[Lnc-business] Committee Transparency revived

Tim Hagan timhagan-tyr at yahoo.com
Sat Aug 13 20:55:39 EDT 2016


Certain committees need to have non-public discussions on matters other than lawsuits or personnel matters, so the openness of meetings needs to be on a case-by-case basis. Some that came to my mind are when the website committee solicited bids, the bids could not be published publicly where later bidders could get an unfair competitive advantage. If a Candidate Support Committee is formed, candidates and campaign managers may not want their campaign plans available to their opponents, although any donations or in-kind contributions can be published since they will end up reported in publicly available reports.

Last year the Awards Committee agreed to have confidential discussions. This allowed us to discuss the pros and cons of award nominees more frankly, and have the award recipients be surprised when the winners were announced at the convention. The award winners, but not the Hall of Liberty inductees, were kept secret until the announcement at the convention.
Having a webpage where all of the committees can publish contact information (either for each committee member or an e-mail address that's forward to all members), minutes, and meeting notices would be good. Requiring 48 hours public notice before meetings is problematic. Sometime a committee may need to act fast (I'm thinking Ballot Access) and other times the most convenient time all committee members are available may be the next evening. Besides, would party members be checking the page every day to look for meeting notices? I'm just brainstorming now, but maybe we could have an e-mail list that anyone can sign up to that would announce all meeting notices.

Tim Hagan

      From: Caryn Ann Harlos <carynannharlos at gmail.com>
 To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org 
 Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 8:46 PM
 Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Committee Transparency revived
   
PS:  That means that most of Ken's concerns are problem he should have with the system we have right now.  I am not proposing anything new or revolutionary.  I am simply wishing to codify that with the transfer of any authority the duties of that authority, as it exists right now, must also be transferred.  
If anyone is truly opposed to that, I am in wonder that no motions or attempts to change the LNC rules as they are right now hasn't been attempted.
On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 9:41 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos <carynannharlos at gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you for your input!
I will respond in full this weekend (maybe tomorrow) but the elephant in the room that is being ignored is this:  these items are being taken care of by the LNC right now.  It is transparent right now.  I am not proposing further transparency than we have right now.  Since we have that right now and it is supported by our membership and was passed by the LNC, I would find any attempt to shift this to a committee without the transparency we have right now as a back door attempt to abrogate current policy and would oppose.
That being said, there are some of Ken's points I can agree to or concede.  More details in my full response.
I thank you sincerely for your participation.
-- 
In Liberty,Caryn Ann HarlosRegion 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos at LP.orgCommunications Director, Libertarian Party of ColoradoColorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus



On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Sam Goldstein <goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with Ken in his analysis of this proposal 100%  We are a political party, not a social club and the members and delegateselect LNC members to do the business of the party.  Committees have enough serious work of the party to accomplish without having to worry about every action or word being help up for criticism.
I would consider supporting Ken's proposal if there were an amount of spending that would trigger a review or approval of the chair.  I doubt the chair wants to be involved in micro-managing the expenditures of several committees for stamps and envelopes.  Either a set dollar amount or percentage of that committee's budget would be acceptable.


Sam GoldsteinLibertarian National CommitteeMember at Large8925 N Meridian St, Ste 101Indianapolis IN 46260317-850-0726 Phone317-582-1773 Fax
On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:15 PM, Ken Moellman <ken.moellman at lpky.org> wrote:

 So, I'm breaking this down, and I still have a few concerns. (I never intended to de-rail before, sorry about that.)  First, there are committees with no power to spend, but are strategic in nature that would fall under this proposal. Specifically, I can tell you that the Ballot Access Committee has discussed important strategies on how to achieve ballot access.  I have already heard from some members that they believe committee transparency would expose our strategy, putting us at greater risk of being on the wrong end of shenanigans. By the wording, these substantial strategies would be required to be exposed.  And it's not even just the Ballot Access Committee. Look at Affiliate Support or Candidate Support; do we really want to let our opposition know our next few chess moves?  I foresee a day where our opposition raises money to counter the actions of a candidate to be funded by the LNC before the candidate even gets the money from the LNC.  Politics is a game of chess, and telling your opponent your next 3 moves means you're either really good, or really dumb. And I don't see us winning elections, so that might narrow such a move into only one of those two categories... I'm all about transparency, but only after the information is of no value to our opponents anymore, and cannot be used by our opponents to cause harm to the party or its candidates.  Second, a committee would be able to set their own rules on executive session.  What stops a committee from adopting rules that puts them permanently into executive session whenever they're in a business meeting?  Unless, of course, we create special rules for every committee (and clutter up the Policy Manual -- sorry, but it's true!)  Third, you're talking about creating new mailing lists aliases.  That's more work for the LNC staff.  
Fourth, the Ballot Access Committee has had one or two emergency meetings. There are times when 48 hours notice is not realistic.  Fifth, I strongly oppose publishing my phone number on LP.org.  I'm already annoyed enough that I get phone calls from petition coordinators from around the US. It is great to have my phone going off in the middle of the day while I'm trying to be on a conference call, or trying to lead a meeting (sarcasm). Maybe some folks like having their phones blown up and being put on spammer phone lists. I do not.  Finally, I would suggest not hardcoding the "public reflector" language. There are better ways to publicize mailing lists that don't involve the current configuration which could be examined in the future.     So, now that I'm through everything that I see wrong with it, here's what I'd counter-propose: Any committee which has been empowered to expend funds shall notify the LNC chair, in writing, of the exact wording of any motion passed by the committee to expend funds, and the LNC chair shall be responsible for approving those expenditures prior to funds being expended.  All expenditures shall be recorded in compliance with the law and this policy manual.  All expenditures shall be reported to the full LNC at the next in-person LNC meeting.  ---
Ken C. Moellman, Jr.
LNC Region 3 Alternate Representative
LPKY Judicial Committee On 2016-08-11 22:20, Caryn Ann Harlos wrote:
As per the request of several committee members, here once again is what I like to offer as a Policy Manual Amendment: 2) Committee TransparencyThe names and contact information (phone number, email address, or both)for all committee members shall be posted on the LP.org website.  Unless otherwise specifically excepted on a committee-by-committee basis or within the committee's own published standing rules for "executive session," all committee meetings shall be open to any member of the National Party to observe or listen and all electronic committee correspondences shall bemade available on a public reflector system on the LP.org website, the location of which will be published with the committee contact information. Notices, minutes, agendas, and call-in information of committee meetings shall be published to said reflector list or otherwise on the LP.org <http://lp.org/> website, including a record of all substantive committee actions and how each membervoted. At least 48 hours public notice will be given for any committee meeting.  My intent for this is that I want to empower committees but will oppose that if it adds a layer of opacity that does not presently exist.  Right now, we as an LNC are micromanaging things, but at least the members can see the decisions. I would like some real discussion on this and respectfully ask that any discussions about the policy manual being too long, or needing to be consolidated, that do not debate or make suggestions as to the merit of this specific proposal have their own email thread. I want to sponsor with Joshua Katz a Candidate Support Committee.  But I cannot/will not unless we have transparency in place either in the description of that committee or as a general rule which guides all of our committees. -- 
In Liberty,Caryn Ann HarlosRegion 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos at LP.orgCommunications Director, Libertarian Party of ColoradoColorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus    
______________________________ _________________
 Lnc-business mailing list
 Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
 http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listi nfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org

______________________________ _________________
Lnc-business mailing list
Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listi nfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org




______________________________ _________________
Lnc-business mailing list
Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listi nfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org





-- 
In Liberty,Caryn Ann HarlosRegion 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos at LP.orgCommunications Director, Libertarian Party of ColoradoColorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus







-- 
In Liberty,Caryn Ann HarlosRegion 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann. Harlos at LP.orgCommunications Director, Libertarian Party of ColoradoColorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus




_______________________________________________
Lnc-business mailing list
Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org


   
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20160814/463d3c9a/attachment.html>


More information about the Lnc-business mailing list