by Matt Selm
As legend tells it, one of Durward K. McDaniel’s most favorite sayings was “Let’s be liberal about what we don’t have and conservative about what we do have.” At this year’s ACB national conference and convention, members will be asked to consider if we should abolish the affiliate vote. While the affiliate vote was established to give members a voice who could not attend the convention in person, its abolishment would change ACB in many ways. Before we throw the baby out with the bath water, I invite you to consider the following consequences.
Firstly, when we moved to universal voting during the pandemic, many of us hoped that this would result in an explosion of member involvement in convention activity in general and voting in particular. While there certainly has been an increase in engagement, it has not been as large as we hoped. On a good day, around 450 individuals have cast their vote using Vote Now on any issue in an organization of about 8,000. While this represents about five percent of the membership, sometimes those present have been substantially less, about 250 people, even when voting on controversial issues on the floor. The affiliate vote serves as a check and balance against this small turnout.
Secondly, one of ACB’s core values is collaboration, and by both history and tradition, ACB has welcomed state and special-interest affiliates of many different interests into its big tent. The affiliates, while functioning as independent organizations, continuously contribute to the grass roots bottom-up culture of ACB that the membership has coveted and nurtured for these many decades. The affiliates not only comprise the vast majority of our members, but they also provide a substantial portion of the programming for convention. The affiliates, as independent organizations themselves, are given a voice as an organization on major questions such as amendments and controversial resolutions. Removing this voice only serves to lessen democracy and to disincentivize affiliates from contributing to the big tent of ACB. Certainly, we can all agree that we accomplish more when we work together than when we work apart.
Finally, last year, we passed an amendment that established a threshold to prevent a small vocal minority of members from calling for a record vote. Before we have had time to see how this amendment has impacted the business of ACB, we are being asked to pass yet another change to our voting process. New York Governor Al Smith once said, “The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.” The affiliates and their voice within ACB should not be silenced. I encourage the membership and affiliate convention delegates to thunderously reject any alterations to the affiliate vote by voting “no” on Monday, June 30.