[Lnc-business] interpreting "place" of convention to be virtual

[Alicia Mattson]

<NS> It is my ruling as Chair, and supported by the opinion of the
Libertarian National Committee's special counsel, Oliver Hall, that “place”
in the bylaws can mean a virtual convention in the situation where it is
impossible for the vast majority of the selected delegates in the party to
travel to a physical location.  As such, a virtual convention held on
Memorial Day weekend would be a proper convention and compliant with the
bylaws.</NS>

Though there is no pending question before us to give cause for a ruling,
let's suppose that there is intent to make a motion on Saturday which would
give such occasion, and this is the ruling we hear from the chair.  I know
the chair will cut me off before I could say all of this in a meeting, so
I'll hope you'll consider my thinking in advance.


1)  When the argument is that we should make an interpretation, it is
important to not stop reading RONR passages too early.  RONR p. 588 - 591
gives some "principles of interpretation" and I hear lots of people quote
the beginning of #1, "Each society decides for itself the meaning of its
bylaws" and then stop reading there.  Usually the arguments come from
ignoring the first three sentences of the paragraph, but in this case let's
focus on the fourth sentence.

"Each society decides for itself the meaning of its bylaws. When the
meaning is clear, however, the society, even by a unanimous vote, cannot
change that meaning except by amending its bylaws. An ambiguity must exist
before there is any occasion for interpretation. If a bylaw is ambiguous,
it must be interpreted, if possible, in harmony with the other bylaws. ..."

Also note principle #2, "When a provision of the bylaws is susceptible to
two meanings, one of which conflicts with or renders absurd another bylaw
provision, and the other meaning does not, the latter must be taken as the
true meaning."

Is it harmonious with our other bylaws to say that "place" includes an
online convention?

Well, our bylaws adopt RONR, which as I have noted before on RONR p. 97,
"Except as authorized in the bylaws, the business of an organization or
board can be validly transacted only at a regular or properly called
meeting—that is, as defined on pages 81–82, a single official gathering in
one room or area—of the assembly of its members at which a quorum is
present."

With that in our parliamentary authority, if our bylaws do not authorize
it, then our bylaws inherently prohibit it, and a bylaw amendment would
have to be adopted to authorize it.

Our bylaws also say that the LNC meets "at such times and places as may be
determined by...," yet we understood we needed to put separate and clear
language into our bylaws to allow electronic meetings for boards and
committees.  Principle of interpretation #4 would apply here to say that
listing certain things serves to prohibit other things of the same class,
so authorizing electronic meetings only for boards and committees would
preclude it for conventions.

We did not adopt language to authorize it for conventions, and interpreting
the word "place" regarding the calling of conventions is certainly not
sufficient to do it.

We have other phrases in our bylaws which only exist with a physical
location convention hall, such as:
- "All members must wear the identification badge issued upon registration
in order to be admitted to the Convention hall."  (what must I wear to the
virtual convention?)
- our bylaws speak of delegates, "who are temporarily or permanently absent
from the floor"  (cyberspace does not have a floor, but convention halls do)
- not in the bylaws, but in our convention rules, the 30-token rule for
nominations involves the "affixing of signatures to a nominating petition"
which is a physical interaction
- not in the bylaws, but in our convention rules, it calls for voice votes
which are absurd in an electronic meeting

There are likely other instances, but you get the point that the
interpretation of "place" as being virtual is NOT in harmony with other
bylaws/rules which are physical in nature.

I don't see that the principles of interpretation really give us a path to
interpret that "place" includes a virtual meeting.


2)  Let's get more basic than that, though.  On PAGE ONE, we see that the
VERY FIRST SENTENCE of RONR begins (caps added by me for emphasis), "A
deliberative assembly - the kind of gathering to which parliamentary law is
generally understood to apply - has the following distinguishing
characteristics: [...] The group meets in a single room or area or under
equivalent conditions of opportunity for SIMULTANEOUS AURAL COMMUNICATION
AMONG ALL PARTICIPANTS."

RONR p. 97 repeats the thought that an electronic meeting, "does not lose
its character as a deliberative assembly (see pp. 1–2) so long as the
meetings provide, at a minimum, conditions of opportunity for simultaneous
aural communication among all participating members equivalent to those of
meetings held in one room or area."

RONR p. 5 (beginning principle) lists principal types of deliberative
assemblies as including a convention.  If there's no simultaneous aural
communication, it's not a deliberative assembly, and it's not a convention.

Besides the other serious problems, the Zoom-webinar which was tested
earlier this week did NOT allow for simultaneous aural communication among
all participants.  The configuration is designed for information to only
flow one direction, and all others merely observe.  Delegates were only
allowed to hear each other speak when the chair permitted it.  Nor could we
use the chat room to communicate directly with each other.  We couldn't see
who, or even how many were "present."  By and large we had no idea what
other delegates were doing.

This configuration fails to meet a mandatory requirement of a deliberative
assembly.  It so egregiously undermines the ability of the delegates to
exercise their fundamental rights.  Each delegate was in an isolation cage,
limited to information the chair decided to give us.  That was not a valid
deliberative assembly, was not a meeting of a deliberative assembly, and
could not be a convention.  The delegates have not ceded their rights in
this way.

When a subset of LNC members first evaluated electronic meeting options for
boards/committees, we thoroughly evaluataed the ability of participants to
know the status of other participants.  Are they in the meeting at all?  Is
their microphone muted?  Can the participants see whose hands were raised
so we know who is being ignored?  These features were very important to
prevent a participant from being admin-blocked from participation.  The
Zoom-webinar configuration bulldozes all of those participant protections
as well.

I'm going to need something more concrete than "These aren't the droids you
are looking for," to be convinced that the chair's ruling is correct, and I
would enthusiastically vote to overturn such a ruling.

-Alicia