Translation of excerpts from Robert Heinlein’s book, Take Your Government Back - part 18
And now let's consider a typical caucus, since the caucus procedure is one of the most misunderstood, and at the same time, one of the most necessary procedures in a democracy. . Let it be a meeting on the nomination of a candidate from your organization for the party primaries of your district. In this example, we will demonstrate the basic principles of such a caucus, however, caucus can be used to plan any other joint actions.
The first, and the main principle of caucus - participate in it strictly by invitation. The only person who can decide on the composition of the invitees is the person or group of people who convened the caucus. No one has the right to participate in caucus without an invitation. If you invite, then you are not obliged to invite anyone to caucus - just like inviting him to your home. Although, without inviting anyone, you can take a politically wrong move: a rejected one can form another caucus that competes with yours. The caucus was not created until its composition was approved by a vote of its members. Until that time, you, as the creator of the kokusa, can exclude anyone from it without giving reasons. For example, because you did not like his hairstyle.
After the approval of the composition of the caucus by the vote of its future members, the caucus enters into official force, and may include in its membership anyone who agrees to accept its terms. Included in the caucus in two ways. Firstly, by unanimous decision of all members of the caucus, who are not even present at the moment, in favor of accepting a new member, unless another procedure for accepting new members is described in the caucus charter. Or by a simple majority of votes of members of the caucus, or a percentage of the majority by a certain constitution of the caucus, if such a possibility is spelled out in the statute The charter of a caucus is an agreement accepted by all its members, and it can be changed only by the unanimous decision of all members. The presence of a charter is the main difference between caucus and other forms of parliamentary assembly. The essence of the caucus is the indisputability of his decisions, because the caucus members bind themselves to support a decision made by a majority vote, subject to certain conditions that must be described in the statute. The membership rules, the range of issues under consideration, and the procedure for discussing them should also be described there. The caucus that made any decision not unanimously (unless of course this possibility is clearly not provided for by its charter) actually ceases to exist there, because since the moment this decision was made and the conditions of the caucus were violated, all its members are no longer bound by any agreement.
')
From the above, two important conclusions should be drawn up when creating the conclusion kusa: firstly, be extremely careful when drafting the charter of the caucus, and secondly, make sure that every future participant of the caucus clearly understands its essence. Be sure to enlighten them on this subject, without this, someone from those present will surely misunderstand anything. And explain all this before starting the procedure of creating a caucus. At this stage, the political "lone wolves" will be eliminated and will not enter into caucus. There are many of them in politics; they do not like to deprive themselves of “freedom of action”. All of them will stand up and proudly come out of the assembly, under the pretext that their “lofty ideals” do not allow them to restrict their independence.
And that's great! Perhaps there is no easier way to get rid of these political weathercocks in their ranks than to invite them to caucus, and explain to them all the consequences of participating in it. At the same time, you do not violate your own ideals of a fair democratic process.
But with all this, candidates nominated by the caucus should not be its members, this is dictated not by the statute, but by simple common sense. In addition, when you convene a caucus for the nomination of candidates, you should also notify all candidates applying to you whom you promised to present their candidatures in the caucus in exchange for their promise not to run independently, but to support the choice of caucus if not their candidacy is chosen. To make the choice as wide as possible, you can also invite other candidates. In addition, each person invited to an open meeting held immediately before the start of the caucus may bring their own candidate.
During the meeting, candidates must be in another room, in which the discussion of their candidatures is not heard. Among them will be Mr. Krikun, who came to you, and Judge Weathervane, and the lawyer of Someone, representing the interests of his client, Mr. Case. The candidate you nominate - Joe Chestnyag - is not present here, you yourself will speak for him before the meeting.
