Open Thread for Libertarian National Convention June 27 to 29

Stewart you wrote “And if Oregon denies ballot access, they are harming my state party as well as all the rest. They are extorting the other states.”

You use of the phrase “extorting the other states” was the source of that comment.

I just ate a pint of Jen and Berry’s Hazed and Confused ice cream.

Organic and GMT-free, I presume 🙂

I don’t recall using either the terms blackmail or extortion in anything I wrote. It was someone else who wrote that.

As far as “Tell Burke and his boys…”, do you actually believe that I communicate with Burke? In Columbia, Burke seemed to look away and pretend I wasn’t there whenever I walked by him. It is possible that we said “hi” in passing once (a slight chance), but we did not have any conversations.

I may disagree with some of what Mr Wagner says, but at least we are able to discuss our positions. We had several conversations in Columbia, all of them civil.

But if by “boys” you mean any of his supports that are or were on the LNC, I can say that the only conversations that I’ve had in the past year or more with any of my former colleagues have been occasional phone conversations with Mark Hinkle during the last term (since the vice-chair did not even try to represent us…not that we’d have trusted him to), and once or twice with the national chair and also with Starchild. I said hello to a few of them in Columbus, and had an interesting “discussion” with Mr Starr about his belief that I misrepresented what he said to someone in South Carolina.

But talk to Burke’s boys? Someone else will have to do that. 🙂

Both. BTW, I put up the new thread people have been asking for, but so far no one besides me seems to be using it.

https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/07/open-thread-for-lnc-discussions-and-updates/

We are not “denying ballot access” to anyone. We recognize that ballot access to the run candidates who are endorsed by the LPO is owned by the registered Libertarians of Oregon. No other group has a right to that ballot access.

I take that to mean that the next presidential candidate that LPO puts on the ballot will be decided by all LPO voters and not by the executive board, correct?

Fred

They have attempted to rule us for over 4 years. They were given fair chances and warnings that their conduct was immoral and unacceptable.

Now the consequences come.

Stewart,
I understand that our deciding not to affiliate with the national organization might negatively affect your state.
However, since the national party refuses respect our right to choose our own representatives and leadership (even though that violates their own rules)–being affiliated with the national party negatively affects us.
We are not “denying ballot access” to anyone. We recognize that ballot access to the run candidates who are endorsed by the LPO is owned by the registered Libertarians of Oregon. No other group has a right to that ballot access. If we are affiliated with the national party, we have an agreement to run the national party’s person tail ticket. When the national party attempted to choose both our leadership and our representatives, they violated their agreement with us.

I suspect that you would find that most of us in Oregon are more than willing to cooperate with a coalition of state Libertarian parties to choose a president, but that willingness will end if those other states attempt to rule us

When your counterparty is failing to uphold their end of the contract, refusing to uphold your end is not extortion – it is wise.

Mark Axinn,
I’m sure we would all love it if both sides could get along. But I don’t think that is a realistic expectation. Even if all those involved worked against top-two–I doubt that would help alleviate the issues that created the division.
I don’t think Oregon disaffiliating from the national party is anywhere close to the best option. However, if the national party believes that they have the authority to choose who are our leaders, who represents us at national events, and/or what set of bylaws they think we should be using–I see very few reasons to stay with the national party.
Would you continue to affiliate with an organization that doesn’t recognize your state’s ability to choose its own leaders and representatives?

Dramamine?

And now for something completely different.

(Fade out to new thread)

Without Oregon – and the stupidity of Burke and Starr – and the immolation of everyone who helps them – this great accomplishment of larges number of comments would not have been possible 😉

This is now comment 1035. This article is now the IPR article with the most comments ever.

The outcomes of LNC actions,starting with the LNC rejecting the National Chair’s choices of people for his ExComm after he had haggled with the LNC kingmakers and gotten a deal, are outcomes of the convention.

Posting an article every time that someone floats a motion on the LNC would probably be excessive. Creating a website that shows currently open motions and the votes that have been publicly recorded might be an interesting project. I’ll stick it in the queue…should pop to the top in five or six years… 🙂

I would recommend a thread for each motion. Which motion was it that failed? I’ve lost track already.

Maybe we need an entire website to track LNC votes and grade members on their level of chamberism. 🙂

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

2:05 AM (5 minutes ago)

to lnc-business
Voting has ended for the email ballot shown below.

Voting “aye”: Goldstein, Kirkland, Mattson, McLendon, Redpath, Wiener

Voting “nay”: Estrada, Feldman, Johnson, Katz, Lark, McMahon, Oates, Olsen, Sarwark, Vohra

Express abstention: Hagan

With a final vote tally of 6-10, the motion FAILS.

Alicia Mattson
LNC Secretary

Y’all need some Dramamine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hEUbezqd88

I am a drama llama

I know this is pointless, but what the hell. Nothing is helped by calling actions by the LNC or anyone else in this “acts of war”. Nobody is bombing anything. Nobody is shooting anyone. There is no significant property or real estate in play, even. Calling this interminable squabble “war” is rather pathetic.

Paulie – my comment was not a vote, and I’m sure the Secretary wouldn’t count it as one. I’ve decided to not vote on motions until after my rep, or the day of closing. I will debate them beforehand.

Anyone wanting to read my comments and why I have a negative feeling on this motion can read it on the list.

paulie @ July 22, 2014 at 12:28 pm

” it’s not in what he considers his best interests to make peace with the LNC, persuade LNC members to his side or head off the conflict before it comes to full fruition. In fact, I think that is most likely the case. ”

One way to control another is to tell so many lies about them that they have to invest significant amounts of time and energy persuading others that the lies are untrue, unjust, partially true, unfounded, etc. Surrendering to demands from those who find credibility in the lies that they are not true.

It’s a great way to drain another of their time and energy.

I just don’t see Wes playing that game. Instead he chooses a new battleground where he has already won, by a set of strategies that appear either invisible or insane to the other side.

Joe

That letter was what GOT us involved. I agree that other than the first allegation, which involved the national party, we had no reason to get involved. Prior to the video, which we were all requested to watch (and which had to be watched several times to understand all the issues), I do not recall the LNC being involved. If we were, it was being done outside of official business channels and as an alternate I would have been unaware of it. Alternates did not have the same level of involvement that they have today.

I did re-read the copy you sent me this evening, and I find it amazing that no criminal charges were filed. Or were they?

Police was part of the story line of the bullies in the school yard that I was referring to that someone else wrote. It was not really police.

