LNC Meeting in Arlington, VA this weekend. Michael Cloud is not here due to illness. Lee Wrights is not here due to lack of travel money. This is his second meeting missed, therefore he is off the LNC. More in the comments.
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Yes. Well done disaster email, too. Generally I would advocate more positive emails and letters. But there is an actual crunch, as you noted above regarding February numbers.
Wes proposed alternatives: cutting the Alabama or Illiois petition drives and/or an issue of LP News. The LNC did not make any of those cuts, so now we have to have fundraising.
We have now advanced from the disaster letter to the disaster email.
We weren’t even talking about those kind of cases, only the first kind you mentioned.
But in the particular case above I believe the binding ruling is called Westminster. I have the specific cite around here somewhere.
That’s the sort of thing we are talking about here. In reality what usually happens is we end up being run off despite what the law says because most of the time no one is backing us up. Sometimes we prevail. Pushing the issue is dangerous though, because sometimes petitioners get arrested when we don’t comply immediately and try to argue with them instead.
Yep.
That would be me. It’s OK to say who the other petitioner was.
It usually is 🙂
Unfortunately I will not be able to do more of this, since I can’t raise nearly enough money to keep doing things like this. If people reading can donate to keep me being able to provide coverage I would appreciate that.
It’s a lot closer than that and I really like it too.
It was only a Johnson campaign debt to begin with because LNC did not have money at the time.
Plain old free conference call works for me.
I agree.
Do you mean current/former contractor to become LNC member? If so I agree.
While it would be worthwhile to have a volunteer lawyer network setup to handle these kind of cases, there are two clear groups, one that can be handled by volunteers and one that needs to be addressed by strategic litigation.
Group A: Petitioner is clearly on a post office sidewalk or other First Amendment protected space where there is a near-absolute right to petition, but the post office manager or the cops are unaware and hassling the petitioner. A quick discussion between an LP lawyer and a Sergeant (who will probably call the city/county attorney) can sort that out.
Group B: Petitioner is say, on the sidewalk in front of a Walmart and told by the manager to leave. There are cases that protect that as a public right-of-way, but there are other cases that say that it’s private property and the owner can make petitioners leave. I personally had a conversation with a Sergeant in Colorado Springs and it was clear that we could either leave or be arrested and fight the legitimacy of the trespass order in court, later, after we bonded. Since I couldn’t point him to any binding cases saying we had a right to be there (though there may be some cases in pending litigation), there’s not much I could do except move on to a different location.
“Mark Axinn March 3, 2014 at 6:26 pm
Andy–
This is off topic, but there are lots of lawyers in the LP who fight pettioning laws. But they are expensive and difficult battles. The Credico lawsuit cost over $50,000 (we won and hope to collect back legal fees from State BOE). Many others are not successful or worth the fight.”
First off, I’m NOT necessarily talking about petition laws, I’m talking about petition circulators being illegally run out of public locations where they are asking people to sign petitions. If you can not get access to people to ask them to sign petitions, then you can not get any signatures, and if you don’t get enough signatures, then you don’t get on the ballot.
I have worked on 35 Libertarian Party ballot access drives in 18 states plus Washington DC going back to the year 2000, and do you know how many times I’ve seen a Libertarian Party lawyer do anything to help Libertarian Party petitioners gain access to a location where they have been illegally prevented from gathering signatures? ZERO!
I’m not even necessarily talking about filing law suits, although this ought to be done in a lot of cases, I’m just talking about sending out a letter or making a phone call. Sometimes sending out a letter or making a phone call, or better yet, sending out a letter and following it up with a phone, can be enough to get the government goons to back down.
How hard is it to send out a letter or make a phone call? We are not talking about any court appearances or anything like that. The party should already have form letters typed up that address petition circulators being harassed and run out of various types of locations, and there could be different form letters for different types of situations, and the form letter should of course include the name and contact information of the Libertarian Party attorney.
I mentioned an example above about how myself and another petition circulator were illegally prevented from gathering petition signatures at a state university and a public community college in Arkansas. Fortunately, we got some help from the ACLU, which usually does not happen, as the usual response from the ACLU is something like, “Sorry, we’d like to do something but we are too busy,” or they do not respond at all, but in this case they actually sent out letters on our behalf, and followed those letters up with phone calls, and both the state university and the community college backed down and we were able to go back and get signatures.
This is not some trivial issue which I am talking about here. If anything, this is actually a MORE IMPORTANT ISSUE than anything else that has been discussed in this thread. The new LP office, etc…, is all TRIVIAL compared to this.
Why is this such an important issue? Because without the ability to speak to people, we can not get the Libertarian message out, and in regard to ballot access, we can not get our candidates on the ballot.
There are Libertarian Party petition drives that have failed over the years simply because petition circulators could not gain access to enough high foot traffic locations to gain a sufficient number of signatures on Libertarian Party ballot access petitions. There have been other Libertarian Party petition drives over the years that had to have expensive last minute saves in order to qualify for the ballot, and a lot of these instances would not have been necessary if people gathering signatures on the petition had been able to gain access to a sufficient number of high foot traffic locations.
There is a real crackdown against free speech in this country, and it is getting more and more difficult to find places where one can stand and talk to people passing by without some government goon, or security guard, harassing them, and running them out of a location. Another trick they will do, is they’ll say, “You have a right to do this, but only if you do it in the ‘Free Speech Zone,'” which is usually in some place that cuts you off from talking to most of the people. They may also say, “You have a right to do this, but only if you get a permit, or if you get permission from __________ (fill in name here),” thus turning free speech and our right to petition the government into a privilege which one must beg for permission to do, rather than a right which is enumerated in the Constitution, and then even if you try to comply with their nonsense, they will waste a bunch of your time, and I’m not just talking hours here, I’m talking days, or even weeks or months.
There was a story posted here a few years ago about the time that I was illegally arrested (and maced) by the policed in Maryland for gathering petition signatures in front of a public library. The charges ended up being dropped, thanks to help from the ACLU, but I was never able to pursue a law suit (due to having to front all of the money out of my own pocket, and due to having to spend money out of my own pocket going back and forth to Maryland to make court appearances), so the cops got away with it, which means that they will be likely to do the same thing to petition circulators on future petition drives. Nobody in the Libertarian Party ever did anything about it, and I even called a couple of Libertarian lawyers, and their response was along the lines of, “Sorry, I’d like to help but I’m too busy.”
Second of all, there should be more law suits filed over unreasonable ballot access laws, particularly the ones that would be easier to win, such as against the out-of-state petition circulator bans in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and whatever other states still have them. The Libertarian Party of Virginia and Washington DC finally filed law suits over this back in 2012, and they both won. I’ve been saying for years that every state that has these ridiculous and unconstitutional out-of-state petition circulator bans ought to be challenged in court. This is something that has not stood up in court just about everywhere it has been challenged, so I don’t think that it would be overly difficult to get this thrown out in the few remaining states that have this absurd “law” on the books.
FYI, Google says the new building is a seven-minute walk down Daingerfield Road from the King Street Metro station.
Thanks so much for the coverage. I just got finished reading the comments here.
I really really like the new building. If I recall correctly, the King Street metro station is about 15 minutes walking from there (right down Duke Street to I think it’s Diagonal Road). Yes would it be nicer to have some exterior signage but all in all I think it’s definitely a great building.
I find it a tad troubling that the LNC is paying for Gary Johnson’s campaign debts. I understand why it was done, but I don’t like the idea of the LNC subsidizing poor campaign choices.
I definitely think the LNC should meet via skype or google hangout and will be supporting that bylaws change at the convention.
I don’t like the idea of LNC members not being able to be contractors. That’s a silly bylaws change that’s really just a reach because of what happened this past year. It’s very reactionary — similar to how current legislators pass feel good regulations and restrictions after every small (and large) incident that affects people negatively. It’s almost like when I hear people say “there needs to be a rule”. It’s short sighted and could seriously put the LNC in a bad spot should they need to rely on an LNC member for paid services in a pinch. Additionally I think it’s somewhat exclusionary — what if members think a current or potential paid staffer might make a good contractor?
As for Mr. Pojunis’s suggestion about email acquisition — I’ve been talking about for a while now! It’s what Obama specialized in during his 2012 re-election campaign. It’s how he won the election. Rather than hire top policy strategists, he hired the best tech minds that money could buy and allowed them (in a very decentralized, bottom up fashion) to do what they did best — innovate. Their key to success was capturing emails and then raising a shit ton of money from the emails and getting people active and engaged at the local level.
Regarding the convention, it should be interesting how things shake out.
Andy–
This is off topic, but there are lots of lawyers in the LP who fight pettioning laws. But they are expensive and difficult battles. The Credico lawsuit cost over $50,000 (we won and hope to collect back legal fees from State BOE). Many others are not successful or worth the fight.
I was at the LNC meeting when Columbus was selected. The criteria were not who will benefit, but the usual stuff like cost, rooms, meals, location within a city, airport accomodations, etc.
Kevin voted for Cincinatti, so the idea that he supported his home turf in Columbus is completely wrong.
It is unfortunate that Porcfest scheduled without consulting anyone at the LP. They could have easily avoided the conflict.
Reminds me of the Ropn Paul crowd. They always schedued without checking for conflicts, particularly without consulting the LP.
This “our side and their side” stuff is very tiring. The OTHER side in Ohio are the GOP and the DEM parties. No wonder people tire of the drama on the LNC and the national conventions.
Guys, there were 30 bids and it got down to three finalists, who made their pitch. Midwest is a good place to have off-year non-POTUS conventions. Most of your top-12 LP affiliates are near the Midwest or Mideast. The last LNC chose THREE convention sites: Las Vegas, Columbus, and Orlando for 2016.
Kevin was on LNC then so Ohio had something to do with. Memorial day was not a long tradition; it was July 4 for several conventions and Labor Day of the previous year for many years before that. I think a recent one was in early May.
The date was picked years ago, and not by Ohio LP.
It is idiotic not to do the Convention over a three-dayweekend since people have a lot of travelling, but the National Party broke with traditional Memorial Day w/e.
That sounds about right.
I didn’t say that. Porcfest was scheduled long after the LP convention was, so if anyone was reponding to the other it was Porcfest to LP and not the other way around. I am just saying it will have a certain effect, not that that effect was planned. I do believe holding it in Columbus will benefit one side. Was that planned for that reason, or because Ohio LP is one of the more active state parties and somehwat closer to many LP members than most other places, or some combination thereof? Dunno.
Andy, the $9K was the full term from May 2010 to May 2012 for me. Guess I stayed in nice hotels. Sometimes I did use my reward points.
“paulie Post authorMarch 3, 2014 at 2:42 pm
‘The LP National Convention is scheduled at the same time as ComFest?!?!?!’
Yes. Also the same time as Porcfest in NH. So some rads may be at Porcfest instead of LP convention. Yet another reason I think we will lose big in Columbus.
Yet another thing that will help the other side. They have more people who can afford the convention hotel. ”
So you think that scheduling the LP National Convention to be held in Columbus, Ohio while Porcfest is going on in New Hampshire and Comfest is going on in Columbus, is part of a plot for certain people to take over, and/or gain more influence in, the Libertarian Party?
I think that Columbus is a good place for the Convention, I just wish that they would have chosen a different set of dates.
Yes. Also the same time as Porcfest in NH. So some rads may be at Porcfest instead of LP convention. Yet another reason I think we will lose big in Columbus.
Correct.
