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into the den
Over the recent several years I have made a study in my continuing eduction of local politics, in the capacity of a GOP Precinct Committee Office for my neighborhood. Approximately, the several PCOs constitute the Central Committee of the GOP in King County, which means they have a voting responsibility in some aspects of KCGOP operations, highlighted by the biennial organizing meeting. The most recent instance for that meeting took place Saturday, 12/3/2016, about which I was sparked to cogitate by this post from Don Beaudreaux, which included the following passage:
Although the romance-encrusted mind denies it, the fact is that in all but the most local of elections in all but the smallest of burgs, no one person’s vote stands a meaningful chance of determining the outcome of any political election in the United States. Regardless of whether your preferred candidate wins or loses the election, the “say” that is your vote no more affects the outcome of the election, or the stream of subsequent government actions, than does the “say” that is your cheering at a telecast of a game played by your favorite football team affect the outcome of that game.
There were three votes of interrelated note, but first a word about tedium. There must be many reasons why most people don't care to participate in politics, but among them is likely to be the mind-numbing tedium that goes along with most business meetings beyond the precinct level. Six hours of a Saturday is a lot to commit for people with family, friends, professional, and other recreational interests and obligations. Anyone who raises the gumption to give it a try will find that time to be highly unproductive in comparison to those other pursuits, because those six hours distill into perhaps a third or smaller fraction of the time where business of apparent significance is in work. There were 315 seated PCO delegates to this meeting; 280 was the minimum required for a quorum, which means the level of engagement even among the precinct level elected representatives (who have at least displayed some willingness to tolerate the tedium) is barely sufficient even for the GOP to conduct business. I overheard that at least one person was told they could register at the door and immediately leave so as that the quorum requirement would be satisfied.
The first vote of note concerned selection of the chair/man/person/woman, ultimately leading to a close but unsuccessful vote to replace the current establishment. In the run-up there were accusations of corruption specific to the handling party funds; lack of support, endorsement, and attention paid to certain candidates; and heavy handed control of legislative district representatives on the KCGOP executive committee. The other two votes of note concerned different aspects of the organization bylaws that turned on these criticisms.
In preparation for this meeting, the KCGOP chartered a by-laws committee to draft revisions for consideration by the body. One set of changes concerned how funds are to be managed, with the removal of a requirement for independent annual CPA audits and substitution for a newly constituted Audit committee from the executive committee, proposed on the basis that this degree of independence and transparency is not worth a $15k annual expense. This equates to ~1.25% when compared to the 2016 budget of around $1.2M, but a higher fraction in non-Presidential election years (maybe %5 when there are no elections, probably a smaller fraction on the other 2-year election cycle). From my perspective, a regular formal audit would increase confidence in budgeting and spending, which was clearly a concern to a large fraction of the body as evidenced by the debate around the election of the chair. However, notwithstanding a small change that was approved to the new wording, the major result was to remove a requirement for annual independent audit.
The other by-laws motion that saw attention concerned a change to how the Legislative District representatives are chosen for the executive committee. The current, and ultimately continuing scheme, provides that the KCGOP chair makes selection, which can then be rejected by the PCO members in the several LDs. The proposed change was that the PCOs in the LD make the selection directly. The effect of the current rule is perceived to consolidate power in the hands of the KCGOP chair, which is consistent with the effect of the audit vote, since the new audit committee is comprised from members of the Executive committee. Arguments in favor of the current (retained) system focused on the need for the committee to work together under the leadership of the chair, ignoring how this also subverts republican/representative governance. Another bit of diverting cheerleading was a claim that their purpose is to "defeat Democrats", rather than to promote the ideas of limited government and personal responsibility - I should call that confusing means with ends, but suspect that many people have trouble recognizing the difference.
Aside from voting for the new chair, which was done by paper ballots, the votes are mostly through verbal call out of ayes and nays. Procedural business generally goes without objection, but the noted by-laws votes had sufficiently large groups in opposition that a hand count was performed, the first of which was fraught with confusion as to who was standing to be counted, where and when. My observation was that this simply sapped the energy of the opposition, leading to an easier time of it for reducing the prospects for change. One speaker pointed out that the lack of anonymity in those vote counts expose you to potential backlash from the opposition; I have mixed feelings about the value of anonymous voting and will have to discuss that separately, but referring back to the chair election reveals there is the perception of an "in" and "out" crowd, where those in the "out" may not receive equal treatment, so that's not a fear to be discounted out of hand.
I remarked to a fried in the midst of all this, how we rarely have these problems in the economic realm - we all get to choose pretty much what we want among the offerings that other people are willing to make available to us, and it doesn't matter whether our neighbor chooses something different - we can each be satisfied. In politics, even at this level of highly local and familiar people, the winner take all approach foments discord.