In reality, the LNC had already had to deal with Oregon twice in the four years that I served. One involved an actual DVD with video of the complaint. In that instance, Mr Wagner was trying to get the LNC to step into an internal Oregon party dispute. We felt we had no jurisdiction so we did nothing other than waste time dealing with the request.

Dr Ruwart said that she had information, but she also said that she was not allowed to tell us what it was. As far as involvement, Mr Wagner should have already known that I and others did not want to get involved, but felt that Wagner and Burke were forcing us to.

It just gets clearer and clearer to me that Wagner did this intentionally to cause a controversial situation. Burke is just as guilty of the same.

Wes @ July 22, 2014 at 10:22 am,

“Sorry. It is not nor was it ever my responsibility to educate you.”

This is wisdom. Once an aggressor attacks one does NOT have a moral obligation to share how you intend to ultimately defeat, destroy and repudiate them; especially when doing so might give them an advantage.

This IS the Libertarian thing to do.

And while Wes’s should NOT, IMO, educate anyone; the LNC and others could, if the chose, learn quite a bit about how to win by paying attention, seeking to learn rather than seeking knee-jerk judgement, and then emulating his art/technique/strategy.

Or so it seems to me.

Also, Stewart, no Libertarian cares what the police think or do no think about what happened. They care about the higher moral law, and what God (if there were one) would “think” or “not think” about what happened.

Hayes is 100 percent wrong on this — perception is nothing; character, integrity and doing what is right damn the costs, is everything.

The serious issue is that, two conventions running, the National Convention refused to seat the Oregon delegation as the Oregon delegation, and then installed someone else as the delegation head.

Karlan’s arguments were based, iirc, on the quorum issue and the absurd claim that the famous LPOR convention did not have a quorum.

Stewart

You should have been able to tell that the LNC had already committed acts of war and had the discernment to realize that your ex com at the time was a coalition of the corrupt.

Sorry. It is not nor was it ever my responsibility to educate you. My primary concern was winning back the rights of Oregon Libertarians that were kept from them.

If anything you had superior knowledge that the people serving with you had a plurality of hooded key holders.

I owed you nothing. You were a member of a board that committed acts of war. I did fully inform Mary Ruwart. No one wanted to listen to her.

Fred wrote:
>The LPO may choose to disaffiliate from the national party. If we do, we will be under no obligation to run the se presidential candidate that the LP nominates. (We might choose the same candidate, but we might not)…

Sounds to me like shades of Arizona conflict in 1996. Not good for members of a national party not to get behind the national candidates. Also not good to air our internal pissing matches in public.

I am hopeful that both sides can come together (perhaps by challenging the Top Two threat to Oregon) swiftly and work for liberty in a fascist state rather than continuing the battle of who violated which by-laws and when and whether they told everyone else about it or not.

Stewart and I had a conversation in Ohio where I conceded that I did not tell the LNC the entire story. He believes that is lying. I believe it would have been suicide to not begin warfare tactics in the face of an aggressor.

Stewart lacks my intelligence network and still does not know what I knew at the time.

You are only required to be honest with people when both sides are engaging in fair dealings. The LNC got what they deserved.

Mr Wagner also told me in Columbus that he had intentionally not given all the facts to the LNC. He admitted to having not told the truth. But having admitted to lying, how can everything he now says be accepted at face value without hard evidence? I have never seen any evidence to back what he now says, other than his verbal statement that other events were going to happen or did happen.

Joe’s story is an interesting tale, but he left out the additional fact that Wilma and Tina had been fighting for years, and that they had both been down at the police station several times, wasting days and days and DAYS of police time. Wilma’s claims, presented in hours long video (very boring video), had looked quite silly to most of the police since she had nothing they could charge Tina with and she herself already had a reputation of bullying in the past.

Most of the other police already considered both of them to be trouble makers, so when Wilma lied (admitted to later) and intentionally withheld information it was very easy to side with Tina, another known bully.

Would the ending have changed? Possibly. So why did Wilma lie? Why intentionally try to make the police not side with her?

Dan and I had a long talk about this some weeks ago. If I remember that conversation correctly, he admitted that his opinions were not fully informed due to Mr. Wagner not providing all of the evidence/facts which may have been available at that time (something Wes has admitted to doing) and which were not explicated (at least not in full) by the Reeves group.

I respect Mr. Karlan deeply; find he has a keen mind and commitment to liberty, a desire to do the principled thing. As Rand, or Galt or someone said, a conclusion based on incorrect or missing data/facts is not a moral failing.

The same cannot be said, IMO, for Mr. Starr and Ms. Mattson.

A lot of this debate over Oregon, depends on where one starts the analysis of the fraud and aggression. Like a playground fight where Tina sucker punches Wilma, then Alicia the cop turns at the sound of that, missing the precipitating act by Tina, only to see Wilma punch back and flip a flaming middle finger at both Tina and the cop. The cop then mistakenly concludes Wilma’s act was the initial one, and that only Wilma is at fault.

A different analysis and conclusion is reached when one winds the playback video back to the beginning. One before Wilma even entered the playground, which shows Tina sucker punching and taking the lunch money from a bunch of kids on the playground. Wilma watched that for awhile, then put an effective end to it without regard to who was watching, when, or what authority the school board may or may not have given her to clean up the playground.

When both she and Tina go to the national playground conventions though, the other kids all side (mostly out of ignorance) with Tina. Well, that, and the fact that Wilma never worries about trying to be liked and figures those other kids’ education isn’t her job, especially if they can’t see through Tina’s lies.

Today, of course, Wilma has about 50 friends all running for student council offices, and Tina, while recognized nationally by the kids who don’t know her very well, is not so well respected by the kids on her own playground and finds herself stuck in time out hoping that the cop screaming how unfair it all is will result in her being able to rule over the playground again.

Then Daniel Hayes pops up to agree with her.

Meanwhile the LNC seems utterly unconcerned that their playgrounds in Oregon and perhaps a few other states may become quite silent soon because another group has plans to build a better, bigger, more principled playground across the way.

Or something like that.

I recall watching a (perhaps streaming) video, in which an Karlan appeared to be explaining at length based on Roberts why it was important that he encouraged Mattson, Carling, and perhaps Hinkle to go to Oregon. I do not have a copy.

There seems to be a misconception concerning ballot access. The LPO will not be losing ballot access nor do I believe that Wagner is advocating that any other state should boycott having ballot access.
The LPO may choose to disaffiliate from the national party. If we do, we will be under no obligation to run the se presidential candidate that the LP nominates. (We might choose the same candidate, but we might not)
The LPO would maintain the ownership of the name Libertarian Party of Oregon and would continue to represent all electors who are registered to vote as libertarians.