Yet another thing that will help the other side. They have more people who can afford the convention hotel. Also, once the LP block of rooms sells out at the convention hotel, it may be hard to get rooms there, or even impossible – and/or they may be extremely expensive. Rads are more likely to make plans late. And rooms at other hotels may be expensive and/or hard to get also. Combine this with lack of early promotion and it could be bad.
Better start making plans NOW to stack 6 or 8 people to a room 🙂
“Kevin Knedler March 3, 2014 at 9:08 am
Most fun may be three blocks down the street at the huge ComFest event with bands, parties, and more going on. It’s the “More” that draws a lot of people. Same weekend as the LP National Convention.”
The LP National Convention is scheduled at the same time as ComFest?!?!?! This is probably not a good thing, because ComFest (I think it stands for Community Festival) is a huge annual festival in Columbus. This could cause the motels in the Columbus area to jack up their rooms, and also make it more difficult for LP members to find places that have vacancies.
I petitioned for the Libertarian Party of Ohio several years back and while there I got signatures at ComFest. It was a great event. I really kicked ass at that event. Unfortunately, I missed the first day, and due to some snafus, I got there late on both Saturday and Sunday, and the event shut down early on Sunday, yet in spite of these screw ups, I still got 367 signatures on Saturday and 365 signatures on Sunday. If I had gotten there earlier those days and also been there for the first day, I’d could have gotten a lot more signatures, and I likely would have had monster, record setting days on Saturday and Sunday if I had not gotten there late those days. Still, getting that many signatures for that amount of time is damn good.
My best day ever in terms of unique signatures (as in not having the same people sign multiple petitions and then lumping them all into one count) was on a general election day at a polling place in Maine when I got 600 signatures on a Casino Gaming initiative, and 500 signatures on another Casino Gaming initiative (I got less on the second one because a lot of people had already signed it since it had been out longer).
The Libertarian Party of Ohio had a volunteer both set up at ComFest to do outreach and get petitions signed, but I think that I got more signatures than all of their volunteers combined.
If ComFest is going on while the LP National Convention is going on, Libertarians ought to try to make it to the festival because it is a good place to do Libertarian outreach (as in hand out flyers, pamphlets, bumper stickers, etc…, and tell people out the party).
Maybe 9k per term, and/or counting opportunity costs. It’s not 9k in straight costs per year unless maybe you fly first class every time.
Dunno, but most likely not for very long. I am thinking Evan McMahon probably has DC area in his near future, but perhaps not.
“Jill Pyeatt March 2, 2014 at 10:59 pm
It would surely be nice to get some new people in. It’s probably time to start recruiting people to run.”
The pool of people who can run for the LNC is limited to those who have the money and time to run back and forth to the meetings.
There was a great opportunity in South Carolina a couple of years ago. LNC, LNCC and even people on IPR comments seemed not to care. It was very close and even a few hundred dollars could have made the difference.
I think Arkansas may well have some wins this year. Alabama has a possible opening if we can run a good sized slate, but some other things have to come together first. Plans are in the works. Alaska has a plan they are touting; dunno how realistic it is.
“Kevin Knedler March 3, 2014 at 9:03 am
I spent $3,200 a year on average to be on LNC from 2010 to 2012.”
Are you sure that you’ve got that figure right. I recall this same subject being discussed here several months ago and you said that you spent something like $9,000 per year to attend LNC meetings.
I don’t know that you have to be in Nevada to make odds informally.
Downtown St. Louis seemed OK to me (although I rarely left the hotel, so it didn’t matter).
I’ve spend some time in downtown Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and none of them seemed bad to me. Cleveland used to be depressed, but they turned it around nicely quite a while ago now and as far as I know it has not gone back downhill unless that just happened in the last couple of years.
I don’t think most LP delegates from other states know about ComFest. I do, but only because I worked in the Columbus area in 2007.
The national chair drama was why some delegates went to St. Louis.
Of course there may or may not be some this year.
You’ll probably make up for it by heavy turnout from Region 3 (inclding people finding places with other states).
Lack of promotion and possible lack of chair drama may mean fewer delegates from other regions.
I’d say it costs me more than that.
No shit, and I did in fact go to all of them – partly to cover them, as well as to be there as LNC member. I was going to skip at least one but never did.
Me too. I’ll be supporting that change.
You’re on.
Location of convention is biggest factor, but there are others.
From what I have been told Starchild received a bunch of votes from pissed off Rutherford supporters as a fuck you on their way out. That means their support for Starchild was not genuine and they are thus unlikely to vote for him again (unless they lose for officer positions again, and I don’t think they will). There are other people who believe Starchild’s conflict of interest between the movement and the party means he should not be on LNC – Lee Wrights, for example. But the biggest issues is who will be there versus who was at the last convention. The fact that there were a lot of people running for at large and no nomination speeches except the lightning round in Vegas also altered the dynamics of the at large race.
I’m with Kevin on thinking the LNC Chair race will be less dramatic than the last one. Though I may change my prediction based on who tosses their hat into the ring. There are candidates who have a way of inflaming the passions of the delegates. I just doubt that they will be running this time around.
Next state to elect to state house is probably going to be OR, CO, or TX, based on number of races contested on a regular basis. OH, IN, and AK have a shot based on running some very strong candidates in smaller districts, but my prediction is that volume will beat quality.
A question for paulie or Starchild. If new leadership is elected at the convention do you feel that Wes Benedict and Carla Howell will be kept on?
More importantly, which state will be the next to elect a LP member to their state assembly? That where the focus should be actually.
Anyone in Nevada want to have some odds posted on who will win seats on LNC in 2014? I assume you can bet on anything?
And the downtown area near the Hyatt Convention center is a LOT nicer than downtown Cincinnati, Cleveland, and sorry no offense to Missouri, but nicer than St. Louis.
Most fun may be three blocks down the street at the huge ComFest event with bands, parties, and more going on. It’s the “More” that draws a lot of people. Same weekend as the LP National Convention.
Turn out for 2014 will be similiar to 2010 in St. Louis. May not be any drama for National Chair, like there was in 2010.
I spent $3,200 a year on average to be on LNC from 2010 to 2012.
Starchild said: “Budgeting $500 for airfare and transportation per meeting on average seems reasonable, which would be $2000 per year.”
You live in San Francisco, which means that you are close to a major airport. It is cheaper to fly out of a major airport than it is to fly out of a non-major airport. So this means that a Libertarian who lives in say Montana or North Dakota is going to have to spend a lot more money on flights if they were on the LNC as compared to members who live near a major airport, not to mention the fact that there is virtually no chance of the LNC ever having a meeting where they live, because LNC meetings are always in major cities.
“paulie Post authorMarch 3, 2014 at 1:43 am
‘You could run for reelection as an alternate and just not attend as many meetings next time since alternates don’t really do anything if the region representative whom they are an alternate for is in attendance at the meetings.’
Nope. Not doing it.”
All of this negativity begs the question of why, as an alternate, did you bother to attend all of the meetings, or almost all of them? You could have still been an LNC alternate, and even attended a few meetings without attending as many as you did, and if you had not gone to all of those meetings, you’d have several thousand extra dollars in your pocket right now.
If I was on the LNC as an alternate, I’d only attend a meeting if it was convenient, which means that I would not attend most of them. The cost of attending the meetings and the time it takes to go to the meetings is why I would not run for a seat as a regular LNC member. If I had lots of money and lots of free time on my hands, I may very well do it, but I just have a hard time justifying going to all of those meetings as being a productive use of my time and money. I’d also be more inclined to run if most of the meetings were held over the phone or internet, but it
would apparently take a change of the by-laws to make this happens.
I think that it sucks that so many party members are basically prevented from being on the LNC due to not having the time and/or money to run around the country attending all of those meetings.
Sorry, I didn’t realize that you already gave your opinion.
I’ll take that bet.
What makes you think that? You talk to more Libertarians, in more areas than I do. So, I’d really like to know what it is that you’re hearing. He won handily last time, and I’ve not heard any significant disappointment in his performance from anyone that I believe voted for him in 2012. Turnout will be lower this year, presumably, and geography may not work in his favor. But, Gary Johnson is not pulling as many delegates into the convention this year, so I’m not sure that the “radical” voting block will be smaller in percentage terms.
Again, your opinion is worth a lot more than mine on this stuff, so lets hear it.
Any position on LNC. I am betting against it.
That is the primary factor. That, and convention non-promotion. The site is finally up and has a banner on LP.org and one single email blast but you still can’t even register. Compare with past convention promotion.
I think my side of LP will get played. There will be a re elect no one movement again which many on our side will think will be a good thing again which the other side will cynically use but then vote for their people. Only the better LNC members will get swept out.
Sorry to be a pessimist but those are my predictions.
We’re betting on whether or not he gets elected to an at-large seat?
I’ll bet you a drink on that one.
What makes you say the next LNC will be much worse? Is it all about location of the convention?
Starchild, I think you’re a lock for at-large, unless we eliminate a bunch of the at-large seats. So, if you’ve decided that you’re going to try for another term in some position, why not try for chair or VC? If it doesn’t work out, go for at-large.
Of course, having any real shot at Chair or VC would require campaigning ahead of the convention. So, if that’s not something that you want to put much effort into (which I would certainly understand), that would be a good reason not to shoot for the top spots.
BTW thanks again for voting for me when I ran to fill the Root vacancy, but the fact is that not one other person did and additionally 7 of 14 said in a straw poll that they would not even consider it – IE that they would vote for NOTA over me. And I think the next LNC will be a lot worse so I really would not want to be on it. This one was bad enough.
I don’t see where all that yakking I did on the email list slowed down or reversed a single bad thing.
Nope. Not doing it.
The email list is a huge waste of time too. I don’t know if I can be elected even if I wanted to be – I was never elected by the delegates. I don’t know who will be on the next LNC but I suspect that it will be a group that will be even less pleasant for me to work with – I suspect significantly so – than the present one. I got zero of my agenda accomplished this term and don’t suspect I would do any better by repeating the experiment. State chairs and party members in my region didn’t seem very eager to talk to me either, so I wasn’t much of a region alt rep, which is what I was supposed to be (see – I’m already thinking of it in the past tense and the term is not even over yet). I never got on any committees like outreach or affiliate support like I wanted to, and was basically booted off the ballot access committee which never did what I thought it was supposed to do and turned into the litigation and lobbying on ballot access committee (and ineffective at that, at least so far). The email that led to JJM asking me to help him on LNC was originally intended to see if I could be a non-LNC member on one of those committees, so I failed at my goal of getting on one or more. And there is a bylaw proposal to prohibit vendors from being on LNC; I think it will pass. As it is, every one of my contracts (including as a subcontractor) with LPHQ will now have to be voted on by the whole LNC. No thanks.
I expected that it would suck, and it far exceeded my expectation in that regard, even as a spectator at many past LNC meetings the prior 3 terms and friend/acquaintance of prior LNC members. I did it as a favor to John Jay Myers because he asked for my help and then he quit on me, which was more than awkward. GJ of TX didn’t really ask for or appear to need my help at all. I can sort of justify it as getting an insider perspective, which will help me be a more informed critic/observer of LNCs in the future, but that does not require another term.
Not sure why I have to keep telling you but there is zero chance I will run again in Columbus. I am finding it enough of a challenge not to quit before the term ends and came very close to doing so on Friday and Saturday (I feel somwhat better now).
On another subject, answer your ^&^* phone.
