FOLU By Laws

Friends of Liberty United By-Laws

Article I – General

Section 1 – The name of the Organization shall be “Friends of Liberty United” (hereafter referred to as FOLU).

Section 2 – Mission Statement (Goal) – The goal of FOLU is “ to insure all levels of government (federal, state, county & local) are in full compliance with the U.S. Constitution, thereby restoring to the States and the People the sovereignty and liberty guaranteed them.”

Section 3 – Organization type: FOLU shall be operated as a non-profit in that there are no stockholders. Any and all funds collected will be considered donations, and shall be used only as specified within these by-laws. The leadership positions will be filled by volunteers who will not draw any salary for their participation, they may however be eligible for reimbursement for items allowed under the provisions of these by-laws. There will be some positions requiring virtual full time attention, such as comptroller, technical support etc. that may be compensated as employees or contractors as funds are available.

Section 4 – Operational Control – The operation and function of FOLU shall be in accordance with these by-laws and in instances where these by-laws do not sufficiently cover certain situations the principles of Roberts Rules of Order (12th edition) shall be considered. All by-law requirements are considered binding unless the specific area in question allows for latitude in application.

Article II – Organizational Structure

Section 1. National Leadership Team (NLT) – The NLT is a membership by invitation only committee. The initial members will serve until the first annual General Membership Meeting (On-Line) is held in January of 2022, at which time the nominations will be taken and a Board (NLT) will be elected. The NLT will elect its own Chairman who will have the authority to designate the role of Chairing any meeting at his/her discretion. The role of the NLT is to:

(A) .. to provide a plan designed to allow Americans to unite on issues and actions of mutual interest while assuring everyone involved retains their freedom to pursue their special interests and the tools to support the plan’s implementation and

(B) .. to function as a catalyst to inspire the leadership of other organization to affiliate with FOLU in implementing the plan.

Section 2. National Implementation Team (NIT) – The NIT is to coordinate the execution of the plan, policies, procedures, and programs established by the NLT. NIT members may be designated as ‘mission essential’ in that their area of expertise may warrant inclusion in those who are employed or contracted to keep the organization operating lawfully and smoothly.

Section 3. National Objective Pursuit Teams (OPT) duties will be to develop and coordinate the execution of plans designed to satisfy objectives identified by the NLT as lying on the FOLU goal’s critical path. State, County and Local FOLU chapters are responsible for creating the OPTs needed to pursue objectives they identify a need for.

Section 4. State, county and local FOLU chapters will be comprised of all FOLU members within certain geographical areas. They will be the backbone of the organization and will be:

(A) .. responsible for supporting NLT and NIT initiatives and for developing and implement plans designed to address issues of concern at their level of government. The State coordinators may organize the sub-chapters within their states (the chart at Appendix A may be used as a guideline).

(B) .. State level chapters shall publish their own by-laws for the operation of the state level operations, all proposed by-laws shall be reviewed by the NLT prior to publishing..

(C) .. County level groups may choose to product their own bylaws, which must be reviewed and approved by the State level.

Section 5. Ancillary teams as needed in support of the OPTs.

Article III – Membership

FOLU is a membership organization open to all Americans who have taken an oath to support the Constitution of 1787 and demonstrated a willingness to do so with their actions.

Article IV – Dues and Finances

Section 1. FOLU membership dues are $5.00 per month or $50 per year if paid in advance.

Section 2. All FOLU income will be devoted to implementing the FOLU plan. All expenditures shall be authorized by a majority of the NLT.

Section 3. FOLU finances shall be overseen by a Comptroller for the day-by-day activities, and shall contract for an ‘outside’ auditor to prepare any documents that may be required.

Section 4. State, County and local FOLU chapters

(A). …may maintain their own bank accounts and operate according to their own by-laws.

(B). …may request financial assistance as needed to perform their functions from the National Level, all such requests will be considered, and shall require approved by a majority of the NLT (or other entity subsequently created at the National Level to make such determinations).

(C). … may set their own dues, however no members may be charged dues without first establishing membership with the National FOLU organization and payment of the National dues.

Article V – Meetings

Section 1. FOLU meetings will primarily consist of Political Action Coordinating Conferences and In Process Reviews; both of which are described elsewhere on the FriendsofLibertyUnited.com web site.

(A). Virtual meetings are authorized.

(B). Each local, county, regional, state level chapter may create their own criteria for conduct of their meetings (to be addressed in the State by-laws).

Section 2. Each NLT FOLU meeting shall

(A) … be conducted by the Chair of the NLT or by another member of the NLT at the discretion of the Chair…

(B) … will be conducted in a manner whereby it may serve as an online PACC (see Section 1) and will also have the option to contain a segment whereby the business of FOLU can be conducted…

(C) … Any member of FOLU may attend any meeting, with the exclusion of ‘executive session’ segments; there may be certain votes taken during meetings where only certain segments of FOLU members may vote, according to these bylaws..

Section 3. Should a motion for any meeting to ‘go into executive session’ be approved it then should be determined if the *executive session should be exclusive, or open to view by all members; if it is determined to be ‘open’ only members of the executive council will have the authority to actively participate and vote.

* Only NLT members, Chairs of OPTs and State Coordinators will populate the Executive Council. [the ‘secretary’ will be allowed to attend in all cases, with no participation rights or right to vote unless the secretary is also included in one of the preceding groups.

Section 4. Frequency of meetings .. Meetings may be held twice per week on days and times agreed upon by the NLT; at least one meeting per month shall be designated as an “All Members” meeting, at which meeting matters concerning the organization as a whole will be covered.

Section 5. Quorum .. It shall take a majority of the NLT members present to constitute a quorum whereby business may be transacted.

Section 6. Notification of meetings.. Electronic notification of meetings shall be considered sufficient (except for the purpose of proposing amendment to these by laws it shall require notification as prescribed in Article VI of these bylaws).

Article VI – Amendments

Section 1. Origin of any amendment – Any member may ask of any State Leader, OPT member or NLT member to schedule a meeting for the purposes of amending or adding to these By-Laws. The State Leader or OPT member shall forward the request for scheduling such a meeting to a member of the NLT (should the original request for such a meeting not be made directly to a member of the NLT) within 15 days of the request. The NLT member contacted for this purpose shall confer with the other NLT members and if any two or more of them agree that a meeting for the issue should be held one of them shall schedule a special meeting for the sole purpose of discussing the proposed By-Laws change within 15 days of the request reaching the NLT level. The meeting shall be ‘billed’ as a requested By-Laws amendment meeting, and the subject matter of the suggested change shall be announced at the time of the scheduling of the meeting.

Section 2. Authorized members to be present – The members of the NLT, State Leaders, OPT members and NIT members shall be eligible to attend such a meeting.

Section 3. A resolution of the matter may or may not be effected at the first scheduled meeting for the purpose of amending the By-Laws. A conclusion of the matter must be effected within a total of 3 scheduled meetings on the issue, and all 3 meetings shall occur within less than 46 days from the first scheduled meeting on the issue.

Section 4. Sections 1-3 of this article do not apply to Article II Section 1 of these By-Laws until the year 2022.

Article VII – Miscellaneous

Section 1. Special Rules – The organization may adopt Special Rules that will preclude normal procedures for Roberts Rules of Order, and such rules may be added as an attachment to these Bylaws.