The 2017 Bylaws & Rules Committee final report is now available here. Consideration of this report will be the primary order of business at the state convention Saturday, Aug. 12 from 9:30 to noon.
Thanks to everyone who submitted a comment or suggestion. If you have additional comments or want to propose an amendment, please submit it in writing and signed (email will suffice) to the Secretary (with a copy to the chair) by the opening of the convention.
For reference, the current bylaws are here and the current Convention Standing Rules are here.
Tim Cole
Bylaws & Rules Committee Chair
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However, of course, I am constrained to address the one exception: recommendation #7, “Amend Membership.”
Currently, a resident of North Carolina can become a member of the LPNC in any one of four ways:
1. Register to vote as a Libertarian
2. Be a member of the national LP
3. Be a current dues-paying member of the LPNC
4. Take the NIOF pledge
The proposed change would take one of these paths—the NIOF pledge—and at once [a] promote it into being a REQUIREMENT for LPNC membership and [b] demote it to no longer be a sufficient condition for membership.
Fundamentally, I oppose this proposed change on two grounds: philosophical and practical.
Let me say right up front that I love the NIOF pledge! Indeed, I am one of 83 people on record with the LPNC as having committed to it. I fervently believe that if every human on Earth hewed to non-initiation of force as a guiding light in her or his life, we would be much, much better off. And it’s a great shorthand way to communicate libertarian principles, right up there with “don’t hurt people and don’t steal their stuff.” Having it as a path to membership in the party sends a wonderful meta-message, on both moral and propagandistic levels.
Having said that, I am well aware of the shortcomings of NIOF as an absolute principle. Namely, as such, it doesn’t work. There are numberless real-world examples where a particular act would harm some folks but doing nothing—as a strict interpretation of NIOF dictates in such a circumstance—would harm more. Or actions that might save the lives of a sizable minority by minorly harming the majority—also not allowable under a strict constructionist view of NIOF. Consequently, some principled libertarians object to NIOF as inherently unviable, and would never agree to pledge to uphold it. While I do not agree with these folks that the shortcomings of NIOF as an absolute principle render it worthless, philosophically I am not prepared to kick them out of the LPNC over the matter. Which is what we will be doing if we approve this recommendation.
Actually, approving this recommendation would kick the baby out along with the bathwater, practically speaking. Currently, we there are approximately 35,000 members of the LPNC:
1. Registered Libertarians: 33,174 (as of 29 Jul17)
2. Members of national LP (not registered as Libertarians): 1,433
3. Dues paying members (not registered as Libertarians): 319
4. NIOF pledge (not registered as Libertarians): 51
The first number comes from the NCSBE website; the other three from the LPNC’s NationBuilder database. The total is approximate as there are undoubtedly a few dupes among the last three listed categories.
As I mentioned, there are currently 83 individuals who have taken the NIOF pledge. However, 40 of those have not fulfilled any of the other three conditions. Therefore, if we approve this bylaws change recommendation, we would be kicking them out, along with the other 34,900+ current LPNC members who have not taken the NIOF pledge…effectively reducing the number of members of the LPNC from 35,000 to 43. If the recommendation were approved and took effect immediately, most of the delegates who voted for it would likely no longer be eligible to serve as delegates to this convention. :-)
Doubtless dozens or even hundreds would hasten to take the pledge—you can easily do so on the LPNC website—but practically speaking, we would never get back most of the registered Libertarians in the state. Indeed, we’d be lucky to get 10% of them. With the party just now breaking the one-half-of-one-percent threshold statewide, is throwing most of those folks out really a smart move? If there are countervailing advantages to doing so, I would be most interested to learn of them.
Furthermore, this change would degrade the value of the NIOF pledge itself. The way things are now, if you meet someone who has taken it, you know the odds are good he or she is sincere, because it’s voluntary. Creating a flood of folks who don’t really care either way but take it because it’s a mandatory box to check—or worse still, secretly disagree but check it out of expedience in order to be eligible to run for party office or impress a romantic interest or whatever—serves no beneficial LPNC interest that I can fathom.
(BTW…venturing back to philosophy for a moment…is pressuring folks to sign the NIOF pledge consistent with the NAP?)
And finally, there are about 700 donors in the database who have not taken the NIOF pledge. Not all of them are paid members (defined as having contributed $25 or more to the LPNC in the past twelve months) but most of them are. If we approve this recommendation, would we then contact each of those paid members and—as technically, they have been evicted from the party—offer them a pro-rated refund for the remaining portion of the membership they purchased but we have rescinded (if they refuse to take the pledge)?
For all these philosophical and practical considerations, I urge a vote AGAINST recommendation #7.
Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions!
+1 Erik Rausep re: membership dues amount flexibility.
I move to amend (this recommendation) to 1) insert the words “affirming they are not a registered voter affiliated with another political party” after the word “party Secretary,” 2) number the first paragraph as 1, and the subparagraphs a, b, and c, and 3) add the following paragraph 2. “This article is effective January 1, 2019.”
1. A resident of North Carolina may become a member of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina by submitting a written or electronic affirmation to the Party Secretary that they do not advocate the initiation of force to achieve social or political goals; affirming they are not a registered voter affiliated with another political party, and; fulfilling at least one of the following criteria: a. Maintaining voter registration as a Libertarian, as long as the party is recognized by the State of North Carolina, or; b. Maintaining current membership dues with the Libertarian National Committee, or; c. Maintaining current membership dues with the Libertarian Party of North Carolina, defined as a donation of $25 in a calendar year for any purpose.
Add: “5. Duties and responsibilities outlined in Article IV (”Officers") may not be delegated to the Executive Director."
Rationale: it should be common sense, but no appointed person should ever have the authority of an elected person (or their duties and responsibilities) for which that position exists.
Add the below or something to accomplish the same:
5. A resident registered with another political party may not be considered a member of the LPNC. An unaffiliated resident may be a member if they fulfill 2., or 3., or 4. or Article III.
Article IV, Section 2, # 5 calls for the Chair to “Select, with the advice and consent of the Executive Committee, an Executive Director…”, which might be interpreted as a requirement.
Article V, Section 3, # 1 states “The Chair may, with the advice and consent of the Executive Committee, select an Executive Director…”, which is clearly an option rather than a requirement.
I recommend that the language of the first citation above be modified to agree with the second citation, to make it clear that the selection of an Executive Director is an option, not a requirement.