Paulie – Not much is getting done because there is little consensus on the LNC. But that is far from the worst possible situation. Without voices like ours there, things could be more actively moving in the wrongdirection. Don’t underestimate your positive impact just because you don’t see great visible results. Hell, the same could be said of the LP and the libertarian movement in general for that matter!
We seriously need the bylaws change to allow non in-person meetings as well as the one for quicker email votes.
If the meeting room attendance was getting much of anything accomplished I might say it would be worthwhile, but from my experience it is both a complete waste of time and painfully boring. I get that it needs to be done, but I have no desire to do keep doing it and if I did do it out of a sense of duty I would not want to spend a bunch of money I can ill afford to do it as I did this term.
I wish I could agree with that prediction. I don’t see that happening right now. Maybe in a few years.
Matt – Thank you for your confidence in me. When you asked about the cost of being on the LNC, I said several thousand dollars a year — here’s some further thoughts on that.
Four meetings a year seems typical. Budgeting $500 for airfare and transportation per meeting on average seems reasonable, which would be $2000 per year. But if you’re able to drive to one or more meetings and shop carefully on airfare, use city buses and subways instead of taxis or rental cars, etc., you can probably average considerably less.
Food is of course expensive at hotels, but there are usually other cheaper places to eat around, and you’d still be eating if you were at home. Many of us usually seem to spend some time hanging out drinking in hotels or bars (alcohol seeming to still be the most popular drug of choice at LP events) which can easily get expensive, but is also ultimately optional and there’s always the option to BYOD (bring your own drugs).
Lodging is the other major expense — say average $100 per night for three hotel nights per LNC meeting, or $1200 per year — but there’s a lot of room for economizing there. I’ve had pretty good success at being able to stay with local Libertarians who’re willing to put me up at no cost in the cities where we meet (although the locations are often further from the meeting venues and thus less convenient with possibly some extra transportation cost). Sharing a hotel room with other LNC members is also often an option.
Finally, I think there’s a very good chance we will change the Bylaws to allow for electronic meetings and go to fewer in-person meetings.
“Post authorMarch 2, 2014 at 10:50 pm
‘A lot of people running AWAY from LNC. More to accomplish at local and state levels where real politics are happening. Plus, it is more rewarding.’
Headed in that direction myself.”
You could run for reelection as an alternate and just not attend as many meetings next time since alternates don’t really do anything if the region representative whom they are an alternate for is in attendance at the meetings.
I’ve given some thought to running for at-large. However, the fact that it would cost me a few thousand dollars per year to serve on a committee whose effectiveness if questionable gives me pause. Further, while the travel involved is appealing in some ways, the 8 days of missed work and money spent could probably bring me a lot more travel enjoyment by simply taking an extra vacation or two.
Obviously, the next question is, do I bring more value to the LP and liberty movement by relaxing on the beach or sitting in a meeting room?
I think you’d have a reasonable chance at winning the Chairmanship, Starchild. I don’t think I’d bet on it, but it would not be surprising at all if you won Of course, all of this means next to nothing, since I don’t know who the other candidates are. Further, I think it would require a real campaign to make it happen.
For the record, I am hereby pledging a vote to Starchild if he (you) runs for at-large. I can’t make that same commitment for Chair or VC since I don’t know who else is running. But, there is a very high probability that I would support him (you) for either of those positions as well.
It would surely be nice to get some new people in. It’s probably time to start recruiting people to run.
I can’t even think of someone to run for CA chair, however, except our current Southern Vice-
chair. I have no idea if she’d be interested in the LNC.
Headed in that direction myself.
In response to the question, “Who else is running for national chair? And who is running for other LNC positions?”, Paulie writes:
Dunno, but I am predicting Rutherford, Knedler, Mattson and Starr will run and quite possibly win. Starchild will run but I don’t think he will win.
I highly doubt I will run for national chair. A part of me is tempted by the idea of running just to have the opportunity to debate whoever’s running for chair, but not sure I could do that in good conscience.
I’m leaning toward running for reelection as an at-large rep, or might conceivably run for vice chair to leave more at-large slots open for other reform-minded folks if no one else who’s strongly for a bold libertarian message and transparency/good governance who seems like they’d have a decent shot at winning seeks the vice chair slot.
A lot of people running AWAY from LNC. More to accomplish at local and state levels where real politics are happening. Plus, it is more rewarding.
Hoosier
Oh duh, sorry, just noticed that you commented anonymously. You can email me if you want to reply. I’ll keep it confidential if you ask me to.
Hoosier,
Thank you for your interesting news. I hope Mark can make a success out of the LNCC. He has the same opportunity that he would have had in 2012 if he had been elected LNC chair, and he won’t have to deal with the LNC.
George
Interesting. Are you running, and for what?
Mark Rutherford is not running. He is happy working with LNCC. No drama.
I predict Brett will NOT run for national chair, although he’ll probably run for something else.
Dunno, but I am predicting Rutherford, Knedler, Mattson and Starr will run and quite possibly win. Starchild will run but I don’t think he will win. I will be surprised if Redpath and Lark don’t stay on the LNC. Geoff will probably run again. I could be wrong. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.
Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks!
I appreciate Starchild and Nick’s help also and I would really appreciate some donations so I can afford to keep doing stuff like this.
Who said Brett was running for national chair?
And he says he did not sleep in, but was working on candidate filings. He told me he was going back to sleep at breakfast but either he didn’t or changed his story later.
The entire LNC has a problem having approved the payments “after the fact.” I seriously doubt that Neale or anyone else on the LNC knew what was going on until it hit them over the head in the audit report.
Electing Pojunis national chair would be a disaster of epic proportion. Anyone getting sucked into his vortex is heading for disaster. He’s a bigger con-artist than Root.
Jill, Who will beat Pojunis? Neale has this little difficulty with having a;proved all the payments to Cloud. For a fair number of people, though certainly not all of them, he just dumped much of a million dollars into a building that does not even support signage.
Thanks Chuck! Hope you feel better soon. Appreciate your work on the Bylaws Committee as well, you had several good motions, including for more transparency.
Several of us sitting here in the hotel bar, just had an informal meeting of the Sunshine Caucus ([email protected] for those who want to affiliate), me, Paulie, Gary Johnson, Brett Pojunis, Scott Spencer, Rich Tomasso. Quite productive, came up with a short list of 6 action items to increase transparency on LP.org (well, five to increase transparency, one related to LNC members being able to post stuff).
Who else is running for national chair? And who is running for other LNC positions?
I wasn’t able to watch the LNC meeting today because I was fairly sick. I greatly appreciate the work Paulie, Starchild, and Nick put into live blogging the meeting on IPR!
I believe so, George. I forgot who told me, but he’s fairly confident he’ll win.
I kinda don’t think so.
Pojunis is running for National Chair?
It might have been a bad move, though the people here for the meeting are not the ones he needs to convince.
I like Brett Pojunis just fine, so I mean nothing personal about this. Wasn’t it a bad move to sleep in, after showing up late yesterday, if he’s planning on running for Chairman of the entire LP in June? Inquiring minds are curious.
“paulie Post authorMarch 2, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Gary Sinawski was supposed to be on the phone at 11 am but he thought it was 11 PM, lol.”
Since the LNC has an attorney, and since there are Libertarians around the country who are attorneys, why in the hell don’t they do anything to help people who are gathering signatures on Libertarian Party ballot access petitions gain access to locations where they can ask people to sign the petitions?
Petition signature gatherers are regularly harassed, and run out of locations, including ones that should clearly be in the public domain such as public libraries, departments of motor vehicles, state universities, community colleges, etc… This happens almost every time there is a petition drive, and there are occasions where this has actually caused petition drives to fail, or have caused the party to spend a lot more money than necessary because they had to bring in more petitioners at the last minute, which would not have been necessary in the cases which I’m am referring to where petition circulators had been run out of high volume locations.
Here is one example: Alabama in 2012. Petitioners were run out of multiple locations, including the biggest university in the state, the biggest community college in the state, a county civic center, and a public library. This put the petition drive behind on numbers and in jeopardy of failing, so the party had to spend a bunch more money to bring in several other petitioners at the last minute. Sometimes a letter and/or a phone call from an attorney will get these institutions to back down and petitioners can continue to gather signatures.
This happened in Arkansas with one of the state universities and a community college, thanks to an attorney from the ACLU of Arkansas, but we can’t always rely on the ACLU, and in fact, in most cases, the response we get from the ACLU is usually something like, “Sorry, we’d like to help, but we are too busy,” and this is if we even get a response from them at all.
The freaking LNC has an attorney and I know damn well that there are Libertarian Party members in a bunch of states who are attorneys by profession, so why don’t they actually do something useful that could potentially save the Libertarian Party thousands of dollars and actually save ballot access in some places where the party could fail otherwise?
It would not be that much work to come up with some form letters for various locations and situations. If a petition signature gatherer is being harassed and run out of a venue they could call LP headquarters or the State Chair or whoever, and then a form letter (with the blanks filled in) with the name and contact information of the attorney could be faxed and/or mailed to whoever it is that is preventing ballot access petition signatures from being signed.
Letters or phone calls from attorneys do not always work, but they do work sometimes, and this is something that can be a difference maker in saving petition drives from failure, and can also save the Libertarian Party thousands of dollars.
All good things must come to an end. Bad ones too.
Okay, we’ve just adjourned.
Adjourned
Aaron Starr – Recommends giving more recognition to elected Libertarians by interviewing them in LP News, perhaps using a standard set of questions that we ask them.
Aaron Starr public comment
At least it wasn’t continuous secret meeting.
John is complaining about LP candidates (or candidates who want Libertarian Party support?) who won’t use the word “libertarian” in their advertising and messaging.
Public comments – John Wayne Smith
Announcements
Report standardization (Pojunis) – withdraws
Project based fundraising (Pojunis) – withdraws
Member communication – Pojunis – discusses frequency of communications
Geoff will decide on it later – no motion
Wants a title so he can be LP spokesman
Scheurer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppYwMGtwVbM
Using media more effectively
Brett introduces Jason Scheuer (sp?) for 10 min presentation
I think 3 pm passed
Now discussing time of day to start pre-convention LNC meeting on June 25. 3 PM is the proposal.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Budget-Items-Proposals-to-Grow-the-Libertarian-Party.pdf <--- Brett's presentation that he made earlier.
Rich Tomasso mentioned successful fundraising that the New Jersey LP did in helping homeless people living in a tent city get propane stoves since they’d been harassed by the cops for using wood-burning stoves.
Rich also said he’s been in contact with lots of people from around the world through the World Affairs Council who are interested in the LP, from Iraq, Andorra, etc. He recommends us to get in touch with WAC chapters in our areas.
Brett talked about successful sheriff’s debate in Clark County. Moderated by sheriff Mack (CO libertarian-oriented sheriff?), attracted “all” the major media, 4 times as many attendees as the NVLP state convention. Got Nielson ratings.
Norm Olsen and Dan Wiener just gave regional reports. Lots of miscellany, no big news. Brett Pojunis giving regional report now.
Next regional reports. Sinawski call done.
Back on now with Sinawski. Apparently Geoff told him 11 PM and he did not question it.
Gary Sinawski was supposed to be on the phone at 11 am but he thought it was 11 PM, lol.
We’re breaking until 210pm at which time we’ll hear from LNC counsel Gary Sinawski by phone.
“Starchild March 2, 2014 at 1:39 pm
Andy – A contest isn’t a bad idea, but I’d suggest something slightly different. I’d like to see an area on our website where people could simply upload any designs or post any ideas for outreach material. Then the LNC or staff could take their favorite ideas from this pool and run with them. Or they could become crowdfunded projects if approved as such and we get a site or page up for things to be crowdfunded.”
