Dr. Turner's 2023 Council Remarks

LWVUS NATIONAL COUNCIL OPENING REMARKS
DR. DEBORAH TURNER, LWVUS PRESIDENT

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2023
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 

Good morning League leaders, and welcome to the League of Women Voters 2023 national Council. Thank you all for taking the time to come together for the next 2 and a half days. I am so excited honored to be here with all of you – in person again.

As you know, in the year between Conventions, our bylaws require us to hold a gathering of state leadership. This meeting provides space for the national staff and board to engage with state League leaders in a more intimate way. Beyond the requirement to hold such a meeting, we have a lot of power to use this space and time to advance our work together. This gives us a moment to lean into our power. 

For some of you, this might be your first Council. For others, you are seasoned Council’ers. It is this integration of experienced and emerging leaders that makes this weekend so valuable and makes the Leagues effectively stronger.

As I said last night, it is great to being back to in-person events. It is important to come together where we can reach out and touch, step back from our day-to-day, and ensure we are not working in silos, but together as ONE League. 

This Council is about Framing the Future, which is also the name of the current phase of the League’s transformation journey: a journey that emerged from the dedicated work of past Councils.

The Transformation Road Map and the Structure Transformation phases of this work are the blueprints developed by leaders like you at previous councils.

And now we are ready to build the next phase Framing the Future using the same method of high engagement among Leagues and League members.

But before we get into all of the things that make up our transformation, I want to remind everyone WHY. Why are we in this process of transforming the League?

Because building League power at every level is necessary to fulfill our mission over the next century.

You have heard me say this before. A strong League means a strong democracy. A strong democracy REQUIRES a strong League.

For the League to continue to have an impact in the 21st century, we must expand our capacity. Over the last several decades, the landscape of democracy has changed dramatically. States have reverted to Jim Crow antics, enacting more anti voter laws designed to silence Black voters, immigrant communities, and young voters.

The internet has provided conditions for mis- and disinformation about our elections, and every election cycle we see new tactics to prevent people from participating. The imagination of the anti- democratic movement does not lack for ideas. The activism landscape has changed drastically as well. In many ways, the League has struggled to adapt to the needs of volunteers, especially *new* volunteers, in today’s world. We continue to rely on outdated systems and cultural norms, which hold us back from spending our time advancing our mission.

We are working on streamlining, redirecting, and in specific situations removing administrative burdens so that state and local League leaders can spend their time and energy on voters and their communities.

Close your eyes and let’s dream together of a truly transformed League. Let’s allow ourselves to dream really big. Imagine... 

• State and local Leagues are more powerful, well-funded, and staffed as needed 
• Every state League has paid staff 
• We have 1 million League members or more. A grand membership of diverse, grassroots activists and supporters across all 50 states, VI 
• Make that 51 states, because DC statehood can be achieved with a transformed League 
• The power to lead and move our issues at the federal and state levels – and receive recognition because the League’s power and influence is undeniable. 
• A Stellar communications network where we all can connect easily that is the envy of many other nonprofits 
• More financial assets for every League, not only through grants but deep fundraising capacity at every level  
• Who knows, maybe we’ll host presidential debates again or have an LWV leader on the dais!

Open your eyes. Are you feeling inspired? Because this is all possible.

We are not going to get there overnight, but the groundwork we are laying today will yield the resources of tomorrow. We are preparing our organization at EVERY level to have a greater impact. That is why we all come to the League. Not to update a database or file a tax form – but to serve the voters.

Transformation is HOW we build our power.

Now, what we DO with that power once we build it, that brings us to our Moonshot. With great power comes great responsibility – and our responsibility is to the voters and our democracy. We continue to advance our mission and work towards a more perfect and equitable democracy. We must truly realize one person, one vote.

Last year at Convention, I announced the League’s long-term moonshot goal to abolish the electoral college.

This ambitious goal did not emerge out of thin air. It began as an idea generated by League leaders at a previous Council meeting just like this. State leaders at Council in 2019 worked with the LWVUS board and staff to identify issues with great potential to strengthen democracy. League leaders explored challenges that fit with the League’s long-time positions, that live up to our DEI values, and that are highly popular and not partisan.

Prior to selecting our moonshot, the LWVUS Board took a moment to visualize what change meant and how it could be addressed, and developed a theory of change. A theory of change is a method that organizations use for planning social change and defining their long-term goals and what is needed to achieve their goals. We developed a theory of change for the League that ties our mission and values to the work we are doing today.

