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

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

All I can say is - ^^^^that.  Ms. Mattson is absolutely correct on all
counts.

there is ZERO ambiguity here.  I would add provision that Ms. Mattson
didn't....

*Page 263*

*Rules contained in the bylaws cannot be suspended - no matter how large
the vote in favor of doing so or how inconvenient the rule in question may
be.*

I would add... no matter how much the chair dislikes it.

I keep hearing  well some large group of members want an all online
convention.  Note the quote above.  It doesn't matter.  No matter how the
large the vote, the bylaws are the bylaws.

I like the way Roberts for Dummies puts it:

Know when you can’t suspend the rules

Unless you provide a rule to allow you to make exceptions, you probably
don’t want to have any rules at all. But some rules *cannot be suspended:*

   -

   Constitution and bylaws: Your bylaws are a contract between members, and
   they can’t be suspended, no matter how great a vote to suspend them may be.
   Nor can they be suspended because the rule is just too inconvenient.


*In Liberty,*

* Personal Note:  I have what is commonly known as Asperger's Syndrome
(part of the autism spectrum).  This can affect inter-personal
communication skills in both personal and electronic arenas.  If anyone
found anything offensive or overly off-putting (or some other social faux
pas), please contact me privately and let me know. *



On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 2:47 AM Alicia Mattson via Lnc-business <
lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:

> <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
>