Part of the idea of making it a contest is to help get people motivated to design new outreach material. Recognition and rewards motivate people.
Oops, fixed – thanks!
Tomasso – double s
Rich Tomaso says he and David Blau talked before getting on the LNC about creating a best practices repository.
At this point, neither one.
By the way, regarding the topic of this post, I believe we are in Alexandria, not Arlington, VA.
Not exactly part of website but we are doing this with Design for Liberty on FB. Talked to Wes and Arvin about getting stuff funneled back and forth between Design for Liberty and HQ more.
Ideas for cuts were also discussed as well, but not acted on. Most people seemed to think we should give it more time to see if fundraising goes back up before making cuts.
It was a one month deviation from trend. Several possible reasons were discussed. As well as ideas for improving fundraising.
Brett Pojunis and now Bill Redpath speak in favor of the LNC doing more affiliate support. Bill Redpath mentions he is new Virginia LP chair and also that he plans to run for Congress. Someone asks to general laughter whether he doesn’t have enough to do.
Good idea.
My last comment might be misinterpreted as supporting firing people. I’ve worked with the party staff for years, and my impression has always been that we have a very dedicated and productive group. I am not in favor of just randomly cutting back, since just about every position is overworked and understaffed.
They were discussed during staff report. Scroll up.
Andy – A contest isn’t a bad idea, but I’d suggest something slightly different. I’d like to see an area on our website where people could simply upload any designs or post any ideas for outreach material. Then the LNC or staff could take their favorite ideas from this pool and run with them. Or they could become crowdfunded projects if approved as such and we get a site or page up for things to be crowdfunded.
Pojunis wihdraws motion, says he will work with several people to develop his idea(s) on this more.
Financials…a good point. Motions to spend tens of thousands of dollars on marketing and candidates in states where there is no chance at all of winning, yet we’re so broke that I got one of those “desperation-grams” a few weeks ago saying the party is broke and that if we don’t cough up money they’ll have to start firing people.
Are we firing people, or are we sinking more money into bad ideas?
An annualized rate of under $1 million a year could be said the be unfavorable. Is it perhaps related to money going out the door to an individual LNC member, in large amounts, with it seems the approval of the LNC chair and the knowledge of the Treasurer.
That looks like a nice profit for Pojunis if he gets them to bite the poisoned apple.
Has it occurred to anyone that just perhaps they should discuss their February financial totals.
“paulie Post authorMarch 2, 2014 at 1:06 pm
I talked to Wes, he is interested in people sending him what brochures people have written and designed (in any language).”
How about have a contest for who designs the best outreach material? The top designs could be made available for download off of the http://www.lp.org website. Maybe the winners could be recognized at the LP National Convention.
Hand vote on dividing question to consider each item separately. Pojunis motion seconded by Olsen.
7-7. Geoff breaks tie by voting against breaking them up because Brett wants them considered together as one.
One more item from Brett:
– bookkeeping services – $9,800 a year
Brett has a list of stuff he wants to spend money on (raised via fundraising, not from our budget):
– improved party website
– data cleansing
– news wire service
– email acquisition (buying prospect addresses) – $15,000
– “guaranteed open” mass emailing – $6,000?
– social media marketing – $14,500
– annual report design – $4,500(?)
– logo design – $1,000
I think I missed some items as well as some numbers.
Pojunis is doing a 30 minute presentation on a whole bunch of stuff he wants to raise money for to improve LP website, database, and so on (9-10 motions). He said he wants to raise money for this. I’m not sure what if anything LNC needs to do to make it possible for him. I guess we will get to that part of the discussion later.
If anyone has a copy send it to Wes
An if you can write but not design, Arvin will put it out on Design for Liberty to help get people to do designs to match your writing.
I talked to Wes, he is interested in people sending him what brochures people have written and designed (in any language).
Brett Pojunis is giving a Power Point presentation now. It was taking a little while getting that set up.
Andy – I strongly agree with the need for some materials in Spanish (and Chinese and other languages, but Spanish most urgently). I’d like to see a brochure in Spanish focusing specifically on freedom of movement. I saw a survey not long ago that identified immigration as the #1 political issue for people of Hispanic descent in this country, and the Libertarian Party has the most pro-immigration position of any party in the U.S. as far as I know.
That would be Brett Pojunis, regional rep. and recently elected Nevada LP state chair.
Just going back into session from lunch. Brett has a bunch of motions for which he’s given us previous notice, and he’s going to present now.
“paulie Post authorMarch 2, 2014 at 9:45 am
‘The LNC really needs to produce at least one pamphlet in Spanish.’
Agreed. Anyone want to help with writing and design of one”
The Libertarian Party of California printed up material in Spanish years ago. I know this because I helped hand some of it out.
I believe that a couple of people on this thread suggested making LP News online only but I am too lazy to go back and read through all the posts. To be clear my comment was pointed at them.
No typing error, unfortunately.
It’s not going to become online only, at least not this term.
The only thing being discussed was cutting back one issue this year to make up budget shortfall and that was not done.
Wiener and Lieberman were at table at all times when Pojunis was not here so their region was always fully represented.
As a state chair now Brett may want to focus more on Nevada, less on national so maybe he will not be on LNC after this term. But that is up to him and his region.
I agree we should keep printing LP News and go back to more issues (at least it is now back to 6) but also make it available via email, website (now done), blogs, social media, kindle and so on.
Problem is that the donations it generates are not reliable income and when budgeting we can only count the costs while we have to guess at the amount it brings in. There are also staff time issues, etc.
We just went back into open session, but are going right now to break for 25 minutes until 1245 to get food and do a working lunch.
Thank you, George! I can’t find the sheet now that had the info on it which I reported yesterday about the deficit, but as I believe I recall it, your statement that the LNC took in less than $80,000 in February is correct.
Mr Wilson, stop asking intelligent questions.
Starchild gives us fine motions. That and the audit reports will give us a most excellent issue of Liberty For America next week.
Would some reader endeavor to confirmthat the LNC raised under $80,000 in February, whcih is what the report seemed to say, but perhaps there was a typing error?
And, again, mighty salutes to our heroic typists for their hard work.
paulie replies to my question. ”
Question. An envelope comes with the LP News. How much does this raise for the party?
More than it costs to print and mail LP News, but I don’t have exact numbers in front of me.”
If the LP news becomes online only how do those who propose this alternative expect to make up the lost funds? Anyone have a reply?
And while I understand and appreciate the right of people to do whatever they want (drink, smoke, you name it), when they are elected to represent others at a meeting then they should be responsible enough to not over-indulge and show up at the frik’n meeting on time!!!
paulie writes, “Brett is sleeping in after closing out the bars last night, so he is not here yet (Lieberman is in for him)”. That is unacceptable.
We’ve been in the secret meeting (aka “executive session”) and still are. We may break at noon for lunch.
“Unbelievable. # 1 should be a robust IT system that is in the 21st century, with staff and customer services. We have state affiliates that can’t get the job done because of a lack of IT talent and money. National should be all over this.
Moving deck chairs again?
Kevin”
How many years did I fight that fight? Pojunis sees a way to make money, so he’ll push some plan that he has no ability to execute but that he’ll talk them into hiring him to do.
“Question. An envelope comes with the LP News. How much does this raise for the party?
More than it costs to print and mail LP News, but I don’t have exact numbers in front of me.”
Then why would we drop LP News? Sounds to me like we should take it back to 12 issues, which, by what has been indicated, might actually raise more money!
I wrote the confidentiality agreement (and am one of three or four to have signed it), but that agreement will not cover potential loss of attorney/client privilege, since it can be easily overridden by a requirement to testify if subpoenaed. The agreement was intended to cover data/procedures confidentiality.
Geoff Neale says that since Aaron has signed confidentiality agreement and he’s the only one present, he doesn’t object to Aaron being in the secret meeting. I asked for clarification that this would apply to other (non-LNC members) if they had signed confidentiality agreements and Geoff said yes.
Argument whether Aaron Starr can stay for executive session
Alicia Dearn is on the call, waiting on Gary Sinawski
Project motion passed
Break til 11
There will be counsel report at 11 am and executive session at the end to discuss legal issue
Roll call vote on Norm Olsen’s motion for $50,000 to be added to Outreach, PR & Marketing budget line items for advertising in magazines:
Olsen – yes
Kirkland – yes
Wiener – no
Lieberman – no
Tomaso – no
Goldstein – no
Vohra – no
Lark – no
Visek – no
Johnson – no
Redpath – no
Hinkle – no
Blau – no
Neale – no
2 yes, 13 no – motion fails
2 Y 13 N and now Brett is here
Sounds like it is going down by large margin
Now debating 50k for ads in political magazines (Olsen)
Thank you. If anyone would like to donate to help with travel costs I would appreciate that and be able to do more of it as opposed to less in the future.
Roll call vote on Neale motion to delete Project Administration language (first sentence of Section 2.03, paragraph 13 and Section 2.09, paragraph 3) from the LNC Policy Manual:
Hinkle – yes
Redpath – yes
Starchild – yes
Johnson – yes
Visek – yes
Lark – no
Vohra – yes
Tomaso – yes
Lieberman – no
Goldstein – yes
Wiener – yes
Kirkland – yes
Olsen – yes
Blau – yes
Hagan – yes
Neale – yes
14 yes, 2 no – motion passes.
14 yes, 2 no
True, Alaska does this routinely
Thank you. Starchild and Nick Sarwark have helped a lot also. And Chuck Moulton a little bit.
I missed what happened with moving Pojunis items to later or striking them from Agenda.
Neale moves to get rid of language from policy manual on projects which he says restricts projects too much and prevents them
I believe that is one of the Pojunis items
Brett is sleeping in after closing out the bars last night, so he is not here yet (Lieberman is in for him)
Unbelievable. # 1 should be a robust IT system that is in the 21st century, with staff and customer services. We have state affiliates that can’t get the job done because of a lack of IT talent and money. National should be all over this.
Moving deck chairs again?
Kevin
Now move to move Pojunis motions to later in the agenda
Roll call on my motion to solicit help from our members locating free or low cost meeting space for LNC meetings:
Lark – no
Visek – no
Johnson – no
Starchild – yes
Redpath – no
Hinkle – no
Hagan – yes
Blau – yes
Olsen – no
Kirkland – abstain
Wiener – no
Lieberman – no
Tomaso – yes
Vohra – yes
Goldstein – no
Neale – abstain
9 no, 5 yes, 2 abstain – motion failed
Starchild motion to get outside bids for meeting space also goes down by large margin, 5-9-2
Roll call on my motion to retain LNC meeting recordings online:
Hagan – pass –> no
Redpath – no
Starchild – yes
Johnson – yes
Visek – no
Lark – no
Vohra -pass
TOmaso –
Lieberman – abstain
GOldstein – no
Wiener – no
Kirkland -abstain
Vohra – abstain
Blau – no
Starchild motion to have Cloud repay money dies for lack of second
Starchild motion to keep recordings of LNC meetings and put them on LP website voted down by large margin
Goldstein: we need people to get these goals implemented
Thank you – you should talk to Wes and Carla, it should definitely happen.
Come to think of it, I know of a professional Spanish/English interpreter that may be willing to do some translation for us for free. I’ll talk to her soon.
