This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, July 27, 2011 - New changes to the bylaws of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM) have some members crying foul over what they see as a move away from the democratic principles of the organization.
Under the changes, the Mid-Missouri chapter representing Columbia and surrounding areas will no longer have its own executive committee or set of bylaws but instead will work under the authority and supervision of the ACLU-EM.
Also under the revisions, the 4,000-member general membership will no longer vote directly on bylaws concerning the ACLU-EM. Those decisions will instead be made by the 24-member Board of Trustees. The revisions were approved on June 18.
Executive Director Brenda Jones says the board needs to be able to make changes to the bylaws to keep the organization moving forward. Having future chapters acting under the same bylaws and direction from the ACLU-EM will make it easier to set a statewide agenda, she added.
Opponents of the changes, including attorney John Coffman of Webster Groves, say the changes amount to a consolidation of power in the president of the board and the executive committee.
"Always in the past, the members would vote on changes to the bylaws. Now, the changes would be approved by the board itself," Coffman said. "It's changed from an organization that used to be governed by its members into one that is self-perpetuating and run by a few people on the executive committee. It's really more of a top down organization than one that is governed by the ACLU members."
Coffman characterized the bylaw debate as "a battle for the soul of the organization."
"It was a pretty serious debate and pretty devastating for those (who) would like the ACLU to remain an organization that has its moral authority derived from the organization," Coffman said.
"The current leadership of the organization claims that (the bylaws) were part of making the organization more professional, that we need to be lean and mean and we need to be able to operate with more central authority and control," Coffman said. "My opinion is that the ACLU has never been an organization that operates like a lean and mean corporation. The organization has taken pride that we operate on the democratic process. Democracy is messy and sometimes takes some time."
ACLU-EM President Mondi Ghasedi did not respond to a request for an interview.
Seeking More Control
Dan Viets, president of the Mid-Missouri Chapter, says he's uncertain what prompted the change in chapter governance.
"We've never had a dispute with the affiliate, which is one of the things that makes this so hard to understand," Viets said, adding that the change will essentially do away with the chapter model that the ACLU has operated under for decades.
"It really was a shock," Viets said. "Many of us have a long and deep abiding history with the ACLU, and it's difficult to understand why the affiliate would do this."
Jones, the executive director, says the change from local control of chapters to centralized control is consistent with the way the way the ACLU has been moving on a national and local level for a number of years.
"If you take a step back and really look at how the organization nationally and locally has evolved over a number a years, the organization has really changed," Jones said. "There was a time many, many years ago when, of course, the organization really was run by volunteers and it depended on volunteers and the statewide model at that time was to create chapters and give them some semi-autonomy so they could go out and represent the ACLU."
Over time, Jones said, the ACLU became a more professional organization and it changed. The old chapter model, she said, no longer fits.
"We really need to be able to create a statewide agenda," Jones said. "We need to be able to pull our resources together and reevaluate the reach that we're having and reach that much further and we really have not been able to do that with the chapter model. This doesn't mean that we don't have the same agenda."
What it does mean, Jones said, is that the ACLU-EM affiliate will set that agenda, much as other statewide organizations do for their local representatives.
"This is not something that is being created the first time by the ACLU-EM," Jones said. "We think it is perfectly logical for an organization that is statewide to have some authority and control over the entities that work out there in its name."
Still, Jones said, she understands the dissent over the issue.
"This is about change," she said. "Whenever you do something new there is going to be some push back."
As for the change in how amendments to the bylaws are approved, Jones said:
"What you're doing is giving the people that you select as leaders more authority and the room that they need to keep the organization moving forward. It shouldn't be that controversial really."
In The Hands Of A Few
There are bylaws that are written that way for other organizations, says former ACLU-EM executive director Joyce Armstrong, who is a board member of the St. Louis Beacon. "It's not that unusual, but under the ACLU it is unusual because it is a strong membership organization."
Still, Armstrong said, the changes are unlikely to change the mission or goals of the ACLU-EM.
"It's more that the control of the ACLU will be in the hands of a few people rather than in the hands of larger group of people," Armstrong said. "A few people will have control without having the input of the larger group, which goes counter to the mission of the ACLU for all these years."
Former ACLU-EM president Fred Epstein, who is a board member of the St. Louis Beacon, says he agrees with some of the bylaw changes, such as reducing the size of the board of trustees to 24 from 32 and setting term limits for board members. But he sees changes such as elimination of local governance for the Mid-Missouri chapter and taking bylaw approval away from the general membership as troublesome.
"Really taking away from the membership any duty besides paying their dues each year seems to me a backward step for an organization that has always promoted local participation and local voting," Epstein said.
Epstein says it remains to be seen how the changes will play out.
"My thinking is once the system has been changed you have to give it a chance to operate and see what happens," Epstein said. "Probably in that regard, the most serious problem is that since any bylaw changes can't be done by the membership, there is really no forum for updating the bylaws outside of the board of directors. I guess members could lobby the board individually or appear at the board meeting and lobby there, but I can't foresee that it's going to be very effective."
Tim Rowden is a freelance writer in St. Louis.