Bylaw Changes Make it Harder to Win SMRR Nod

By Jorge Casuso

Nov. 18 -- It will be harder to win the endorsement of the city's powerful tenants' group after a series of bylaw changes approved at the Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights convention Sunday.

Under the new bylaws, members must join the organization three months -- instead of three weeks -- before casting endorsement votes at the SMRR convention, while candidates must win 55 percent of the vote in no more than three rounds of ballots.

The key change safeguards against candidates mounting stealth membership drives weeks before the convention -- which is held three months before local voters go to the polls -- in order to flood the floor with new members whose sole purpose is to vote them onto the slate.

The strategy was used by several candidates at last year's convention, resulting in between 100 and 150 voting members joining the organization's ranks before the deadline.

SMRR officials hope the longer timeline will provide a "settling down period" that should help diffuse the "divisive dynamic" that split the organization's ranks last year, said SMRR chair Dennis Zane.

"The process in the last convention was a realization of a lot of concerns that had existed before but had not been realized," said Zane, who helped found the organization half a century ago. "There were a number of last-minute membership drives. It was the first time it had been done on a mass scale."

At the August 2002 convention, City Council candidate Abby Arnold and School Board candidate Oscar de la Torre bolstered their support with last-ditch membership drives. It was a strategy used on a much smaller scale by previous candidates.

Feinstein, who like other candidates had signed up some new members before a convention, said he welcomed the "slight but significant shift away from exploiting the organization's convention and endorsement simply to benefit one candidate.

"It requires people to make a commitment to being a member before the candidate runs," said Feinstein, a former mayor who will complete his second four-year term next year.

In addition, candidates for endorsement must win 55 percent -- instead of a simple majority -- of the membership votes to get on the coveted SMRR slate, which translates into thousands of automatic votes from rent-control tenants.

"There was a simple judgement that it would be better if endorsements are not a bare majority, but somewhat stronger affirmations," said Zane, a former mayor who served eight years on the council.

A third bylaw change would avert dragged-out conventions by limiting endorsement votes to three rounds. If a seat remains unfilled because candidates fail to win the necessary 55 percent, it would remain open. The steering committee, however, could make an endorsement.

"Three rounds of voting codifies what had been happening at every convention," Zane said. "These conventions get long, and as you go on, people begin to leave. You have a bare number of participants deciding the outcome."

Feinstein, however, opposed the change, arguing that it potentially leaves the endorsement in the hands of the 11-member steering committee, even if a candidate wins a majority of the votes.

"It's an undemocratic measure that unfairly and unnecessarily limits the voice of the members," Feinstein said. "Someone could receive the majority in all three rounds" and still not win the endorsement.

"This shifts the power to the steering committee," Feinstein said.

Zane countered that although the steering committee "technically has the authority to endorse, that would be the highly unlikely outcome.

"That was not an objective," Zane said. "There was overwhelming support for the bylaw changes. The membership understood what was happening."

But, Zane added, "some potential candidates might be concerned that they may not be able to measure up."