I’ve always wondered why people keep claiming that Aaron Starr is controlling Oregon. He’s obviously contributed financially, but I have never seen any signs that he’s pulling anyone’s strings. They are just supporting the same cause. The same applies to what has been said on occasion about Mr Hinkle and Mr Karlan.

I have never had any reason to believe that Mr Karlan was doing anything conspiratorial in nature, especially not with Mr Carling and Ms Mattson. The chair was going to the convention because chairs usually attend conventions in nearby states. I called Mr Hinkle to discuss some convention oversight committee issues that day — before all the hoopla happened — and I do not recall getting any indication from him that he had been planning in advance (other than possibly a day or two) to meet with anyone or that he even knew how many other LNC members/former members were attending the convention.

Perhaps Ms Mattson and Mr Carling were conspiring with Mr Burke and/or others to be there and keep things “on track.” I have no direct knowledge either supporting or refuting that theory, but it is certainly possible. There is no logical reason to believe that either of them would have intentionally included Mr Karlan or Mr Hinkle in a plot of any kind.

Mr Wagner’s assertions in the past about a vast conspiracy also don’t fit the known facts. His statements about what he’s going to do to the national party do not help to resolve the situation, since even if he could somehow destroy it a new one would be formed within months — most likely with a different Oregon affiliate!

Stating that he’s going to push to take away ballot access in Oregon makes disaffiliation by the LNC almost a guaranteed response. If the party no longer has ballot access in Oregon through his group, it will be in the best interests of the other states who do provide ballot access for the LNC to break ties and start over.

I believe that it is very unlikely that he will get any other states to boycott ballot access.

> Michael H. Wilson: July 21, 2014 at 2:33 pm

“one thing did catch my eye that I think is being mischaracterized and that is calling the comments made explaining what the LPO might do as blackmail.”

Michael is correct. The correct term is extortion.

>Wes Wagner: July 21, 2014 at 10:38 am

“At the end of the day, the LNC and its operatives attempted to interfere in Oregon to put a puppet regime of Aaron Starr’s in power. They lost. They are posturing to attempt it again.”

To those readers interested in reality and not Wagner’s conspiracy theories; Aaron Star is NOT
holding the strings attached to any of us in the Reeves faction.

Current Statement of Oregon Chair as seen on the Oregon Facebook page:
For nearly 4 years now the LNC Board (the board of the National LP) and the LP in convention have been violating our autonomy and continuing to use their influence to attempt to insert Burke, Reeves, et.al. into leadership of the LPO and revert us back to a pay-for-play dues system.

It is my intent at the next board meeting on August 4th to push very hard for a motion of censure and reprisal against the national party. The basic principles:

1) we will no longer send delegations to national party events
2) we will discourage our members from sending money
3) we will no longer provide presidential ballot access
4) we will encourage all other states to go on strike with us until these issues are resolved and the people responsible held to account

I do not believe that it is responsible to continue to do anything otherwise with an entity that for 4+ years has done nothing but prove it is incapable of behaving morally, is unrepentant, and is right now entertaining Alicia Mattson’s arguments that Reeves is the rightful chair of Oregon.

You can read LNC discussions here:
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/

We cannot win a war against out greater enemies with people such as these as our allies. We also cannot sit by and allow fear of perceived loss to prevent us from doing the right thing. There is no manner in which I can see us achieving victory over statism if we are willing to abide it within our own and lack the courage to deal with it now.

If we lack these convictions, we might as well thrown down our banners and all go home. We are not winning any war against our greater oppressors if we can’t even deal with this.

I have not had the opportunity to read through all of the comments regarding the Oregon issue but one thing did catch my eye that I think is being mischaracterized and that is calling the comments made explaining what the LPO might do as blackmail.

Blackmail is something done behind closed doors and this is just the opposite. It is being done in the open so that all have an idea as to what the stakes are.

This is an honest effort to explain the probable outcome. People may not like it but it is better to be forewarned. Sunshine has its benefits.

Will Arlington be simulcast for those of us not there?

Will the great IPR reporting team cover the event?

Dunno. Part of my reasons for not running for LNC again was that I don’t want to go to all the LNC meetings anymore. I never really had to as an alternate but kind of felt obliged to anyway. I am hoping Nick can either unilaterally decide to broadcast the meeting or get the LNC to reverse the bad decision made last term against making the official recordings public, but if not, I hope it gets covered…I can’t commit to do it myself, unless I happen to be in that area and not too busy.

Will Arlington be simulcast for those of us not there?

Will the great IPR reporting team cover the event?

Comment 981 on a thread that has gone well beyond the National Convention…

Knapp

Your vernacular is more accurate… it is an existential problem for the existing structure of the LNC/NLP

At the end of the day, the LNC and its operatives attempted to interfere in Oregon to put a puppet regime of Aaron Starr’s in power. They lost. They are posturing to attempt it again.

The members of the LP have allowed this to happen.

Consequences of an existential nature are now forthcoming.

On this point:

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

1:28 AM (6 hours ago)

to lnc-business
If the LNC did rewrote the bylaws, it would be just as illegitimate as if the JC did it.

When the LNC passed the resolution saying the JC ruling was not legitimate, I wouldn’t say that represents the LNC determining what the JC’s jurisdiction is. The JC jurisdiction is set by the bylaws, which are adopted by the convention delegates. The LNC’s motion was merely a mechanism to draw attention to the illegitimacy of the JC ruling. Think of it as sorta-kinda raising a point of order about it…except, of course, there was not meeting with a chair that could rule on the question and settle the matter then and there. It was just a means to publicly note that we felt the JC ruling violated the rules so that the rest of the organization should be on alert to decide for themselves how to react to it.

In the 2012 convention (when the Credentials Committee chose to initially seat the Reeves group and explain the dispute to the convention, and Mr. Sarwark moved to strike the Reeves delegates from the list and instead insert the Wagner delegates) the debate included discussion of the JC ruling. One or two speakers argued that the convention was obligated to seat the Wagner delegates because of the JC ruling, but when it came time to vote, the convention delegates chose to leave the Reeves delegation in place and reject the Wagner delegation, in spite of the JC ruling.

-Alicia

Analogy: You cannot appeal a ruling of the Supreme Court to the Supreme Court, and there is no higher authority to appeal to.

Under our ByLaws, you have no one above the JC, other than the convention itself. They cannot appeal the ruling to another term’s JC.

The recognition of Wagner was at the direction of the 2008-2010 term JC, so I really don’t think they can use that.

Upholding a ruling of the chair that a motion is in order is procedural under RONR, and is not an action of the body. An action requires a motion to be passed. The motion that was ruled in order eventually failed.

