Independent Political Report has been sent a copy of a brief filed by an LNC member with the Judicial Committee regarding the power struggle in Oregon. Brad Ploeger, who is an alternate regional representative for Region 1, has filed a long brief with the Judicial Committee.
The past few months have seen the Ex Com from Oregon replaced by a new Ex Com by some members of the National Executive Committee. The secretary of state from Oregon has recognized the old Ex Com, with Wes Wagner as the state chair. Here is an article published here in IPR by Mr. Wagner. Here is a current article about the latest developments.
This writer would be happy to post any new articles or opinion pieces regarding the Oregon situation. Please email me at: [email protected].
Following is the brief.
Ploeger Brief
Paulie. Yes I am in National Accounts sales at a headquarter level. Have been in sales and related marketing for 25+ years.
agreed , quorum in NV only applies to excom meetings , at convention all credentialed delegates make up the voting members and when 2/3rd requirements for voting apply , only then is quorum an issue and then its a quorum of delegates not members
One more point about the quorum issue.
Most state parties that I have seen do not have quorum requirements for state conventions, only rules requiring members to be adequately notified. Expecting a majority of dues paying party members to go to a convention is not even remotely reasonable. That is very different from a quorum requirement for a committee. Just because someone sent in a few bucks a year to an organization does not mean they want to attend its meetings, especially if they are hundreds of miles from where they live and/or eat up a whole weekend when they may well have other plans.
A reasonable quorum requirement makes sense. From what I understand the LPO quorum under the 2009 bylaws is unreasonable, that is very difficult and perhaps even impossible to achieve, and there is no way to fix it under those bylaws until and unless such a quorum is ever met. Sounds like a serious problem that may require junking those bylaws and starting over.
Hinkle is a business owner, so I believe he does. Rutherford is a lawyer, although I don’t remember what kind of law. Mattson used to own a computer store, so she has that kind of experience, but last I heard her mention it she had a job or contract with, I believe, the Defense Department. Redpath is a corporate VP; I don’t know his past job history. Of the at large reps, I believe Root and Knedler have or have had jobs where they deal with customers, and I don’t know about Ruwart, Sink-Burris or Eshelman. Of the regional reps, the only ones that I have any info on their jobs are Doug Craig and Stewart Flood, who are both business owners who work with customers, and Dr. Lark who is a college professor – if you consider students to be customers, he deals with customers. I don’t know what the rest of the region reps do for a living.
Secretary of LSLA.
Dunno.
You obviously don’t know some of the people I have known. 🙂
@155
On the other hand, the new Ohio candidate for LSLA chair wants to hold the LSLA meeting simultaneous with the 2012 National Convention, meaning that there would be no useful LSLA Presidential or National Chair debate.
That is entirely possible I guess and here’s another alternative that I am sure you will find useful http://mad.blog.dccomics.com/
Thus the 10 members who showed up at the May 21 convention could have completely rewritten the LPOR Bylaws, if only they’d realized they had a quorum.
Sounds like the LPOZ, where even a single delegate can click her heels three times and repeat “there’s no minimum quorum”…
I believe M Carling actually added the Tim reeves group to the email not just remove Wes Wagners group but I will have to check that.
Mr. Roberts I certainly agree, but in this case it appears that a quorum would have been made up of the delegates who chose to attend per RRoR. I’d look it up but not again and I have other stuff to do.
Thanks for the info though.
The requirement of a quorum is a protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons. The prohibition against transacting business in the absence of a quorum cannot be waived even by unanimous consent.
Chuck @ 150,
Thanks for catching that. Hopefully LSLA will lay down some rules on how their list(s) is/are to be administered.
One of the most dangerous trends in an organization — and this is the second time it’s come to my attention with the LP, the first time being the Wrights Affair — is to empower a party bureaucrat or administrator to make policy in a way that avoids legitimate process, through the fiction of “noticing” something and acting unilaterally instead of referring it to the body for action.
@152
It depends. Is the event burning copies of Roberts? And effigies of its LNC abusers?
People are dancing around the rules issues in this event and they have forgotten that what RRoR is all about is making it fair for people to participate.
To be blunt about all of this; the people have been ignored.
Mr. Capozzi @ 149 writes; ”147 mhw, getting FAR afield…”
Maybe we are not so far afield as one might think.
Put yourself in the place of an LPO member who had driven some miles, maybe 100 or even 200, to go to the convention back in March. And what happens is that some people from out of state have shown up and they are arguing that the convention should be shut down because it lacks a quorum. And there is a debate that their argument is not valid, but they win the argument.
Obviously these out of state people have no idea what the local issues are all about so why are they even here?
Then you find out that they are some big wheels in the national organization.
You have spent your time and money to show up and some out of state big whigs want to call it off because of the way they read RRoR.
How likely are you going to be to participate in another LPO event?
137 gp, my feedback is your point is weak. First, because the LNC does have fiduciary and administrative duties. Second, because they can easily argue that Excomm’s act of recognizing what it deems the correct LPO does advance the rationales listed. Having 2 LPOs would hurt the affiliates and their members.
Tom Knapp wrote (@144):
I agree with you that Carling should not have unilaterally removed Wagner from the state chairs list.
But just to be factually clear, his administration of that list did not stem from any LNC connection; rather, it was by virtue of his elected position as secretary of the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance (LSLA state chairs organization that plans the yearly state chairs conference).
147 mhw, getting FAR afield, but Yes, Don’t know, no.
MHS @ 145: “It might be interesting to know how many people on the LNC have a job where they meet and deal with customer every day.”
There’s tons of value in that sentence, my friend!
Mr. Capozzi you must be blessed. To think no one ever gave you the finger while you were in retail sales.
Ever have a customer who wasn’t satisfied with the product or service you were selling? Ever have them never return? Ever bother to ask them why the never bothered to return?
140 mhw: For what my opinion is worth for the last 15 years, if not more, the relationship between the management team and the membership has been damn poor and it shows in the numbers.
me: Not sure WHICH numbers you’re referring to, but I’d say the LP generally has not been posting impressive numbers. Never has, actually. So no disagreement. And I have worked in retail sales. No one ever gave me the finger. The last time anyone gave me the finger was in high school, 30+ years ago. In fact, I distinctly recall flipping the bird myself in those days. Thankfully, those days are long gone.
142 ww: …if you show reverence to a depraved enemy, you legitimize their depravity.
me: Well, no, I can’t agree, and this point seems way off target to me. (Yes, it could be that I’ll never understand your perspective…that’s fair enough). I don’t know anyone who advocates “reverence” to any organization. I don’t believe in either “depravity” or “enemies.” There may well be confused people, I see quite a few of them and I, on occasion, can be confused as well. One can, of course, communicate with respect to a confused person, and no, that doesn’t legitimize their confusion at all, actually, IMO. It does appear you have a worldview and theories of behavior that I’ve never seen before. It seems highly oppositional, but I can’t really tell, as your posts are short and non-comprehensive, which is the nature of such forums. I don’t know where you’re getting these pronouncements of human nature, and I don’t know how you can persist in justifying sending flaming middle fingers. I’d listen, of course…
144 tk, you make a different point. I have no opinion on whether Carling was empowered to undo an error as he perceived it. Perhaps he should have flagged the matter to someone who was empowered to make that decision…
It might be interesting to know how many people on the LNC have a job where they meet and deal with customer every day.
RC @ 138,
You write:
“I’d not realized that Carling did something. I think that was a wise move, from what I can tell.”
You may have more information at your disposal than I do.
To wit, what is Carling’s portfoio as admin of the state chairs list.
Does that portfolio extend to unilaterally deciding who the state chairs are and adding or removing them on the basis of his own judgment?
Usually the administrator of an organization’s mailing list is supposed to be responsive to and answerable to the organization’s members or board rather than being The Decider of such things.
Keep in mind that Carling didn’t act pursuant to the executive committee’s recognition of a different LPO board — his action preceded the EC’s action.
If nothing else of value emerges from this episode, it should at least call attention to the danger of letting LNC/LPHQ and designees thereof have access to administrative powers over things like state chairs lists.
RC @ 141 You have missed the opportunity of working in retail sales. I suggest you go look for work at the nearest store and after a few years come back and fill us in on your day to day relations with customers.
RC @141
Your attitude is congruent with the leadership direction of the organization which goes towards the objective performance measures mentioned by MHW @140.
FWIW in spite of that fact that you will never understand it… if you show reverence to a depraved enemy, you legitimize their depravity. If the LP were to learn this as a whole and set aside their last vestiges of worship, they would have the will necessary to actually take down a corrupt state.
139 ww: Any rational and mature organization would actually take such a response (flaming middle finger) and recognized that they have badly mismanaged their relationship with their customer.
me: I have NEVER seen anyone EVER send someone a flaming middle finger…until now. I cannot fathom your logic or rationale, ADR. It appears to be a profoundly infantile act, IMO. Nor do I necessarily see a customer/supplier relationship here.
Wes @ 139 writes; “If your customer sends you a flaming middle finger, and you have the knee-jerk reaction that they are the problem, you have proven something about yourself – not them.”
There is a lot of value in this one sentence. People should be asking questions and thinking about this.
For what my opinion is worth for the last 15 years, if not more, the relationship between the management team and the membership has been damn poor and it shows in the numbers.
TK @136
The flaming middle finger was a full board response. Any rational and mature organization would actually take such a response and recognized that they have badly mismanaged their relationship with their customer.
This LNC, instead of realizing their position as a service organization, has taken the nationalistic approach to resolving their 6+ years of mismanagement of the Oregon party, and instead of actually working proactively to repair that relationship after they lost all influence in this state, attempted to create an artificial crisis and supplant the will, momentum and creative direction of the membership here with their own.