I don’t speak Spanish. But, I’d be willing to work as a facilitator with someone who speaks fluent English and Spanish, and possibly a graphic designer, to make this happen.
The LNC really needs to produce at least one pamphlet in Spanish.
Agreed. Anyone want to help with writing and design of one?
I think several languages are necessary really. Hindi/Urdu, Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, and Vietnamese and probably some others that I’m not thinking of right now. Of course, Spanish is the most important, and its quite strange that we don’t already have this.
Tomasso proposes additional goals
Andy
How about cutting the salary of office staffers? This would save the party a lot of money.
You are assuming either that current staff would work for less or could be immediately replaced with other people that could raise enough money to make up the difference who would work for less. There are also contracts and termination payments involved, possible lawsuits, etc.
The LNC really needs to produce at least one pamphlet in Spanish.
Redpath: HQ should call every state chair once a month
Redpath: goals don’t matter because they won’t affect what we do in reality
Arvin Vohra
8:36 PM (12 hours ago)
to Lnc
100% of candidates for state, federal, or local office should have a big, bold, clear, comprehensible cut to government, that they will pledge to sponsor in legislation if elected.
Example: “If elected, I will sponsor legislation to end the war on drugs.”
“If elected, I will sponsor legislation to eliminate the sales tax in ______”
“If elected, I will sponsor legislation to cut federal spending to 1998 levels and eliminate the income tax.”
Building related paperwork suggested by Bill Hall approved – sounded pretty unanimous but I didn’t catch whether it was completely unanimous or not
Handed out and emailed to LNC
List of Proposed Goals for 2014
Submitted to: Libertarian National Committee, March 1, 2014
Submitted by: James W. Lark, III
Region 5S Representative, Libertarian National Committee
Chair, Employment Policy and Compensation Committee
Subject: List of proposed goals for 2014
The following were approved by the LNC during the December 2013 meeting for inclusion in
• The LP will have at least 15,000 sustaining members as of Dec. 31, 2014.
• The LNC will purchase an office building and move its headquarters into that building by
• The LP will hold a national convention that attracts at least 600 delegates.
• The LNC will reevaluate our printed outreach material (especially the pamphlets), and will
update that material where appropriate. The LNC will also develop new pamphlets to provide
a Libertarian perspective on important topics (e.g., health care, privacy issues (especially
government monitoring of communications in the absence of a reasonable, articulated
suspicion of criminal activity), and crony capitalism).
• The LNC will establish a very simple, objective, universal, and aggregatable success metric
for national, state, and local levels.
• The Executive Director and the Political Director will be in contact with each state chair at
From the minutes of the LNC meeting in December 2013:
Dr. Lark moved to adopt goals for 2014.
Dr. Lark moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “The LP will have at least 15,000
sustaining members as of Dec. 31, 2014.” The amendment passed.
Dr. Lark moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “The LNC will purchase an office
building and move its headquarters into that building by Dec. 31, 2014.” The amendment passed.
Dr. Lark moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “The LP will hold a national convention
that attracts at least 600 delegates.” The amendment passed.
Dr. Lark moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “The LP will hold a national convention
that earns a profit (not counting fundraising at the convention) of at least $15,000.” The
Dr. Lark moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “The LNC will reevaluate our printed
outreach material (especially the pamphlets), and will update that material where appropriate.
The LNC will also develop new pamphlets to provide a Libertarian perspective on important
topics (e.g., health care, privacy issues (especially government monitoring of communications in
the absence of a reasonable, articulated suspicion of criminal activity), and crony capitalism).”
Mr. Olsen moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “Establish a very simple, objective,
universal, and aggregatable success metric for national, state, and local levels.” The amendment
Mr. Redpath moved to amend the motion to adopt the goal “The Executive Director and the
Political Director will be in contact with each state chair at least once a month.” The amendment
Dr. Lark moved to extend time 5 minutes. The motion to extend failed.
Dr. Lark moved to withdraw for later consideration. The motion to withdraw passed.
It’s not a precedent. Some of the ballot access pay was also passed back and forth between the LNC and Johnson campaign. For Alabama 2012, we started being paid by LNC, then LNC ran out of money and Johnson campaign picked it up. Then Johnson campaign ran out of money and LNC paid the rest of the money a couple of months later. I think there were some other states involved in this also, but my memory is fading
Me working on Alabama contract approved (I think without objection). Visek said she will be in a similar situation with Illinois.
More than it costs to print and mail LP News, but I don’t have exact numbers in front of me.
It has been discussed. I don’t think it’s been approved yet but I could be wrong.
It will require a bylaws change and if I remember correctly the bylaws committee did recommend one to that effect, but check the bylaws thread
Pretty sure there will be more speakers, and maybe even some bigger names
I posted these on the bylaws thread by mistake yesterday
paulie
https://www.facebook.com/paulie.cannoli
[email protected]
204.245.56.3
Submitted on 2014/03/01 at 6:03 pm | In reply to paulie.
15 Y – 1 N (Starchild)
Adjournment til 9 AM
Unapprove | Reply | Quick Edit | Edit | History | Spam | Trash
Libertarian Party Bylaws Committee to Meet 28 Feb in DC Area
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Select comment paulie
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[email protected]
204.245.56.3
Submitted on 2014/03/01 at 6:02 pm | In reply to paulie.
Correction. I think Blau said it was Wiener, not Goldstein. Tired so I may be wrong
Libertarian Party Bylaws Committee to Meet 28 Feb in DC Area
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Select comment paulie
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204.245.56.3
Submitted on 2014/03/01 at 6:02 pm | In reply to paulie.
Starchild/Neale sniping — a legendary part of every LNC Meeting this term
Libertarian Party Bylaws Committee to Meet 28 Feb in DC Area
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204.245.56.3
Submitted on 2014/03/01 at 6:01 pm | In reply to paulie.
Goldstein, I think, moved to make it quarterly
2nded – I missed by whom
“Steven Wilson March 1, 2014 at 10:16 pm
How can we still associate with Gary Johnson and his campaign when they still owe people money? The attorney provided a service and they were to be compensated for that. It is not difficult.”
Care to elaborate on this?
How can we still associate with Gary Johnson and his campaign when they still owe people money? The attorney provided a service and they were to be compensated for that. It is not difficult.
Having the LNC cover expenses, regardless of origin, is a terrible precedent for future campaigns. The LP members could be straddled with millions in debt over the duration.
Starchild said: “Wes proposed three categories of ‘possible expense reductions’:
Alabama ballot access – $12,500
Illinois ballot access – $65,000
Member communications (LP News?) – $8,000
I asked him why these proposed reductions in spending that is geared toward actually advancing the cause of freedom or serving our members and not reduce other things like overhead such as LNC meeting expenses or office expenses. He didn’t really have an answer, just said these are things he might cut if it was up to him.”
How about cutting the salary of office staffers? This would save the party a lot of money.
Nice work paulie. I appreciate the effort you put in to make this happen for us.
Question. An envelope comes with the LP News. How much does this raise for the party?
“paulie Post authorMarch 1, 2014 at 4:41 pm
Chambers also says he has a lot of volunteers. Says he is 2k reg short of ballot access thru voter reg (Redpath’s numbers said 128).”
2,000 voter registrations should not be that hard to get.
Stewart Flood said: “And while I think that LP News is archaic, it is part of the expected services that members receive for their $25/year, or, in a number of cases, for the $1000 or more they contributed to become a life member. For many life members, LP news was a monthly publication when they signed up.”
I don’t know if this is already being done or not, but couldn’t LP News be emailed to people in a PDF format? The people who do not have email or prefer the paper copy could still get it in the mail, but there ought to be an option of having it sent via email.
“So the vice-chair, who was elected possibly knowing that he couldn’t afford to make the meetings, gets re-appointed? Who would have guessed. And if he misses the next meeting, will it be counted as the first meeting missed, or the third?”
It sounds like the rules apply to some people more than others.
Of course they’ve changed the makeup of the committee, and all it does these days is make an annual report.
When I wrote the motion to create it back in ’08, the intent was to actually do something to help coordinate support for the affiliates.
The ByLaws don’t permit committees of ten or more members to meet over the phone.
That’s one of the things that we weren’t thinking of when we created the affiliate support committee, composed of the representatives and the vice-chair. That’s nine or ten members, depending on the regions created at the convention.
Of course the reason for putting the region representatives on it was to actually get them thinking about affiliate support, which is something the LNC frequently fails to do. The vice-chair was added to give it a chair without having to pick among regions, as well as to give him/her something to do besides inquire about the health of the chair each morning.
“Chuck Moulton March 1, 2014 at 6:29 pm
The Executive Committee held a meeting following the LNC meeting. Lee Wrights participated by phone. Money was approved for Illinois ballot access ($66,500). The vote was unanimous.”
Since it is possible that have an LNC member participate via telephone, why not just have all of the LNC members participate via telephone or email and save the party, and all of the LNC members thousands of dollars in travel expenses and room costs and also all of the time that it takes to travel around the country attending these meetings?
Kevin,
Sometimes the truth has to be harsh. I do not trust either Pojunis or Cloud when it comes to the party and money.
The Executive Committee held a meeting following the LNC meeting. Lee Wrights participated by phone. Money was approved for Illinois ballot access ($66,500). The vote was unanimous.
Regarding speakers:
Lawrence Reed, President, Foundation for Economic Education
Alexander McCobin, Executive Director of Students for Liberty
Jeffrey Tucker, Publisher and Executive Editor of Laissez Faire Books
Rob Kampia, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project
Gov. Gary Johnson, LP Presidential Candidate, 2012 Election
Judge James Gray, LP Vice-Presidential Candidate, 2012 Election
I know and have spent time with every one of them except McCobin, and they are all great. But of course, they are also all part of the “family” and no doubt the Convention planners were trying to reach outside the usual suspects. Tough call: do you spend tremendous money for a big “name”? I always opt for saving our money for outreach and petitioning, but I see the other side of the argument too.
The fact is that the Convention will pretty much attract the same attendees and media coverage without a Napolitano or Stossel there, and for those of you who have never heard Larry or Jeff, they are definitely worth listening to just as much as the more famous co-travelers.
Thanks Paulie — Didn’t start reading until after the meeting was scheduled to end; am sure there are also a LOT of folks who will benefit from this in years to come.
Keep up the good work and don’t let the (expletive-deleted)s get you (too far) down (for too long).
Neale idea to delete monthly chair report
Neale withdraws motion
Mark and others – thanks for reading. It’s why I do this. More reader comments = more motivation to do more of this
Neale item to remove standard agenda from policy manual
Paulie/Starchild–Great reporting as usual.
Makes us all feel as if we’re in the room with you.
Thanks much!
Tomasso (two S)
Neale 20 min – 2nd on list for tomorrow
Without objection so ordered
Rich Tomaso proposed we discuss and add additional goals to Jim Lark’s list of those previously considered and listed.
I’m skeptical about the usefulness of adopting goals in general. I think it tends to be a feel-good thing that accomplishes little. Better to focus on achieving than on measuring achievement.
Tomasso – other goals besides those already proposed?
Neale – move to tomorrow with more time to consider?
Visek Q: Does it make sense to set goals this late in the term?
Lark A: yes
Next item Unfinished Business and Items Postponed from Previous Meeting
2014 Goals 5 Minutes
Lieberman looked it up and as of last year Ballot Access News says that Alaska does NOT have straight ticket voting
Starchild – ask Wes. Pretty sure he said he cancelled it last time he was ED.