A lot of them probably have to think this one through. It has the same effect as the first motion, which is nothing since the LNC can’t change what the convention did. It does appear at first to be weaker than the first motion, but since it specifically notes that there is no attempt to change anything it probably would resist a challenge to the JC. It might actually be better to have the more challenge resistant motion to keep the JC from finding a way to throw it out.

Of course neither motion is perfect. What would be better would be a time machine so that we could send a few people with bullhorns back in time to 15 minutes before the doors were opened and stop a certain person from letting certain other people (aka Burke and friends) into the locked convention floor to litter it with their propaganda. Sending a few of them to round up all the delegates who were not on the floor while someone announces to the crowd what was being done may have prevented it from happening.

Then of course we use the time machine to change the votes on the USA Patriot Act and FISA. Then undo the 16th and 17th amendments, the Federal Reserve Act and of course change the 3/5th compromise to a clause freeing all slaves in the original constitution. We might even want to change the wording in the Declaration back to the original “…persuit of property”. I don’t think you need to try to undo all the bad legislation. Getting a few key turning points will probably flatten out most of the other bad spots as reality shifts.

After that, I want to go dinosaur hunting…going back to one million years BC and Raquel Welch sounds pretty good at 2am on a Monday morning…

On the Sarwark Oregon motion

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

10:37 PM (9 minutes ago)

to lnc-business
Voting has ended for the email ballot shown below.

Voting “aye”: Feldman, Katz, Olsen, Sarwark, Vohra

Voting “nay”: Goldstein, Hagan, Hayes, Johnson, Kirkland, Lark, Mattson, McLendon, McMahon, Oates, Wiener

Express abstention: Redpath

With a final vote tally of 5-11, the motion FAILS.

Alicia Mattson
LNC Secretary

The whole quorum conversation is irrelevant at this point.
The bylaws they were attempting to use (with those quorum rules) were not created in either a legal or consistent manner. They were not legitimate governing documents.
They were only kept in place because the SOS of Oregon refuses to get involved. Ironically the same people who benefited previously from the SOS’s lack of involvement are now the people who are claiming that it is unfair that the SOS won’t get involved and force the party to follow the improperly created bylaws they prefer (which, if the SOS was willing to weigh in on, would likely be deemed not in keeping with ORS)
They are in a classic catch-22 situation.

The sad part is all the money that has been spent on this court fight. It would have been a lot simpler to go out and recruit 50 people, pay their dues and have them show up to vote on your side. So it seems to me obvious that someone could not recruit 50 or so people and has had to resort to the court. Sad once again. Then again maybe recruiting 50 people would not have been that simple after all.

Why would that have been a problem? Y’all care to guess?

Sarwark has also voted yes.

If the Burke/Reeves faction ran candidates on a different line, I suspect they think this would be held against them in a court of law.

Paulie writes: “To be fair to Mr. Burke and his allies, they have no ballot access, so they can’t run candidates regardless of whether they want to or not.”

I believe you will find that there is some sort of process that lets candidates who are not Democrats, Republicans, or Libertarians get on the Oregon ballot. The details, and the calendar period in which the details need to be executed. I leave to the reader to investigate, but I am reasonable confident that the reader on investigation will find that there is such a process.

Perhaps the candidates would need to run as “Liberty” or “No Party” rather than “Libertarian”. Perhaps the petitioning is to validate a party. The recent candidate who was most successful in getting the party name before the national establishment — that was Joe Kennedy and the long article on him in the New York Times Magazine — ran under the “Liberty” not the “Libertarian” line. If I run for Senate in 2018, which I have not said that I am doing, I might well do the same thing.

In addition, it is by no means obvious that if members of the Reeves faction…those who are not recent or current Republican Party officials or consultants, or elsewise ineligible to run for office, anyhow…were to offer to run that they would have been turned down, so they may also have had ballot access.

Objective reality says that it is. Ballots come in… people get nominated … they end up printed on the November state election.

Go figure.

I chatted with Geoffrey Neale after the vote, and he told me that it took so much of those 2 years to learn the job that he did not feel like he was able to do anything before it was time to give up the gavel..

Sounds dubious. Geoff was chair in 2002-2004. Granted, there have been some bylaws and policy manual changes since then, and most (although not all) of the LNC members were different in his second term as chair, but if a returning chair can’t get up to speed fairly quickly, who can? In addition to his previous term as chair, I’m pretty sure Geoff has had a number of other terms on LNC and I believe he told me he has been to the last fifteen national conventions in a row…so if anyone should have been on top of it, it should have been him.

On a side note, this was my first national convention, and before the end, I became a Torch Club Member.

Thank you. For my part I restarted my monthly pledge, albeit at a minimum level, after a number of years of resting on my life membership. My intention was to wait until LPHQ sent out a dedicated appeal to increase monthly pledges, but I felt a renewed tinge of optimism due to the way the elections for chair and vice chair turned out, and they did stress it at the banquet.

I am sure that everyone had his/her reasons for voting no on the Oregon motion, and if I had a vote for that motion, I would have voted no as well, though my reasoning would be to say, simply, WE HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE!

Then you should have voted yes, if you had a vote, because the motion is to apologize for the decision of the national chair, contrary to national bylaws, to allow delegates from the rest of the states to insert themselves where they indeed had no business.

I can’t believe I actually made it to the bottom of this thread in order to make a comment… I forgot what I was going say, about 4 times as I scrolled down through this lengthy thread, but it was in reference to Pennsylvania members and a what if scenario proposed by George regarding a certain past chair, here in PA….

I will type out what I told Bill Redpath (paraphrasing) I told him that if something like that happened with PA, there would be something like what is happening with Oregon here. I went on to say that such action would not have been initiated by me, because I would have simply left the party and I would have never looked back.

I have seen a number of posts amounting to “can’t we all just get along?”

There are a number of people who feel strongly about their positions, even when they are proven wrong. I told Bill that national needs to leave Oregon alone. Oregon will field 50 candidates this November, (Seriously, there needs to be applause for this from all of us!) the more the LNC attempts to meddle, the worse this will be. Nick is the Chair / CEO of the party. It has been determined by the party and by the state of Oregon, who is recognized at this point, so to the LNC, I say LET IT GO!

Oregon will sort itself out over time, and if the LNC continues to meddle, it will have itself to blame for any affiliate loss moving forward.

Bill thanked me for my opinion, and whether it changes anything on the LNC will remain to be seen. I have only recently gotten to know Bill (various conversations over the past year come November, and Dr. Lark? I met him for the first time in Columbus. My first impression was positive As was my impression of Scott Spencer.

