from the Libertarian Party of Texas:
Libertarian Leaders from Around the US will Gather in Austin on Feb 26th-28th
The Libertarian State Leadership Alliance (LSLA) is an organization of the Libertarian Party state leaders. The LSLA is organized exclusively for educational purposes, more specifically to coordinate activities and share knowledge among Libertarian Party state chairs and affiliate parties. Visit http://statechairsconference.org/
While voting members consist of the state chairs (or their properly designated substitutes) of affiliate state Libertarian Parties, LSLA functions are enjoyed by a wide variety of national, state and local Libertarian leaders and their family members.
Whether you are interested in education or networking, food or fun, speakers or social activities – please join us at our next conference.
2010 LSLA Conference
The Libertarian State Leadership Alliance will be holding its annual conference from February 26 to February 28, 2009, in Austin, Texas – and you don’t have to be a state chair to attend. The conference is open to anyone who has an interest in the future and direction of the Libertarian Party.
In addition to the LSLA Conference, the Libertarian National Committee, the State Libertarian Executive Committee of Texas, and the LP’s Bylaws Committee will be meeting over the weekend, as well. Both meetings are open to conference attendees.
The conference will be held at the Radisson Austin North Hotel, just a five minute drive from the State Capitol and Austin’s famous 6th Street entertainment district. Attendees can expect to enjoy one of Austin’s finest hotels at a very reasonable price.
We’ve managed to negotiate lower rates for your hotel stay for those who make reservations early. Call (512) 451-5757 and ask for the special Libertarian rate. Just $89 per night for single occupancy, or $99 for more. Additionally, all hotel rooms come with free Internet access and Sleep Number beds.
This year we will offer two tracks of interesting conference workshops: a Leadership Track and an IT Track, so we encourage all Libertarian IT and web volunteers to attend in addtion to our state leaders. There will also be an LNC Meeting, LSLA Business Meeting and Bylaws Committee Meeting, panels and discussions on topics ranging from Marketing the LP and Candidate Recruitment to Social Networking and managing the LP database.
Be sure to attend Saturday’s Dinner Forum, a debate among the candidates for Chair of the Libertarian National Committe.
The LSLA Conference is an ideal opportunity for state Libertarian Party leaders to network. New leaders can learn about what works, and what doesn’t, from people in other states. It’s also a great opportunity to socialize with old friends and make new ones. By exchanging best practices, we can increase the professionalism and effectiveness our party. Visit http://statechairsconference.org/ to see the complete schedule and register.
oops, that was supposed to be @ 28
Someone has a video camera set up, beyond that I don’t know
I am also interested in watching the event online if possible. Are there any arrangements?
I felt sorry for Scrivani too — but only because he didn’t seem to know that “any” already meant “all”, and that his word “all” made no sense in the far better language that Aaron successfully proposed.
As is indicated by my reporting on CalFreedom.net, his original amendment was passed, before Aaron’s substitute. His “all” idea simply wasn’t relevant to Aaron’s language, and that’s why nobody seconded his motion to extend time yet again on that proposal. His problem wasn’t unfamiliarity with Robert’s, but rather his unwillingness to read the language on the screen that we were working on.
Holtz, you remember that poor guy who kept trying to get that one word replaced because his amendment had passed and the wording hadn’t been retained when another change was made — any replaced with all in the body scanners platform plank, I believe it was — and by the time he finally was given the chance to speak, the whole plank had been rewritten and it was no longer relevant. I felt so sorry for him. Granted, he needed more familiarity with RONR, but I really felt for him.
You’re welcome Carolyn. There is somewhere in my stuff a copy of RR for small meetings where you don’t have to use the 600 page book. The Sturgis Code is another since it is simpler that might be useful.
I have always had a philosophical disagreement with RR since I am a LIBERTARIAN. It just doesn’t fit well with my idea as to how we should handle ourselves in meetings. On top of which I have watched so called parliamentarians make mistakes at meetings. On second thought may be they were deliberate errors.
Just too damn many control freaks in the LP!
