The following is the prepared text of my State of the League Address delivered at the annual meeting of LWVLA on June 19, 2010. - dah
I had the pleasure of meeting the national president of Common Cause this week. His name is Bob Edgar, he's a former member of Congress, and he told me two things I think are relevant to the State of the League here. The most interesting thing is that he was the first male member of his local chapter of the League of Women Voters, in Broomall, Pennsylvania. That was in 1971, he thought. The national League amended its bylaws in 1974 at Convention to allow men to join the League as full voting members. The National League website says, "Men can now be found at all levels of participation in the League of Women Voters." I feel honored to serve as the first male president of the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles ... indeed blessed every day to be able to contribute to the important work that we do.
The other thing Bob Edgar told me was a fish joke: "What did the fish say when it hit its head against the wall? . . . `Dam!'"
Which brings me to a report on the League at the national level. The national convention, as many of you know, was just this last weekend and Monday and Tuesday. The delegates did some amazing and wonderful things. One of the things nearest and dearest to my heart was the passage of a resolution that calls for a change in United States Senate rules to limit the use of the filibuster. Now some of my favorite books are the biographies of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro, who, in the Pulitzer-prize-winning third book, calls the Senate with its filibuster rule "the Dam", "a mighty dam standing athwart, and stemming, the tides of social justice." You knew I'd get back to the fish joke.
Allow me a minute to read some of Robert Caro's beautiful prose:
. . . At the end of the Taft Administration in 1913, as at the end of the Roosevelt Administration in 1909, a supposedly representative republic had not come to grips with concentrated economic power, or with the impact of that power on the human condition. A tide of concern about the impact of industrial concentration on America had begun rising . . . . At first, the tide had risen slowly, but by the 1880s and '90S, it was rising fast. But . . . the Senate had stood against the tide. . . . At the turn of the century, with the onset of the Progressive Era, the tide became a wave -- a great wave of conscience, of anger over injustice, of demand for a cleansing of government and for a mobilization of government to meet the needs of its people. The wave of Progressivism and reform washed across America, through statehouses and city halls, even through the White House. When the wave crashed against the Senate, it broke on the Senate, the waters falling away from it as they had been falling away for half a century. The Senate stood as it had been standing for so long -- a mighty dam standing athwart, and stemming, the tides of social justice.
If we want a government, a functioning government, I suggest we stand ready to act with the National League when it implements this week's anti-filibuster resolution and calls upon local leagues to help.
And if any of you have any personal connections with U.S. Senators, please let me know so we can approach them about being plaintiffs in Common Cause's lawsuit to declare the filibuster rule unconstitutional.
Our delegates in Atlanta were Jean Thompson, Margie Engel, Elizabeth Rossbacher, Raquel Beltran, and myself. The delegate body there outdid itself. It . . . they . . . we . . . passed new policies supporting equality of same-sex marriage, the national popular vote compact, drilling and mining safety, arms control, and lifting the restrictions on travel to Cuba.
The League now supports "improved Medicare for all," which seems a bit ambiguous but does mean some form of single-payer health coverage.
We added "transparency" to our SARA resolution on election procedures (SARA stands for Security; Accuracy; Recountability; and Accessibility). Now it's "SARAT."
In Atlanta, we were pretty close to the Gulf Coast, and delegates introduced, amended, and passed a strongly worded resolution about the ongoing oil gusher, so now "LWVUS demands that our government hold those responsible for the environmental disaster accountable for the clean-up," and "urges the ... federal government to ... maximize to the extent practicable [its] ability and efforts ... to take action, and to work with the U.S. coastal states and communities most directly and immediately affected, to respond creatively, efficiently and effectively to the environmental, health and economic crisis created by the oil flowing from the out of control BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and by the efforts to contain and disperse it."
All that was quite energizing, but not everything passed. For instance, an effort to let State Leagues and local Leagues lobby their own US Delegations "on issues of importance to their states and members without approval of the national board," in certain circumstances, failed, keeping control of the "one voice" with which "the League speaks" firmly in control of the national leadership.
The per member payment that we must send to the National League by a certain date every year started out as a proposal for $29.60 and went up to $29.70, and then to $30.00 before being passed. It almost went up to $30.30, but that amendment was defeated.