If your customer sends you a flaming middle finger, and you have the knee-jerk reaction that they are the problem, you have proven something about yourself – not them. And you may not be in business for much longer since you lack any reasonable introspective skills.
136 tk, thanks for the clarity. It seems unlikely that Wagner wasn’t on board, but, yes, I may be mistaken.
And, yes, thanks, I’d not realized that Carling did something. I think that was a wise move, from what I can tell. I’d probably do the same thing were I in his shoes. I’d say the same thing about “undoing” an potential error as I would about “INaction.”
As a L and a fan of the Tao, most of life and politics involve undoing and inaction. That’s my bias.
And I shall now leak my own message to the Judicial Committee:
I am George Phillies, Treasurer for the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts and custodian of our URLs.
My responsibilities to our State Association are directly impacted by the recent LNC decision on the Oregon State Party, a decision currently under appeal by the State Party as a a de facto disaffiliation.
Hopefully it can be resolved on this basis, without concerned parties having to generate the signatures of an adequate number of convention delegates to ask for a fresh Judicial Committee hearing.
The LNC has effectively claimed it can come into my state, decide what our bylaws are, decide who our officers are, and try to walk off with our URLs and by implication other property such as out membership records, archives, and Treasury. How can we raise money if I cannot assure members that they control who is on their state committee and what our Constitution and Bylaws are?
I urge the Judicial Committee to overturn the recent LNC Executive Committee decision on Oregon as a violation of Article 3 of our Party Bylaws, which reads
“ARTICLE 3: PURPOSES
The Party is organized to implement and give voice to the principles embodied in the Statement of Principles by: functioning as a libertarian political entity separate and distinct from all other
political parties or movements; moving public policy in a libertarian direction by building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office; chartering affiliate parties throughout the United
States and promoting their growth and activities; nominating candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and supporting Party and affiliate party candidates for political office; and, entering into public information activities.'”
The violation arises because the Executive Committee did not insist on rationales as to whether their actions would
*promote the growth and activity of affiliates,
*build a political party that elects Libertarians, or
*support affiliate candidates,
to name three purposes most directly related to this case. The Executive Committee instead considered legalistic rationales deriving from Roberts’ Rules of Order and related dogma, as witness the near-50 pages from LNC Secretary Mattson.
That is, the decision was wrongly decided, because it was a substantive decision being made on the basis of Robertsonian legalisms, not on whether the decision would advance the purposes of our party, as is implicitly mandated by Article 3 of the Bylaws.
RC @135,
You write:
“Given that Wagner deems it appropriate to send to the LNC a pic of a flaming middle finger”
That pic of a flaming middle finger was the official response of one of the organizations claiming to be the Oregon LP’s state committee to the EC’s actions.
I have no information on whether Wagner “deemed it appropriate” to send. Do you? For all I know, he may have voted against that particular response and only reluctantly fulfilled his duty of delivering the committee’s response.
“As to ‘controlling’ the state chair email list, I would do the same thing if I saw that there was a question about the proper chair of a state party, as a general proposition. When in doubt, do nothing. It appears Carling ‘IN-acted’ appropriately in this case.”
Carling didn’t “do nothing,” Carling proactively removed a putative state chair from the state chairs’ email list.
134 tk, thanks for clarifying. I can’t say that your narrative is accurate or not, either as it summarizes the Wagnerian view or whether Wagner’s perceptions are correct. It’s likely you’ve summarized his view correctly, though. Given that Wagner deems it appropriate to send to the LNC a pic of a flaming middle finger, I discount most of what he says, but I am open to the possibility that his view of Burke and Burke’s actions are in a factual direction, despite Wagner’s apparent hostility. As a rule of thumb, whenever I see what appears to be hostility, I assume that the hostile person is very confused. Love is the answer to all questions!
Whether SCM and Burke seek to “control” LPO, there is an element of that, most likely. Any time someone assumes a leadership position, there is some desire for “control” involved, if only to improve the situation. We could say the same about Wagner, of course. I prefer that leaders adopt a “service” attitude over a “controlling” attitude. Oddly enough, those who serve tend to reap what they sow far more effectively in the short and long run. Control freaks sometimes appear to prevail, but they don’t, not really, is my observation. Bad karma boomerangs every single time.
As to “controlling” the state chair email list, I would do the same thing if I saw that there was a question about the proper chair of a state party, as a general proposition. When in doubt, do nothing. It appears Carling “IN-acted” appropriately in this case.
It may appear that I ascribe “moral findings” in this instance, but I don’t do “morality,” technically speaking. Behavior is sometimes inappropriate, which is what I mean by “rotten in Denmark.” It appears that the November actions by some LNC members revealed inappropriate behavior in LPO. Excomm confirmed that. Much of the LNC seems to agree. We’ll see what JudCom finds….
RC @ 128,
Sorry for the mix-up. I should have said “claim of fact” rather than “factual claim.”
The three claims I list are put forward AS FACT by the people putting them forward. That’s all I meant by “factual claim.”
My OPINION, as subsequently stated, is that “that narrative seems to be reasonably accurate as far as it goes.”
You might find it useful to quit ascribing moral findings to the claims.
For example, when I state that the Starr/Mattson/Carling faction is aligned with Burke “for the purpose of controlling the LPO,” I’m not saying whether or not Burke SHOULD control the LPO.
But I think the claim of fact that he, and by extension they, are TRYING to control the LPO, is pretty much indisputable. Attempting to gain control of the leadership positions of an organization is an attempt to gain control of that organization.
As a second example, when I noted that Burke/SMC began making their move last November, I never in any way implied that they might not have been motivated to do so by the smell of something rotten in Denmark.
Ditto on the third claim of fact. The distinguishing characteristic of a coup d’etat is the seizure of key command/control/communications points.
The fact of a coup d’etat says nothing about whether it was justified or unjustified.
Both sides in this case appear to have launched near-simultaneous coup operations. Both have had successes and failures.
I said some time ago the LNC was trending toward duplicating 2000. This time will be worse. The LP-Oregon views the LNC as having launched a war on it, they do not believe in turning the other side of the face, and matters will therefore be sad.
my conclusion is sadness
Attention Mr. Capozzi. No one said there was a smoking gun. Where or how you got that impression I will never know.
Anyone should be able to draw their own conclusion from what was said on the video.
127 mhw, listened. Didn’t hear a smoking gun. Sorry.
Paulie @ 123:
You’re right, the Reeves group can avail themselves of the disaffiliation option if they feel the need to do so. It would probably depend upon whether they conclude that it is indeed impossible (as opposed to merely very difficult) to attract a quorum to their state convention. However, the national LP Bylaws prohibit the LNC from disaffiliating a state party within a six month window prior to a national convention. So disaffiliation would either have to occur before early November of this year, or after the Presidential nominating convention being held on the first weekend of May, 2012.
I was disappointed that the two factions in Oregon were not able to come to some reasonable accommodation between them. I did my best to try to mediate but was unsuccessful. And my impression was that the Reeves side, especially Mr. Burke, was more recalcitrant. I suggested during the LNC’s Executive Committee teleconference that the two sides start with a “clean sheet of paper”, and try to work out an organizational structure that they both could live with. If they could have done that, there were ways of implementing the resulting agreement, including the “nuclear option” of voluntary disaffiliation and reconstitution/reaffiliation under the new Constitution and Bylaws.
But even I considered the chance of successful negotiations between the two factions to be no better than 10% to 20%, and other LNC members thought I was being wildly over-optimistic.
I think it would have been far preferable to work out a compromise and end the infighting in Oregon. But that didn’t happen, and the facts remain that the Wagner faction could not unilaterally adopt a new Constitution and Bylaws outside of a convention; could not make use of a state law that didn’t apply to minor parties; and did not choose to go down the disaffiliation path as a way of solving their problem.
125 tk: 1) That the faction in LP affairs nationwide with which Alicia Mattson is affiliated is aligned with Burke for the purpose of controlling the Oregon LP.
me: No, I don’t believe that’s “factual.” It COULD be true. It MAY BE that that is the “purpose,” but how can we know that? Sipos may be able to read minds, but can you? It does seem likely that SCM is somehow associated with Burke, in some way
tk: 2) That Burke and Mattson’s faction began making their latest big move for control at last year’s LPO convention.
me: Could be. It also could be that SCM somehow got Berglandista Hinkle to tag along because something seemed rotten in Denmark. Turns out, something WAS rotten in Denmark.
3) That when their initial gambits failed, Mattson and her faction launched a coup d’etat, seizing control of LPO at the level where it interfaces with the LNC, working first through M Carling and his control of the state chairs email list, and then through the LNC’s executive committee to effect the coup.
me: Nope, not factual. I see no evidence of a coup d’etat, and certainly no “proof” of one. I see a mess.
This one “Libertarian Party of Multnomah County Take-over http://bit.ly/nZ3X1c“ is interesting. At 16:45 the interview with Tristan Reisfar offers some comments about the Badnarik campaign and what happened in Oregon.
Mr. Reisfar is a long time advocate for the Libertarian cause and has a radio program in Central Oregon where Libertarians could often get on. If they wanted to! Lots of people in politics in that part of the state paid attention to what he said and this party blew it!
The isolated videos on youtube are less interesting. The extended outreach to — based on the Oregon example — Libertarian donors, arguing that the LNC is a bad place to send you money, will be more interesting.
The people who are baffled when the angle between Mr Domino’s backbone and the vertical is 70 degrees, and Mr domino then falls flat, will undoubtedly not understand how I can predict the obvious.
I will be busy drafting a brief to the Judicial Committee.
RC @ 120,
You write:
“yes, if you’re saying the video makes no claim to representing truth”
The video makes quite a bit of claim to represent truth, and probably DOES represent at least some truth. Normally propagandists do in fact believe what they’re saying.