In principle, you are ready to support any of these candidates, in the event of a decision in his favor, except Judge Weatherger. And then you say to an open meeting: “I suggest that before creating the caucus, we listen to all the candidates we have. So we will learn more about them and we will be able to make a list of candidates for consideration by the caucus, sifting out the other candidates in advance so that none of the caucus members would say that they did not foresee the choice that did not suit his candidacy. Are there any objections? ”Someone may argue that in order to maintain harmony in the party, it would be nice for everyone to agree to support the will of the majority before the discussion of the candidates began. There is a reason in what he says, therefore, you explain your thought further. “Judge Weathervane is sitting there, whom I invited to the meeting. But he is not my candidate, he just turned to me some time ago asking me to support his nomination. I did not promise to help him with the nomination, but promised to ensure consideration of his candidacy by the caucus in which I participate. He, in turn, pledged to support the candidate selected by the caucus, if he was not nominated. I keep my promise, and I suggest that the caucus consider his candidacy. But in no way do I support this applicant, so I find myself in a rather delicate situation. Would the caucus help me out by considering his candidacy? Otherwise, I will have to leave the meeting. ”
Suppose the participants did not agree to consider this candidate. Then you have no choice: you must leave the caucus. Just do not take it to heart, wish them good luck in choosing a candidate, and leave. You do not even have the right to wait for your turn in the next room with other candidates to speak before the caucus in support of your candidate Mr. Chestnyagi, because until Judge Vaneer is on the list of possible candidates, you cannot connect yourself ( and at the same time their candidate) with the obligation to support the candidate selected by the caucus. But still, do not go far, because it is possible that the caucus decides not to bind candidates with the same obligations as caucus members, and then your candidate will be able to speak to them.
But most likely the caucus will agree with your proposal, because it is obvious to everyone that the difficult situation you have fallen into is the result of your conscientious obedience to party discipline. Then the open meeting holds a preliminary caucus, stating: firstly, the procedure for the performance of each candidate who pledged to support the decision of the caucus (an obligation that is valid only for self-promoted candidates, but not for candidates put forward by members of the caucus). And secondly - after the speeches of candidates - drawing up a list of candidates considered by the caucus, which will be included in its terms.
Candidates waiting in the next room sign a commitment to support caucus, and are invited one per caucus to outline their programs and answer questions from the meeting.
The obligation to support caucus should be written in this spirit: “We, the undersigned, candidates for nomination to the congress of the distant districts, have pledged to support the decision of the caucus held there (address) of that number (date), not to run for elections, Caucus decisions are not in our favor, and support the candidate chosen by the caucus. In exchange, we have the opportunity to submit our candidacies for consideration of the caucus, and do not object to any decision made by the focus. The latter condition is true and is not biased against Judge Vewger. You have made your own opinion about his person, but you have not yet issued a caucus of your decision.
Judge Weathervane reads the commitment, snorts, and puts his painting. He is confident in his ability to convince any meeting to make a decision in his favor. After him, Mr. Krikun takes the commitment, looks it over, decides not to sign, and leaves in noble indignation. After talking to the other candidates in the waiting room, he was already upset and decided not to compete with them. You mark yourself in a notebook that you will have to meet him and at least console him a little.
Mr. Cayce’s lawyer asks for permission to talk in advance with his client, and, making a phone call, signs the agreement.
After each of the candidates who have signed the agreement addresses the meeting, a caucus is organized. To do this, you or one of your colleagues propose that the composition of the caucus be limited to the participants of the current meeting, that if the decision on the candidates is not made until the evening, the meeting will be suspended and continued on another day, and that only candidates will be considered submitted before the start of the caucus. The last point repeats the condition already accepted by caucus, but is necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings. You can also add a clause that the caucus will also consider the composition of the campaign committee, or other conditions you need. The final clause will be the condition that the caucus accepts all its decisions only according to the above conditions, or by unanimous vote.
You can add some more points, if all of them are written in clear language, then those present at the meeting will agree with them without any problems. But the list of candidates selected for consideration should go first. And the name of Judge Fluger will not be in it, so by signing the terms of the caucus, you risk nothing.
Or, Judge Weathervane will be on the list because a certain Joe Slytrets present at the meeting concluded an agreement with him similar to yours. There is a conflict of interest: you refuse to participate in the caucus, if the list of candidates includes Judge Weather Vane, and Joe Slytrets refuses to caucus, if there is no Weather Vane on the list. The only way out of this impasse is the separation of the caucus. You say: "Those who participate in the caucus with me, please stand up beside me, those who are in the caucus with Mr. Sly - stand beside him."