In guidance to the National board, your delegate team asked for three things: more heads-up time regarding action requests, access to the national Lobby Corps' briefing materials, and routine input into the design of grant activity opportunities like the current high school voter registration project.
On the National front, let me finally tell you that the delegates approved not one but two studies. Studies cost money, and since only one was recommended by the board, bags of cash and checks were collected for the other one. The recommended study is of "the role of the federal government in education policymaking, with possible consideration of funding, common standards and/or governance relationships among all levels of the government." This should dovetail nicely with our own education study. The non-recommended but adopted study is of a subject near and dear to my heart as a longtime civil servant, privatization of government functions. If you care as much as I do about government accountability and limiting privatization to appropriate cases, I urge you to donate to that study. I'll send out info about how to donate on the LWVLA announcements email list.
Now let's move on to the State level. The state league recently had a council meeting in Sacramento. As this was not a full-blown convention, I'll just touch on a couple of points about that. First, as guidance to the board, I asked that the State League act as early as feasible in taking positions on ballot measures, to allow the Local Leagues time to act on those positions, or to let interested constituencies know if the League is neutral or taking no position on particular initiatives. This would mean deciding on positions before initiatives get Proposition numbers, and I hope, even while some initiatives are being circulated for signatures, so we can advise members and the public on whether or not to sign.
Second, the State League's nominations committee is actively soliciting nominations for its board, with terms to begin in mid-2011. It seems from talking with chair Kate Quick and others that they really would like to have someone from Los Angeles. If you would like to take this on or suggest someone, there's a form online to use. Again, I'll send the relevant info and instructions to the announcement list.
(Both the state and national meetings emphasized the usefulness of the internet and social media, and we are trying to get up to speed on all that. Really we are!)
Now to the Local level, the most grassroots of the three levels of league. First a quick note or two about the County League, which has no members of its own, but is an interleague organization (or ILO) of local leagues. The wonderful annual Popovers in Pasadena event is coming up soon. Please see the flyer in your meeting kit here. The LWV of Los Angeles County convention a couple of months ago resulted in a superb concurrence with our league, so that now the County League advocates IRV -- instant runoff voting -- for all single-winner elections! In conjunction with the County League, our league, including our election integrity committee, will seek to ensure that any new voting machines purchased by the County (which lends equipment to the City for L.A. City elections), are compatible with IRV. Proposition 14, the "top-two" primary system recently enacted statewide may hasten the acquisition of new voting equipment since putting all the candidates in a primary on a single ballot regardless of party affiliation may make it impossible to use just one card per voter in those old & formerly chad-punching vote recorders.
Finally, to our league, LWVLA. The state of our league is good. We're doing pretty well, but we could do better.
The Program Committee did a superb job this year of providing unit meeting programs and broader-based public events. We had "vote with your fork" about food policy, meetings about an education study update that is ongoing, an excellent League Day (in this very room) on gangs, and the now-annual Running and Winning program, intended to inspire youth to enter politics. (I learned in Atlanta that most leagues that do a Running and Winning Program limit it to girls.)
LAPD policy hasn't left our radar, as a study update continues. The Election Integrity committee is on top of things at the city and county level, and remains impossible to ignore, thank you.
State constitutional issues were on the agenda, and we had a series of unit meetings and a community event on possible reforms. We also participated in events on the implementation of the constitutional amendment known as Proposition 11 that created a citizens' redistricting commission, and indeed helped recruit citizens to apply for the commission.
LWVLA members flew the League flag (or wore League buttons) at any number of public meetings and community forums, and I would especially like to thank Gail Maiorana for her work monitoring the City Ethics Committee and helping with Proposition 15 on campaign finance.
Of particular pride is our lobbying on city finance and pensions, to try to help the City of Los Angeles out of its budget mess. Jane Goichman, Elizabeth Ralston, and Royce Menkus were leaders in that effort.
Of course, all of the League portfolio areas I mentioned earlier in the program are reasons to be proud of LWVLA. Thank you again to all the chairs, and thank you to all who participated in LWVLA activities. A round of applause, please!