Putting what one claims are facts into a fictional conversation is a classic propaganda advertising device.
If we reduce the level of detail, these seem to be the main factual claims involved:
1) That the faction in LP affairs nationwide with which Alicia Mattson is affiliated is aligned with Burke for the purpose of controlling the Oregon LP.
2) That Burke and Mattson’s faction began making their latest big move for control at last year’s LPO convention.
3) That when their initial gambits failed, Mattson and her faction launched a coup d’etat, seizing control of LPO at the level where it interfaces with the LNC, working first through M Carling and his control of the state chairs email list, and then through the LNC’s executive committee to effect the coup.
Regardless of which side one views as “the good guys” versus “the bad guys,” and regardless of what one thinks of the “legality” of the Mattson factions actions, and regardless of what actions the Wagner faction may have taken, that narrative seems to be reasonably accurate as far as it goes.
FWIW, I agree with most of Paulie’s opinions @123.
Looks like the Oregon Party lots of video history that details the antics of Richard Burke what he has done. The links below are videos that I found going all the way back to 2006.
A Case For Recall Updated http://bit.ly/nVJVEK
Libertarian Party of Multnomah County Take-over http://bit.ly/nZ3X1c
The Coos County Report – Sept. 29th, 2007 – Libertarian Party of Oregon http://bit.ly/nqDqKS
The three above videos seem to be the most informative.
Other videos below are informational but less interested:
LPO JudCom Hearing 12/30/06 http://bit.ly/n0zNU5
Renee Kimball Interviews Richard Burke about the recall ballots http://bit.ly/oidZPJ
Jim Karlock engages Richard Burke http://bit.ly/opD6C7
Renee VS Richard Burke http://bit.ly/nQkhhW
@90, 91
Actually, I think Dan Wiener’s argument makes sense. Bear in mind that I say this as someone whose goals for the LP are much more in line with Wagner et al. than with Reeves et al.
However, I strive to be fair to the best of my ability, and the logic Mr. Wiener presents appears to make sense, as I see it.
Just calling ’em as I see ’em.
GP: Disaffiliation has no effect on the ability of the Libertarian Party of Oregon State Committee to alter its bylaws. Whatever you think they were beforehand, they were the same afterwards. If this path had been followed there would have been complaints that the state committee had violated their own bylaws and rewritten them, or alternatively that they now had no basis for claiming to be the State Committee.
P: As I understand it, disaffiliation would go hand in hand with dissolution of the existing organization, after which a new affiliate with new bylaws would be chartered. This would be because the old bylaws (or existing bylaws, for those siding with the Reeves group) create serious quorum problems that may well be insurmountable.
GP: The only path the works is for the LNC to disaffiliate, and then recognize a new group that was disconnected with the old group and makes no claim to be the old group or under the old bylaws.
P: I don’t see why officers of the dissolved affiliate would be barred from being officers of a hypothetical new affiliate. The problem that would cause dissolution/disaffiliation is the bylaws, not the officers, correct? And, as I understand Mr. Wiener’s proposal, the new affiliate would indeed not be making any claim to be the old group under the old bylaws – regardless of whether it includes some of the same people in leadership or not.
In fact, if the concerns raised by the Wagner group about the quorum issues of the state committee meeting that elected the Reeves group are justified, it seems to me that the Reeves group should in fact follow the course now that Mr. Wiener suggests the Wagner group should have followed earlier. I realize that this will not lead to a satisfactory outcome for many because of who is on the current LNC, but absent such considerations it seems to make sense from a process standpoint, if that makes sense.
GP: In particular, the LNC-recognized state committee is still under its old, dysfunctional bylaws meaning it cannot, e..g, appoint delegates to the next national convention.
P: Valid point. Hence, another argument why the current affiliate should be dissolved/disaffiliated and a new one with more logical bylaws recognized.
If this creates a problem with ballot access, it can continue to be the existing affiliate as far as the state government is concerned, but be reorganized as far as the LP is concerned. Can that be done?
I think that video started out funny. It became boring because it’s just 2 talking heads going over technical details. I hardly think it’s something to be taken so seriously.
Aaron, way back @ #1. I don’t think “replace” and “recognize” mean the same thing, and I stand by the original wording (awkward though it might be.
The new Ex Com in Oregon isn’t comprised with National Ex Com members, which is one way my sentence could be interpreted.)
117 tk, yes, if you’re saying the video makes no claim to representing truth, only a one-dimensional POV, I agree.
Not my preference, but different strokes for different folks.
Re 111 Jill I don’t think anyone has taken to time to write the out the long list of questionable actions. That might be a good idea at some point in time.
RC @ 106 writes; ”It’s a histrionic attempt to re-enact something that obviously never happened”.
Robert what is written in this piece happened. “In 1996 former Chairperson Richard Burke led an attempt to impact the outcome of the race for Oregon’s first congressional district seat by not running a Libertarian candidate after the Libertarian candidate had been credited with throwing the previous race to the Democrat. Proponents of this strategy believed that as the proposed Libertarian nominee had not raised sufficient money or built a sufficient campaign organization to run a significant campaign, the Libertarian platform would be more effectively advanced by the Republican candidate who had spent time building a relationship with the Oregon Libertarian Party. Other Libertarians thought the strategy to be tantamount to a “sell out”, and an intense controversy ensued. The Libertarian candidate, Richard Johnson, narrowly won the nomination. The incumbent Democrat, Elizabeth Furse, was re-elected that fall.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_of_Oregon
The Republican referred to in this piece thought we should execute drug dealers. Last time I looked that was a long way from any Libertarian idea.
Additionally there are numerous poor management decisions and questionable political moves over the past years.
Also mentioned in the video is an event that had to do with a female staff person at the national office. Now I don’t know much about that, but someone should be asking what is behind that and if that is the type of behavior that is acceptable to LNC members?
How factual is the piece as regards to Mr. Burke? Is that a fair question to ask?
Bob,
What way do you think I feel? And why does it make you sorry?
I like propaganda. I do like it better undisguised, for the same reason I prefer porn without those black censor boxes covering all the good parts.
115 tk, sorry you feel that way. Propagandists — I’d think — would have a dog in this fight.
I’ll cop to being propagandist for Love!
Well, yes, the video is clearly propaganda.
At least it’s undisguised propaganda, unlike almost every other submission in this matter (including your posts).
oops, 112 responded to jp…
110 mhw, the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” is sometimes a rule of thumb.
However, when Chicken Little comes back again and again exclaiming “The sky is falling!” falsely over and over again, Chicken Little damages his credibility.
Just as the Birthers use all sorts of misdirection to attack Obama has probably backfired for most, I’d say Wagner efforts have, too.
Perhaps he’ll send me a pic of a flaming middle finger now, too. 😉
109 rc, fair enough. I dunno, it’s SO over-the-top. Conspirators in my experience don’t speak that way, and they certainly don’t speak that bluntly. These sorts of things are generally done with winks and nods.
Sure, though. Anything’s possible. Mattson and Burke might have had that exact conversation.
I’d say the burden of proof is on the screenwriter. Is there a tape of Mattson and Burke having this conversation?
It does remind me of MOZART WAS A RED, caricatured and vindictive. The part where the Burke character lists all the illegal and unethical acts, and the Mattson character just keeps curtly saying “No,” that was the “tell” for me that screenwriter had no interest in even guessing what might have happened in such a conversation. Instead, he was just recounting his distorted, hateful view of rivals.
But, then, I assume the screenwriter thought sending a pic of a flaming middle finger to the LNC was appropriate behavior.
Methinks he protests too much, in short.
Where can we learn some of this history, Michael? Do you have any links, or websites to take us to? I’m really trying to understand what happened.
I am not going to comment about the video, but there is some history that people need to ask about or at least pay attention to when someone talks about it.
RC @ 106: ” It’s a histrionic attempt to re-enact something that obviously never happened.”
You seem awfully sure of yourself. How do you know what happened?
Jt, no, the “video.”
Capozzi: “Yes, it does speak for itself. It’s a histrionic attempt to re-enact something that obviously never happened..”
Are you referring to the LNC’s response to the appeal here? I’d think that you’d approve of it as well.
Yes, it does speak for itself. It’s a histrionic attempt to re-enact something that obviously never happened, further diminishing the video’s author’s credibility.
I’m concerned about his emotional balance at this point…
The appeal response in Post 76 is exactly what I’ve been saying here. Its conclusion is based on relevant evidence and valid logic. Good job by the LNC ExCom and the LNC members who put their names on the document! I hope the JudCom agrees.
Michael H. Wilson wrote (@103):
Res ipsa loquitur.
Chuck can you explain what the wow is about?
George Phillies wrote (@99):
Oregon Libertarian Guy wrote (@100):
Wow.
re Kevin @ 97 No disrespect is intended on my part, but I would hope that is a two way street. As I used to tell people at management training session; respect is a two way street. To get respect you have to give respect.
Looks like they put it on YouTube, so everyone now will know about the situation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnX40iDjA40
As I have repeatedly warned, the Libertarian Party of Oregon is going to strike back against the LNC for its attacks on its functioning.
Phase 1 has now appeared
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12333881/the-burke-factor-ep1-my-sweet-secretary
It’s not my video.
Meanwhile, some members of the LNC have started fulminating that other members of the LNC are exposing its misadventures to the press.
Well, I certainly know that, Kevin, even when we disagree sometimes!
I hope you folks out west know that Mr. Dan Wiener is a very fair-minded member of the LNC. Listen to him and learn from him. He has earned my respect.
Dan national needs to be prepared to step in right at the beginning. There is a lot of distrust in the party.