I am sure that everyone had his/her reasons for voting no on the Oregon motion, and if I had a vote for that motion, I would have voted no as well, though my reasoning would be to say, simply, WE HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are a political party, but we are a political party made up of Libertarians, and as such, we have an inherent distrust of anything that is top down. Let’s not be like other political parties. Maybe, if Burke et al focused on running candidates instead of re-appealing, the members of the party might vote for their leadership instead of Wes Wagner’s.

What happened in Columbus cannot be undone, but once one scratches his/her knee, it is not prudent to keep picking at it in the hopes that the wound will eventually heal, it won’t.

On a side note, this was my first national convention, and before the end, I became a Torch Club Member. I bring this up to say that it was not all terrible. Having met Nick, Arvin, Alicia, Tim(though not much conversation with Tim) and even watching some of the debate on the floor… I have to believe that we will eventually climb over these hurtles, and we will be a stronger group as a result of our differences.

I met so many people, too many to name, but I was happy to meet everyone there, and I was happy to chat with Paulie, Mark A.. BTW, on another side note, the fusion candidate thing.. to those who won that vote… If it does not effect you, why would you ever vote to limit what someone else can do?

Starchild was…. Well, he was Starchild! LOL I chatted with Geoffrey Neale after the vote, and he told me that it took so much of those 2 years to learn the job that he did not feel like he was able to do anything before it was time to give up the gavel.. He wanted to be re-elected so that he could actually do something positive for the party. I am not sure if the outcome would have changed, but I am sure that the vote would have been a great deal closer had he appealed for his job in those words instead of the words he used.

I guess we all live and learn. Finally, to all of the LNC board members. I wish you all the best of luck moving forward (you will need it) and PLEASE, for the love of whatever you hold dear, leave Oregon alone! Obviously I cannot force anyone to do anything, but healing begins when the wound is not being picked at.

Sincerely,

Steve Scheetz

The bait is set, authoritarians can’t stop themselves from biting at it– even when you show them the line and pole.

Alicia … Starr etc don’t care their pawns in Oregon are illegitimate under any reasonable interpretation of fact and law and no one in Oregon wants them.

They are bullies who behave in sociopathic manners… and there is only one solution to that.

Anyone who helped them will share their fate. The National LP included.

Two points that many from the national LP seem to miss.
1. Regardless of which side you think is better or worse. The LP has no authority to decide who is the chair of Oregon or which bylaws are correct.
2. Even if the current bylaws and/or officers (Wagner group) were created improperly, the Reeves group didn’t have any authority to creTe new officers, didn’t follow the old bylaws, and has no valid claim to the representatives of the party.

Paulie,
You appear to be trimming the articles of repeats. This is a fine service. Keep it up.
George

I prefer not to see whole e-mail chains copied here. I think it just clutters up the comments. I certainly don’t read through all of that.

> Fred July 18, 2014 at 3:42 pm

Lol Alicia
A woman shows up at my cancelled wedding and claims to the bride. The groom wasn’t there, there was no one who had authority to officiate, and despite her multiple claims the state doesn’t recognize her as being legally wed. But for some reason you suggest that she is the one who has legitimate claim to be the bride.
Fucking hilarious.

Having a liquid lunch today Fred? Perhaps you should reread Alicia’ post again

First off… I have never seen Kyle wear a hat… — I think this is a trick on his part.

Paulie,

“I’ve been told, I don’t remember by whom, that 6 of 7 Wagner LPO board members are millionaires.”

I don’t think your source is reliable here. Firstly, there are nine board members, and secondly, if six of them are millionaires I will eat my hat (if they first purchase one for me).

Now, onward to 1,000 comments!

paulie

Constituents? ppppffffftttt

Those people just get in the way.

PS: send more money

Good question.

Are other people bored/annoyed with my reproduction of the emails, and would prefer to check two separate websites for the email themselves? Does anyone find me forwarding the discussions here useful?

BTW let me reiterate again that while I am signed up for both email lists to send me individual messages to my email, only some of them appear to be arriving there. I am also having to check the websites (both of them) as well.

Nicholas Sarwark chair at lp.org
Fri Jul 18 17:26:25 CDT 2014

Previous message: [Lnc-business] My Conversation with Wes Wagner-Oregon
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Moving this to Business to smooth the switch of lists going forward:

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Alicia Mattson wrote:
> There are a few things that I find interesting from reading the Chair’s
> message below:
>
> 1. I noticed the Chair referred to the JC ruling as “Judge Gray’s opinion”,
> but Mr. Sarwark’s name is at the bottom of that opinion as well. Perhaps
> Judge Gray drafted it, but when one consents to put their name on it, one is
> agreeing with it. All the signers of that opinion get to take ownership of
> it regardless of who drafted it.
>

I agreed with the decision, but I would have drafted it differently.
Nothing more or less.

> 2. This is the Chair’s motion, but he is not inclined to debate the merits
> of the underlying assumptions inherent in the motion.
>

The motion is a resolution. It doesn’t take action and it doesn’t
mention individuals in Oregon, only the Libertarian Party of Oregon.
If I had proposed a resolution to apologize to an individual, I would
happily debate whether that was the right individual. Since the LNC
doesn’t have the power in the bylaws to adjudicate internal disputes
within state affiliates, it would be inappropriate to debate such a
dispute. You are free to disagree.

> 3. I received no reply to my question about whether the new “rule” cited in
> the JC ruling will be applied to other affiliates who have no official
> recognition from their respective secretaries of state. The JC ruling went
> out of its way to say they saw it as a general rule for all state affiliates
> and thus it also applied to the specific case of Oregon. I suppose I am
> left to assume for now that even the Chair intends to not fully comply with
> the alleged new JC “rule” that he himself signed, and he intends to apply a
> different standard to the Oregon affiliate than is applied to other
> affiliates. If one of the signers of the ruling won’t even abide by it, why
> should the rest of the LNC be expected to do so?
>

The question appeared rhetorical. Since you indicate it was not, I’ll
answer it. Political parties are regulated by state law. I doubt the
Louisiana LP would have quite as complex a governing structure as it
does without being required to by the state ( see the org. chart here:
http://lplouisiana.org/party_organization ). In absence of an internal
resolution to a dispute (the Libertarian Party of Oregon judicial
committee was vacant at the time of this dispute), and given the LNC
has no authority in the bylaws to resolve an internal dispute in a
state affiliate, the next step is to look at the opinion of the state
government and courts who regulate the political party. The Secretary
of State in Oregon determined Mr. Wagner was the Chair. Mr. Reeves
sued to overturn that decision. That suit was dismissed (as noted in
the order you forwarded to this list), which returns the issue to the
posture prior to the suit, i.e. the Secretary of State recognizes Mr.
Wagner as the Chair.

