[Lnc-business] Committee transparency

Joshua Katz planning4liberty at gmail.com
Sat Sep 24 23:52:03 EDT 2016


I will be introducing the motion to amend indicated below.  Bold is for
additions, italics for removal.

Before that, though, I have some comments on this motion.  First, not all
committees have power - in fact, some members of the LNC are likely to
support this while also believing that no committees, or very few, should
be empowered.  What is the purpose of a non-empowered committee?  It
depends on the committee, but in all cases, the committee is supposed to be
composed of people with particular knowledge in a particular area or on a
particular question, and to return recommendations for action.  RONR
differentiates between a few sorts of committees.  Standing committees are
composed of "the strongest possible group for the handling of any task that
may arise within the province of the committee."  Special committees are
subdivided into types.  A special committee appointed to carry out an
instruction from the assembly should be composed only of those who favor
the action.  When one is appointed for investigation and deliberation, it
should be larger, and should represent all viewpoints within the
organization, to the extent possible.  This motion, though, treats all
three of these committees types alike.

When we impose obligations on committee members, we are limiting the pool
of people willing to serve.  We should, therefore, be sure that the
obligation makes sense and serves a purpose.  When a special committee is
appointed to carry out an instruction, I see no particular purpose to
compelling committee members to provide their contact information.  Their
task is not aided by being provided with the opinions of various party
members - the views of the one, or the several, do not prevail over the
views of the many - in particular, as ordered by the assembly or its
appointees.  The other two sorts it probably makes sense to display contact
information for - particularly the last type.  However, even there, what
we're doing is politicizing the process of committee deliberation.  We're
purposefully trying to allow for lobbying and email campaigns - in the case
of the candidate committee, for instance, we're making it easier to get a
letter-writing campaign on behalf of a candidate whose campaign does not
advance our strategic objectives.  As I said here a few weeks ago, we're
favoring the most vocal over the decisions made by the delegates as a whole.

Regarding "or within the committee's own published standing rules for
executive session," why on earth would we require this?  We are discussing
committees appointed by the LNC.  The LNC operates under RONR and our own
rules.  Committees we appoint are not permitted, unless we give them
permission, to adopt their own rules of order.  Presumably, we'd interpret
this rule as us giving them permission to adopt their own rules of order as
regards executive session, but that misses the point - unless they do, they
operate under our rules of order, in which executive session is
well-defined (and limited more than in RONR).  What is being achieved here,
other than forcing a committee to adopt a motion making either our rules or
RONR's less restrictive rules for executive session their own?  These rules
exist, and are available on our website.  RONR is available in any
bookstore.  Exactly what 'transparency' is gained by simply chucking out
portions of our own rules for committees, and then telling them "if you
want it, you can adopt it."  Furthermore, if a committee is not permitted
to enter executive session, a standing rule would not be sufficient to
allow them to.

I agree with Ken that we should not bind our rules to any particular form
of technology.  As concerns all internal email communications, I oppose
this restriction on committees.  Unlike boards, committees produce a
work-product.  Committees often do not keep minutes because their report is
exactly what they've done.  An empowered committee is a bit different, but
similar in this sense - I'd support everyone being able to know what
they've done, and the right of the committee to make its reasons public.
Furthermore, exactly how would this be enforced?  If two people are both
appointed to a committee, are they permitted to email each other separately
from the "official list?"  Are they allowed to call each other and discuss
how they feel about a topic before the committee, phones being electronic
devices?  True, a phone call isn't a correspondence - how about texts?

As for emergency meetings, I for one am not interested in missing filing
deadlines or other statutory dates because it is realized 36 hours before a
meeting that the committee didn't properly file its rules for emergency
meetings, or didn't think to word them in a way that includes the situation
in which it finds itself.

Move to Amend Policy Manual Section 2.02 (page 23) to add a new subsection
(2) and re-number the remaining as follows:

2) Committee Transparency

The names and contact information (phone number, email address, or both)
for all committee members shall be posted on the LP.org website*, except
that the committee member may choose not to disclose contact information*.
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 *with the exception of executive
sessions **and all electronic committee correspondences shall be made
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 member voted.* At least 48 hours
public notice will be given for any committee meeting*, with the exception
of emergency meetings as defined within the committee's own published
standing rules., except that a call to meeting agreed to by all committee
members shall be made available publicly at the time it is issued.*
Joshua A. Katz
Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20160924/db5caefd/attachment.html>


More information about the Lnc-business mailing list