Michael H. Wilson@ 94:
The situation would be the same as in any state which either did not have an LP affiliate in the first place (a condition that all states faced during the past 40 years) or whose affiliate disintegrated and had to be reconstituted from scratch. A group of Libertarians from the state would have to step up and submit organizational documents and an affiliate application to the national LP, as specified in Article 6.2 of our Bylaws (http://www.lp.org/files/bylaws-2010-1207.pdf). If they needed assistance in getting things going and calling a convention, it’s likely that the LNC would have provided both staff help and money. After all, the LNC continues to fund other states for ballot access.
Dan if the LPO is disaffiliated who is going to take responsibility for getting a new convention going? And who are they going to notify? Do all registered Libertarian in the state get a notice, or just those who joined the LPUS? Who is going to pay for that notice and do the physical work of making sure it gets out?
Based on my experiences in the LPO someone needs to make damn sure there is an honest effort at notifying people of the convention and in my opinion that means a neutral party.
AS I said back at 56
“Note that once there is no affiliate in Oregon that [the LNC] would be free to welcome the Reeves faction as a new affiliate with totally new bylaws.”
OF course, they would then need to petition for ballot access for the Reeves faction and buy the some new URLs.
Of more concern, the LNC has from the perspective of the LPO launched an unjustified war of existence against the LPO, and it is reasonable to suppose that the LPO will start undertaking counteractions against the LNC.
@90’s solution is completely clueless. Disaffiliation has no effect on the ability of the Libertarian Party of Oregon State Committee to alter its bylaws. Whatever you think they were beforehand, they were the same afterwards. If this path had been followed there would have been complaints that the state committee had violated their own bylaws and rewritten them, or alternatively that they now had no basis for claiming to be the State Committee.
The only path the works is for the LNC to disaffiliate, and then recognize a new group that was disconnected with the old group and makes no claim to be the old group or under the old bylaws.
In particular, the LNC-recognized state committee is still under its old, dysfunctional bylaws meaning it cannot, e..g, appoint delegates to the next national convention.
To Sane LP member @ 83:
You are correct, there was a disaffiliation solution, and I pointed out essentially the same thing in my response to the LP Judicial Committee:
To members of the Libertarian Party Judicial Committee,
This is in response to the petition of Wes Wagner et al to the Judicial Committee regarding the Libertarian Party of Oregon. My response below is in addition to rather than in place of the joint response from a number of LNC members (which I have also joined), and only touches on one particular aspect which I believe deserves separate comment.
Even though the new Constitution and Bylaws created by the Wes Wagner faction at the March 31, 2011 State Committee meeting were clearly not adopted in accordance with the amendment procedure specified in the existing Constitution and Bylaws, the assertion has been made that there was no alternative available, in that it was impossible to assemble a quorum at a state convention to amend those documents in the established manner. Assuming for the sake of argument that a convention quorum really was impossible to attain (an issue which I do not here opine upon), it is still not the case that no other path was available to rectify this problem.
The Libertarian Party of Oregon always had at its disposal what I have dubbed the “nuclear option”: Its State Committee could have voluntarily voted to disaffiliate itself from the national Libertarian Party. Alternately, if the State Committee did not believe it had the authority under its Constitution and Bylaws to take that action, it could have passed a resolution strongly requesting that the national LP vote to disaffiliate it. The national LP would have had to cite a “cause” for disaffiliation, but the impossibility of attaining a convention quorum to amend the Oregon LP’s Constitution and Bylaws to correct the cited quorum defect could reasonably be construed as adequate cause, especially since the Oregon LP would not be appealing the (voluntary) revocation of its affiliate status to the Judicial Committee.
Once disaffiliated, a new application for affiliation could be submitted to the Libertarian National Committee under the provisions of Article 6.2 of the national Bylaws, based on a set of revised LPO governing documents which (among other things) fixed the quorum problem. The LNC would still have had to approve the affiliate application, and at that time the LNC might have considered competing affiliate applications from other groups of Libertarians. But if a strong enough case was presented to the LNC, it’s likely that the LNC would have approved the reorganized Oregon affiliate.
Up until their terms of office ended upon the adjournment of the May 21st state convention, Mr. Wagner and the other officers and State Committee members could have availed themselves of this disaffiliation option. They could have taken that action at their March 31st meeting. For whatever reason, they chose not to do so. Instead, they attempted to adopt new governing documents, in direct contradiction to the specified amendment procedures, citing as their legal basis a State of Oregon statute which did not apply to minor parties. That attempt, however well-intentioned it may have been, was fatally defective. Nor could it be justified by any kind of “doctrine of necessity” contention, given that at least one viable alternative was in fact available.
Daniel Wiener
LNC member
They would still have a very difficult time in getting quorum, if they can even do it at all.
P , Ive read it and read everything and why i certainly like and hope Wes comes out on top , I have reservations on , judging by rule tecnicalities , who is the actual “winner” etc , im just saying , scratc everything , have the LNC recognize noone in the interim and just DO ANOTHER ONE… its just getting out of control
LG 86 see Wagner at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/06/wes-wagner-heres-what-happened/
for fucks sake why cant thry just hold another convention , give 30-60 days notice my mailing 2 registered/potential delegates, everybody bring their A game and bylaws proposals , and officer nominations and see who wins.
@Sane LP member 83
YOU HAVE TO READ THE LNC BYLAWS HERE: http://www.lp.org/files/bylaws-2010-1207.pdf
You tell me where it says that the LNC is the parent organization and the State are subordinate.
83 sane, off the top of my head, if you don’t have quorum, ya can’t vote, even to dissolve, I’d think. Lapsing might cause a ballot issue, too.
So, like the sentiment, not sure it’s a solution….
Easy solution, and why didnt’ they do it in order to fix quorum issue. Just shut down the Oregon operation, per vote at the convention. Let the national know. THEN start up again, rewrite the bylaws to fix the quorum issue, and submit to national for new affiliation. They have a vote on new chair– Wagner, Reeves, Wetson, Daffy Duck, whatever.
A lot of this would not have happened if Weston hadn’t quit.
A hand, flaming, palm dorsall, digitus impudicus extended
Apparently it is a nuclear fireball in that shape.
On a related note: http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp
they should look at suite rental rates in the Kremlin.
An arm and a leg per square centimeter per day, plus an ear and entrails on leap days. My mother’s cousin used to be a limo driver for some party bosses, so maybe he can get us a discount, but with the change in leadership back there I don’t know how good his connections are anymore.
OLG @ 78,
Please don’t take my description of someone else’s position as reflecting my own position.
Here’s another description of someone else’s position: 14 members of the Libertarian National Committee have now asserted that the LNC’s executive committee, not the state affiliates or their members, are to be the judges of what an affiliate’s bylaws require, and whether or not those requirements are being met.
My position: If they do decide to move out of the Watergate, they should look at suite rental rates in the Kremlin.
Mike Koch @ 72: “you patchouli smelling dope smoking rainbow freaks.”
Why, thank you! You know me well!
@Thomas L. Knapp 62
“The position of those defending the executive committee’s action is that they didn’t disaffiliate any organization at all, but rather attempted to discern which board was the legitimate board of the affiliate, and having done so, recognized that board versus the other.”
When the ExComm was discern who the officers of the LPO are, that is making Policy and the heart of the Brad Ploeger brief:
Because the Executive Committee did not attempt to disaffiliate the Oregon
affiliate their resolution concerning their findings would be a public policy resolution of the
Party. By-Law 8.12 sets forth the requirements required for passage of a public policy resolution
as follows:
“The National Committee may adopt public policy resolutions by a ¾ vote with
previous notice or by unanimous consent without previous notice.”
apologies if the reformatting from a PDF is a bit odd. Also, I included a description of the graphic, which does not copy well.
forwarded by George Phillies as bait for the next issue of Liberty for America, available for free at http://LibertyForAmerica.com
I reordered this in one respect: The names of the signatories are at the top, and a list of non-signatories has been added.
Response Regarding the July 19, 2011 Appeal
to the Libertarian Party Judicial Committee
from:
LNC Executive Committee Members: Mark Hinkle (Chair), Mark Rutherford (Vice-Chair), Alicia Mattson (Secretary), Bill Redpath (Treasurer), Kevin Knedler, Dr. James Lark
And from
Other LNC Members: Randy Eshelman, Stewart Flood, Dan Karlan, Wayne Root, Rebecca Sink-Burris, Dianna Visek, Dan Wiener, Andy Wolf
[GP: Not signing are LNC members Mary Ruwart, Vicki Kirkland, Doug Craig, and Norman Olsen.]
To Chairman Hall, Judge Gray, Mr. Holtz, Mr. Latham, Mr. Sarwark, Mr. Sullentrup, and Mr. Wrights:
We have prepared the following response regarding the July 19, 2011 appeal to the Libertarian Party Judicial Committee under the jurisdiction of Libertarian Party Bylaws Article 9.2.a (suspension of affiliate parties) using the procedure described in Libertarian Party Bylaws Article 6.6. This is not submitted on behalf of the LNC as a whole, but rather on behalf of those individual consenting LNC members whose names are herein listed.
We believe that even a cursory review of the relevant details of the matter will demonstrate the Appellant is not the Libertarian Party of Oregon (LPO), and Mr. Wagner is not an officer of the Libertarian Party of Oregon. Mr. Wagner’s claim to serve as a legitimate officer of the Libertarian Party of Oregon as of July 18, 2011 is based upon (a) actions that violated the bylaws of the Libertarian Party of Oregon in such a way that those actions are null and void, and (b) misuse of Oregon law to justify those violations. The appeal must be denied because Mr.
Wagner did not have a legitimate claim to the office of Chairperson in the Libertarian Party of Oregon as of the time of the LNC’s Executive Committee’s actions on July 18, 2011. Thus he is an improper party to petition the Judicial Committee on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Oregon.
