How Many Kinds Of Involuntary Resignation?

http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/04/applicants-sought-for-lnc-vacancy

Paulie, those of use who have been to recent LNC meetings can evaluate for ourselves the plausibility of the report that Wrights publicly suggested the LP is not worth donating to (or joining, as Angela did in writing months before her resignation).  I won't insult your intelligence if you don't insult mine. :-)

You fail to distinguish between the two hypothetical cases of 1) an 8.5 removal-for-cause for the aforementioned suggestion and 2) deciding the LNC should fill a vacancy with someone other than a person who has made the aforementioned suggestion.  The bar is lower in the second case, both on the merits and by the number of votes required to clear it.

George Phillies, if your contention is that your last sentence at @65 is clearly a hypothetical, then I need offer no other rebuttal than to invite people to re-read it.  And if you're willing to certify that what these "hypothetical" Republican infiltrators are doing is nothing worse than what the LNC recently did for the 1988 LP nominee, then I heartily welcome you undercutting your own "hypothetical" charges. :-)

Mike Seebeck, how under your reading are the LP Bylaws any different with the addition of 8.4 (providing that LNC members must be sustaining members and must refrain from running under non-affiliated parties)?  Are you saying 8.4 is just a friendly recommendation to keep in mind these two potential causes for removal?  Do you say that 8.4 is binding only when an LNC member is chosen, and is only advisory afterward?  If LNC passed a resolution saying that a member has deliberately shirked dues but has nevertheless not exhibited cause for removal, can that decision be appealed to JudCom as a violation of 8.4?  If so, then why would the Bylaws intend that it takes 2/3 of LNC to check whether a member is lapsed, but it only takes the Secretary or Chair or whoever to check if a member has missed consecutive meetings?  You say there "isn’t anything in the Bylaws about a Secretary removing an LNC member for a dues lapse", but the Bylaws don't say which officer processes what you admit is an "involuntary resignation" for consecutive absences.  Why can't 8.4 violations be considered just another form of "involuntary resignation"? 

I can think of only one textually plausible answer: in the three places where the Bylaws indisputably talk about a vacancy happening, they use a form of the phrase "deemed vacant".  That construction is not used in 8.4.  This absence has to be weighed against the pointlessness of 8.4 if it is not as self-enforcing as the consecutive-absence rule (or, the ill-craftedness of 8.4 if it is supposed to only constrain elections/appointments).  Reasonable people can differ on this matter, but people simply acting on agendas will just call other people names.