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

[david.demarest at lp.org]

Daniel,

I favor 90 minutes for 4 or 5 participants. 90 minutes worked well for the Vice-Chair debate at the UnConvention with 4 participants, moderated expertly by George Phillies.

Less then 90 minutes with 4 or 5 participants does not make for much of a debate. More than 90 minutes will lose attendees when normal span-of-attention interest levels are reached. More than 5 participants in any single debate tier exceeds practical logistical limits as illustrated by Ken Moellman's math.

I am not opposed to more than one tier of 4 or 5 in the Vice-Chair debate but only the top tier will generate much interest. More important, at some point, event management must make a business decision on what is logistically practical, something that is often forgotten in these discussions. You can't make everyone happy, as I learned very quickly. Kudos to the COC committee on a marvelous job beyond all expectations. This is going to be a great convention that the COC and all of us can be proud of. Everyone I talked to at the UnConvention is eagerly looking forward to NOLA, as I and my staff are. NOLA will set the standard for mid-term conventions.

See you in New Orleans!

David Pratt Demarest
LNC Region 6 Representative

-----Original Message-----
From: Lnc-business <lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org> On Behalf Of Daniel Hayes via Lnc-business
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2018 9:12 AM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Cc: Daniel Hayes <daniel.hayes at lp.org>; Joshua Katz <planning4liberty at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Seeking Co-Sponsors for Motion regarding internal debate rules for 2018 NatCon

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