[Lnc-business] Motion to rescind

Fri Sep 23 09:58:07 EDT 2016

Now to address Arvin’s points.

==This motion to rescind is a bad strategy.==

Depends on what you want to accomplish.  My motion isn’t about strategy, it
is about a repellant condition that prejudices committee and member
rights.  When that happens, the good strategy is to get out of it.  I don’t
play chess with member rights.  And further, although this keeps getting
put out of the conversation, I have a serious concern about the due
diligence in the negotiations of this contract.  We were told most
assuredly that there were NO confidentiality provisions in the contract and
that there was a strategic discussion with counsel about us voluntarily
keeping it secret until Inauguration Day. Something I likely would have
supported.  For strategic reasons.  My initial objection was that the Chair
had to have a vote of the LNC to do that.  But a mere twenty minutes later,
we learn that no, in fact, there was a confidentiality clause, and  it is
eternal.  This suggests, highly, and at least highly enough that I feel it
is my fiduciary duty to press the point, that this contract was negotiated
without full awareness that this clause was there.  And that suggests
ineffective advice of LNC counsel on this or lack of due diligence in this
issue on the part of the Chair.  We are humans.  This happens.  I have
conceded in the initial decision to grant such authority, I did not
properly consider what could happen, and I did not consider what a
potentially unfair position it was to put our Chair in, and how,
considering all the ramifications, we should have taken more of the
responsibility as a Committee.  It actually pains me tremendously to bring
this up because I have the personal feeling we have one of the best Chairs
I have had the pleasure of working with in any context, but it is there, I
saw the ramifications, and I would not be doing my duty to the members  to
ignore it.  Now that it is here, we must deal with it.

==As LNC members, we often discuss issues of sensitivity, employment,
strategy, and legality in executive (secret) sessions. That includes
everything from employee salaries to legal and media strategy.==

We do.  And no one ever suggested a one-size fits all approach, and this is
the kind of thing that I think deflects from the issue at hand.   I don’t
have cameras in my bedroom.  But that doesn’t mean that transparency is not
appropriate elsewhere. But it does raise an interesting problem.  If THOSE
thing are used as precedent for THIS thing, then my fear is correct.  This
eternal secrecy clause will simply become more normative because future LNC
members or discussions will point to this as justification.  Which makes it
even more important to repudiate.

==A contract with a high profile presidential campaign, in my view, falls
into at least one, if not all, of those categories.==

A contract with hopefully the first of high profile candidates must be
scrutinized afterwards by members to insure their representatives got them
the best deal and to position the part for future contracts.  This is not a
new dispute.

 ==What exactly do we hope to gain by announcing the details of this
contract to the DNC and RNC? Why on earth would we announce the specifics
of our new member outreach strategy, or our joint media strategy, to our
opponents?==

There should be nothing “strategic” in this contract to begin with.  This
should be about sharing donor lists primarily.  The fact that there is this
shroud of secrecy with suggestions of some deep cover strategy then makes
members wonder what else is in there, and there is no way for them to
challenge or question or hold us accountable.    Our “opponents” can easily
find out any of the above things.  It isn’t difficult to do.  Someone on
IPR seriously suggested that I was a government plant.  Why?  I have been a
Libertarian just days over two years now (my two-year anniversary was
9/17)… and I have a position of privilege and insider knowledge.  While it
is funny to me – considering my opinion of the state and all its works – it
does drive home a point.  An old party or government operative can get
entrance quite easily and all of our eternal secrecy clauses will not do a
thing about it.

==If LNC members want to rescind the ability to sign the contract based on
some strategic flaw, financial liability, or other reason===

I gave “other reason” aplenty.

Starchild addressed the rest very adequately.

The fact that this is a high-profile contract, in an area, we have been
terrible at --- getting candidate contracts—makes it all the more important
that the members get to see it.  And note:  I have not argued for them to
see it immediately , which appears to be the assumption throughout this
post.  But we are talking eternal secrecy which is unacceptably prejudicial.

For example, a member asked…. Does the campaign have a reciprocal
confidentiality obligation.  LNC member response.  “I can’t tell you.”
That speaks more eloquently to my point then paragraphs of digital ink.

