As Promised

Here's a little background:

I'm a member of the National Organization for Women, which is divided up into lots of smaller chapters around the country. California is the only state that has a state-level organization, California NOW. Our state organization serves as a way to unify the state's more than 100,000 NOW members.

California NOW has an annual conference, and at this year's meetings we will be holding elections for our executive leadership. There are many positions up for grabs, but there are only two slates, the incumbants and the challengers.

Both slates have their own campaigns and their own websites. This year's campaign has become heated, as all campaigns do, because those who currently hold executive positions have a vested interest in retaining their titles.

This morning I received this email:

SUBJECT: Urgent Action Requested -- CANOW members
please distribute widely and PLEASE take the time to vote this Saturday.

READ MORE: www.CaliforniaNOW.org

Dear
Fellow CANOW Member:
Do you want CANOW to remain grassroots? If so, it is
time to protect the grassroots of California NOW. Your attendance, before 4:30
this Saturday in San Diego is urgently requested. Your vote is critically
important at this pivotal stage in NOW history. In our forty years, NOW chapters
have always operated with elected, not permanent leadership. With the potential
exception of our very own chapter, no NOW chapter allows unelected permanent
leaders. CANOW is in the process of changing into a conventional nonprofit
(where one person as executive director or president stays on permanently
without term limits). There was a lawsuit 30 years ago at the national level to
prevent converting NOW this way from its grassroots organizational structure and
several California chapters have assembled to do the same for our chapter.

After one term in office and witnessing the CANOW administration from
the inside our elected president, Kim Salter, has determined that a decade long
downturn in membership, over 7 years without a financial audit, board
stalemates, almost 50 cents of every dollar donated going to pay telemarketers,
and organizational transition from grassroots to centrally operated is ready for
substantive change. The need for change and authoritative leadership is great.
We have let a few leaders invert the NOW grassroots model and operate under
highly discretionary permanent leadership and in violation of our organization's
charter.

The Kim Salter slate is committed to correcting this divergence
and re-establishing the grassroots of CANOW. We are a group of qualified
candidates who want to turn NOW back around in a positive direction and preserve
the GRASSROOTS. Please vote to save CANOW by supporting the Kim Salter slate.

In Sisterhood,
The Kim Salter Slate
President, Kimberly Salter,
current CA NOW President
VP Action, Gloria Johnson, San Diego County NOW
Board Delegate
VP Membership, Nan Leuschel, San Francisco NOW Board Member
VP Diversity, Mona Lisa Wallace, recent San Francisco NOW President
Treasurer, Heather Karberg, Orange County NOW Board member
Secretary,
Nadia Islam, VP Racial and Ethnic Diversity


The Election
4:30
p.m. Saturday, April 21
Holiday Inn Bayside
4875 North Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA
619-224-3621

You must already be a member of NOW
to vote, and you must receive credentials on Saturday, April 21, prior to 5:00
pm. Be sure to arrive before 4:30 pm on Saturday and get in the credential line
early to be ready to vote.

Chapters Endorsing the Salter Slate (Partial
list)
LA Now
Oakland/East Bay
Orange County
San Diego County
San Francisco
San Gabriel Valley/Whittier

"It is against
National NOW policy to have permanent leadership -- members vote on and elect
our leaders because NOW is a small "d" democratic organization. Picture us as an
upside pyramid – members at the top, then chapters, then states." Kim Gandy,
president of NOW

"I also believe very strongly in wide latitude for
chapters - within the broad Statement of Purpose of NOW - and minimum 'control'
by state or national full-time, or 'permanent' leaders. A movement can survive
and thrive only when it makes room for new voices and new leadership."
Aileen Hernandez, founding NOW member and 2nd NOW President

READ MORE: www.CaliforniaNOW.org

To which I replied:

Dear Ms. Salter,

This brief message is in response to your passionate call for my support of your candidacy for president on CANOW. I'd like to share some of my reactions to your message.

First, the subject line and the header of your correspondence is deceptive. You write as if your message is coming from the organization when it is really a cleverly disguised campaign plea. Your campaign's attempt to use the legitimacy of CANOW to garner votes is dishonest and unethical.

Your message is written to appeal to fear, fear that my feminist organization is going to be ruined unless I vote for you. This is an elementary strategy. Your message tells me nothing of what you have done in your current position or anything about your unique vision for the future of my organization.

You say that the need for change is great, and yet you encourage me to support you and maintain the status quo by reelecting you.

Perhaps most egregious, you have used your personal access to the public contact information of our member organization to your unfair and perhaps illegal advantage. In fact, CANOW's privacy statement, taken from the official website reads: "We respect your privacy! Any and all the information collected on this site will be kept strictly confidential and will not be sold, reused, rented, disclosed, or loaned! Any information you give us will be held with the utmost care and will not be used in ways that you have not consented to..." I certainly did not consent for you to use my membership contact information for your campaign purposes.

There are some portions of your message that I do agree with. We do need grassroots participation in CANOW. We do need to encourage our membership to vote. These two ideals should be distributed widely. Thus, I am posting both your message to me, and my response, in my public forum: http://melissamsw.blogspot.com.

Please remove me from your personal email distribution list.

Sincerely,

Melissa

UPDATE: The election results are in! Congratulations to the NewNOW slate for their victory! We look forward to many exciting, progressive changes as we work together to promote feminist ideals in California.