If your political influence is strong enough to justify such a move, then Mr. Sly will be alone, or with one or two comrades. In this case, he and his friends will have to retire. They may begin to object to their removal from the meeting, saying that they will remain and will only watch, stressing that they were initially invited to the caucus. It is necessary to insist that they leave, because the caucus does not provide for any "observers", it can be attended only by conditions bound. Encourage them to conduct their caucus (which, in fact, is their “observation”) elsewhere.
After everyone who does not agree with the terms of the caucus has left the meeting, start discussing the candidatures: let everyone say everything they deem it necessary to say. Tell the meeting about your candidate Mr. Chestnyage. When everyone speaks out, you can start voting on candidates, not necessarily secret: at this stage it is already clear who supports which candidate, but if someone starts demanding that the vote be secret, do not mind.
Voting can consist of several rounds, in each of which candidates are eliminated by the minimum percentage, and the next round of voting is on the list of remaining candidates. One of those present may raise the question of suspending and postponing a further part of the meeting to another day. If such a break is announced, then you will be able to campaign for your candidate during it in order to provide him with support for caucus. In the end, a candidate will be chosen by a majority of votes, and he will be considered the unanimous choice of a candidate.
Hopefully, caucus chose your candidate Chestnyagu, and now you're in the game.
Judge Weathervane violated the agreement he signed the next day, Joe Slyerz ran to him right after the meeting, and now they both publicly accuse you of cheating, fraud, applying bureaucratic tricks to reject honest candidates, and other frauds. Do not pay attention to it. Send the judge a photocopy of the agreement signed by him, and tell him that if he does not contact you immediately, you will send this agreement to all the newspapers. Most likely, after that, he will immediately come running to you, offering his services, in exchange for some services on your part - such as being appointed to the post in the government formed by the party, or paid work in an election committee. Do not promise him anything, even in the event of your refusal, he will not compete with your candidate.
And Joe Sly is the renegade and will go to another party.
← Part 1, where there are links to all other parts
The first, and the main principle of caucus - participate in it strictly by invitation. The only person who can decide on the composition of the invitees is the person or group of people who convened the caucus. No one has the right to participate in caucus without an invitation. If you invite, then you are not obliged to invite anyone to caucus - just like inviting him to your home. Although, without inviting anyone, you can take a politically wrong move: a rejected one can form another caucus that competes with yours. The caucus was not created until its composition was approved by a vote of its members. Until that time, you, as the creator of the kokusa, can exclude anyone from it without giving reasons. For example, because you did not like his hairstyle.
After the approval of the composition of the caucus by the vote of its future members, the caucus enters into official force, and may include in its membership anyone who agrees to accept its terms. Included in the caucus in two ways. Firstly, by unanimous decision of all members of the caucus, who are not even present at the moment, in favor of accepting a new member, unless another procedure for accepting new members is described in the caucus charter. Or by a simple majority of votes of members of the caucus, or a percentage of the majority by a certain constitution of the caucus, if such a possibility is spelled out in the statute The charter of a caucus is an agreement accepted by all its members, and it can be changed only by the unanimous decision of all members. The presence of a charter is the main difference between caucus and other forms of parliamentary assembly. The essence of the caucus is the indisputability of his decisions, because the caucus members bind themselves to support a decision made by a majority vote, subject to certain conditions that must be described in the statute. The membership rules, the range of issues under consideration, and the procedure for discussing them should also be described there. The caucus that made any decision not unanimously (unless of course this possibility is clearly not provided for by its charter) actually ceases to exist there, because since the moment this decision was made and the conditions of the caucus were violated, all its members are no longer bound by any agreement.
