My fellow “big L” Libertarians,
I wanted to wait until the new permanent Executive Director was announced before publishing this. I am delighted that Tyler Harris was selected as permanent ED. Were I to have had any input, he would have been my first choice.
I believe very strongly that there needs to be an excellent working relationship between the chair and the ED and I am confident that Joe and Tyler will do great things together. And I believe the chair should get to choose their Executive Director.
I am however concerned that the disjointed terms of service for Executive Directors at the LNC make it difficult for an ED to create significant momentum. Having been there, it takes quite a while to get the feeling for what the job actually entails and how to be effective as an executive in an organization of Libertarians while serving your chair. Since 2009, including interims, there have been 5 Executive Directors seated (Wes Benedict served, left, and came back and served again). 80% of them served less than 2 years. In my opinion, that is too short a period to run a long-range program for sustained growth. I think we also significantly impact the type of candidate who will apply for a job, knowing that they are very likely to serve less than 2 years.
I don’t know who the candidates will be for the chair in 2022, but I can now publicly hope that Joe Bishop-Henchman is given another term. However, should he choose not to run in 2022 or not be re-elected, we could see ANOTHER Executive Director appointed.
This is why I think the Chair should be elected for a four year term.
I have a few reasons for advocating for this. Firstly and foremost, we need more continuity and less political infighting. The chair’s race being every 2 years means that almost as soon as a new chair begins service, his opponents have started to run against him. This disruptive public display of factionalism makes it very difficult for the party to function well. With the battle lines ALREADY drawn for the 2022 chairs race and supporters criticizing the LNC, it also means that it’s difficult for a chair to bring a longer range strategy to bear should it require staying a painful course longer than 2 years. A chair might feel forced by party politics to focus on actions that have immediate returns.
And from personal experience, I can tell you the Executive Director is under enormous pressure from those races as well. I was told by operatives of both chair candidates (but not the candidates themselves) that I was going to be replaced as early as March of 2020. Had I needed the job for fiscal security, I might have been very tempted to be much more obsequious — even though the job (imho) demands that the ED speak truth to power.
Secondly, I think the party has enough drama at Presidential nominating conventions. I think the Chair (and the rest of the Executive Committee) should be elected at non-Presidential (midterm) nominating conventions, and then serve for four years. This has the advantage of leaving us much more time at Presidential conventions for other business (judicial committee!) as well as allowing the Presidential candidates a cleaner environment to run in. I think it’s an incredible disservice to our Presidential candidates that they can get caught up in the factionalism of a chair’s race. And even under the best of circumstances, the changing the head of the party in the middle of a Presidential election is disruptive and the transition period hurts the Presidential nominee. No other party changes leadership in the middle of a Presidential race.
Lastly, greater continuity provides some security to donors. As Executive Director I spoke with donors in the spring of 2020 who were concerned that a change in leadership might disrupt the effectiveness of the party and that limited their donations. A four year term allows a chair to build true relationships over time with major donors. As our chair is currently unpaid, that means that few chairs are elected with a preexisting working relationship with most of the major donors. We help the chair and the party by letting chair and donors know that the relationship has some permanence.
In Reno I intend to sponsor a change to the bylaws to change the terms of the Executive Committee to 4 years and to hold their elections during midterm conventions. This idea may not make it out of committee — it may die on the floor. I hope however to convince people that the elimination of the animosity caused by our fierce LNC races every 2 years will go a long way to helping us unite more as a party. Right now the caucus fighting is (at least to me) exhausting. I see it as the largest single waste of our precious Libertarian activists’ energy. I love the idea of a Presidential nominee not burdened by bitter battle between brothers during primary season.
I look forward to hearing from you about this. You can email me at dan@people4liberty.org and I welcome your criticisms and suggestions about what will make this idea better.
We have one basic concept: don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff. So long as someone isn’t doing that, they aren’t your enemy. (Thanks to Matt Kibbe for the phrase that keeps on giving!)
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We’re going to set the world free in our lifetime. We’re going to make everyone see that coercion is always morally wrong. To do all of that we’ve got to stop beating the crap out of each other and model true tolerance.
So that’s my first open letter to you — make of it what you will. I hope to see you at a convention soon, and I remain
Your friend in Liberty,
Dan
Dan Fishman is the Executive Director of the People For Liberty. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter
I support this proposed change. Our nominating conventions should be outward-looking, focusing on what we are showing to the world; our off-year elections should be inward-looking-how we perform as an organization. At every convention we have this time-crunch to try to get all the necessary business done, with lots of negative consequences when we inevitably fail. Though probably way too much change for the party to accommodate at once, I’d go further and have the LNC and other officers be four year terms and have the nominating convention focus on Presidential-VP, platform, and bylaws (the one inward-looking exception that is probably necessary to adapt to changing circumstances/solving problems). Everything else would be moved to the off-year convention. This would allow our nominating conventions to be better vehicles for marketing as we’d have more time in the convention and more energy to produce the marketing product. We could actually engage the CSPAN audience in something other than the drama of process, but also offer compelling introductions and explications of our ideas. We would also enable our delegates more time to be off the floor to join workshops and idea forums, which is especially important for better integrating first time delegates into the party.