So… when we sit down and plan member outreach or fundraising….. now a new
level of opaqueness has been added since we cannot now, in open meeting,
discuss with any specificity the information received from the campaign as
it may lead to infer the terms of the contract.  We can’t even say IF WE
ARE GETTING DONOR LISTS.  Nope.  That’s hush hush.  The complete
unacceptability of this is self-evident.

-- 
*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 Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 4:23 AM, Caryn Ann Harlos <carynannharlos at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Starchild did an excellent job of answering the broad institutional
> questions this raises but there are very specfic concerns about this
> specific situation that I raised.
>
> I will address those later when I can be at a proper email.
>
> I'm somewhat disappointed though that they are asked as if anticipatory
> responses to at least some of them had not already been given, i.e., as if
> none of the prior discussion had taken place.
>
> In the first post asking for co-sponsoring I laid a good chunk of it out.
>
>
> --
> *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 Friday, September 23, 2016, Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> I've interspersed below some responses to Arvin's message...
>>
>> On Sep 22, 2016, at 10:38 PM, Arvin Vohra wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> This motion to rescind is a bad strategy.
>>
>> As LNC members, we often discuss issues of sensitivity, employment,
>> strategy, and legality in executive (secret) sessions. That includes
>> everything from employee salaries to legal and media strategy.
>>
>>
>> When the Libertarian National Committee goes into a secret meeting, we
>> hold a vote first. I proposed a motion for a similar up-or-down vote on the
>> secrecy of this contract:
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------------------------------
>> *Moved, that the National Party Agreement and Joint Fundraising Agreement
>> documents signed by the LNC chair with the Johnson campaign not be
>> disclosed beyond members of the LNC and staff who have agreed to this
>> confidentiality until January 21, 2017, at which time the documents will
>> become public unless the LNC votes prior to that date to extend the term of
>> secrecy for some additional period of time.*
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------------------------------
>>
>>   If you favor hiding the contents of the contract with the Johnson/Weld
>> campaign from our membership until at least January 21, 2016, then I
>> suggest you co-sponsor that motion (which appeared on the list September
>> 17, 2016 6:21:13 AM PDT if you'd like to go back and find it in your emails
>> in order to respond in that thread).
>>
>> If secrecy is what you want, have the courage to openly vote for it!
>>
>>
>> A contract with a high profile presidential campaign, in my view, falls
>> into at least one, if not all, of those categories.
>>
>>
>> Does it? Neither you nor I have seen it (unless you looked at it since we
>> last spoke), so I'd say we don't know. The LNC also discusses things like
>> strategy, media strategy, and so on openly here and in other venues, and
>> it's my understanding we even tell the government which is run by Democrats
>> and Republicans what our employees' salaries are in the form of FEC
>> filings. I haven't seen any evidence these disclosures are hurting us, have
>> you?
>>
>>
>> What exactly do we hope to gain by announcing the details of this
>> contract to the DNC and RNC?
>>
>>
>> • The moral authority to demand similar transparency from them and their
>> candidates
>> • Greater accountability of the LP's leadership and presidential campaign
>> by laying our guarantees to each other on the table in public view
>> • More sets of eyes to spot potential issues in the contract that ought
>> to be addressed
>> • The institutional knowledge to enable future LNCs to write better
>> contracts with future presidential campaigns instead of having to reinvent
>> the wheel from scratch
>> • An environment in which we as LNC members can talk openly and freely
>> instead of worrying about trying to remember what information we're
>> supposed to conceal from others
>> • Avoiding the mistrust and rumors that secrecy frequently engenders
>> • Helping make the Libertarian Party's governance a model for the kind of
>> open and transparent bottom-up governance we want to see practiced in
>> society
>>
>>
>> Why on earth would we announce the specifics of our new member outreach
>> strategy, or our joint media strategy, to our opponents?
>>
>>
>> Because our keeping stuff secret ultimately *hurts our cause* more than
>> our being open helps theirs!
>>
>>
>> If LNC members want to rescind the ability to sign the contract based on
>> some strategic flaw, financial liability, or other reason, I'd be open to
>> thoroughly consider that. But opposing a strategic document for being
>> secret makes no sense. Strategies are supposed to be secret.
