Home » Issues and Action » Restructuring Leagues

RESTRUCTURING LEAGUES
Betty Seizinger, Past President of LWV Charlotte/Mecklenberg

Action/Program

Program is great, but if you study an issue, reach consensus and then put it on the shelf, it doesn't do anything but take up space.

• To get ideas, use LWV's Impact on Issues, and LWVNC's Positions for Action and Study of North Carolina Taxes and Impact on Taxpayers. Ask the board, your members, politicians, neighbors. Prioritize.
• If you have a word that captures what you're going to do, that makes it easier.
• If you have a cause, if you believe in it, and if you stick to it, you'll succeed.
• If you haven't made a mistake, you haven't stuck your neck out.
• The League had its roots in the Suffragist movement. These women were spat upon, had their clothes torn off, were jailed and were force fed when they wouldn't eat.
• Go for principles, not bills, which can be added to or subtracted from.

Coalitions

• With a coalition, you are banding together on a single issue. You don't have to agree on other issues.
• The League is a political organization. We work on issues that have to do with government.

LWV has two sides, voters service and program. In voters service, we have to be pure, but in program we work with other groups for the greater good, and politics can make strange bedfellows.
If you get a call from an angry politician, turn it to the positive: "I'm glad you called me on that. Let me tell you why we joined that coalition." State your position up front every time.

Events

• Have a meeting only if it has meaning.
• Never have a meeting just for League members.
• Always publicize your meetings in the media.
• For panel discussions, 3 - 4 people with different viewpoints should be a maximum number. Get a facilitator with a strong will.
• Ask the media to come to everything.

Administration

• If you have lots of good ideas, but no doers, don't do them.

Ask to meet with newspaper editor or person who handles local news. Ask for suggestions on how they can help LWV.