Thanks Eric. I think the regions can adjust their terms longer if they see fit — of course they don’t have the brutal fights that we do for chair at the national level…
If I were ever to set foot in another big L convention again, I would certainly back this proposal. It makes a lot of sense.
Thanks Cris! Will I see you at the virtual LAMA convention on 3/20?
This seems like a logical, well thought-out proposal. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to matter in the Party. I believe there is a strong contingent who thrives off of the drama and love to muck up conventions (and meetings I’ve seen). Good luck with the proposal but I don’t see this going anywhere and we’ll continue to spin our wheels despite the opportunity we have given the state of the Fat Ass and Jackass Parties.
Hope springs eternal. Maybe this is the change that gets us going in the right direction!
Dan – I’m on the committee with you and happy to not only co-sponsor this, but speak to its merit in Reno. 4 year terms for all of the LNC positions except perhaps Regional Representative make sense to me, especially when done on non-Presidential, mid-term conventions. I also think this will lower the factionalism by asking delegates to make decisions that are in effect for 4 years. It also gives us far more time at the Presidential nominating conventions to….nominate a Presidential candidate!
I’m very excited to work together on this, and to be on a committee together.
Thank God! This change is long overdue! I’m so excited for the direction of the party right now! You give me hope for real freedom from legacy party tyranny in our lifetime.
Thanks Helen for those kind words. I always think about the quote: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good ment to do nothing.” So I’m trying to do something!
This is an absolutely crucial step. As a four year state chair, the first year is spent auditing and getting acclimated, the second year spent strategizing and planning, the third and fourth years are all about execution. We never get to the execution stage with two year terms. We waste double the resources allocating money to those running for internal positions instead of allocating more to those people running for actual office! The truth is, we would also probably not see many chairs run beyond a first term, since burnout sets in towards the end of the fourth year. I’ve seen it in multiple chairs. An ED would have a similar role trajectory, so their effectiveness would improve greatly over four years. Also, the stability of knowing you have a four year job timeline would allow an ED to adjust their career path toward the role. Moving the executive committee races to the off cycle convention makes total sense. It’s far more appropriate to maximizing our time together in executing the conventions’ business. I agree with everything you have laid out. Thanks for writing this. I have always thought that these type of “post experience letter to the editor” communications are absolutely crucial to real improvement in organizations.
Thank you.
Thanks Bo. I think as more people who have actually been on LNC and state committees speak up, we’ll be able to gather significant consensus. I appreciate your speaking from experience here!
Looking forward to supporting this initiative in Reno. Let me know how we can help.
Thanks Bob! We’ll be reaching out soon. Especially as you and Jinny have had experience on LP Boards, your testimony as to the length of time it takes to get a board working well will be something we put front and center.
This appears to be a totally and completely reasonable idea. Does that mean that it’s destin to fail? No but the probability is low. I agree with many of Eric’s comments about inward and outward election cycles. As long as the risk of people who are high risk traveling goes down My plan is to be in Reno. Either as a delegate to Maryland or picking up one of the random at large spots there. I would support a measure like this.
I support this. We try to do everything at every convention, which means most is rushed and done poorly or not at all.
I used to think making bylaws changes would make the LP more effective. Experience has taught me otherwise.
Having been chair of a very divided LNC (2010-12), I can say for certain that 2 or 4 year terms would have made little difference.
However, it is possible to make minor changes that may lead to a more effective Chair, ED, LNC, and staff.
What would be ideal is if the convention delegates elected a slate or team with a common goal or set of ideals.
A house divided…
Our nation’s founders created a system of government with checks and balances to constrain government. And the LP mirrored that structure for our governance. Oops!
I know “slate” is a dirty word in LP circles, but when I was Chair of the California (LPC) we did effectively had a slate that was dedicated to tripling our dues payment members (over 6K), monthly pledgers over $5K, and we hired a full time ED and opened two offices (Sacramento and Panorama City). We managed those successes because we were all rowing in the same direction.
At the state level, we’ve got the advantage of having some sort of convention annually, which allows us to stagger EC elections so that they don’t necessarily compete with large events, so two year terms really don’t have all that much impact. I see the problem on the National level.
Folks’ll blame COVID and “dilatory” folks, but I think it was our loaded agenda that made things difficult in this last cycle. At large candidates who went into convention solely for that office didn’t get to speak on their own behalf because of time constraints, and while I’m not unhappy with our EC, how we got it this time just left a bad taste. But I digress…
I believe setting some terms to 4 years with a logical stagger would help us immensely in many ways. I’ve also been impressed and happy with JBH and hope he continues…we do need him in this role as we move forward.
Agreed!
I support this change to 4 year LNC chair terms of office elected in non-presidential nominating conventions, Dan. Even if the infighting isn’t diminished it will distract less from the presidential nominating and give the ED more continuity as you have well- articulated.
LP and state parties should also adopt 4 yr memberships. 1 yr creates too much swirl.
All your ideas sound great!