A Report on Seattle DSA’s 2024 Democracy Budget

This text was written as part of the LSC Pamphlet Program. It reflects only the opinions of the author and not the consensus of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus.

by Klondike, Seattle DSA

Introduction

I'm writing this report so that comrades have ideas for best practices that they can take into their own chapters and even external organizations. While the context of this document specifically deals with budgeting; the ideas around democratic decision making, as well as the technical aspects of bringing people together and organizing, are broadly applicable.

Whether you're new to organizing and collective decision making or a seasoned veteran, I believe this case study has something for you to take away and apply in your own life. The following report is for all chapters and all comrades who value democratic decision making, regardless of tendency.

For newer comrades, I hope this helps demystify some things. The education system doesn't prepare us to make change, but instead for naivety at one end and nihilism at the other. Capitalist systems of labor and bureaucracy are practically useless here unless you've got enough cash or influence to make a good bribe.

For veteran comrades, I hope you read this and, if the spirit (of revolt) moves you, hit the ground running. I know everyone is pretty busy right now; if there's any one specific thing here I want to emphasize - we need to be building out structures that perpetuate themselves. Dedicate some time to help teach newer comrades how to step up and step in. Let's make things easier for them than it has been for us. Trust me, having an organization that builds people up more than burns people out is going to lead to bigger budgets.

This report was written by a DSA anarchist who saw a hierarchical process and challenged it with a directly democratic one, in a big tent with competing interests and ideological tendencies.

With over $50,000 on the line.

Successfully.

Background

Seattle DSA has a well-established budgeting process. Every year a budget is created by the Local Council (LC), Seattle’s elected chapter leadership. This process is mostly led by the chapter treasurer and voted on (and open for amendments) at the June business meeting by the general membership.

For the budgeting process this year, the treasurer solicited budget requests from all the Working Groups and Committees in the chapter. Those requests, along with predicted expenses and revenues, were compiled into a spreadsheet to form a starting point for a serious budget proposal.

This preliminary Pie-In-The-Sky Budget totaled just under $80,000 and included a $24,000 unspecified war-chest for an unknown future electoral campaign.

It was understood very quickly that this was not a reasonable budget (the treasurer made that well known / fulfilled his fiduciary obligation) and so the Pie-In-The-Sky Budget was set for discussion at an upcoming Local Council (LC) retreat in late May.

When it came time to discuss the budget, one of the LC comrades began going line-by-line and started cutting everything to the bone to try and keep the $24,000 war chest for an unspecified electoral campaign without bankrupting the chapter.

When the suggestion was made to cut the Labor Working Group’s budget for strike support, I made eye contact with another LSC (Libertarian Socialist Caucus) comrade on LC, and then began pushing back against the cuts.

The exchange was heated.

The clashes between different tendencies in our pluralist org was in full display.

Multiple LC members joined in at various points. Democracy itself was debated, as representative democracy arguments of “this is what we were elected to do” vs direct democracy arguments of “LC unilaterally cutting things is not democracy” and “the people most affected need to be making the decision”.

At one point an LC member cited a resolution passed in a prior general membership meeting to affirm the top-down process as the approved way of doing things, to which I responded, “I’m not here to fight for a resolution, I’m here to fight for a democratic process.”

Finally I made a motion: “I propose the LC meet with a co-chair from each WG in a meeting to discuss and create the draft of the budget to be proposed at the June membership meeting.”

The version of this that was passed included clarifying language: "Motion is to have a quorum of this LC meet with the WG co-chairs and committee chairs to hash out a recommended budget for the treasurer to propose with membership."

I also volunteered to bottom line this if it passed.

There is no way this would have passed without someone bottom lining it.

It was a close vote.

Four voted in favor: myself and another LSC comrade; an uncaused comrade who generally is aligned to LSC positions other than electoralism; and an uncaucused Trotskyist comrade.

Two voted against: the comrade whom I had been arguing with (uncaucused), as well as a Red Star comrade.

Three abstained: another uncaucused comrade, the treasurer in Marxist Unity Group (MUG), and another LSC comrade who was on a flight at the time of the vote but would have otherwise voted in favor.

Winning the vote was awesome. Most of democracy isn’t about winning a vote though – it’s about implementing the democratic will of said vote.

There is no such thing as revolution by resolution.

Doing the Legwork

After the LC retreat I got home and looked up the names and contact info of every co-chair in the chapter (every Committee, every Working Group, and of course the LC as well). I put these names into a spreadsheet for easier data management / list work.

I then created a LettuceMeet spanning about 3 weeks worth of availability options and proceeded to reach out to everyone one-on-one, via Signal where possible and via direct text and Slack where not possible.

This was the LettuceMeet meeting description as I pitched it:

Democracy Budget Meeting
To have a quorum of this LC meet with the WG co chairs and committee chairs to hash out a recommended budget for the treasurer to propose to membership for the June Business Meeting. This motion passed at the LC retreat on 5/26 and was made so that the proposed budget being put forward to membership would be made in a democratic fashion - where the people most impacted would be in the room and working the draft - rather than a closed door top-down proposal coming straight from the LC. The treasurer still reserves the power to set the constraints of the budget (i.e. if everyone meets up and votes for a budget that would bankrupt the chapter or be otherwise high risk, the treasurer retains the authority of his position in proposing a sound budget). Let's meet up and hash out the most democratic budget proposal Seattle DSA has seen since I've been here.
– Klondike

After a few days, and a few reminders, I had received 21 responses out of a possible 28.