>>
>>
>> This isn't about opposing the contract itself, only the secrecy
>> provision. Rescinding the chair's authority to sign an agreement on our
>> behalf, i.e. the LNC exercising that signing authority itself, doesn't mean
>> we can't have an agreement.
>>
>> Again I have not yet seen any evidence that the contract is a "strategic
>> document" containing "strategies" that it would hurt us for the Democrats
>> or Republicans to know about.
>>
>>
>> Even on the facebook team, we don't let new members see what we have
>> scheduled. We don't want the old party facebook pages to know what's coming
>> and create a counterstrategy. It seems that making a strategic document
>> with the importance of this one open to the public would be a thousand
>> times more unstrategic.
>>
>>
>> I'd be curious to hear an example of a past LP Facebook campaign that was
>> secretly planned, which you think would have been seriously impeded if "the
>> other side" had gotten wind of it in advance. Perhaps you have a good
>> example, but I'm having some difficulty imagining what it might look
>> like. Would it be so bad to let the cartel parties follow our lead on
>> Facebook? If they started being reactionary and counteracting us as a
>> result of our not trying to keep our plans secret, we could always point
>> out that's what they're doing. It seems to me that if some people who don't
>> support us join our groups and spend time paying attention to what we're
>> doing, boosting our hits and join numbers and so on, we should welcome that
>> (just as we welcome, for instance, trade with countries like North Korea).
>> Some of them may learn more appreciation for liberty through increased
>> exposure to libertarian ideas.
>>
>>
>> Our goal is to cut government to advance individual freedom, prosperity,
>> and greatness. That does not necessitate our acting like the government we
>> want. After, all, if we wanted the LNC to act like the ideal federal
>> government, our job, and Nick's job, would not be to be open and
>> transparent.
>>
>> It would be to fire everyone and quit.
>>
>>
>> That might be the ideal approach to the federal government from an
>> anarchist perspective, but the Libertarian Party isn't an exclusively
>> anarchist group. At the 1974 LP convention in Dallas, delegates adopted the
>> informal "Dallas Accord", agreeing to leave the door open to either anarchy
>> or minarchy (very limited government) as our end goal rather than
>> specifying one or the other, with the noble aim of minimizing infighting on
>> that issue until we have reduced the State down to a bare minimum and its
>> continued existence in any form becomes an immediate, practical question.
>>
>> When the blessed day arrives that the world is free in the eyes of most
>> Libertarians from legal aggression that needs the active opposition of
>> groups like ours, I personally hope those of us around then *will* quit
>> our positions, lay off our employees, and disband the organization, rather
>> than keeping the party in existence past the point of it having a clear
>> mission or serving a useful purpose. But clearly we are not there yet!
>>
>> Until these desirable circumstances are attained, I see no contradiction
>> in wanting the Libertarian Party to act like the ideal federal government
>> by practicing, while we exist, the kind of openness and transparency that
>> we want the U.S. federal government to practice while *it* exists.
>>
>>
>> I urge you to remember that strategy works when the other side doesn't
>> know the strategy.
>>
>>
>> Strategy can often work just as well when the other side *does* know the
>> strategy. Knowing it is not the same thing as being in a position to do
>> much about it. Strategies also can – and frequently should – be changed and
>> revised as conditions change.
>>
>>
>> This contract is open to every LNC member as long as they do not disclose
>> the content, just like our employment contracts and executive meeting
>> contents are.
>>
>>
>> Is it? I want to see the contract, and am willing to agree to not
>> knowingly disclose it if the LNC has voted to keep it secret, just as with
>> the contents of our secret meetings, which I have agreed to keep secret on
>> a case-by-case basis.
>>
>> But if we do not have that vote for secrecy, our default condition should
>> be openness and transparency, just as with our meetings.
>>
>> Love & Liberty,
>>                                   ((( starchild )))
>> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>>                                 (415) 625-FREE
>>
>>
>> To be frank, I'd much rather the DNC or RNC know Wes's or Carla's salary,
>> than to have them know the details of our joint strategy with the Johnson
>> campaign.
>>
>> I intend to vote against this motion.
>>
>> -Arvin
>>
>> --
>> Arvin Vohra
>>
>> www.VoteVohra.com
>> VoteVohra at gmail.com
>> (301) 320-3634
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
*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>
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