')
From the above, two important conclusions should be drawn up when creating the conclusion kusa: firstly, be extremely careful when drafting the charter of the caucus, and secondly, make sure that every future participant of the caucus clearly understands its essence. Be sure to enlighten them on this subject, without this, someone from those present will surely misunderstand anything. And explain all this before starting the procedure of creating a caucus. At this stage, the political "lone wolves" will be eliminated and will not enter into caucus. There are many of them in politics; they do not like to deprive themselves of “freedom of action”. All of them will stand up and proudly come out of the assembly, under the pretext that their “lofty ideals” do not allow them to restrict their independence.
And that's great! Perhaps there is no easier way to get rid of these political weathercocks in their ranks than to invite them to caucus, and explain to them all the consequences of participating in it. At the same time, you do not violate your own ideals of a fair democratic process.
But with all this, candidates nominated by the caucus should not be its members, this is dictated not by the statute, but by simple common sense. In addition, when you convene a caucus for the nomination of candidates, you should also notify all candidates applying to you whom you promised to present their candidatures in the caucus in exchange for their promise not to run independently, but to support the choice of caucus if not their candidacy is chosen. To make the choice as wide as possible, you can also invite other candidates. In addition, each person invited to an open meeting held immediately before the start of the caucus may bring their own candidate.
During the meeting, candidates must be in another room, in which the discussion of their candidatures is not heard. Among them will be Mr. Krikun, who came to you, and Judge Weathervane, and the lawyer of Someone, representing the interests of his client, Mr. Case. The candidate you nominate - Joe Chestnyag - is not present here, you yourself will speak for him before the meeting.
In principle, you are ready to support any of these candidates, in the event of a decision in his favor, except Judge Weatherger. And then you say to an open meeting: “I suggest that before creating the caucus, we listen to all the candidates we have. So we will learn more about them and we will be able to make a list of candidates for consideration by the caucus, sifting out the other candidates in advance so that none of the caucus members would say that they did not foresee the choice that did not suit his candidacy. Are there any objections? ”Someone may argue that in order to maintain harmony in the party, it would be nice for everyone to agree to support the will of the majority before the discussion of the candidates began. There is a reason in what he says, therefore, you explain your thought further. “Judge Weathervane is sitting there, whom I invited to the meeting. But he is not my candidate, he just turned to me some time ago asking me to support his nomination. I did not promise to help him with the nomination, but promised to ensure consideration of his candidacy by the caucus in which I participate. He, in turn, pledged to support the candidate selected by the caucus, if he was not nominated. I keep my promise, and I suggest that the caucus consider his candidacy. But in no way do I support this applicant, so I find myself in a rather delicate situation. Would the caucus help me out by considering his candidacy? Otherwise, I will have to leave the meeting. ”
Suppose the participants did not agree to consider this candidate. Then you have no choice: you must leave the caucus. Just do not take it to heart, wish them good luck in choosing a candidate, and leave. You do not even have the right to wait for your turn in the next room with other candidates to speak before the caucus in support of your candidate Mr. Chestnyagi, because until Judge Vaneer is on the list of possible candidates, you cannot connect yourself ( and at the same time their candidate) with the obligation to support the candidate selected by the caucus. But still, do not go far, because it is possible that the caucus decides not to bind candidates with the same obligations as caucus members, and then your candidate will be able to speak to them.
But most likely the caucus will agree with your proposal, because it is obvious to everyone that the difficult situation you have fallen into is the result of your conscientious obedience to party discipline. Then the open meeting holds a preliminary caucus, stating: firstly, the procedure for the performance of each candidate who pledged to support the decision of the caucus (an obligation that is valid only for self-promoted candidates, but not for candidates put forward by members of the caucus). And secondly - after the speeches of candidates - drawing up a list of candidates considered by the caucus, which will be included in its terms.
Candidates waiting in the next room sign a commitment to support caucus, and are invited one per caucus to outline their programs and answer questions from the meeting.