Through much analysis, discourse, and self-reflection, the 2018-2020 National Board then chose eliminating the Electoral College as our new long-term goal.

The League has long opposed the Electoral College. And we hear from Leagues and the public that voters want the direct popular vote to determine the presidency and vice presidency. The archaic winner-take-all system holds back our democracy from true representation. As I said at Convention, last June, “The Electoral College is not reflective of a true democracy in which the people directly decide their leaders.” 

And it is no secret that the Electoral College has racist roots meant to disenfranchise millions of Black Americans for decades.

This is a big goal.

This theory of change model helps us to see how building ourselves — our Leagues — allows us to have a greater impact. The League will protect voters, achieve fair maps, and implement the Campaign for Making Democracy Work® — all leading us to this big moonshot of abolishing the Electoral College and lean into our mission to defend democracy and protect voters.

Abolishing the Electoral College will not happen overnight. For more than 50 years, the League has held a position opposing this system. It may take another 50 years to accomplish our goal. But think about the suffrage movement.

It took more than 8 decades for women to win the 19th Amendment – and another 4 decades before the Voting Rights Act truly enfranchised all women and we are seeing enfranchisement being stripped away and therefore, we must act. By transforming, we can stop the chilling.

This moonshot trajectory will happen in several phases to create benchmarks along the journey, build in flexibility and nimbleness, and provide Leagues with a campaign that will attract new members for years to come.

This is not a go-it-alone approach. We will educate our communities on the problem with the Electoral College that over-represents some, while not accounting for ‘we the people.’ We will build a movement of support for a new, fairer system. We will advocate for the elimination of the Electoral College through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We will work in coalition with partner organizations to accomplish this audacious goal — and establish a direct popular vote method for electing future Presidents.

We are paving the way now so that our children and our grandchildren will live in a stronger democracy.  

Will have a more powerful voice. Will know the power of more equitable representation.

Let us be real. Most of us won’t be around to see this dream become a reality, but that’s okay. It is our legacy. This is our New 19th Amendment. Of those treasured leaders who launched the fight for the 19th, most did not live to see the fruits of their labor. What remains important is the contributions we will make towards our mission. That is the legacy of the League we leave behind us. We will be the shoulders the next generation will stand on in this fight.

The transformation work we take on now is what will position us to accomplish big dreams like this moonshot.  

We are building the League of the future and setting up our successors to achieve our greatest aspirations.

This goal is a formidable one. And democracy fighters are facing current challenges at the same time. Big challenges. New anti-voter laws, new mis- and disinformation bad actors, new voter suppression tactics, and new adversaries that we must overcome.

But we must also focus beyond the here and now in order to advance our mission. Empowering voters and defending democracy not only defines our work now but signifies the future we are building towards. 

So, we are framing that future together.  

• This spring, the Framing the Future working groups provided valuable insight about key transformation plans this year.   
• The all-member survey provided critical perspective from League members in big and small states, all across the country. 
• At this Council, we are going to work on better understanding state League capacity needs as well as engaging around the business modeling of a proposed new dues structure.  
• Together, we will be exploring both systems and culture changes that are needed to achieve greater impact.  
• Leagues can now find content on the League Management Site to engage in our first phase of our multi-decade goal of abolishing the electoral college. 
• By the end of Council we hope everyone understands how the moonshot and transformation work are grounded in the League’s vision for democracy.

This Council is building upon the work of previous Council leaders – in both of our main areas of work this weekend: advancing our Transformation and building out our Moonshot goal.

The work we do together over the next few days is critical to the future of the League.

So some of the work we will be doing may feel different. I want to be clear that staff, board members, and facilitators were very intentional in how this Council was designed and how our two areas of work are connected. There is a sequencing to the topics we are discussing in the sessions. And the team here has worked hard to present this in various formats with an emphasis on interaction, transparency, and the ability for everyone here to see themselves and their Leagues in the work. So I ask you to give your full selves to our time together the next few days, trust in the process, and we are going to get there together.

There is power in the League’s story, in doing the collective hard work to advance our organization and overcome big challenges. Together we are strong, and I am confident that this Council will set us on a path to great success in the years ahead.

Thank you so much, and now I’d like to invite up our fearless CEO, Virginia Kase Solomón.