Additionally, the actions by the LNC’s Executive Committee on July 18, 2011 did not involve disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, nor did those actions have the effect of disaffiliating the Libertarian Party of Oregon. Nor is there any Libertarian Party rule which requires that a dispute over the identity of officers of an affiliate be “treated as” a disaffiliation. Thus, it is improper for anyone to appeal the actions of the LNC’s Executive Committee based upon Article 6.6 and Article 9.2.a of the Libertarian Party Bylaws. Judicial Committee Rule of Appellate Procedure 1 provides that a request for a ruling may be acted upon only when it is “on a matter identified in the Party’s Bylaws as being within the Committee’s jurisdiction.” Since no disaffiliation occurred, the Judicial Committee has no subject matter jurisdiction to hear this particular appeal.
When the Libertarian Party Secretary conveyed the July 18 decisions of the LNC’s Executive Committee to Mr. Wagner (see draft minutes in Appendix A and email in Appendix B), he transmitted the following graphic as his organization’s official response:
[A hand, flaming, palm dorsall, digitus impudicus extended]
The accompanying email (see Appendix C) included a statement by the Appellant that they did not recognize the LNC as having any authority in this matter. Since the Appellant knew (and has acknowledged) that the LNC does have disaffiliation authority under the Bylaws, the e-mail response may be reasonably viewed as tacit admission that they understand no actual disaffiliation occurred. Yet a few hours after such an admission, the Appellant appealed that
same decision to the Judicial Committee alleging that a disaffiliation did happen, for which the LNC had authority but used improper procedure.
We further note that the Appellant’s argument repeatedly cites Libertarian Party Bylaws Article 6.5 concerning the autonomy of affiliates. Mr. Wagner does this in the email transmitting the appeal, and the Appellant mentions it twice in its numbered list of facts and arguments. Though the direct initial statement of the appeal is regarding alleged disaffiliation, the Appellant later inserts other alleged bylaw violations into the arguments. Though we deny that there were any bylaw violations in the LNC’s Executive Committee’s actions of July 18, 2011, we note that the Appellant may not procedurally get a foot in the door using the process in Article 6.6 which can be used only for the subject of disaffiliation, and then broaden the scope to include other subjects which can only be appealed following the very different process specified in Article 8.13.
Should the Judicial Committee accept the appeal and have a hearing on it, we note that Libertarian Party Bylaws Article 6.6 requires that “the burden of persuasion shall rest upon the appellant.”
The LNC’s Executive Committee’s Actions of July 18th do not Constitute a Disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of Oregon. Most notably, the wording of the motions approved by the LNC’s Executive Committee on July 18 says nothing of a disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, nor does the wording imply that the Libertarian Party of Oregon has been disaffiliated. There is nothing in the transmission of the motions to Mr. Wagner and Mr. Reeves that indicates the communication was notice of revocation of the LPO’s affiliate status with the Libertarian Party. Rather, the wording of the motions acknowledges the continuing affiliate status of the LPO under the same bylaws in use by
the LPO for the past two years and with the officers elected by LPO members in accordance with those bylaws.
It is undisputed that on March 31, 2011 there was one and only one affiliate in the state of Oregon, that Mr. Wagner was the Chairperson of that affiliate, and its bylaws were those last amended in 2009. On March 31, Mr. Wagner, along with other incumbent members of LPO State Committee purported to adopt a new set of governing documents. (See Appendix D for minutes of this LPO State Committee meeting.) These purported governing documents are significantly different from the bylaws of the Oregon affiliate, with a different membership from
the Oregon affiliate. These documents were not approved by the membership of the Oregon affiliate in accordance with their bylaws.
In effect, the Appellant attempted to create a successor organization and absorb the assets of the predecessor organization without the consent of those in the predecessor organization empowered to make such a decision. While Mr. Wagner and his associates are free to create a new organization that advances
libertarianism, the new organization is not entitled to the assets of the original organization (such assets include the right to use the name Libertarian Party), nor can they claim to hold positions as officers of the original organization once they have been replaced in accordance with the original organization’s bylaws.
At no time did this new organization with its new bylaws and new set of members petition the LNC under Libertarian Party Bylaws Article 6.2 to be recognized as the Oregon affiliate. At no time did the LNC vote to create a second affiliate in the state of Oregon (which would violate the Libertarian Party Bylaws).
On May 21, LPO members who denied the legitimacy of the March 31 actions of the LPO State Committee met in accordance with their 2009 bylaws and elected new officers. Mr. Wagner was not elected to any officer position. Rather, Tim Reeves was elected as Chairperson. Beginning at that point in time, there were two groups claiming to be the leadership of the same affiliate. This story began with one Oregon affiliate on March 31, 2011. The LNC is the only entity which can add Libertarian Party affiliates, but since that date the LNC has not voted to charter any new Oregon affiliates. So with only one Oregon affiliate in existence, had we disaffiliated anyone in Oregon, we would have been left with zero Oregon affiliates. Instead at the end of the story we have acknowledged the same affiliate remaining in Oregon, still operating under the same bylaws and with the same membership definition as at the beginning of the story.
The LNC’s Executive Committee has not disaffiliated the LPO. The LPO continues to be an affiliate of the Libertarian Party in good standing.
Conclusion
There is a distinction between the officers of an organization and the organization itself. The organization is made up of the membership operating under the rules described in governing documents to which the members have voluntarily subscribed. The officers are merely those who temporarily hold positions of leadership of the organization and make decisions on the organization’s behalf, subject to the rules of that organization.
The argument advanced by the Appellant implicitly seeks to blur this important distinction, and effectively equates Mr. Wagner’s claim to the leadership as being the equivalent of being the organization itself – and that the LNC’s failure to recognize his claim to the position is equivalent to our not recognizing the organization. Indeed, following the Appellant’s argument to its logical conclusion would imply that any incumbent officer of a state affiliate who fails to be re-elected to his position could appeal to the Judicial Committee of the national Libertarian Party and claim that the new officers cannot assume their rightful positions unless the LNC first “disaffiliates” the old officers with a ¾ vote.
The implications of this novel theory are very different from the clear design of the Libertarian Party Bylaws. It allows the possibility that both action and lack of action by the LNC in this realm constitute “disaffiliation.” It allows a super-minority of just over ¼ of the LNC to effect a similar “constructive disaffiliation” of the other Oregon group. These implications are discussed in the other material submitted with this response. We believe that logic requires a conclusion that no disaffiliation took place. Because no disaffiliation took place, no appeal can be brought to the Judicial Committee under Article 9.2a, subject to the process spelled out in Article 6.6.
Other Materials Submitted
We recognize the difficult position in which the Judicial Committee finds itself, in that it must to some degree evaluate the merits of the case to determine whether the Appellant is the proper party to submit this appeal, or to determine whether there was a disaffiliation. Thus we are providing a substantial amount of additional relevant detail to demonstrate thoroughly that the Appellant has no legitimate claim to be the Libertarian Party of Oregon and to address other questions raised in the appeal. This material explains the collective reasoning behind the LNC’s Executive Committee decisions of July 18. In addition, the material demonstrates clearly that an LNC decision about the dispute was not only reasonable, it was necessary for bylaw compliance.
Statement of Appreciation
Allow us to express our appreciation for your service to the Libertarian Party, and for your consideration of our response. We welcome the opportunity to answer whatever questions you may have about this situation.
George Phillies, “Crazy libertarian talk and so on and so forth and such and whatnot!”
The Oregon position on Wiener’s idea is that LP Oregon would still be subject to and under Oregon state law.
Dan Wiener’s personal addition to the Mattson document, proposing that the LPOregon was not in extremis because it could have asked the LNC to disaffiliate the LPOregon, was not well received in Oregon political circles.
Given the lack of voiced support in the LNC for the Oregon State Party, some LNC member might consider floating a disaffiliate motion. If it passed, the procedural appeals of Wagner would be moot.
If the LP would finally get the balls and get rid of a few dozen, loud, obnoxious anarchists, America and Israel haters, that look like the freak show at the circus and smell like the animal cage, we could be leading the Tea Parties, running Sarah Palin for President and have the endorsement of Glenn Beck.
Get rid of the anarchists already please. If you hate America and Israel go join the communists or the Nazis. You are not Libertarians you patchouli smelling dope smoking rainbow freaks.
Huh? @ 7
Now that you know from Paulie that there is no such formal rule, how about answering my question @4?
I should have said that is not a solution to the problem.
68 that is not the problem.
I have a solution!
Are you ready?
Time to take notes!
Take Wagner, Reeves and the associates of both. Lock them in a room and don’t let them out until they reach a compromise. If they have not come out after a week, quit giving them food.
Thank you. Thank you very much. No, really, you are all too kind.
66 tb, yes, in Blantonia, all things are self-healing by competing insurance companies… 😉
In the Free State of Blantonia, there’s no need for political parties as there are no political offices to fight over.
one last question , after NOT making quorum and recheduling another for May , why not wait and see if quorum was made or better yet bring the quorum via supporters…. and why not propose the bylaws amendments to the convention if it happened??
if it didnt , you could have still defualted to the course you have already taken…
Im in full support of you Wes , and I do understand manipulators using whatever mean necessary to gain or maintain control , but are you sure you didnt utilize the same tactics…ARE YOU SURE YOU DIDNT FOLLOW THIS COURSE ECA– USE YOU KNEW YOUR TEAM WOULD BE OUT MANNED AND THEREFOR BEATEN AT CONVENTION??
why would a state commitee meeting not take place after the convention because the Convention didnt make quorum… I assume the state ex-com was still viable and im assuming required to hold x number of meetings per term, and if the excom had Quorum , what makes it invalid….
61 tk, thanks. This is where I draw the line: I will NOT read Roberts, though I will read passages brought to my attention. I don’t have the energy to go that deep into the weeds.
