From: Al and Masha Sten-Clanton 
Subject: Re: Change isn't Bad
I've long loved the line, "The only cure for the ills of democracy is more
democracy."  I wish I knew who said it.  As difficult as it can be to
implement this generality in the detailed workings of a nation or an
organization like ours, I take it quite seriously.
I believe that term limits do not create more democracy.  They actually
create less of it by limiting a voter's choices, enshrining in a rule or a
law the anti-democratic notion that the people can't really decide what's
in their own best interests.  That notion is already too much in evidence.
Also, as others have said, term limits simply don't deal with the problems
that prompt some of us to call for them.  They can't really redistribute
power, particularly if that power belongs to political parties or
organizations that can ensure that their new people will replace their old
people.  
I have some notions about making the Federation more democratic at the
national level.  One, about which my wife convinced me, is the abolition
of the delegate system, so that members who attend conventions vote
directly in elections and on policy and other matters.  (Our affiliates
were urged to get rid of that system, and I think all of them have, even
though the risks that would arise at the nationall level certainly exist
to some extent at the affiliatte level.) If the risks simply are deemed
too great, we could vote by chapter, or we could adopt a variant of ACB's
system which, though more cumbersome than we're used to, probably is a
good deal more representative of the membership. Even with the current
system, we could hold elections on the last day of the convention while
having the Nominating Committee report earlier in the week, thus providing
as much time as we could for all-out campaigning by the well-known and the
little-known.  
We could restore the resolutions process to something close to what it was
until--I guess--1993.  I also have always thought amendments to
resolutions should be allowed from the floor, since this is the only way
that a member who is neither on the Resolutions Committee nor the author
of a resolution being considered can actually try to shape it.  No, I
don't think this need cause great chaos or pointless debates, although,
like almost anything, it could.  I also have long thought that we'd do
well to have fewer elaborate resolutions and more simple motions, so that
the words to quibble about would be few and the likelihood of a nightmare
debate would be much less.  I haven't been to a national convention since
1990, but I suspect that we could put more time into policy discussions
than we typically end up with:  a lot of good things happen at
conventions, but nothing is more important than the course we chart in
promoting justice for blind people.
In 1986, the NFB adopted a revised constitution.  As I recall, I had
suggested to Jim Gashel at a state leadership seminar the previous
February that the proposed constitution be distributed to the membership
in some way before the convention.  I don't recall the exact details of
his response, but it seems to have been along the line that this might
encourage prolonged debating that would go nowhere.  (Jim, correct me if
I'm wrong.) As it was, I never heard the thing until the day we adopted
it, and of course didn't see it in writing until it appeared in the
Monitor.  Well, I continue to think that, where possible, items our
leaders wish us to consider should be distributed to the general
membership before the convention at which they are to be voted on.  I
raised this idea with Marc Maurer last spring.  He said he disagreed
because of the risk that delegates might be instructed how to vote before
they came to the convention and could discuss the merits of a thing.  I
replied that I understood the risk but thought it worth taking.  I still
do.  Inherent in democracy is the risk of unwise decisions.  I think the
best way to reduce the risk is to distribute more information, not less,
and to give it out sooner rather than later.  I know of course that
sometimes this can't be done because things happen too fast.  I think it
should be our general approach, however.  Also, I do not advocate some new
rule, which I think would be hard to craft sensibly.  Instead, I would
encourage an attitude among us members that would prompt us to vote
against anything complicated that we have not first seen in writing or on
tape--at least if questions about it start popping up.  
There is of course no perfect system.  Furthermore, no system can
guarantee that we will vote carefully according to our own best judgments,
keeping true to principles and principled compromises.  No system can
deflect the bullets of peer pressure born of bad motives or even
well-motivated collective panic:  only self-possession can do that.  But a
more open system can help a lot, simply by increasing the opportunity for
us to speak our minds and vote our consciences.  
These are just some ideas that I hope are useful.  I should now bring this
very long message to an end.
Al
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