If a similar situation arose in another state and the Executive
Committee of the LNC acted similarly, I would hope the Judicial
Committee would abide by the previous ruling. But our Judicial
Committee, like courts generally, does not seek out disputes, it only
decides those brought to it. So no, I don’t think the national office
should contact each Secretary of State to see if the affiliates have
their paperwork up to date. If a dispute came up, it would be an
appropriate inquiry, however.

-Nick

P.S. Sorry for putting my vote at the bottom of discussion before.

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

3:54 PM (3 minutes ago)

to LNC
There are a few things that I find interesting from reading the Chair’s message below:

1. I noticed the Chair referred to the JC ruling as “Judge Gray’s opinion”, but Mr. Sarwark’s name is at the bottom of that opinion as well. Perhaps Judge Gray drafted it, but when one consents to put their name on it, one is agreeing with it. All the signers of that opinion get to take ownership of it regardless of who drafted it.

2. This is the Chair’s motion, but he is not inclined to debate the merits of the underlying assumptions inherent in the motion.

3. I received no reply to my question about whether the new “rule” cited in the JC ruling will be applied to other affiliates who have no official recognition from their respective secretaries of state. The JC ruling went out of its way to say they saw it as a general rule for all state affiliates and thus it also applied to the specific case of Oregon. I suppose I am left to assume for now that even the Chair intends to not fully comply with the alleged new JC “rule” that he himself signed, and he intends to apply a different standard to the Oregon affiliate than is applied to other affiliates. If one of the signers of the ruling won’t even abide by it, why should the rest of the LNC be expected to do so?

-Alicia

On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Nicholas Sarwark wrote:

The Judicial Committee decision was made. The arguments you lay out
were made during the hearing prior to that decision. You may not find
Judge Gray’s opinion persuasive, but it was the decision of the
Judicial Committee.

The 2011 LNC passed a resolution indicating that they disagreed with
the Judicial Committee decision. That resolution had no legal effect
other than to express the opinion of the LNC (like the resolution
presently before the LNC). That LNC could have disaffiliated the
Wagner group by a 3/4 vote and affiliated with the Reeves group. They
didn’t.

There have been 3 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of
subsequent litigation. The Reeves side has, to this point, lost in
the courts. While I can see the obvious desire for the Reeves side to
go back to 2011 and try to re-argue their case, I am not inclined to
do so.

-Nick

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

3:40 PM (5 minutes ago)

to LNC
Joshua, that’s an excellent question. I’m sorry that I don’t have time to write a more thorough answer, as I am fairly pressed for time this week. But my short answer is that since the JC stepped well outside of its bounds of authority, and as I earlier described that I see it as being null and void, therefore I will not give it any consultative value, and I believe that it leaves the LNC decisions on the question still in effect.

In another email, though I don’t have the time to go find it right now, you discussed something to the effect of who gets the benefit of the doubt in situation like this, and your sense (if I recall correctly) was that because the purpose of the JC was to oversee the LNC, the JC should get the benefit of the doubt.

However, I would ask you to consider that the bylaws put very strict limits on the JC powers of oversight and actually give benefit of the doubt to the LNC in that the bylaws say an appellant (not the LNC) has the burden of proof for a JC hearing, and if the JC issues no ruling, the LNC decision stands.

-Alicia

On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Joshua Katz wrote:

Suppose one were to accept that the JC made an incorrect decision. Clearly, a majority of a past LNC agreed. Also clearly, the JC at that time did not agree. What would follow if one accepted this? Suppose that, as in a past LNC, the majority of the LNC held this view. Again, what would follow? Would the JC decision not be binding anyway? Is there an applicable rule covering such a dispute?

A reasonable digression: One argument regarding minarchism/anarchism is that government is not so much undesirable as impossible, given the ways it is usually defined. In particular, Locke argues for government because one may not be a judge in one’s own case – and he considers anarchy to be simply the situation in which each is a judge is their own case. To the extent that one is a judge in one’s one case, then, anarchy reigns.

So, the argument goes – what happens in the case of internal disagreements in the government, especially given a government in which power is divided among 3 branches with a system of ‘checks and balances?’ If a court claims that an act of Congress is unconstitutional, and the Congress believes that the court has overstepped its power, the only solution – exactly the same as the nightmare scenario presented of anarchy by those who favor the state – is for either one side to give in for no good reason, or for the two branches to go to war in one way or another. Indeed, the latter has happened in some form or another at various times. Lincoln ordered the Chief Justice arrested. Jackson was more restrained (perhaps a sentence never before written) in simply declaring that the court has made its decision, and now is free to enforce it, but he would not. There have been attempts, some successful, in recent days to declare members of other branches in contempt of Congress and have them arrested.

The LNC governs the party under delegation of authority. It seems that, in the scenario I outlined (and which clearly existed in the past, and could well exist again) we face the same problems actual governments face. What is to be done about this seemingly irresolvable conflict?

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

Attachments3:23 PM (16 minutes ago)

to lnc-business
With all due respect, I do not see how one can say, “Who the Chair of the Libertarian Party of Oregon is has been adjudicated by the Oregon courts.”

I have attached the judge’s ruling to this message. Can the LNC Chair please point me to what phrase in this ruling tells us who the judge said is the Chair of the LP of Oregon?

What I read is that the judge dismissed the case specifically because he REF– USED to adjudicate the matter. Note passages such as:

“As to itself, the LPO has established a Judicial Committee to address the exact kind of questions Plaintiffs would have this court decide. The Constitution of the LPO dictates that the decisions of the Judicial Committee, not the decisions of a court, will be final, subject only to appropriate action of the full membership of the party.”

…and…

“This matter is either nonjusticiable, or if the court has the power to address the dispute, it also has discretion to stay its hand in light of the existence of other remedies that may lead to resolution of these sensitive matters without the need for the court to intrude upon the inner workings of a political party.”

The judge did not say the SOS could decide, as the Judicial Committee prescribed. The judge refused to decide it himself. The judge said the party should decide it internally.

-Alicia

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Nicholas Sarwark wrote:

Our affiliate is the Libertarian Party of Oregon. Who the Chair of
the Libertarian Party of Oregon is has been adjudicated by the Oregon
courts. As a party, we do not affiliate with individuals, we
affiliate with other organizations.

-Nick

NickSarwark on LNC-business

I would remind the members of the LNC that the Libertarian Party of
Oregon will nominate approximately 50 candidates for public office
this November (second most behind Texas) and are currently facing a
top-two initiative that could make any future success for the
Libertarian Party in the state of Oregon very difficult. It seems
that many members feel that losing an entire successful state
affiliate party would be no big deal. I disagree.