I’d think JudCom is the final arbiter, not the LNC. Past the JudCom come the courts.
Send lawyers, guns and money, if it gets there. 😉
OLG@60,
You write:
“If they let stand the disaffiliation of the current Oregon Party and recognize another group as the new State Affiliate, this is effectively sending a message to all the State Parties that if the LNC does not like them personally, or agree with their politics that they will be replaced.”
The position of those defending the executive committee’s action is that they didn’t disaffiliate any organization at all, but rather attempted to discern which board was the legitimate board of the affiliate, and having done so, recognized that board versus the other.
RC @48,
It does not follow from the fact that an affiliate selects delegates according to its own bylaws,
1) that the LNC is the determining agency as to whether or not it is following its own bylaws in all respects; or
2) That its affiliation magically disappears if the LNC determines that it is not doing so.
The first part MAY in fact have some merit — it just doesn’t follow from the premise. You’re missing some serious connective logic there at the very least.
The second part is right out — the LNC’s bylaws have a specific procedure for disappearing an organization’s affiliation, and to quote Alicia Mattson, quoting RONR:
“If the bylaws authorize certain things specifically, other things of the same class are thereby prohibited. There is a presumption that nothing has been placed in the bylaws without some reason for it. There can be no valid reason for authorizing certain things to be done that can clearly be done without the authorization of the bylaws unless the intent is to specify the things of the same class that may be done, all others prohibited.”
There are rules for removing an affiliate’s affiliate status. Outside those rules, there’s no other way.
Which is why she’s stuck arguing that the executive committee’s action was not, in fact, a disaffiliation.
No opinion yet on the quality of those arguments, but it’s worth noticing that in quoting the above, she is arguing against her own previous opinion in the Wrights Affair.
@George Phillies 56
Very dangerous move by the LNC. If they let stand the disaffiliation of the current Oregon Party and recognize another group as the new State Affiliate, this is effectively sending a message to all the State Parties that if the LNC does not like them personally, or agree with their politics that they will be replaced.
I cannot see any greater tyranny than this. It would be as if Obama decided to only recognize the votes of the senators and congressmen that he likes, and for those who he does not like he recognizes someone else as the State Senator and congressman that agrees with his positions.
Sorry George, if the LNC goes down the road you are talking about it is the end of the LNC. Nobody will support such fools and despots!
I was not happy that the full LNC did not hear this case. I dont even know if we should have voted on it any way. One thing I would like to point out. There was little dialogue between the LNC leadership and the two factions . I still dont know to these day if anyone has talked to the new vice Chair Eric Saub who has pulled down his facebook page. I believe the LNC which includes me has done a poor job on this one. I believe we have set our self up for failure . I believe one faction (Wagner) was willing to sit down with the other (Reeves) but the Reeves side declined .Also I believe a lot was set in motion because of national interfering with OR in the first place. I understand that rules are important to running a political party but also the character of those people are important and I have not been happy with the info that I have found on some of the people involved
Phillies: “In 2008 they admitted as delegates a totally phony DC delegation when they were aware there was no ‘state’ party chair to have signed off on the delegation.”
A) Having no DC party chair isn’t at all analogous to having two conflicting party chairs.
B) What people on the LNC did in 2008 doesn’t mean a thing as to what people on the LNC should do now.
Phillies: “Until very recently, they were unaware that there were inactive state parties”
How do you know they were unaware of it? Did anyone say there are no inactive state parties?
Phillies: “they now claim that there are only 31 active state parties.”
Assuming this is true, what qualifies as “active,” and does being inactive mean that nobody knows who the officers are there?
I think the LNC should know and care about which groups are affiliated with the LPUS. And if an embarrassing situation like this arises and that isn’t clear (and the factions involved aren’t attempting to resolve it), then the LNC should try to resolve it.
“Organizational rules and bylaws are there for a reason and have to be upheld”
Excellent point.
Also, to the extent that the majority of the Executive Committee wants to carry matters further, they could also take a separate disaffiliation vote to the full National Committee, and end the LP-Oregon procedural appeal. Note that once there is no affiliate in Oregon that they would be free to welcome the Reeves faction as a new affiliate with totally new bylaws.
@George Phillies 52
I seem to have read somewhere that the LPO is appealing to the LNC Jud Com about the breach of process, in that the ExComm has no authority to disaffiliate a State Party, only the LNC as a whole can do that through its process. Also this thread was started by someone stating that the LNC also did not follow its policy making rules either.
I am not debating the fact that any organization has the right to affiliate with whom they want and has the right to disaffiliate either.
BUT THIS IS NOT THE CASE
What is the issue now is the apparent tyrannical moves the LNC has taken that are in clear violation of their own bylaws. In the real world officers of any board who behaved in such manors would have simply been asked to resign. Organizational rules and bylaws are there for a reason and have to be upheld if there is to be any future organizational momentum.
When the Red Cross was discovered to be corrupt and was way over paying its board members, people simply stopped donating to the Red Cross. Needless to say the Red Cross suffered huge financial setback and worked hard to restore faith to the donors.
Will the LNC donors feel the same when they learn about the tyrannical moves with in the LNC???
@George Phillies 50
That is the point I am making, that the LNC is not asking the LPO about “how the New LPO Bylaws picks delegates” rather it seems they are more interested in WHO picks the delegates.
Remember what Joe Stalin had to say about democracy and voting:
‘It doesn’t matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes.’
@51
I have not seen a list of the active and inactive state parties.
The defense of the LNC action from ExComm members, to judge from Alicia Mattson’s draft , includes the defense that ‘since this was not a disaffiliation vote, the LP-Oregon state committee is not entitled to appeal to the Judicial Committee under the disaffiliation rules, and especially then is not entitled to bring up all those other parts of the Bylaws in their defense.’ The continuation includes a 44 page appendix.
Readers concerned that the Judicial Committee will agree with this position, and further that the appeal to the Judicial Committee for tampering with Oregon state party affairs will therefore not be heard, may wish to consider organizing an appeal under the broader rules, or may wish to consider organizing to convene a special national convention.
Is there a list of those
?
@45
They’ve done that for years. In 2008 they admitted as delegates a totally phony DC delegation when they were aware there was no ‘state’ party chair to have signed off on the delegation. Until very recently, they were unaware that there were inactive state parties, and showed no concern about the reality; they now claim that there are only 31 active state parties.
My point was a bit more simple-minded, namely that for the purpose of sending contact information to Oregon they did not need to decide who the valid affiliate was.
@Michael H. Wilson 46
The issue with county parties NOT HOLDING CONVENTIONS TO ELECT NEW OFFICERS and where county representatives could be elected has been a huge point of contention for years in the LPO. This created a lot of tension where counties that held regular meeting and conventions in a true democratic environment had to sit with despotic tyrants who would not hold meetings and simply appointed themselves for life on the State Committee.
The problem with the Burke “State Committee Meeting” is that he counted representatives who had earlier resigned, and representative whos counties had been placed as inactive and not able to vote at the State Committee meetings.
What I find interesting is that the LNC is giving Burke a complete pass his multiple and flagrant LPO bylaw violations in this sorry issue, but yet they are really scrutinizing Wes Wagner.
As I regionally stated this whole thing appears politically driven.
“The LNC ExComm is playing politics and have been supporting who they want to control the Oregon Party. As for what reasons? I can only suspect it is about the WHO IS SELECTED AS THE DELEGATES TO THE NEXT NATIONAL CONVENTION that this is all about.”
47 tk, it sequiturs fer me. If David Duke simply claimed, “the state LP I’ve taken over is in accordance with its own bylaws,” would you consider it wise and proper to accept that?
Or, more broadly, who is to say what “in accordance” means? The affiliatee or the affiliator?
RC @43,
“40 dc, the national bylaws state:’Each state level affiliate party shall, in accordance with its own Bylaws and these Bylaws, determine who shall be its delegates to all Regular Conventions.’
So, IF the LNC determines that an affiliate is not following its OWN bylaws, it’s not an affiliate.”
Non Sequitur much?
@ 30 OLG writes; “Richard Burke claims he had quorum but he counted County Representatives that had resigned their positions a year earlier in protest of Jeff Weston as chair.”
And apparently one or more of the county chairs have held office for some years and done so without a county convention being held in that time.
George, are you saying that the LNC shouldn’t know or care which groups in the states are affiliated with the LPUS or not?
@42
Perhaps I am missing something, but why do you think the LNC resolved anything, other than where they are sending their contact data.
Incidentally, since they do on occasion share contact data with other people, nothing in particular kept them from sharing information with their affiliate and their not-affiliate, without saying which was which.
In 2000, the Phoenix LP group somewhat sat there after they were disaffiliated. There is no reason to suppose that the Oregon Party will be similarly cooperative.
40 dc, the national bylaws state: “Each state level affiliate party shall, in accordance with its own Bylaws and these Bylaws, determine who shall be its delegates to all Regular Conventions.”
So, IF the LNC determines that an affiliate is not following its OWN bylaws, it’s not an affiliate.
If David Duke used intimidation to claim (temporary) control of a state LP and somehow overrode the bylaws in that state LP, wouldn’t you WANT the LNC to not recognize Duke as the state chair?
Knapp: “When there’s ample time to let a situation try to work itself out and then give it full examination by a full “court” if it doesn’t, choosing instead to hold an emergency in camera hearing by a packed panel tends to arouse suspicion that you’re after a particular pre-selected outcome rather than after whatever outcome the facts may actually call for.”
It may arouse your suspicion, but it doesn’t arouse mine, and I suspect I’m not alone. The two factions made no headway in resolving their dispute for 2 months. There’s no reason to think they would when each claims to be the legitimate officers of the affiliate. I find this situation embarrassing and would like it resolved quickly.