I don’t see any irony in rule-following in a Party that advocates that most or all of the government could be replaced by grownups being held strictly to the voluntary agreements they make.
I agree that one or two parts of RONR are silly and deserve to be ignored, like the rules that all comments must address the Chair and may not name other members.
The biggest systemic problem I’ve seen in LP use of Robert’s is that the last-moved substitute motion consumes all agenda time getting amended, and the group becomes invested in the language they’d most recently worked on. This happened several times at the recent PlatCom meeting in Vegas. Robert’s needs to have better machinery for choosing among more than two alternatives.
#4,
*I* care, and I thank you for your support. 🙂
LP-prag, I sympathize. I saw a lot of new members at the CA convention get VERY frustrated trying to do what they saw as the right thing and getting shut down because they happened to get to the mic around the time we were discussing an amendment to a motion when they wanted to offer another amendment or discuss the main motion or whatever.
This party is ironically rulebound, and I’d like to see that change at every level. I can understand stricter adherence to RONR in a large meeting, but there’s no call for it when a meeting has ten or fifteen people in it. People can get so obsessed with the rules and using the rules to cover their butts when they make this decision or that decision that the whole point of the meeting gets lost.
RONR = loose fitting blazer, not a straitjacket. The goal is not to thwart the business of the assembly but to get through it more efficiently.
A common trick I saw put in play this last weekend in CA was the handing out of flyers while your opponent was making his nomination speech. Rustle, rustle, and the delegates are distracted. Hinkle did it to Seebeck when he was running for rep and Starr did it to me during the excomm meeting to try to derail my resolution re: floor fees, er, I mean poll taxes, er, I meant registration fees. I’d love to see that crap stopped because it’s simply bad manners. I’d love for the delegates to see it and appreciate it as bad manners and a clear indicator of a weak case, for someone to resort to that or to waving a sign at excomm members saying “orders of the day — adjourn?” to try to keep a resolution from being presented.
My point is, some good old fashioned common sense in applying RONR goes a long way.
the flip side of the voting coin
http://bit.ly/oppo-lnc
LP prag — I have written elsewhere, I have no patience for purges, witch hunts and what it says on which page of Robert’s Rules. I want to see a freer America in my lifetime. That’s why I am a libertarian and that is why I am giving my candidacy 1000 percent of my effort the next three months.
Anybody interested in purges/witch hunts/Roberts probably thinks things in the LP are going just swell right now, and has many candidates from whom to choose whose actions have been entirely consistent with those objectives and obvious outcomes. I am not one of them.
My friends and I want a new path for the LP.
LP prag what and who do you suggest to do the job?
Some of you people have NO clue. Quit with the minutes and Robert Rules B.S. THe country is going to hell in a hat basket and you are worried about what? Get your shit together guys or get out of the way and let some real professionals come in and run the party.
what has this to do with anything. I want to know how the LP will take it to the next level!
What is the vision, the marketing, the branding that will WIN SOME DARN elections? I could care less about the self gratification that is prevelant in the LP. I need some substance.
No more crazy anarchists that couldn’t lead if they wanted to. America wants leadership and I don’t see it in the LP. Just a bunch of people reading Ayn Rand books. Get with it guys. After 40 years of the LP, I think Einstein would agree with the “insanity” quotes.
@15
I used the statistics for both. Note that two people were not on the committee at the same time, so their votes did not overlap.
I also did the <40% lines, which are not quite the dual to the 70% line.
Chuck, I took every vote where there was a recording of who specifically voted for what, whether roll call or mail. As you know there are also votes where the minutes simply say “measure passed” or “measure failed” without a count or recording. I excluded those.
Btw, in 2 days the minutes from Nashville should be released, which I will integrate into the charts ASAP. (I only get the minutes when they’re posted on the website.) That will provide more data for your analysis.
James Oaksun wrote (@9):
Do you use roll call votes, mail ballots, or both?
Take a look at
http://bit.ly/LNC-blocs
Inspired by George Phillies, who took my stats and did a first pass. Fairly self explanatory.
