Thank you for sharing your present bylaws. I shall review them and offer suggestions in the near future. In the meantime, I would offer the following points for consideration.
The fundamental problem confronting most County Central Committees is the vexing issue of whether they are meant to be effectively social clubs or political parties. More often than not, County Central Committees become social clubs: they hold monthly meetings that very often consist of little more than listening to speakers; they focus disproportionate amounts of time, energy, and funds on social events, like Lincoln Day Dinners, that generally make little or no profit and have virtually no political utility; they avoid like the plague any attempt to impact local elections, where they might actually have the ability to influence outcomes.
When County Central Committees become de facto "social clubs," they become the venue for self-interested people to enhance their egos, often at the expense of internal comity and basic, political operations. My sense is that that is what is now afflicting the SMGOP. Your present Chairman appears driven by internal demons known ultimately to God but which are expressed in sometimes wild expressions of an immature, vaunted ego. The result is grand scheming, hurtful gossiping, and utter chaos.
The solution is to reorient the County Central Committee towards being a real, functioning, political party, where actual, on the ground political operations are the focus of all meetings, and where the party actively involves itself in those arenas in which it may make an actual difference, such as non-partisan campaigns and initiatives. Of course, we can and must do our part in partisan campaigns, including fielding candidates to carry the GOP banner there; but we also should become a force in non-partisan races, where the targeted concentration of Republican voters may make a difference in electing a candidate by plurality or in turning back a proposed tax increase or other leftist cause. When we show that we can start to win in this arena, then we shall have better success in fundraising and in recruiting volunteers - because we shall have shown our relevancy as a political force. Victory is what is needed; and the key to victory is choosing carefully the arena and scope of the battlefield.
What else is needed in reorienting the County Central Committees towards being a political party, in the true sense of the phrase, is for County Central Committee members to understand that their County Central Committee is a legally, self-existing organization. It is not now and has never been a "branch office" of the California Republican Party. Indeed, the County Central Committees existed legally by themselves, before there was a California Republican Party: the CRP exists properly as an affiliation of and for the County Central Committees, not the other way around.
What does this mean, in effect? It means that, for the purposes of promoting Republicans and Republican principles in San Mateo County, the SMGOP is the official and exclusive venue for so doing. Thus, it has a responsibility to run itself in a business like manner, as indeed any legal organization having a quasi-public status should be run. This includes the act of creating and sustaining professional bylaws; having subcommittees that focus their efforts on political operations, meet periodically on their own, and then make reports to the Committee as a whole; and demanding the utmost of honor and competence from those in whom leadership has been entrusted. Irrelevant social clubs that exist merely to appease egos or to do the bidding of party hacks in the CRP may ignore their own bylaws, or fail to staff subcommittees, or elect incompetent Chairmen; but real, functioning, political parties do not have such luxuries. By creating higher standards of internal conduct, which begins with the overhauling of the bylaws, the SMGOP will take a great stride in a direction which is now most needed.
It is good to consider this matter preliminarily; nevertheless, I would advise waiting until a new Chairman is in office, before actually commencing the work of revising the bylaws. In doing that task, which if done properly will be monumental, the SMGOP bylaws committee will need the support of a competent, professional Chairman. In the meantime, as you already have suggested, take the time to read the bylaws of other competent political parties, like the Placer County and Sonoma County Republican Central Committees (both of which are fairly competent political parties, precisely because of the serious thought that was put into their own bylaws in the past few years). Good bylaws are meant to be the "constitutions" of their respective organizations; thus, when reviewing other bylaws, I would urge you to do so from that perspective. This means that, rather than focus too much on the small details of this or that provision, first consider the larger, political orientation that the bylaws are trying to accomplish and then ask yourself whether that same orientation would apply to the SMGOP. If so, then see how the provisions support that orientation and how the same could be accomplished in the context of the SMGOP. You will see that, in some instances, the orientations are incompatible or that the orientations are the same, but what works in one County will not make sense in actual application within your own County Central Committee. Other times, you will see a perfect match in the overall political orientation, and in the very specific bylaws provision for meeting that end, in which case you may lift the exact wording from the other bylaws and insert them into the SMGOP draft.
Also, while brainstorming this matter, I would urge you and others to give special consideration to the importance of developing in the bylaws a professional system for developing, approving, and overseeing the SMGOP operating budget. If done professionally, then the operating budget becomes the key mechanism by which the Committee prioritizes its political operations, thus getting the most political buck out of very limited resources. It also acts as a restraint upon Chairmen, or any self-interested factions surrounding the Chairmen, from using treasury funds for their own pet projects or without sufficient oversight, since Treasurers will be bound only to write checks for items approved in the operating budget (and also in accordance with the priority rendered to each and every one of those items within the same operating budget). Many of the shenanigans that we see within dysfunctional County Central Committees can be avoided simply in following a professional system for creating and sustaining such operating budgets; and, for that reason, I would recommend highly that the manner in which budgets are developed, approved, and overseen be an important part of any rewriting of the SMGOP bylaws. In particular, the bylaws of the Sonoma County Republican Central Committee may prove helpful in this regard.
Again, I shall be happy to provide more thoughts, after I have had a chance to review your present bylaws. Until then, I wish you and your colleagues within the SMGOP good luck in embarking upon this most important task.