I followed up with people once more a week before the meeting, and then once again the day-of. All of this was done through 1:1 texting (only using Slack where I didn’t have a phone number), none of it using any automation. Absolutely no emails (email is generally one of the least effective modes of engagement). If a co-chair was unable to attend, a co-chair-approved or otherwise democratically selected delegate could attend in their place. This was generally well-received despite it being a slight deviation from the original motion.

While I worked to implement the Democracy Budget effort, the two dissenting comrades, to their credit, worked together to create a fiduciarily responsible budget that satisfied our chapter's bylaws requirements to meet the deadline for submitting resolutions. This Statutory Budget was created in good faith and explicitly pitched to Seattle DSA members as only being done to satisfy bylaws requirements, and that there would be a second budget to be pitched following the Democracy Budget meeting.

These comrades did the collective a solid and kept everything in compliance.

Running the Meeting

The Democracy Budget drafting meeting was held in the common area of the apartment complex of the main comrade I had been fighting with over the whole budget process. Being able to work in good faith with comrades of different ideological tendencies is essential to keeping a pluralist org like the DSA together. In Seattle, we don't just talk about having good faith - we back it up with our actions.

I printed off individual copies of all the different budget requests, the agenda I drafted up (with a little help from the treasurer), and the Statutory Budget and handed them out to everyone.

Trees were murdered.

The meeting was supposed to start at 2pm. Unfortunately many people were late and I had never actually hosted a chapter Zoom meeting before (two people had to call in remote) so I had to figure out how to get that up and running. The LSC comrade who wasn’t able to make the original vote bailed me out when my password wasn’t working. Thanks man.

The meeting ended up starting at 2:30pm.

The original agenda was:

Democracy Budget Meeting
To have a quorum of this LC meet with the WG co-chairs and committee chairs to hash out a recommended budget for the treasurer to propose to membership for the June Business Meeting. This motion passed at the LC retreat on 5/26 and was made so that the proposed budget being put forward to membership would be made in a democratic fashion - where the people most impacted would be in the room and working the draft - rather than a closed door top-down proposal coming straight from the LC. The treasurer still reserves the power to set the constraints of the budget (i.e. if everyone meets up and votes for a budget that would bankrupt the chapter or be otherwise high risk, the treasurer retains the authority of his position in proposing a sound budget). Let's meet up and hash out the most democratic budget proposal Seattle DSA has seen since I've been here.
- Klondike

Preliminary Budget: [Link to Preliminary Budget]

Tentative Agenda:

Introductions
Name, Pronouns, Committee, or WG you’re representing as a delegate
Motion to Adopt or Amend Proposed Agenda

Proposed Agenda:

Have [Treasurer] review expected income and fixed expenditures
1. Allow the opportunity to consider if the fixed expenditures can have variations/adjustments/cuts etc.
2. Give the pie-in-the-sky dollar amount against what is expected to come into the chapter
Hand each person a physical copy of submissions from each Committee and Working Group (and maybe some pencils & pens & highlighters)
Have the delegates rank their priorities (to their own proposals)
Have each group talk about what they want to accomplish, why they need $X to accomplish it
1. Do this in rotating 1:1 convos, rotate until each WG and Committee present has spoken to each other
As a group, determine where expenses can be cut
Draft the Democracy Budget
1. Pass by consensus
2. If consensus cannot be reached, ⅔ majority, with each WG and Committee receiving 1 vote, regardless of how many co-chairs or representatives show up
3. NOTE: This vote is non-binding other than that the final draft will be what is put forward to the membership so long as it does not violate the fiduciary duties of the treasurer.”

A few minor amendments were made due to attending comrades seeing a little bit of double-accounting in the Statutory Budget (discussion of this was added), and a little later the “rotating 1:1 convos” was changed to have everyone discussion collectively at the table as a group in order to save time (it became clear pretty quickly that this meeting was NOT going to end by 4pm).

The treasurer presented the financial situation of the chapter to the group, clarifying questions were asked, notes were taken, a shared level of financial understanding was reached for everyone attending.

After everyone had had some time to rank their own budget item requests, each Working Group and Committee took a turn in the hot seat, and this became the format for the rest of the meeting going group by group. The leader(s) would make the pitch on their budget request, everyone would discuss, ask questions, push back some, and conclude with a motion coming sometimes from a group leader and sometimes from someone else entirely.

Once the motion to set their budget request to X amount of dollars was passed, a new group got a turn in the hot seat (presenting their budget request and fielding questions from the group).The order was pretty random and volunteer-driven at first, but as the meeting dragged on, groups requesting more money became prioritized for going into the hot seat.