I asked about the status of LPedia.org — still no responses! (I asked about this website previously on the LNC-discuss list and got no responses). According to (if I recall correctly) WhoIs.org, the LNC is the owner of this site, and Robert Kraus is listed as administrator or something (I don’t have the email I sent about it on this computer). Since the site is still online, this presumably means the party is paying hosting fees for the site, but it is being wasted as a resource. It has apparently been going unused — most of the recent entries are spam and I could not log in or sign up for an account. But it’s a nice looking site that could be very useful as a repository of institutional knowledge.
Alicia Mattson on LSLA conference. I missed whether this is still membership levels discussion or separate. Probably the latter, I would guess.
Somehow we are back on the building. I missed how that happened.
Membership Level Committee is next – Lark will take questions on written report (see link somehwere far above)
Questions about phone conference service problem – some issues with free service, may move to cheap service to see if it’s better
Executive committee – no report
Q: Has Wrights been active on EC A: yes
Will go til 6 pm today
Tucker is already on there
http://lpcon2014.org/
Lawrence Reed
President,
Foundation for Economic Education
Alexander McCobin, Executive Director of Students for Liberty
Jeffrey Tucker, Publisher and Executive Editor of Laissez Faire Books
Rob Kampia, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project
Gov. Gary Johnson, LP Presidential Candidate, 2012 Election
Judge James Gray, LP Vice-Presidential Candidate, 2012 Election
Discussion about LNC Policy Manual rule about people speaking in prominent slots not being allowed to run for LNC at the same convention.
Tomasso recommends Jeff Tucker
Neale mentions he is speaking to a lot of people
Question over agreements not to run for LNC
Neale says they will be enforced this time
Napolitano wants 50k
Napolitano wanted too much money. Stossel and Kennedy have not said yes but have been asked.
I think in the meantime the time to consider mine and Starchild’s idea of posting LNC meeting videos to livestream and/or LP.org voted down. I was distracted. Also some other thing Starchild wanted voted on also failed to get time.
Convention management committee report next
14 Y 2 No (nos were Redpath and Johnson)
Motion was postponed indefinitely.
Motion to postpone Olsen motion for 20k in Alaska indefinitely
Wiener – cheaper to fund voter reg drive if needed
Needs additional info still
Chambers says all his door knockers will be registered and philosophical Libertarians and experienced door to door salesmen – mentions that large majority of Alaska voters are independents
Lark, Neale – are the candidates LP members
Chambers – Alaska members; will encourage them to join national
Hagan – do Alaska laws allow the candidates to accept FEC federal funds and will LNC have to register as PAC under state laws
A: Yes on first question, will find out on 2nd
Chambers mentions he is a close personal and family fried of Dick Randolph and a Libertarian since 1975
Chambers also says he has a lot of volunteers. Says he is 2k reg short of ballot access thru voter reg (Redpath’s numbers said 128).
Chambers relates he has a lot of door knocking experience
Tomasso – Geographically compact?
Chambers – yes
Redpath – Single member districts?
Chambers – yes
Tomasso – NH can also win with less than 2k votes
If these candidates raised a lot of money why do they need money from LP?
Chambers – some of it came from Republican Party
Wiener – campaign manager and treasurer in each race?
Chambers – there will be
Wiener – redistricting since their last race?
Chambers/Olsen – there has been renumbering but the districts haven’t changed much since when these candidates ran as Republicans
2k votes wins legislative race in Alaska
Wiener – campaign reports?
Chambers – can make them available
Wiener asked whether there will be both Democrats and Republicans in these races
A: Dunno
Wiener questions
Incumbents – answer: yes
Straight ticket – answer: yes
LNCC, voter registrations being suggested to Chambers as well (Redpath, Visek)
Alaska LP chair Michael Chambers now on speaker phone.
Stewart, don’t you think your comments are a little harsh at times? Guys, The enemy is especially one of those old parties from the 19th century. They want to kill us.
Pojunis speaks in favor of Olsen motion
Fwd: 3 things currently for sale in DC that might be suitable for LNC HQ
Inbox
x
Bruce Majors
3:17 PM (1 minute ago)
to libertarian-414, bcc: me
1904 4th street is actually across the street from Jesse Jackson’s long term Dc residence
The Mount Pleasant Road building is on the commercial strip in Mt Pleasant. A bus from the Cleveland Park metro goes there and the Columbia Heights metro on 14th Street is 3 blocks away
The 4000 sq ft new construction unit is in NE near the new hipster H Street area all the yuppies are moving to. It is around 10 blocks from Union Station metro and maybe only 7 from the NOMA and Galludet metros
Click the following URL to see the listings:
http://mrislistings.mris.com/DE.asp?ID=56305473019
From Bruce Majors
bruce via meetup.com
3:07 PM (9 minutes ago)
to libertarian-414
—–
Under $1 million and over 2500 sq ft
The space at 1745 Kalorama (near MPP) and the townhouse at 2121 R Street NW (near reason magazine) look attractive.
Click the following URL to see the listings:
http://mrislistings.mris.com/DE.asp?ID=56305378913
Visek argues that LNCC may be better to do Alaska plan through than LNC
New LNC HQ video from Bruce Majors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koJFaKWCei8&feature=em-upload_owner
The Alaska candidates are Tea Party conservative/libertarians
Bill Redpath points out that ballot access retention in Alaska can be done with voter reg rather than Gov vote
Hinkle compares this with Ed Coleman 50k contribution last term
Wiener says his questions have not been answered
Now on Norm Olsen’s motion to fund Alaska affiliate $20,000 for two statehouse candidates and a gubernatorial candidate.
To be clear, it sounds like the Johnson campaign stiffed Mr. Rossi, and he then came to the LP to have the party make good on our former candidate’s debt. That’s not the same as the party not paying its bills.
Also, I asked Mr. Olsen to make the motion to spend the $50K on magazine ads, so feel free to lay that criticism at my feet. I think the LNC should do actual political spending with at least some of the budget.
I don’t know the details of the Alaska request, but Alaska has traditionally been fruitful ground for the LP.
Wiener motion passes 8-6 with 2 abstentions. Alaska phone call is next.
Roll call on main motion by Dan Wiener:
Pojunis – pass
Tomaso – yes
Vohra – abstain
Lark – yes
Visek – no
Johnson – yes
Starchild – no
Redpath – yes
Hinkle – no
Hagan – yes
Blau – no
KIrkland – abstain
Goldstein – yes
Neale – yes
Pojunis – no
8 yes, 6 no, 2 abstain – motion passed.
Voting on Visek amendment – 4 yes, 6 no – motion failed.
Extend time fails. Move all pending questions, then time certain item
During break Alicia Mattson told me Robert Kraus comparison of taxes and fees at MPP and LP offices is not apples to apples, I suggested she post details of that directly. I don’t have to be the go between for everything, LOL
20k for Alaska, 50k for magazine ads
Visek wants committee to be more proactive.
Missed some stuff…internet slowed dowm. Visek/Wiener arguments regarding what can be done as perks to volunteers and large donors (meals, rooms/upgrades, and such.
What is wrong with Olsen.
A lawyer does great work for the LP against the huge Republican machine, gets stiffed on his fees which he already is discounting, and Olsen votes against paying him $5000.
But he wants us to piss away ten times that amount on a hope and a prayer for Alaska candidates.
I certainly hope those in his region consider whether stiffing professionals of their fees is a libertarian ideal they want to encourage when picking a new regional rep.
Robert set up an email list for the committee, according to Sam. Vicki Kirkland asked for other committee members to also be notified of Convention Management Committee teleconferences.
Next item.. Conversation Oversight Committee. Goldstein report they have done nothing.
“The Convention Oversight Committee has not done anything, because we have not been asked to do anything.” -Sam Goldstein (COC chair)
10 min recess
Roll call on repaying $5000 toward debt owed by Gary Johnson campaign to attorney Paul Rossi:
Hinkle – yes
Hagan – yes
Blau – yes
Olsen – no
Kirkland – yes
Goldstein – yes
Lieberman – yes
Pojunis – yes
Tomaso – yes
Vohra – yes
Lark – yes
Visek – yes
Johnson – yes
Neale – yes
15 yes, 1 no – motion passes.
15-1 with Olsen voting no
5k from ballot access as an in kind contribution to Johnson campaign to retire (part of?) debt to Paul Rossi
It’s almost like it’s unfair to compare the Duke Street property and the MPP property based on square footage and price alone. Oddly, I didn’t hear any of the fees on the MPP building being mentioned by the committee members suggesting that the LP got a bad deal. In fact, I had to go across the room to ask Bruce Majors to get the details, which he was kind enough to do and to post here for everyone.
It’s fair in an argument to focus on your best points, but it’s not helpful to your position to hide the bad ones, since it just looks worse when they come to light.
Redpath moves for 5k to Paul Rossi
Johnson campaign was supposed to pay Rossi but did not.
MPP..also 1300 association fee per month separate from 2700+ condo fee per month and 35k/year taxes
Does anyone know why he wasn’t paid? And was he able to seek to recover attorney’s fees since LPPA ended up being successful?
Back to Wiener’s main motion to add new paragraph to the LNC Policy Manual to make it the LNC’s goal to pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible.
Neale just voted yes (prior to vote being called), since he can’t debate.
Kirkland – yes
Goldstein – yes
Wiener – yes
Pojunis – yes
Tomaso – yes
Vohra – yes
Lark – no
Visek – yes
Johnson – yes
Starchild – yes
Redpath – abstain
Hinkle – no
Hagan – yes
12 yes, 3 no, 1 abstain (I missed a couple names I think), motion passed.
Wiener motion passes 12-3. Paul Rossi issue is next..he is attorney still owed money from PA ballot access challenge defense in 2012
MPP paying 35k/year in taxes, 6 times LP and also 2700-something in monthly fees vs 165 for LP
I just moved to amend Wiener’s motion to cut the LNC meeting budget line item by 50% and put the savings toward paying off the mortgage. Arvin Vohra seconded and Sam Goldstein called the question, but no one but Arvin and me voted for it and it failed.
Roll call on Diana Visek’s substitute motion:
Diana Visek – yes
Johnson – yes
Starchild – yes
Redpath – no
Hinkle – no
Hagan – no
Olsen – no
Kirkland – no
Goldstein – yes
Wiener – no
Lieberman – yes
Tomaso – no
Vohra – abstain
Lark – no
Blau – no (first voted to pass, then voted no)
Neale – no
5 yes, 10 no, 1 abstention, motion fails.
Visek substitute fails 5-10-1
Neale motion fails; Hinkle and Neale are the only ones to vote for it. It was actually to take 65k from ballot access – Illinois had not been specifically allocated money as of this time
Bill Redpath says an upcoming balloon payment would be an excellent fundraising opportunity.
bruce
1:58 PM (3 minutes ago)
to libertarian-414
I’m about to upload a video of the new Libertarian National Committee headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia to the BruceMajors YouTube channel
The committee is discussing now that they did not find out about the property in the link below, which the Marijuana Policy Project just bought, for about the same size and price, which is in Adams Morgan in a co-op building. This MPP building does have very high fees though, well over $2700 a month.
Click the following URL to see the listing:
http://mrislistings.mris.com/DE.asp?ID=56304241872
Lark also opposes all of these motions; best way to impose discipline is to elect disciplined people to LNC
Nick – That certainly sounds like an important point. I don’t recall how much if any monthly association fee we have to pay with the 1444 Duke Street space if we buy it. Do you know?