As a Committee, we can’t control what the Libertarian Party of Oregon
does. We can control whether we express an apology to the Libertarian
Party of Oregon.

I vote yes.

-Nick

p: FYI, for some reason only some of these messages but not others are now going to my email. Not sure why. Yes, I have checked my spam filter.

Paulie,
Oregon has a much stronger Democrat contingency than Republican.
The Republicans haven’t won a statewide seat in over a decade.

why Oregon?

It’s a place where Democrats and Republicans are pretty evenly divided and tend to be more extreme than in other states. Some people may feel that the LP can play a vital kingmaker role there.

The LP has been strong there in the past.

A lot of it may just be sunk costs; they came in to help out their friend Richard Burke and have continued to pour more time, money and effort into a sinkhole hoping there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a feeling they could have had CA if they’d wanted it.

You mean they don’t already?

Daniel Hayes writes:

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

2:17 PM (5 minutes ago)

to lnc-business
So are they gonna disaffiliate or are they gonna ask us for money for top 2? I am a horrible poker player but I wanna play with you guys…cause ya know… I think the request for top 2 help shows that they have ZERO plans on disaffiliating. In fact Mr Wagners suggestions that he seeks the destruction of the NLP tells me he has ZERO plans to go anywhere..he can’t enact his mayhem anymore.
Also, in Mr Wagner’s own words he serves at the pleasure of his board and they can vote to remove him at anytime. As HE is their chair and HE claims, without refutation on their part to represent them, and he claims to seek the destruction of the NLP. There’s a PROBLEM here. This argument is absolute garbage Mr Sarwark. Your Press release saying you support the Pediatric Migration with open arms cost me Louisiana Sub Affiliate party officials as well as donors. People do not distinguish between the leaders of an organization and the leaders themselves.

Also, Mr Sarwark I haven’t suggested yet today to the LNC.. that we disaffiliate Oregon..I only suggested we consider that their actions do not follow and that this resolution is dilatory and misguided at best. I had to check and make sure I had not copied the LNC yet on my exchange with Mr Wagner because your response sounded like I had. But then he copied their entire board, a couple of others so no telling who all has seen it.

Here is a highlight from my exchange with Mr Wagoner with the question coming form me.
“2. If you were to disaffiliate from the NLP, what would be plan for your LPO organization?

To continue to prove that we have more virtue and because of that, greater accomplishments, than the NLP until such time as it is reformed or destroyed and a new confederation takes its place. We are, by all objective standards(candidates vs population, activists vs population, etc etc), the national party’s most successful affiliate in spite of the LNC having gone to war against us and having made an attempt on our organization’s existence. I can only imagine what we could accomplish without the national party since for the past decade and a half it has only concerned itself in our affairs when a belligerent faction (seemingly led by Aaron Starr) needed some of its agents to show up to protect people who were intentionally sabotaging our organization (and were thusly aligned).

“To continue to prove that we have more virtue and because of that, greater accomplishments, than the NLP until such time as it is reformed or destroyed and a new confederation takes its place.Let me get the main highlight from Mr Wagner’s response.”

HE said it again, in response to other questions. I will share the whole exchange here when I have time. I am sure it will be most illuminating to the LNC and now the whole of the LP now that our discussion is opened up to all to see. I apologize now for the profanity found in the letter on the part of Mr Wagner, but we should be used to that by now.

Daniel Hayes
Region 7 Delegate Alternate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJb_dxtMeEA

I have not voted yet. Arvin voted yes.

I agree with Joshua. I have no personal animus against anyone on that list, and would be happy to share a meal or beverage with any of them – I have, with all or nearly all of them, and would again. I’ve tried to be careful to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I think we ourselves at least that.

>Jill Pyeatt Post; July 18, 2014 at 10:39 am
“I really hope I never have the displeasure to meet this woman.”

Rest assured, that feeling is mutual.

I have sent the following to Nick:

Nick,

What constitutes cause under the LP bylaws for the removal of an officer? Like many elements of the national party bylaws, it is vague.

I am asking you because the chairperson is the first point of contact for interpretation of rules.

The context is that at first we had a secretary that was promulgating documents without qualification that many elements have already been factually proven wrong in deposition and objective analysis.

We now have a situation where the Secretary is knowingly presenting past actions of the LNC that she has personal knowledge (since she lost her argument of the case and was served copies of the outcomes – and it strains credibility that she could have forgotten these events) have been voided by the judicial committee without stating as such.

“Fraud

A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.”

—
Wes Wagner

Alicia has gone full derp

“The LNC can only disaffiliate a group that is an affiliate. To say we are allowed to disaffiliate the Wagner group is like saying a guy has to divorce a woman he never married in the first place just because she claims to be his wife. -Alicia”

I believe that the Judicial Committee in its (8^)) infinite wisdom acted on this matter and voided those decisions.

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

10:58 PM (24 minutes ago)

to Discuss
I noticed that most but not all the LNC members were on the distribution list for this thread, so I’m just forwarding it to the LNC-Discuss list to include the missing names. My apologies for the duplication for those of you on the original distribution list.

-Alicia

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Alicia Mattson
Date: Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: Correction to your website
To: Tim Reeves
Cc: Nicholas Sarwark , vicechair , “[email protected]” , “[email protected]” , Bill Redpath , [email protected], [email protected], Gary Johnson , [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], Vicki Kirkland , [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], “scott.lieberman”

Mr. Reeves,

The LNC expresses its collective position on a subject by voting on motions. I have reviewed all the LNC and LNC Executive Committee minutes from 2010 to the present and found the following chronological sequence of LNC motions regarding the Oregon affiliate.

I did not find any other LNC motions that would have reversed these previous positions taken by the LNC.

These minutes are all available on the LP website.

Alicia Mattson

LNC Secretary

————————————————–

From the July 18, 2011 LNC Executive Committee minutes:

Motion: Based upon the available evidence, the Executive Committee of the Libertarian National Committee finds that the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party of Oregon (as amended March 14-15, 2009) are the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, and that these bylaws have been in effect since March 15, 2009.

Result: adopted by a vote of 6-1

From the July 18, 2011 LNC Executive Committee minutes:

Motion: Based upon the available evidence, the Executive Committee of the Libertarian National Committee recognizes as the officers of the Libertarian Party of Oregon those people elected by the State Committee during its meeting on May 21, 2011. They are:

Chair: Tim Reeves
Vice chair: Eric B. Saub
Secretary: Carla J. Pealer
Treasurer: Gregory Burnett

Result: adopted by a vote of 6-1.