By around 5:30pm, an ad-hoc pizza delivery (organized by the same comrade who had been the main dissent at the LC Retreat!), and one of the worst hailstorms Seattle has seen in a minute (seriously, a few comrades took a minute to record some of it), we had a draft budget.

The treasurer then reviewed the changes and decisions that were made for each group and the budget as a whole – starting with the Pie-In-The-Sky budget, moving into the Statutory Budget, and ending with the Democracy Budget.

I asked the treasurer if he felt that this proposed budget met his fiduciary obligations; he replied affirmatively that it did. When I moved for adoption by unanimous consent, I let the silence hang in the air a little. I believe it's very important for consensus votes to be true consensus and not done quickly where people don't have time to organize their thoughts and dissent.

A cop car with sirens interrupted the silence and we collectively determined that the cop siren did not qualify as a legitimate dissent.

The Democracy Budget was passed by consensus. Every major group in Seattle DSA at the table, every ideological tendency, every bit a sensitive topic – passed with consensus. People who had told me that they hadn't originally been on board and had been skeptical let me know afterwards that they had been won over.

This vote, while important, wasn’t binding. We still needed this budget to pass at the June Business Meeting via a vote of the attending general membership.

The June Meeting and the Binding Vote:

There was no organized opposition to the Democracy Budget. Leading up to the meeting I had told the people who had drafted our budget to head back to their respective groups and build support. I heard a few days prior to the meeting that it looked like support was widespread and deep, and that everything was holding.

We did have a correction where the surplus of the budget was originally $7,000 and this was revised down to $3,000. There was no change in conditions that led to this; the treasurer just wanted to be more conservative after re-reviewing the finances. This led to a question and answer.

Every single stack (person who ad-hoc puts themself on a list to speak and then goes to the mic and speaks) at the meeting was in support.

I certainly got up there and did a quick stack to rally the yes vote. It's not over until it's over. Even in this situation, I don't believe in taking things for granted.

The Democracy Budget passed with a final vote of 56 in favor, 1 against, and 2 abstentions.

Final Thoughts

I took a lot of inspiration in doing all this from Anarchic Agreements and I recommend everyone who hasn’t read it yet get a copy and read it. I personally credit that book for giving me what I needed mentally to make this meeting happen. It’s also a pretty short book ~100 pages. The book emphasizes subsidiarity, the idea that those most impacted by a decision should be at the table making the decision, as a pillar of democratic process.

The meeting could have gone smoother. Tech issues can be trained away in advance (particularly the issues I had); people could be better about not being late / enforce the start time as a hard start time; and there definitely should have been a time-keeper keeping things moving and time limits on each group. There is also no way in hell that was going to be a two hour meeting, although it probably could have been done in three hours.

I do intend to push to codify this process at the next Seattle DSA chapter convention so the next LC isn't either re-inventing the wheel or, worse, falling back on old hierarchical habits.

Recruitment is an obvious shared need for our chapter as well as for the broader DSA. When people are discussing cutting money from your budget due to financial constraints, it puts recruiting on a whole new level of importance. We need to develop recruitment pipelines and be proactive. Then we need political education and, most especially, ladders of engagement and for the people who come in. I think Tacoma DSA's Rosebud Mentorship Program is a great tool here and I'm currently working with a multi-tendency group of comrades on creating a mentorship program for Seattle DSA.

It might be a little old school, but I’m really glad almost everyone at the meeting was there in person. When discussing something as sensitive as the budget, it should *NOT* be done behind a computer screen if at all possible. Only two people called in remotely, they didn’t engage nearly as much as anyone else, and I’m not sure this meeting could have reached the same level of success if it was a predominantly remote meeting (although I appreciate the people who attended remotely!).

4 in favor, 2 opposed, 3 abstentions is a close vote. A plurality vote was what allowed this process to move forward - not even a simple majority. This highlights two things to me:

To all comrades who want to see things change - run for your chapter’s Steering Committee, win, break the power concentrations at the heights while the comrades who didn't run hit it from below. Some of these votes are close. Get involved in committees and working groups - these are ladders of engagement that will build yourself and your organization. Lend a hand, learn some skills, and then step up and lead.
Autonomy has to be present in our organization - locally and nationally - in order for new ideas to be tried and tested. This applies more to general chapter work than Steering Committee decisions - but there has to be room for experimentation. Autonomy is what gives diversity room to functionally exist. Requiring everything to be either a chapter-wide vote or even a Steering Committee vote creates a situation where every single person who wants to do something becomes in competition and in conflict within the same organization against anyone who is different from themselves. This situation deeply favors conservatism and entrenched leadership.

I want to be in an org that maximizes people's abilities to organize around their passions and fight for change, rather than one that attempts to force assimilation through hierarchy. Even attempting assimilation through direct democracy creates conditions of deep conflict or, often to dodge or end the conflict, a state of watering everything down to the lowest common denominator.

While our organization must have some common standards - we are not the Democrats - our membership must have some common freedom too.

"The individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and importance of the other. The individual and social instincts - the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being."
- Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, p34

For those comrades interested in joining the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (DSA-only), or the broader Horizon Federation (no DSA membership required), join today!

- Klondike, Seattle DSA, Libertarian Socialist Caucus