Hinkle speaking against the motions to pay off mortgage faster. Better to use money for political activity now.
Starchild attempts to further amend. Ruled out of order (one level of amendment too many)
Neale motion(?) to take 65k away from Illinois ballot access (which has not actually been allocated yet as far as I know) to pay down building quicker – Visek calls it a trick. Olsen seconds. Amended substitute motion?
Geoff Neale makes motion to take the $65,000 proposed for ballot access in Illinois (Diana Visek’s state) to put toward the mortgage. Diana tells him “Cute trick, Geoff.” He protests it’s not a trick but a statement.
Dan Wiener makes a motion regarding the plan for paying off the mortgage. Diana Visek moves (seconded by me) to amend it to guarantee we pay it off sooner, so that we and future LNCs don’t succumb to the temptation to keep finding other short-term stuff to spend the money on and end up stuck with a huge bill at the end of the time period that’s more than we would pay if we pay it off sooner. Diana says this could potentially save us $265,000.
MPP building is apparently a co-op and as such has a $2740/mo co-op fee in addition to the mortgage. Also not clear it has parking.
Wiener motion will be the main motion, Visek will be the substitute
2 mortgage related version (Wiener and Visek)
Geoff says Bill Hall is recommending that we pass a “corporate resolution” for “benefit of the banks”. Geoff just passed this around. It’s a one-page legal document about acquisition of property, basically saying in a lot of gobbledy-gook that we, the LNC, approve this transaction, authorize our agents to conduct it, etc. I thought all this kind of thing was already duly covered with other documents related to the transaction.
These are for bank to move along to deal with us
Bill Hall has asked to have corporate papers signed, sounds like that will be moved to early tomorrow
We’ve now moved on to actually discussing our half-building from MPP’s, I think
Adams-Morgan area according to the map I just looked up
MPP: 2370 Champlain, 10 minute walk from Woodley metro according to Alicia Mattson who visited their office yesterday.
Alicia Mattson reports the MPP building address as 2370 Champlain NW, 10 minute walk from a Metro station if I heard correctly.
MPP is a mile from Metro (LP is right near metro) and is in a much less nice neighborhood than LP’s (per Geoff Neale personal conversation with Rob Kampia).
Diana Visek pointed out something that Aaron Starr told me, that the Marijuana Policy Project just bought a new building for the same price we’re paying ($825,000), but in D.C. (2 miles from the White House), and with 40% more floor space, and all on the same floor instead of split between three floors as ours is. Said this property had been on the market for a year. She wanted to know whether we were informed about this property. Noted that Robert Kraus lives in Alexandria and has wanted us to locate there.
Seemed nice, good and convenient neighborhood. Robert mentioned building has had 60-70k worth of improvements done (I presume since those photos were taken).
I was favorably impressed with the building space which we visited during lunch break — compared with my expectations anyway. It seemed nicer and cozier than the photos had indicated. Much less sterile than the current office space.
Relatively little possibility for external signage on the building, unfortunately. A brass plaque on the building is all, according to Robert, except for putting stuff in the windows. That seems like the main opportunity to get visibility for the LP with this location.
Termination papers have been signed at Watergate, and bank has signed preliminary commitment.
Sounded like there was some skepticism about the 65 k request for Illinois.
Extending time for ballot access discussion failed (had majority but not 2/3, moving on to building discussion
We’re talking about whether to spend $65,000 on ballot access in Illinois this year. Dan Wiener sounds dubious. I am too — although I’d gladly take money from some overhead type category such as LNC meeting budget or the planned renovation of our pending new office space to put it toward ballot access, if such an option were on the table.
I asked why the committee structure we set up does not seem to be functioning, as Bill Redpath always still seems to be giving ballot access reports, rather than this happening via a committee report. Bill said the Ballot Access committee set up with Dianna Visek as chair has to do with lobbying and litigation, not ballot access petitioning (which by implication he is still solely handling). That is not my recollection of what we intended when we set up the Ballot Access Committee, although it’s possible I’m mistaken. I think we should be handling more functions via a transparent committee structure.
Pojunis actually wants a committee to do something? He must think he sees a way to make money off of it.
His stated reason for wanting to repopulate (not kill) the committee is that it has not been doing what it is supposed to do.
Back in session on ballot access.
Ahhh…correction…he just wanted to “repopulate it”. For what reason? It, like most committees, rarely do anything.
Obviously the APRC does things (or doesn’t do things…since their most common action is to not act…which makes sense if you read what their mission is).
The awards committee does stuff. Amazing thing…we give out lots of awards…guess that’s a good thing…except it might be better to actually spend more time doing things…
The IT committee did stuff when we created it. I don’t see any evidence that this term’s committee has done what they were chartered to do.
Guess this term just wants to talk about doing things while members (plural) make off with the *cash.
* note that one member made off with the cash while another was forced to return what he had absconded.
I find it ironic that Pojunis wants to disband the affiliate support committee. That committee was created to try to MAKE REPRESENTATIVES DO THEIR JOB, which he obviously doesn’t want to do.
Of course the committee was perverted in Ohio by Starr’s supporters, and the previous vice-chair did his best to kill it as well.
Make that the second most past-chair, since Wrights is both the vice chair and the past vice-chair now.
Note that my internet and phone are mostly down so you will not be hearing much from me today after lunch.
” Dave Blau (MA chair and LP secretary) says the $10,000 appropriated for that purpose should not be necessary, and he’s also not sure they can legally take it due to candidate finance rules.”
The State Committee actually said something considerably more emphatic, but perhaps the summary is simplifying.
Blau should have been emphatically clear that the proposal that the LNC spend money to put an Auditor candidate on the MA ballot is illegal, there is no candidate, and the state committee after debating on the merits emphatically told the LNC in the negative.
TTYAfterLunch.
Shuttle to office – walk back – include lunch – back 2 with building – then ballot access. Or before building if it can be done really quickly.
We’re breaking now for lunch and to go visit the new office.
Recess for lunch.
It is now noon – ballot access will be back on after building issue.
Correct.
Bill Redpath now talking about ballot access in Massachusetts. Dave Blau (MA chair and LP secretary) says the $10,000 appropriated for that purpose should not be necessary, and he’s also not sure they can legally take it due to candidate finance rules.
Ballot Access being addressed in the 7 minutes prior to the lunch recess. Per Redpath, Illinois ballot access funds need to be committed (or not) by this weekend.
Paulie giving report now on Alabama ballot access petitioning.
Excuse me — I incorrectly reported vote totals on previous Visek motion to have Carla repay money as 10 no, 2 yes, 2 abstentions. I believe it should have been 4 yes votes.
Eric Dixon is in the gallery. HQ Staff – worked ISFLC booth with us
Roll call vote on Brett’s motion:
Hagan – no
Hinkle – no
Redpath – no
Starchild – yes
Johnson – no
Visek – yes
Lark – no
Vohra – no
Tomaso – no
Pojunis – yes
Wiener – yes
Goldstein – no
Kirkland – abstain
Olsen – yes
Blau – no
Neale – abstain
Motion failed.
5 Y, 9 N, 2 abstain. Fails.
Positions would be filled by mail ballot. Otherwise they will be filled right after Columbus convention.
Exteding time for 2 minutes failed 8-7-1 abstention – The roll call took longer than 2 minutes.
No, I do plenty of that professionally.
Pojunis carifies he wants to depopulate and repopulate the committee rather than disband it. Olsen was the seconder
Nick Sarwark writes, “Always fun to watch amateurs do cross-examination.”
Not so fun to be the ones having to deal with the situation, unfortunately. It’s over now (not for the better), but I certainly encourage you to seek to be recognized if you feel you have something to weigh in on at any point, especially if you think you can do a better job than those on the committee.
Someone seconded but I missed who it was.
Pojunis moves to disband affiliate support committee because it does nothing
APRC committee report is next. APRC Chair Wrights is absent so no report. Wes Benedict says they are very helpful to him.
Affiliate support – Wrights is also chair – Tomasso gives report instead.
Roll call vote on Dianna Visek’s motion (after some wrangling):
Hagan – no
Hinkle – no
Redpath – abstain
Starchild – yes
Johnson – no
Visek – yes
Lark – yes
Vohra – no
Tomaso – no
Pojunis – yes
Wiener – no
Goldstein – no
Kirkland – no
Olsen – no
Blau – no
Neale – abstain
Vote failed – 10 no, 2 yes, 2 abstentions
I believe that was on the Visek motion
4 ayes, 10 nays, 2 abstentions – fails
Roll call vote on the Visek motion. Visek motion dies 4-10.
They should have left the position vacant.
I believe Starchild has a motion about that later in the agenda.
I think that they are going after her because they can’t get the real thief, who she helped (intentionally or otherwise) to get at our treasury.
The accomplice often takes the rap while the “big cheese” gets away…
The only other meeting will be the pre-convention meeting in Columbus. After that the delegats will decide if Mr. Wrights will be vice chair again, should he seek the position, and the missed meetings “clock” starts over.
Starchild wants additional penalties above reimbursement
The only “budgeted” items that you are forced to pay at the anticipated levels are payroll (unless you sack people), rent, electricity, etc. Just about everything else can be changed downward. How about getting back some of that stolen $30k+ that Mr Cloud (who is conveniently absent) took?
And while I think that LP News is archaic, it is part of the expected services that members receive for their $25/year, or, in a number of cases, for the $1000 or more they contributed to become a life member. For many life members, LP news was a monthly publication when they signed up.
So the vice-chair, who was elected possibly knowing that he couldn’t afford to make the meetings, gets re-appointed? Who would have guessed. And if he misses the next meeting, will it be counted as the first meeting missed, or the third?
I just made it down to the meeting. Apparently Carla Howell is being questioned by the committee in open session. Always fun to watch amateurs do cross-examination.
Carla mentions one of the items was TV she bought and donated to party, we used it at Students for Liberty Conference booth.
Says 80-90% was party related.
We’re now discussing latest Audit Committee report, primarily concerning shipment of items to Carla Howell. Aaron says there were personal items sent, some of them to her residence, and that the UPS store manager he spoke to at the store that handled the shipping said she recalled Carla mentioning that they were from her father’s estate.
Dianna Visek has moved that Carla be ordered to repay $449.27 to the LNC to cover these items. Carla is giving her explanation now.
Carla Howell says some personal items were included but most of the stuff shipped was party related
This applies to 2013, not 2012. The audit report is for 2012 but the audit committee is also dealing with 2013 at the same time.
$449.20 to be exact.
Visek motion to get some money back from Carla Howell
That is my understanding as well.
Vacancy will not be filled.
George – My understanding is that the “budgeted” numbers are what we allocated in advance, but has not actually been spent. Revenues are coming in under that budget, meaning we need to either raise money or cut expenses or both.
Also discussion of some possible additional reimbursements that may need to be made by Carla Howell for several hundred dollars.
Question of whether vacancy on Audit Committee needs to be filled.. sounds like probably not.
3rd
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LNC-Discuss_Budget_2014_Final_PrintInColor.pdf
Confidentiality of the report: Is this their 3rd or 4th report, or are we still on their second report?
9-3 to extend time for Audit discussion to continue so it does.
wrto
January
Budget – $110,257
Spending – $107,900
February
Budget – $79,200
Spending – $107,900
Totals
Revenue – $189,457
Budgeted – $215,800
Are the two things labelled “budget” actually the revenue, to match the bottom line?