The obligation to support caucus should be written in this spirit: “We, the undersigned, candidates for nomination to the congress of the distant districts, have pledged to support the decision of the caucus held there (address) of that number (date), not to run for elections, Caucus decisions are not in our favor, and support the candidate chosen by the caucus. In exchange, we have the opportunity to submit our candidacies for consideration of the caucus, and do not object to any decision made by the focus. The latter condition is true and is not biased against Judge Vewger. You have made your own opinion about his person, but you have not yet issued a caucus of your decision.
Judge Weathervane reads the commitment, snorts, and puts his painting. He is confident in his ability to convince any meeting to make a decision in his favor. After him, Mr. Krikun takes the commitment, looks it over, decides not to sign, and leaves in noble indignation. After talking to the other candidates in the waiting room, he was already upset and decided not to compete with them. You mark yourself in a notebook that you will have to meet him and at least console him a little.
Mr. Cayce’s lawyer asks for permission to talk in advance with his client, and, making a phone call, signs the agreement.
After each of the candidates who have signed the agreement addresses the meeting, a caucus is organized. To do this, you or one of your colleagues propose that the composition of the caucus be limited to the participants of the current meeting, that if the decision on the candidates is not made until the evening, the meeting will be suspended and continued on another day, and that only candidates will be considered submitted before the start of the caucus. The last point repeats the condition already accepted by caucus, but is necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings. You can also add a clause that the caucus will also consider the composition of the campaign committee, or other conditions you need. The final clause will be the condition that the caucus accepts all its decisions only according to the above conditions, or by unanimous vote.
You can add some more points, if all of them are written in clear language, then those present at the meeting will agree with them without any problems. But the list of candidates selected for consideration should go first. And the name of Judge Fluger will not be in it, so by signing the terms of the caucus, you risk nothing.
Or, Judge Weathervane will be on the list because a certain Joe Slytrets present at the meeting concluded an agreement with him similar to yours. There is a conflict of interest: you refuse to participate in the caucus, if the list of candidates includes Judge Weather Vane, and Joe Slytrets refuses to caucus, if there is no Weather Vane on the list. The only way out of this impasse is the separation of the caucus. You say: "Those who participate in the caucus with me, please stand up beside me, those who are in the caucus with Mr. Sly - stand beside him."
If your political influence is strong enough to justify such a move, then Mr. Sly will be alone, or with one or two comrades. In this case, he and his friends will have to retire. They may begin to object to their removal from the meeting, saying that they will remain and will only watch, stressing that they were initially invited to the caucus. It is necessary to insist that they leave, because the caucus does not provide for any "observers", it can be attended only by conditions bound. Encourage them to conduct their caucus (which, in fact, is their “observation”) elsewhere.
After everyone who does not agree with the terms of the caucus has left the meeting, start discussing the candidatures: let everyone say everything they deem it necessary to say. Tell the meeting about your candidate Mr. Chestnyage. When everyone speaks out, you can start voting on candidates, not necessarily secret: at this stage it is already clear who supports which candidate, but if someone starts demanding that the vote be secret, do not mind.
Voting can consist of several rounds, in each of which candidates are eliminated by the minimum percentage, and the next round of voting is on the list of remaining candidates. One of those present may raise the question of suspending and postponing a further part of the meeting to another day. If such a break is announced, then you will be able to campaign for your candidate during it in order to provide him with support for caucus. In the end, a candidate will be chosen by a majority of votes, and he will be considered the unanimous choice of a candidate.
Hopefully, caucus chose your candidate Chestnyagu, and now you're in the game.
Judge Weathervane violated the agreement he signed the next day, Joe Slyerz ran to him right after the meeting, and now they both publicly accuse you of cheating, fraud, applying bureaucratic tricks to reject honest candidates, and other frauds. Do not pay attention to it. Send the judge a photocopy of the agreement signed by him, and tell him that if he does not contact you immediately, you will send this agreement to all the newspapers. Most likely, after that, he will immediately come running to you, offering his services, in exchange for some services on your part - such as being appointed to the post in the government formed by the party, or paid work in an election committee. Do not promise him anything, even in the event of your refusal, he will not compete with your candidate.
And Joe Sly is the renegade and will go to another party.
← Part 1, where there are links to all other parts
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/315270/
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