[Lnc-business] Committee Transparency revived

Thu Aug 11 23:41:35 EDT 2016

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 Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org/>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/>

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 delegates
> elect 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 Goldstein
> Libertarian National Committee
> Member at Large
> 8925 N Meridian St, Ste 101
> Indianapolis IN 46260
> 317-850-0726 Phone
> 317-582-1773 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 Transparency
>>
>> The 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 Harlos*
>> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska,
>> Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
>> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
>> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
>> <http://www.lpcolorado.org>
>> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
>> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>

-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20160811/4d19fc66/attachment-0002.html>