Now let's talk about planning for the future. First, thank you again to all those who have agreed to serve in positions of responsibility here. And thank you to our treasurer Martha Sklar and executive director Raquel Beltran for taking the lead in preparing the forward-looking budget approved this morning.
As you may know, some die-hard members have formed a committee and taken up the work of an Infrastructure Program + IP. Since "periodically every institution needs to take stock of its strengths and weaknesses in light of its mission and current circumstances, the Infrastructure Program seeks to engage all members in evaluating our resources, our goals, and our operating paradigm, so as to agree on a plan for developing leadership, membership and funding opportunities to best fulfill our mission in the future." This sounds a lot like "strategic planning" to me, a term that makes some people's eyes glaze over, but is a process that has been the salvation of many an agency, business or organization. The IP's goal is to develop and provide robust alternatives to the Board and members for assuring a sustainable future for LWVLA. The IP is focusing on Membership, Operating structure, Leadership and Funding. The game plan leads to presenting scenarios for the board and members to consider and select by June 2011.
Unit members enthusiastically gave thoughts about IP issues at unit meetings and by responding to questionnaires and profiles. Non-unit members responded to questionnaires and profiles in the May VOTER. Input from LWVLA Leaders about leadership experience in LWVLA is being solicited by questionnaire and interview. Data from all this are being compiled now.
The board recommended a budget for IP research assistance as part of the larger LWVLA budget for 2011 that was approved earlier today. LWVLA wants solutions and future approaches that include reaching out to our community for its idea of LWVLA's usefulness and seeking new membership and leadership. Using its budgeted funds, the IP will obtain assistance in what to ask, whom to ask it of, and how to shape and share responses with the LWVLA Board and members. The IP aims to present choices that will assure a sustainable future when implemented. Of course your input would be deeply appreciated. You can engage with the IP project via the members-only website, members.LWVLosAngeles.org.
Now we really could use a boost in membership. The San Diego league has more members than we do. Sandra Trutt has been a super trooper in regard to pursuing membership, taking all sorts of avenues to recruit people and encourage new members to participate in the important work of the League. Our "Valentine's" special in February was fairly successful in giving people the chance to dip their toe into membership.
Now for the near term, I would like to float one idea for membership growth and potential new study or action: West Hollywood. Our website says we serve "the people of Los Angeles, Agoura Hills, Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Culver City, San Fernando, Westlake Village, and West Hollywood, California." In addition to an amped-up focus on Beverly Hills, I'd like to focus a bit on that last city, affectionately known as WeHo. WeHo has a deep tradition of civic activism and a WeHo civic leader told me recently that there has been a shift in political culture that is troubling to her and many others. It's the sort of thing the League could be very helpful in examining. Of course, WeHo is known for fun gay culture, and its male city councilmembers are all gay, I think. So I'm willing to be a temporary transvestite to attract attention there, and I think it would be fun. We really do need to have some events there.
One event that could be in WeHo or in Beverly Hills may come in August, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the ratification of the Suffrage Amendment, and possibly honor the memory of dear departed members.
Also on the events front, we're looking forward to collaborations with the National Association of Women Business Owners, Town Hall Los Angeles, and the National Council of 100 Black Women.
There is a lot more I could talk about + the units are going strong, the Voter newsletter is an email hit, and we have a steady stream of wonderful interns, but let me limit myself to one last key thing we do: Voter Service. We have smartvoter.org, the web site you already know about, (right?), that helps voters learn about their choices. Frances Talbott-White, our outgoing Voter Service Director, is now the Southern California director of SmartVoter. I thank her and also want to offer a big thank you to the donors and volunteers who made the printing and distribution of the Pros & Cons booklet for Los Angeles County happen for this month's primary election! That was the only source for some people of information about candidates for Judge and for County Assessor. ... And speaking of Judges, working with Molly Selvin of Southwestern Law School and the County League, we presented a groundbreaking non-partisan candidates forum for Superior Court Judge candidates in L.A. -- complete with a keynote address by a leading light in evaluating the performance of the judiciary.
There's so much more I could say, but I should stop now. We do want to limit the filibuster. But quickly, one more fish joke: What did the fish say when the speaker ran out of time? "Give HIM the hook!"
Thank you all for your contributions to the important work of this League.
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