Were I an LNC officer, I’d take action in this case also rather than allow this battle to continue indefinitely under the auspices of the LPUS. But that doesn’t imply that I have a pre-determined outcome.
GP @ 20,
You write:
“I believe it may be significant to your case”
I don’t have a case. I’m just musing about what explanations for various happenings look more or less plausible, and suggesting that one explanation is beginning to look plausible enough to warrant further examination.
JT @33,
You write:
“What evidence are you basing this on?”
The fact that that’s the only compelling reason I can discern for the executive committee rather than the full LNC to act, or for either to act immediately.
When there’s ample time to let a situation try to work itself out and then give it full examination by a full “court” if it doesn’t, choosing instead to hold an emergency in camera hearing by a packed panel tends to arouse suspicion that you’re after a particular pre-selected outcome rather than after whatever outcome the facts may actually call for.
Okay, now I’m confused. How did National enforce quota requirements on Oregon? Wouldn’t Oregon’s officers and members be responsible for determining their own quota requirements?
@paulie 37
The issue of the supposed State Committee meeting that the Burke Faction held in May is one of the point of contention that have been raised, including that this supposed meeting also did not have quorum of State Committee member either! Richard Burke claims he had quorum but he counted County Representatives that had resigned their positions a year earlier in protest of Jeff Weston as chair.
Us Oregon Libertarians that have been involved in the party long enough know that it has always been “Richard Burke vs THE LPO”. Does not matter what faction is in power, if he is executive director or not, he always attacks and pushes down the LPO and its ability to be effective in recruiting viable candidates to run for office, or in being effective in lobbing efforts at the State Capital.
Most of us Oregon Libertarians just hope to keep the Libertarian message alive and to promote Libertarian values.
Unless I’m mistaken, prior to May there was no dispute as to what was the recognized affiliate of the LP in Oregon or who its officers were. My understanding is that up until that time Wagner et al. were the state officers of the affiliate that was recognized by both the state government and the LNC.
Oregon Libertarian Guy,
Thanks for the explanation.
Now, I would like to hear the same question answered from the other side or those allied with them.
You say,
What can a state committee meeting do? Can it replace the officers? How about the bylaws?
If it can, why wasn’t this done in March or back in the previous autumn for that matter?
Let’s ignore for the moment the explanation that Wagner and co., as the previous officers, had the right to or legitimately “moved to replace the bylaws with new ones, as per State Law that allows them to, and canceled the May attempt to make quorum.”
Thus for the sake of this explanation let us say that the May attempt to make quorum remained a legitimately scheduled convention, and that the 2009 bylaws remain(ed) in effect.
If “the bylaws state that after the annual convention a State Committee meeting must take place,” does that annual convention have to have quorum? I’m a long way from being a bylaws expert, but my limited understanding is that a convention that fails to achieve quorum has not convened, and thus (regardless of whether it was still scheduled) no convention took place. Does that have any impact on the legitimacy of a state committee meeting that is supposed to take place after a convention, if there was in fact no convention?
@ 15 Mr. Knapp mentions dirty trick. Well here ya go boys and girls from the past. And I’ll point out that the Republican candidate that Mr. Burke was supporting wanted to execute drug dealers.
“In 1996 former Chairperson Richard Burke led an attempt to impact the outcome of the race for Oregon’s first congressional district seat by not running a Libertarian candidate after the Libertarian candidate had been credited with throwing the previous race to the Democrat. Proponents of this strategy believed that as the proposed Libertarian nominee had not raised sufficient money or built a sufficient campaign organization to run a significant campaign, the Libertarian platform would be more effectively advanced by the Republican candidate who had spent time building a relationship with the Oregon Libertarian Party. Other Libertarians thought the strategy to be tantamount to a “sell out”, and an intense controversy ensued. The Libertarian candidate, Richard Johnson, narrowly won the nomination. The incumbent Democrat, Elizabeth Furse, was re-elected that fall.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_of_Oregon
e past.
This whole activity is proof of;
1. The reason people don’t join/leave the lp.
2. The reason central planning and government model do not work.
3. The reason we need to shut down national and form a senate of state chairs.
If the libertarians of Oregon are morons, they have every right to live as morons. No higher chamber or committee should be allowed to disband a group of consentual morons.
If the members of our Executive library are morons, then every libertarian should be quiet and take the hit. Voting is consent. This is the executive library that won the vote.
Happy lunchtime.
27 gp, I need something more than Yes for me to understand. What constitutes “an affiliate”? What is the trigger that says, “Entity X is now recognized”?
For ex., if Tom Blanton secedes from VA, and establishes the free state of Blantonia, says that Blantonia is a state, and wishes to have that State of Blantonia’s LP recognized as an affiliate by the LNC. This affiliation is unlikely to be recognized.
LPO, of course, has long been recognized. Yet, there seems some confusion as to who its officers are.
Enough weeds for me….
Knapp: “To put it a different way, the intent of the EC’s action appears not to have been to solve a puzzle (“who are the real officers of our Oregon affiliate?”) but rather to actively intervene on behalf of one side in an internal affiliate dispute.”
What evidence are you basing this on? Maybe I’m just not aware of it. Didn’t the LNC invite both sides to present their cases?
@paulie 30
“Perhaps you could answer my question then. Did the Reeves people get quorum in May, and if so, how?”
No quorum was obtained in March/May at the annual business convention. What happened was that when quorum was not obtained in March, and there was to be another attempt for quorum in May. But what happened was that the Oregon State Committee moved to replace the bylaws with new ones, as per State Law that allows them to, and canceled the May attempt to make quorum
But Richard Burke, who hates Wes Wagner with extreme prejudice, used his former AFP (Americans for Prosperity) contacts and recruited this Reeves person who nobody has ever seen before as his “Alternative State Committee” chair. They claim that they had a “State Committee Meeting” at this canceled May attempt for quorum since the bylaws state that after the annual convention a State Committee meeting must take place. But since no Convention took place, no State Committee meeting could occur. Those of us that know Richard Burke know that his legal logic has a few shorts and bugs in it, and we know that he has attempted to nominate Republicans in the last election process, and prior to that he brought in Republican Candidates and urged us to vote “None of the above” so that we would not run Libertarians against his Republican employers.
“Wasn’t Wagner the chair in March?”
No, Jeff Weston was the Chair in March. He resigned at the failed attempt to make quorum citing that he has failed to achieve his goals. At that time Wes Wagner became chair.
OLG @ 29: “I can only suspect it is about the WHO IS SELECTED AS THE DELEGATES TO THE NEXT NATIONAL CONVENTION that this is all about.”
That certainly looks like the motive to me. I’d
appreciate it if the LNC would provide a different motive, if, in fact, they have a different one.
Perhaps you could answer my question then. Did the Reeves people get quorum in May, and if so, how?
Wasn’t Wagner the chair in March?
I was there for both conventions….I can tell you what happened.
There was and still is no chance in hell that the Oregon Party would ever get quorum. The National Folks ensured that the body held to “their interpretation” of quorum and that was that. There was like 59 members there and we needed something like 80 to have quorum.
Then when the Oregon Party had the convention in March there was only 30 members there. Due to the Quorum issue we could hold no business. Ideas where put forth as to how to reduce the quorum count but the chair refused to hear them because it would violate the bylaws.
This left the Oregon Party DEAD, unable to function and unable to do business.
Now here is the rub….BOTH SIDES OF THIS FIGHT HAD IT ALL ALONG TO DUMP THE OLD BYLAWS AND PUT IN THEIR OWN.
It was just that the Wagner faction beat the Burke Faction to it!!!
The LNC ExComm is playing politics and have been supporting who they want to control the Oregon Party. As for what reasons? I can only suspect it is about the WHO IS SELECTED AS THE DELEGATES TO THE NEXT NATIONAL CONVENTION that this is all about.
@21 However, I view the Ploeger brief to be valuable in plugging a hole, namely if someone claims it was not a disaffiliation motion, then by Ploeger’s argument the motion still did not pass.
A further difficulty is that it may be difficult to reassemble the egg now that it is broken.
@26 Yes, they were the affiliate.
21 cm, point of information, was the Wagner-led LPO ever “affiliated”? If yes, then I can see how Excomm is moving to “disaffiliate.” If no, then it would seem to be something different….
Seems like something more like “affiliation uncertain” or something….
LG @22
We did not care for our dictator-for-life status. Running a good state party is not about being in control and whoring it out to the R’s for personal political point$ and low paying political consulting gig$.
We completed the task the March 2010 asked us to do once the interference by LNC operatives made it impossible for the members to do it themselves.
He says it would be wrong of him and his friends to remain “dictators for life,” even though they could have done it.
I would suggest that the LNC has an interest in having affiliates maintain a baseline of internal integrity.
It works both ways.
The state affiliates have a similar interest in having the LNC “maintain a baseline of internal integrity.”
The real issue is, who has the authority to police whose integrity?
Is the LNC the Ultimate Boss of the state parties (like a Supreme Court which has the last word over all lower court disputes) — or is it a mere umbrella/coalition, without an authority over state parties?
Is the LP an authoritarian hierarchy that owns and franchises its affiliates, or a loose coalition of grassroots parties, any one of which can leave (and take their ballot access and state party names) any time they choose?
P_As I understand it, the problem is that the 2009 bylaws make it practically impossible to get quorum at a convention, so electing new officers or replacing the bylaws becomes nearly impossible.
then why didnt wagner do nothing and all would be the same , im def missing something
George Phillies wrote (@18):
I also personally view it as a disaffiliation action.
Tom writes “To put it a different way, the intent of the EC’s action appears not to have been to solve a puzzle (“who are the real officers of our Oregon affiliate?”) but rather to actively intervene on behalf of one side in an internal affiliate dispute.