Bruce Cohen // Feb 15, 2010:
“the concept of a ‘purge’ is ridiculous in this case. when you guys want to kick ME out, it’s cool?”
Your dodging of public questioning, like Citizens For A Better Veterans Home Reform Party abuse based query on Anti American Zionism, may be clues. Also your Lib Party style transcript from Kindergarten ‘….. does not play well with others’
Forty years of spinning their collective wheels: Libertarian Party and it’s arrogant debating society of know it all white males!
I’ll be interested in seeing the voting coalitions graph.
The only analysis I’ve done so far is on the amount of time it takes to release the minutes.
I sought to get meeting minutes released as soon as possible by proposing and supporting mail ballots to approve the minutes well before automatic approval time (10 days before the next meeting). With me not on the LNC to advocate for relatively quick distribution, it was no longer a priority. Average approval time of minutes rose from 36 days to 67 days (almost doubling). See the below graph for an illustration.
http://www.chuckmoulton.org/libertarian/2010/documents/voting/lnc_minutes_approval_2010.pdf
You know you guys, you make a lot of sense. But the concept of a ‘purge’ is ridiculous in this case.
It was a legit complaint that got carried too far in my opinion.
How come when you guys want to kick ME out, it’s cool? When your side wants to kick folks out who disagree on policy?
But when someone has a legit question about behavior, it’s a PURGE!!!! (GASP)
@6
I have a graph, which needs some prettification, which makes my point much more clear.
George
I will be in Austin and look forward to meeting with many of you.
You can take Chuck’s work (which I have done as well) and use it to determine what the coalitions are. And just why it was so critical for the dominant coalition to seek to purge Keaton and Wrights.
I will be at the LSLA meeting, representing the Arizona LP. I am also an announced candidate for LNC At-Large.
Voting records:
http://www.chuckmoulton.org/libertarian/2010/voting/
Bill,
I think you have a very sound point, which at least one of those people supports. However, there is a voting record on recorded LNC votes, which lets you pick out who votes with whom. Being a part of the anti-old-boy minority, the people who stood up for Angela Keaton and Lee Wrights when the old boys tried to purge them, is perhaps a defense.
I’ll have to write that up so you can decide if I have a case.
George
George, thanks for all your efforts. In some of your messages you advocate a change is needed in the LNC, and breaking up of the “Old Boy” network, then you turn around and ask us to vote some of the “Old Boy” network back to the LNC. Shouldn’t we vote for a clean sweep?
George I’ll endorse that group but I don’t think many people care what the hell I think. 😉
Will there some some arrangement to webcast this event, or at least the business meetings?
PEACE
I support “better product”. And here to help get you a better product are some names at http://www.libertyforamerica.com/ , seen in the New Path section. There’s a partial list of LNC Candidates, some or many of whom you might want to consider supporting:
George Phillies — National Chair
Carolyn Marbry — National Vice Chair
Rob Power — National Secretary
James Oaksun — National Treasurer
Joe Kennedy — At-Large
Jim Remmert — At Large
Rachel Hawkridge — Regional Representative
Jake Porter — Regional Representative
Scott Williamson — Regional Representative
Charles Wilhoit — Regional Alternate
And note other fine candidates:
Michael Seebeck — Regional Representative
Mary Ruwart — At-Large
Lee Wrights — At-Large
Each and all of us would be delighted to have endorsements from fine Libertarians such as those here.
A few comments. #1 the LNC needs to deal with the floor fee issue and get rid of it.
#2 those of us out here in the boonies would appreciate finding out what kind of progress is being made in updating the literature package and the website.
#3 may I suggest the LNC look at the dues. If we are not getting new members then that is a good indication the price is too high for what is being sold. Either lower the price or improve the product.
#4 the state parties need to pick up some of the slack. The national office cannot do it all. States that have voter registration by party need to start using direct mail and other outreach tools to connect with those who are not members or who were in the past and have not renewed. Using direct mail as a recruiting and fund raising tool should be a workshop.