an organization that is doing more to build up membership than the organization with whom they have to split the revenues, but bringing in new members shouldn’t be primarily about the money anyway, and the minor amounts involved simply aren’t worth the trouble and confusion they seem to generate. In my opinion, of course.

Active counties that are doing good work will usually get a sympathetic hearing at the state level when asking for help with special projects they can’t otherwise afford, and if the state in turn has to ask counties for support for state-level projects because it lacks sufficient dues money and the county parties are better off, that helps promote bottom-up governance and accountability to the grassroots, which is a good thing.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

LPC Bylaws Committee member

(415) 573-7997

[Mike Van Roy]

But it does involve money and I'm looking at the financial concerns of how the money gets tracked and traced so both the counties and state get what is due them. With the state system uses QuickBooks and Neon and a variety of county-specific systems - assuming "system" is even the right word - I don't see a way of doing that.

At any rate Mimi isn't sending that proposal through the bylaws committee, and she may not send it at all, so for now it's a moot point.

Mike

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