[Lnc-business] Seeking Co-Sponsors for Motion regarding internal debate rules for 2018 NatCon

[Elizabeth Van Horn]

Daniel,

That sounds like a very reasonable option, and may solve a lot of the 
issues.

---
Elizabeth Van Horn


On 2018-06-03 10:12, Daniel Hayes wrote:
> Elizabeth,
> 
> I favor expanding it to 90 minutes per debate.  There were a number
> factors that got us to 60 minutes each but I really think we should
> expand it and let people make their choices about what they attend.  I
> could be wrong but I don’t suspect there will be a huge amount of
> opposition on the COC to doing that. That really isn’t the inclusion
> rules anyway.
> 
> 
> Daniel Hayes
> LNC At Large Member
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Jun 3, 2018, at 8:07 AM, Elizabeth Van Horn via Lnc-business 
>> <lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Thank you Joshua, for writing most of what I was thinking.
>> 
>> Regarding the time issue, why would the Chair/VC debate need to be 
>> only two hours, due to some unrelated social activities? One of the 
>> reasons so many people are attending this particular LP national 
>> convention is because of interest in the Chair and VC races.  I looked 
>> at the tentative convention schedule, and the Chair/VC debates are 
>> from 7-9 PM.  At 9 PM, three other events start, and run until 11 PM 
>> and 12 midnight respectively.  People will make choices to attend any 
>> of those three events, or none.
>> 
>> Why not have the Chair/VC debates go until 10 PM?  If people already 
>> have choices to make, why not have an option to also see the important 
>> element of the convention?  Adding an hour to the Chair/VC debates 
>> would still allow people to attend the other events if they wished, 
>> and still see the last hour of the debates.
>> 
>> ---
>> Elizabeth Van Horn
>> LNC Region 3 (IN, MI, OH, KY)
>> Secretary Libertarian Party of Madison Co, Indiana
>> LP Social Media Process Review Committee
>> Vice-Chair Libertarian Pragmatist Caucus
>> http://www.lpcaucus.org/
>> 
>> 
>>> On 2018-06-03 00:48, Joshua Katz via Lnc-business wrote:
>>> I will not join any of these, because the following summary conveys 
>>> my
>>>   impression of the state of affairs.  We have a committee to handle 
>>> the
>>>   details of the convention, with this board approving certain parts 
>>> of
>>>   the arrangement.  On this topic, we gave, so far as I know, no
>>>   proactive indication of board priorities or big-picture thoughts.  
>>> The
>>>   committee came up with a solution.  We now have several competing
>>>   proposals for the board, instead, to substitute its own details.  
>>> The
>>>   first of these proposals came from a member of this board who, I 
>>> think,
>>>   intends to participate in one of the elections being discussed.  
>>> The
>>>   latest proposal comes from a member of the committee it is proposed 
>>> we
>>>   'direct' by telling it what to decide.
>>>   None of this, in my opinion, reflects anything close to effective
>>>   governance.  If this board wants committees to prioritize things, 
>>> we
>>>   should tell them - not as individuals, but as a board.  We should 
>>> not,
>>>   instead, let the committee come up with its best solution with the
>>>   information it has, and then rewrite its decision ourselves.  We
>>>   should, further, recognize that every decision has trade-offs.
>>>   Personally, as I have said several times, I oppose much about the 
>>> way
>>>   we run conventions. I believe our conventions should be for 
>>> business.
>>>   I do not think they should combine business with a knock-off of 
>>> Mark
>>>   Skousen's thing, because, inevitably, it drives up costs, requiring 
>>> us
>>>   to then focus on the things that bring in money - i.e. not 
>>> business.  I
>>>   think we should stop denigrating the purposes for which we have
>>>   conventions with the now ubiquitous (and irritating) phrase "moving
>>>   commas."  (How many criminal cases, by the way, have hinged on 
>>> comma
>>>   placement?  Perhaps an organization designed for the purpose, among
>>>   others, of electing legislators and, at the state level, judges, 
>>> should
>>>   not treat comma placement as an obvious waste of them.)  But, 
>>> whatever
>>>   my feelings on the matter, we've chosen as a party to live in a 
>>> world
>>>   with trade-offs that need to be navigated.  If we're going to tell 
>>> a
>>>   committee, therefore, that something is to be prioritized, we need 
>>> to
>>>   tell them, also, what to deprioritize - or accept that they will
>>>   decide.
>>>   In any case, I will cosponsor if someone puts forward a motion 
>>> giving
>>>   general directions on the topic, although I think if we have a 
>>> taste
>>>   for that, we should have done it a long time ago.  I will not 
>>> cosponsor
>>>   anything that puts the LNC in the position of making the decision 
>>> the
>>>   board should make.
>>>   I will also disagree with the chair (if the assumption above is
>>>   correct) on one point, while agreeing with the rest: I am not 
>>> inclined
>>>   to accept the suggestion that a good way to design a debate 
>>> involves
>>>   the debate designer coming to an understanding with an incumbent
>>>   candidate, unless that understanding is also going to involve every
>>>   candidate.  Since it isn't (and we don't even have a satisfactory
>>>   definition of 'candidate' anyway) I would suggest that we shouldn't 
>>> be
>>>   seeking an understanding of that sort.  While, as Mr. Hayes points 
>>> out,
>>>   there are important differences between this and the typical 
>>> election
>>>   debate, one similiarity is that taking input on the format only 
>>> from
>>>   the incumbent is a problem.
>>>   On a more general note, I will note that just about every debate 
>>> I've
>>>   seen in recent decades has more resembled a random splicing 
>>> together of
>>>   speeches than a debate.  This is less true in the LP than in the
>>>   general context, so it's not terribly relevant here, I guess, but 
>>> it
>>>   annoys me.  I am sick and tired of debates featuring no interaction 
>>> or
>>>   engagement between candidates.
>>>   Joshua A. Katz
>>>   On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 11:03 PM, Daniel Hayes via Lnc-business
>>>   <[1]lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:
>>>     I  will be putting forward the following motion if needed, 
>>> however,
>>>     I would encourage all people sponsoring motions to withdraw their
>>>     sponsorships until after the next COC meeting this Monday at 
>>> 9:30PM
>>>     Eastern.  I personally had reservations for the standard we put
>>>     forward and I have much greater comfort for something along the
>>>     lines of what I am proposing here.
>>>     I had hoped people would heed Nick’s request so I held off on 
>>> this.
>>>     People haven’t withdrawn other motions so, time to seek 
>>> Co-sponsors
>>>     for this one.
>>>     ——————-
>>>     Move to direct the Convention Oversight Committee to amend the 
>>> Chair
>>>     and Vice-Chair debate inclusion rules to include the following
>>>     provisions:
>>>     There shall be a maximum of 5 candidates on stage at the 2018
>>>     Libertarian National Convention during any internal debate for 
>>> the
>>>     office being sought.  Tokens shall include as an option, “None of
>>>     the Above (NOTA)”.   Also, tokens shall provide a space for a
>>>     write-in candidate.
>>>     Delegates shall only be allotted one token per debated office and
>>>     shall only select one option per token.  Tokens with more than 
>>> one
>>>     option selected shall not be counted to determine debate 
>>> inclusion.
>>>     Tokens shall not be transferable.
>>>     Any candidate that receives fewer tokens than NOTA for a debated
>>>     office shall not be included in that debate.  There shall be no
>>>     representative for NOTA included in these debates.
>>>     —————
>>>     Daniel Hayes
>>>     LNC At Large Member
>>>     LNC COC Chairman
>>>     Sent from my iPhone
>>> References
>>>   1. mailto:lnc-business at hq.lp.org