The nature of that intervention tends to lend credibility to the other side’s claim that the “internal dispute” is in actuality a hostile takeover attempt backed by an identifiable clique with a national operational scope.
At some point, that clique’s agenda and motives should themselves come into question.”
I believe it may be significant to your case that one of the Reeves faction officers was elected as a Republican party official, while another appeared to be associated with a Republican vote suppression effort.
Aaron Starr wrote (@3):
I agree with Aaron: these motions don’t seem to be public policy resolutions at all.
@15
“LNC Affiliation has no bearing…” Yes, but the people who voted for the motions seem to think that it does. The Bergland-Givot faction in 2000, as I recall, assumed based on inadequate checks that the Arizona state government was actually going to agree with the LNC finding.
Note alsothe recent message from Chairman Hinkle saying that the LPO will be turning ownership of its URL over to the Reeves faction. I am referring to the message that said in part
“The link from the http://www.lp.org to the http://www.lporegon.org has been removed pending the transfer of that web site to the Reese group. We will restore that link, once the transfer to the Reese group of http://www.lpooregon.org is completed.”
For the full message, read the next issue of Liberty for America magazine.
“LNC Affiliation has no bearing…” Cynics would suggest that it makes affiliation about as effective as other LNC policy statements (8^))
I personally view the ExComm motion as a disaffiliation action, but think that Brad Ploeger’s most excellently written brief plugs a hole. It eliminates the claim that it was not disaffiliation, it was a statement as to who should be identified as the party chair.
One possibility could be that it is simply not a very good attempt, but an attempt nevetheless.
Another may be that the supposedly Republican-aligned faction will defeat the other group through attrition, legal wrangling, and tying in knots.
Of course, it could have the opposite effect as well…
Good that the circular firing squad leaves some time over for other activities on the side…
@10,
“People with good sense might have let the Oregon libertarians sort this out”
While true on its face — this was simply not an emergency situation that required any kind of immediate action by the executive committee — it tends to ascribe to lack of good sense what appears to instead be a very intentional thing.
To put it a different way, the intent of the EC’s action appears not to have been to solve a puzzle (“who are the real officers of our Oregon affiliate?”) but rather to actively intervene on behalf of one side in an internal affiliate dispute.
The nature of that intervention tends to lend credibility to the other side’s claim that the “internal dispute” is in actuality a hostile takeover attempt backed by an identifiable clique with a national operational scope.
At some point, that clique’s agenda and motives should themselves come into question.
When I was an LP activist I always assumed that it was just a petty power game — big fish obsessed with running things in the the small pond and so forth.
But frankly, they are doing the pretty much the things I would do if I were a GOP dirty tricks operative assigned the task of minimizing the LP’s “spoiler” potential in the 2012 election cycle.
As I side note, I think the “public policy” argument is pretty weak. As both Dr. Phillies and I have pointed out previously, LNC affiliation has no bearing whatsoever on state recognition with respect to political parties, so how would action on the former be an attempt to influence the latter?
Readers may correctly assume that elements of the LNC ExComm are also preparing to issue a brief. Much longer. With 44 pages of appendices in the draft. There are also the pages of the main documents.
Fortunately, many members of the Judicial Committee are attorneys or retired judges, and enjoy this sort of reading. At least one of the — it’s a list — of major documents headed at the Judicial Committee was even very obviously written by a real attorney.
Rumor also has it that cease and desist letters will be headed in other directions in the foreseeable future.
And while all this was happening, the LNC ExComm approved $28,000 for a party-access petition in New Hampshire.
I know of no such formal rule, although we do request that anonymous posters not be outed.
We also request that anonymous posters pick a consistent screen name or “handle” and stick with it, although that’s even less of a firm rule.
From the way you worded your reply, I am guessing you don’t want me to confirm or deny whether Aaron’s guess is correct.
An article in the Willamette Weekly (I think) suggested that it has to do with the perceived impact Libertarians have on close contests between the Democrats and Republicans.
As I understand it, the problem is that the 2009 bylaws make it practically impossible to get quorum at a convention, so electing new officers or replacing the bylaws becomes nearly impossible.
Which brings up a question: did the Reeves group have quorum at the convention where they were elected, and if so, how did they do it?
Expressing an opinion as to whom the Secretary of State of Oregon should recognize as our affiliate is indeed a statement about public policy. It’s even a statement on a scale that someone might have expected might possibly have some effect. The text was not circulated in advance. Arguably, unanimous vote required.
People with good sense might have let the Oregon libertarians sort this out, but we are not talking about people with sense, we are talking about a majority of the LNC ExComm. and when one of the groups is run by Mr. Starr’s cronies, well, what did you expect?
As I warned on this board some time ago, the LNC ExComm appears to be hellbent on recycling their bad decision of 2000 on Arizona, complete with not asking which faction has ballot access, except the response of the LPO may well not be the same as the response of the LPAZ.
8 H, huh? I didn’t specifically address you. Throughout the discussions about BeaverGate, those terms (replace/recognize) have been used.
Don’t take things so personally, my anonymous — possibly mind reading — friend!
I would suggest that the LNC has an interest in having affiliates maintain a baseline of internal integrity. If Wagner were David Duke, I suspect that there’d be no controversy here. If Duke did exactly the same things as Wagner, can anyone honestly say that the LNC’s Excomm was in the wrong here? Strap on those polygraph pneumographs now…
Similarly, if Reeves or Burke or other associated OR hypnosis victims were Duke, ditto…
Yes?
Capozzi: On the matter of “recognize” v. “replace,” since Wagner still claims to be LPO chair, on its face, “recognize” sounds like the better word to me.
As I said @ 2, I see no difference in terms of what the LNC attempted to do.
The LNC attempted to replace the LPO’s leaders, though their attempt may fail and result only in a toothless “recognition.”
Aaron Starr: Tom Sipos @ 2
I assume you’re guessing?
Because the rules (i.e. by-laws) at IPR state that editors may not “out” people posting anonymously.
And the Aaron Starr I know is such a stickler for bylaws (e.g., @ 3) that he would never violate IPR rules. To do so would be the utmost hypocrisy.
On the matter of “recognize” v. “replace,” since Wagner still claims to be LPO chair, on its face, “recognize” sounds like the better word to me. Wagner might still be claiming to be chair in a decade from now; he might even somehow receive a letter from the OR Secretary of State for the next 10 years. The LNC can RECOGNIZE the OR officers that in its view were rightfully selected by the LPO.
Why the difference between recognize and replace are not apparent seems curious to me.
We’ll see what JudCom decides. I still wonder whether Hall and Wrights are conflicted or not. I’d like to hear why they are not. Others may be, too. And I’d still like to hear a rationale for why ExComm took this matter up, rather than leaving it for the full LNC.
I do hope that all involved will abide by JudCom’s decision.
I do find the notion that the happenings of BeaverGate (OR’s the Beaver State) is a “public policy resolution” matter to be silly. This is an administrative matter. There is no “public policy” involved here, nothing that would be controversial with voters, like taxes, war, or civil liberties.
This gambit looks desperate.
Still, as Sun Tzu said in the Art of War, “To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.” It’s most unfortunate that BeaverGate has become about “enemies,” but it appears to be so. Rather than attempting to “crush” the Wagner forces, I’d suggest giving them a way out, some sort of face-saving gesture.
We don’t need a Killing Fields here!
if one group “replaced”another , then doesnt that mean the replaced can do the same thing at the next convention. Im assuming LPO allows delegates to decide bylaws and officers so instead of the hysteria why not just redouble your efforts and hand them their asses taking back your party.
Tom Sipos @ 2
Two groups both claimed that they are the legitimate officers of LPO. They can’t both be correct, right?
Let me give you a scenario.
Imagine if back in 2007, I didn’t retire from my third term as chair in California. Let’s say that instead I decided to unilaterally change the bylaws before the end of my term so that you were no longer eligible to vote in the party’s business, extended my own term of office, declared that the convention was canceled, and refused to recognize the officers newly elected via the original bylaws.
Would you argue that the Secretary of State recognizes me as the officer of record and therefore I must be the legitimate holder of the office?
When the competing officer requested that the LNC to have a hearing on the matter, would you as an LNC Member vote to recognize me as the rightful Chair of California or would you vote to recognize the other person who claimed the position?
I believe Mr. Ploeger must be unaware of the purpose of Bylaw 8.12.
I authored Bylaw 8.12, which states “The National Committee may adopt public policy resolutions by a ¾ vote with previous notice or by unanimous consent without previous notice.” The bylaw amendment was adopted at the 2008 convention.
I proposed the change after I noted that while the Bylaws required a 2/3 vote of the Convention to adopt a public policy resolution (e.g. Advocating the withdrawal of troops from Iraq), it only required a majority vote for the LNC to do the same.
The argument was made that the LNC should not be saddled with a lower threshhold than the Convention. The argument prevailed and the amendment was adopted overwhelmingly.
To somehow equate that the LNC’s recognition of the legitimate officers of the Oregon affiliate is a public policy resolution seems to me to be a broad expansion of the common meaning of the term.
It reminds me of the arguments made by some that somehow a farmer’s growing of wheat for personal consumption can be regulated by Congress under the Interstate Commerce Clause because it impacts the market price.
Aaron Starr prefers to say that the LNC “recognized” one group over another, rather than “replaced” one group over another.
I see no substantive difference in what the LNC attempted to do.
“The past few months have seen the Ex Com from Oregon replaced by a new Ex Com by some members of the National Executive Committee. ”
I believe it would be more proper to state it as follows:
Earlier this month the Libertarian National Committee’s Executive Committee recognized a set of officers among two groups each claiming to be the legitimate officers of the long-time affiliate.