Promising “new energy on the Libertarian National Committee,” party activist Scott Williamson has announced his candidacy for LNC Regional Representative from Region 4, which currently includes the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Williamson, who holds a degree in Political Science, is currently serving as secretary of the Libertarian Party of Nashville and Davidson County.
Here is Williamson’s announcement from his personal blog:
With tax revolts springing up through the grassroots, medical marijuana initiatives sweeping the country, and a renewed commitment to ending Real ID, the Libertarian Party has an exciting future ahead. As the liberty message catches on, our party has a unique opportunity to grow and elect candidates nationwide. To harness this political energy to advance the drive for liberty in our country, we need new energy on the Libertarian National Committee.
Last month, I contacted State Party leaders and grass roots activist. I said I was listening. What did you want to tell me? You told me ballot access, outreach, local campaigns, and activist training were at the top of your agenda. I’ve heard your message. I believe I can help set our party on the path that you asked for. I am excited to announce my candidacy for Regional Representative for the current region four.
Our National Committee’s first responsibility is a fiduciary one. Committee members have a moral obligation to insure the party’s money is spent wisely. It is not only how much money you spend, but what you are spending the money to do. As a Regional Representative I will seek to change where the LNC spends our money. More of our money should be spent on the work of politics. A key issue is transparency, donors need to know where their money is spent.
You can lose an election and win a campaign. In many states we gain ballot access if a candidate wins a percentage of the state wide vote. If we spent money in these states on statewide campaigns we could gain ballot access in that state. This could lead to spending less on ballot access in Presidential election years and free up more money for campaigns and for ballot access in those states where it is the hardest to gain ballot access.
As your regional representative I will continue listen to what you have to say. By keeping in regular contact with state and local leaders and sharing your good work with the party as a whole, I will facilitate communications between the states in our region, so you can adopt what is working from other states and avoid things that are not working.
The hard work of politics is done by those who volunteer their time and money. It is you the local activist who spreads the message of individual freedom and personal responsibility. It is you the local activist who digs deep into your own pockets to support candidates and issues. Our National committee should be helping you more. The National Committee should provide online, free, usable brochures, web page templates for our candidates, and training for people who want to run for office or campaign for an issue.
As we continue to reach out to those at tax revolts, antiwar rallies, gun festivals, and audit the Fed groups we will expand our party membership. We need to harness the talent and experience we already have in our party and offer training to those who wish to join us in our fight for freedom.
These are just a few ideas that will set us on the paths you advocated in your letters and phone calls last month. I am excited about the future of our party and have the energy to help lead the way. I look forward to continually hearing your ideas and working with you to bring about a libertarian society. Together we can change the country. I ask for your support and look forward to meeting you in Saint Louis, if not sooner.
Not exactly, Bill. Here is what Williamson said:
Notice he said “free”. “Free” doesn’t interfere with campaign finance laws.
The reason LPHQ farmed out its lit/bumperstrip/sign/bunkum sales is that every time someone bought anything from LPHQ, it was counted for FEC purposes as a donation to the federal Libertarian National Committee — when really all it was was a lit purchase. Therefore, every lit purchase counted against federal maximum contribution limits (remember McCain-Feingold or “BCRA”).
So if you wanted to donate the legal maximum to the LP, and then a few months later you wanted to order $500 worth of lit to stock your local fair booth, you were SOL.
In addition, the LP should be concentrating on political activities. Selling literature isn’t really a natural function of the national party and there is no reason why it shouldn’t be turned over to a fulfillment house (which is essentially what http://www.LPStuff.com is all about). So, turned over it was.
I seem to recall that the LP was one of the few nationally-organized political parties that still carried and sold its own literature. The others have long since left their “bunkum” sales to private operators.
The only drawback to LPStuff.com is that it is a bit higher in cost than the old LP lit was; ain addition, I believe the designs by Bill Winter were in some ways superior to the new designs offered by LPStuff.com. However, at the end of the day, the literature for sale from LPStuff.com is high quality that will show the LP in a positive light.
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Now, I [sort of] agree with Scott and others who support the availability of free online brochures and other items. However, there is a major flaw with them. That is that such materials will often be printed on home $40 printers, and as a result some of it is going to portray the LP as sloppy and unserious about its image (and therefore its ideas).
If the LP does invest in setting up downloadable online brochures and the like, it should also try to make sure that materials that need to be are professionally printed to proper specs. It will need to be hi-resolution, for instance. Each file should also include an instruction sheet on what to tell the print shop.
Thanks George. I guess we’d only have to come up with the extra money to hire employees to run that department..lol
Scott is a good man who is interested in advancing our party.
“Sell” and “Free Download” are clearly not the same.
BCRA does not make it illegal for the LNC to sell its pamphlets…it does restrict very slightly who could buy them, namely corporations, unions, and non-FEC-filing state parties could not. There is an easy workaround.
Good luck to Mr. Williamson. Ideally, perhaps, a region should elect its most successful retiring state chair to the LNC as, ideally again, the person in the best position to know how LNC has been/should be supporting local growth.
I seem to recall the reason the LPHQ stopped selling pamplets, etc was because of the changes to the FEC rules making it illegal for the LP to do this and that is why another Company offers these.
Scott writes “The hard work of politics is done by those who volunteer their time and money. It is you the local activist who spreads the message of individual freedom and personal responsibility. It is you the local activist who digs deep into your own pockets to support candidates and issues. Our National committee should be helping you more. The National Committee should provide online, free, usable brochures, web page templates for our candidates, and training for people who want to run for office or campaign for an issue.”
Right on! A couple of little points. Much of the literature can be developed by creating a open source process and allowing the members to provide written material overseen by an editorial committee much the way other open source groups work. Additionally the same method can be used to develop media releases and to get and keep the web site up to date.
We can spend all the time in the world building a better mouse trap but if the world doesn’t know about we just have a nice hobby.
Scott has my endorsement. His enthusiasm and activism and the level of organization I’ve seen from him is exactly what we need on the LNC. Best of luck!
Good luck, Scott!
Scott, your message here shows that you have an activist orientation, which is an important criteria for the kind of people we need running our party, because activists are what the LP is all about. I’m glad to hear you say that more money should be spent on the work of politics (as opposed, presumably, to things like office rent, staff salaries, and expensive software packages).
I’m also particularly glad to hear you recognize that “a key issue is transparency.”
Some current LNC members have a tendency toward secrecy and information control, and I believe this has been detrimental to our party.
For instance, I believe that taking away the ability to let LP members comment on blog entries at the LP.org website, as many other websites do, reduces traffic to the site, makes members feel less empowered, and prevents staff getting important feedback from members who can play an important role in keeping staff from succumbing to too much of a “Beltway” perspective, and on target with a strongly ideologically libertarian message.
Another misguided move has been the LNC’s voting not to release videotaped recordings of its meetings publicly. Members are not prohibited from videotaping the meetings themselves, but since an official videotape is already being created anyway for the Secretary, that recording produced at party expense should be made available to others in the party who want to see it rather than forcing members who want the greater accountability that comes with access to a visual record of a meeting can create, to arrange it on an ad hoc basis themselves.
I would also like to commend you on joining the Grassroots Libertarians Caucus and your support for the caucus’s Five Key Values (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grassrootslibertarians/).
Getting the LP back on track means building a party that is more bottom-up, more balanced between left and right, more bold, creative, and fun-loving, more radical, and more youth-oriented. Thank you for your endorsement of this positive vision!
In summary, it appears that the values you would bring to the LNC are sound, and I am confident you would provide a step up in quality of leadership as Region 4’s representative, should you be chosen to fill the seat.