Wes said they have a new brochure, which he brought some copies of. If I heard correctly, he said they may sell them for $.50 each, which to me seems grossly overpriced (it’s basically just a full color tri-fold 8.5″ by 11″ brochure), but he did say that a PDF would be made available online so people can print them themselves.
Visually it doesn’t look bad. The way it’s written will appeal a bit more to people on the right than people on the left though, in my opinion — this continues to be a problem with LP messaging.
Discussion of confidentiality of the report. Starr and Pojunis distributing various reports.
Moving on to Starr (audit committee report).
Hinkle mentions that Wes Benedict is the only person in the room who has raise more money for LP than he has.
Dicussion of whether “disaster” fundraising is a good idea
Whether building fund is cannibalizing general fund
Starchild wants narrowly tailored non-disclosure form; Geoff says no, it requires legal counsel approval and is only OK if Starchild pays the attorney fee
Also yard signs, bumper stickers, etc
Discussing plans on selling and distributing for download new national brochure.
Hagan (no e in the name). Tim did mention it, but Wes is the one discussing cuts so there is more discussion now.
“so we need to adjust our budget downward.”
Maybe, maybe not.
Annual report soon to go out, may raise a lot of money as some past annual reports have.
Other reasons why we may or may not expect higher revenues soon being discussed.
Cuts is just one option. Another is to wait and see if this was just a one month anomaly or a trend.
Paulie – If Tim Hagen covered this, then I stand corrected. Others on the committee seem to be reacting to Wes now on the issue, and did not say anything when Tim gave his report.
According to sheet passed out by Wes:
January
Budget – $110,257
Spending – $107,900
February
Budget – $79,200
Spending – $107,900
Totals
Revenue – $189,457
Budgeted – $215,800
In other words, we have budgeted higher spending than what revenues are actually coming in, so we need to adjust our budget downward.
Wes proposed three categories of “possible expense reductions”:
Alabama ballot access – $12,500
Illinois ballot access – $65,000
Member communications (LP News?) – $8,000
I asked him why these proposed reductions in spending that is geared toward actually advancing the cause of freedom or serving our members and not reduce other things like overhead such as LNC meeting expenses or office expenses. He didn’t really have an answer, just said these are things he might cut if it was up to him.
Alaska LP request for funds
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ALP-request-for-funds.doc
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Region-6-Report-to-the-LNC-3-14.docx
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Region-3-part-2-Ohio-2-26-14.doc
The treasurer did report it. Wes is mandated to say what spending he recommends cutting to deal with it, which is what he is doing.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Region-3-Report-Mar-2014.pdf
Logically, this is stuff treasurer should be reporting.
Wes said we are (if I heard correctly) $26,000 under budget (around 90% of budgeted revenue).
Wes Benedict now giving executive director’s report.
Wes reports book and Tshirt fundraisers did well. Many other things but I can’t keep up. Arvin is here now, I don’t think he was here earlier.
1444 Duke St. tour will depart at 12:15 (break at 12:00) then lunch and office acquisition discussion/votes at 2 PM
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Region-2-Report-March-2014.doc
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/CampusReport2014-03-01.doc
Membership Level Review Committee report
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MLRCReport2014-03-01.doc
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/lease-v-purchase-3-yr-spreadsheet-1444-duke.pdf
See pg 13 https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/LNC_01-14_MonthEndFinc_v1.pdf
Lark moves to recognize Redpath for over $95k of contributions to LP since 1990. Applause. Wes Benedict moves to recognize Dr. Lark for over $75 k of contributions in same time frame. Applause.
Odd factoid: Starchild and myself both listed at exactly $2,396 each in that time frame. More than I remember giving; must include my convention packages over the years. That’s just something I noticed, nt something anyone noted at the meeting, since many people gave more.
I asked about the chair’s discretionary fund. Geoff estimates he’s spent “$2800 to $3000 over entire term would be my guess” (he has a spending authority of $5000 per term). He said there were other items in addition to the LNC travel reimbursement expenditures, he thinks all ballot access related.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MEMBERSHIP-JAN-14.pdf
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Staff-report-for-LNC-2014-03-01-Alexandria-v1.1.pdf
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/02/william-lark-libertarian-national-committee-ballot-acccess-report-2014/ (Actually William Redpath)
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/02/reports-from-regions-1-4-5-and-7-of-the-libertarian-party/
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/02/tim-hagan-files-january-end-of-month-financial-reports/
Treasurer Tim Hagen giving report now. Dianna Visek asks good question about whether he has changed any practices to have increased oversight as a result of the Audit Committee report. Tim says he and Geoff are approving credit card receipts supplied by staff (I believe we previously required this as a body).
passes 11-3, Hagan abstains; Nos were Starchild, Visek and Lieberman. Now on to Treasurers report.
Motion amended to all non-standing committees of the LNC (to exclude Audit Committee, others?). Roll call vote:
Neale – yes
Hinkle – yes
Redpath – yes
Starchild – no
Johnson -yes
Visek – no
Lark – yes
Lieberman – no
Tomaso – yes
Goldstein – yes
Wiener – yes
Kirkland – yes
Olsen – yes
Blau – yes
Hagen – abstain (since he was acting chair for this motion, he said)
Motion passes 11-3, 1 abstention
Wrangling over parliamentary procedure and time extensions.
Just noticed Lieberman is back in for Pojunis, but that did not happen just now.
Apparently the impetus for Neale’s motion is that he thought Awards Committee has no chair. But Redpath, who is on the committee, corrects that Dr. Lark is actually current chair of awards committee. Visek points out that Neale’s motion should not apply to Audit Committee. Starchild speaks against – committees should appoint their own chairs rather than have LNC chair appoint them.
Committees should be directed to get active and appoint their own chairs. Too many committees are inactive and/or not reporting on their activities.
Geoff trying to get the chair the power to select all interim chairs of LNC-appointed committees. Bad idea!
Hagan is temporarily chairing meeting so Neale can make a motion.
Libertarian Angels will unveil website, not nearly as good as Neale wants it to be but he wants to put something out (before end of term?) and has a fundraising letter for you might be a libertarian if….. that will go to top donors. This is chairs report, which is not in writing.
Olsen voted no on previous motion.
On reappointment to other committees Visek abstain, Kirkland abstain I think (hard to hear), Starchild changes vote to no as does Pojunis. Olsen no I think, I missed it. Passes 10-3 with one abstention.
Olsen objected to motion to reappoint Wrights to committees he’s on now. Roll call vote on reappointing him to these committees:
Hagen – yes
Hinkle – yes
Redpath – yes
Starchild – yes
Visek – abstain
Lark – yes
Pojunis – no
Tomaso – yes
Goldstein – yes
Neale – yes
Starchild – no
10 – yes, 3 no, 2 abstention (sorry I did not get the full list of how votes were cast, maybe Paulie did.)
Pojunis now seated.
Olsen and Lieberman (in for Pojunis) vote no and Visek and Starchild abstain – 11 yeses. Now also motion to reappoint Wrights to other committees. Olsen, I think, objected.
Roll call vote on move to reappoint Lee Wrights as Vice Chair at the end of the meeting when his position becomes vacant (he just missed a 2nd consecutive meeting, Geoff ruled he’s no longer on the committee):
Olsen – no
Wiener – yes
Goldstein – yes
Tomaso – yes
Lieberman – no
Lark – yes
Visek – abstain
Johnston – yes
Starchild – abstain
Redpath – yes
Hinkle – yes
Hagen – yes
Neale – yes
Blau – yes
Motion passes
Received region 2 report this mornig and emailed it to IPR. If someone else can post it I would appreciate that.
Currently arguing over whether Wrights is off the committee and motion is to add him back now or whether the vacancy occurs at the end of the meeting and add him back then.
This was the agenda prior to amendment. I am not caught up yet to keep track of the amendments being passed to the agenda.
Opening Ceremony
Call to Order 9:00AM
Opportunity for Public Comment 5 Minutes
Housekeeping
Credentials Report 5 Minutes
Paperwork Check 10 Minutes
Adoption of Agenda 10 Minutes
Report of Potential Conflicts of Interest 5 Minutes
Officer Reports
Chair’s Report 15 Minutes
Treasurer’s Report 15 Minutes
Secretary’s Report 15 Minutes
Staff Reports 30 Minutes
Reports of Standing Committees
Audit Committee 5 Minutes
Fill Committee Vacancy 5 Minutes
Advertising & Publication Review Committee 5 Minutes
Affiliate Support Committee (Wrights) 5 Minutes
Ballot Access (Redpath) 10 Minutes
Lunch recess & Office Site Visit (Saturday 12 noon)
Office Acquisition Committee Report (Saturday 2:00PM) 15 Minutes
Motions: Mortgage (Wiener) & Retirement Fund (Visek) 15 Minutes
Convention Oversight Committee (Goldstein) 5 Minutes
Motion: Delegate Compensation (Neale) 5 Minutes
Convention Management Committee (N. Neale) 15 Minutes
Executive Committee (Neale) 5 Minutes
Reports of Special Committees
Membership Level Committee (Lark) 5 Minutes
Report of Libertarian State Leadership Alliance 5 Minutes
Unfinished Business and Items Postponed from Previous Meeting
2014 Goals 5 Minutes
Regional Reports (supplements to printed reports)
Region 1 – AK,AZ,CO,HI,ID,KS,MT,UT,WA,WY (Olsen/Ryan) 5 Minutes
Region 2 – FL,GA,TN (Kirkland/Craig) 5 Minutes
Region 3 – IN,KY,OH,MI (Goldstein) 5 Minutes
Region 4 – AR,CA,NV,NM,NY (Wiener/Pojunis/Lieberman/Capozzi)) 10 Minutes
Region 5n – CT,MA,ME,NH,NJ,RI,VT (Tomasso) 5 Minutes
Region 5s – DC,DE,MD,NC,PA,VA,WV (Lark/Spencer) 5 Minutes
Region 6 – IL,IA,MN,MO,NE,ND,SD,WI (Visek/Knebel) 5 Minutes
Region 7 – AL,LA,MS,OK,TX (Johnson/Frankel) 5 Minutes
New Business
With Previous Notice
Motion: Alaska Candidate Support (Olsen) Saturday 4PM 30 Minutes
Motion: Paul Rossi Expenses (Redpath) 5 Minutes
Motion: Proposed Agenda (Neale) 5 Minutes
Motion: Official Spokesperson (Neale) 5 Minutes
Motion: Interim Committee Chairs (Neale) 5 Minutes
Motion: Cloud Repayment (Starchild) 5 Minutes
Motion: Recording of LNC Meetings (Starchild) 5 Minutes
Motion: Solicit LNC Meeting Space (Starchild) 5 Minutes
Motion: Website Development (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: News Wire Service (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Data Cleansing & Appending (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Email Cleansing & Appending (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Email Acquisition (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Email Guaranteed Open (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Social Media and Marketing (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Professional Annual Report (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: New Logo (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Bookkeeping Services (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Motion: Project Administration (Neale) 5 Minutes
Motion: Magazine Advertising (Olsen) 5 Minutes
Discussion: Affiliate Support (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Discussion: Report Standardization (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Discussion: Project Based Funding (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Discussion: Member Communications (Pojunis) 5 Minutes
Without Previous Notice
Counsel’s Report (11:00AM Sunday) 15 Minutes
Closing Ceremony
Announcements 5 Minutes
Opportunity for Public Comment 5 Minutes
Some other agenda changes. Just getting set up so I’m not up to speed on this yet.
Hinkle moves to add to the agenda adding Wrights back to LNC.