From the July 18, 2011 LNC Executive Committee minutes:

Motion: The Executive Committee of the Libertarian National Committee urges the members of the Libertarian Party of Oregon to work together to resolve their disagreements.

Result: adopted by a vote of 7-0

LNC email ballot ended 10/16/11:

Motion: That the LNC direct our ED to reinstate Wagner et al. as our official LPOregon affiliate as per the JC decision of 8/26/2011 and the JC Clarification of 9/23/2011.

Result: failed by a vote of 5-10

LNC email ballot ended 11/20/11:

Motion: Whereas, Article 9, Section 2 of the Libertarian Party Bylaws specifically restricts the authority of the Judicial Committee:

The subject matter jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee is limited to consideration of only those matters expressly identified as follows:

a. suspension of affiliate parties (Article 6, Section 6),
b. suspension of officers (Article 7, Section 8),
c. suspension of National Committee members-at-large (Article 8, Section 5),
d. voiding of National Committee decisions (Article 8, Section 13),
e. challenges to platform planks (Rule 5, Section 7),
f. challenges to Resolutions (Rule 6, Section 2), and
g. suspension of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates (Article 14, Section5)

Whereas, these explicit restrictions were enumerated in detail in the Bylaws for the purpose of preventing an unchecked Judicial Committee from usurping the duly authorized powers of the Libertarian National Committee to control and manage the affairs of the Party consistent with the Bylaws;

Whereas, it is apparent under the 2009 Libertarian Party of Oregon (LPO) Bylaws that it was impossible for Wes Wagner and his associate claimants to be the legitimate leadership of LPO as of the date of the Judicial Committee appeal, and therefore under Article 6, Section 6 of the Bylaws the Wagner-led faction lacked standing to initiate an appeal on behalf of the LPO;

Whereas, the Judicial Committee lacked jurisdiction under any other provision of the Bylaws to hear the complaint brought by Mr. Wagner;

Whereas, the dispute in question has always been about recognizing the leadership of officers properly selected under LPO’s 2009 Bylaws, and not the choosing between two organizations or disaffiliating a state affiliate;

Whereas, the Bylaws do not grant any authority to the Judicial Committee to determine matters of state affiliate leadership;

Whereas, in its statement of August 25 and subsequent clarification on September 23, the Judicial Committee declared that the Libertarian Party of a particular state (and by implication, the leadership of that state party), is the entity recognized by the secretary of state (in this case, the Secretary of State of Oregon);

Whereas, this declaration is neither stated nor implied by any provision of the Libertarian Party Bylaws, and thus amounts to the crafting of a rule of its own making and an arrogation of power;

Whereas, this declaration and attendant decision may be mistakenly cited by state agencies and courts as evidence that the Libertarian Party Bylaws require the National Committee to recognize as affiliate officers those people recognized by state officials, rather than those who are duly selected according to the state affiliate’s bylaws;

Whereas, this declaration and attendant decision therefore places state affiliates in greater jeopardy of untoward interference by state officials and those hostile to the interests of the Libertarian Party and its affiliates;

Whereas, the Judicial Committee made a further declaration on September 23 concerning its view of affiliate autonomy, a subject about which no appeal was made and no hearing conducted; and

Whereas, a direct consequence of the Judicial Committee’s improper actions of August 25 and September 23 was the Oregon Secretary of State’s September 29 decision to recognize the last officers known to them, rather than the officers elected by members of the Libertarian Party of Oregon in accordance with its bylaws.

Therefore be it resolved, it is the sense of the Libertarian National Committee that the decision by four members of the Judicial Committee in its 4-3 declaration regarding the Libertarian Party of Oregon is not justified by the Libertarian Party Bylaws, and that the Judicial Committee has acted outside of its limited authority, which is clearly and explicitly defined in the Libertarian Party Bylaws; and

Be it further resolved, the Libertarian National Committee finds that the Judicial Committee’s decision is irreparably tainted by the fact that the deciding vote on the decision was cast by a person with an obvious conflict of interest, and that in any other venue of jurisprudence a person with such conflicts of interest would have been expected or required to recuse himself.

Result: adopted by a vote of 12-5

From the July 15, 2012 LNC minutes:

Motion: that the LNC decline to indemnify Mr. Wagner for any possible lawsuits that may arise from putting the Johnson ticket on the Oregon ballot.

Result: adopted by a vote of 10 to 5

From the January 28, 2013 LNC Executive Committee minutes:

Motion: That Mr. Sinawski draft an appropriate letter for review by the Executive Committee that asserts the LNC’s right to protect the trademark “Libertarian Party” regarding the Libertarian Party of Oregon, Inc. The Chair will seek the counsel of the Executive Committee before the letter is issued.

Result: adopted without objection.

———-END OF LIST OF LNC ACTIONS———-

On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 3:16 AM, wrote:

Dear Members of the Libertarian National Committee:

I received the below email from LNC Chair Nicholas Sarwark stating that “At the present time, the LNC recognizes the Libertarian Party of Oregon currently headed by Mr. Wagner as our affiliate in the state of Oregon.”

Our understanding is that the last motions adopted by the Libertarian National Committee on this subject recognize the Reeves-group of officers as the leadership of the Libertarian Party of Oregon.

Could the Secretary please tell us what motions have been adopted on this subject? If the LNC has adopted a motion rescinding or modifying their previous position, please point us to where in the minutes we might find that.

If our understanding is correct, that the last official action adopted by the Libertarian National Committee is to recognize us as the leadership group, can you please update the LNC’s records to properly treat us as the affiliate of record? We are not currently listed on the website, we are not on the state chairs’ email list maintained by LNC staff and we have not been receiving the monthly data dumps required by LNC policy.

Thank you.

In Liberty,

Tim Reeves (Chair LPO)

—–Original Message—–
From: “Nicholas Sarwark”
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 4:08pm
To: [email protected]
Cc: “Wes Benedict” , “Arvin Vohra”
Subject: Correction to your website

Mr. Reeves,
I hope this note finds you well. It has been brought to my attention
that the following paragraph is published on your website @
lporegon.net:

“LPO In Dispute
The leadership of the LPO and the governing documents governing it’s
operation are in dispute. The Libertarian National Committee,
delegates assembled at the 2012 Libertarian National Convention, and
the state Judicial Committee recognizes the leadership and governing
documents associated with organization sponsoring this website. The
Oregon Secretary of State is barred from taking a position, and has
for the moment defaulted to recognizing an alternate organization
because it is supported by the most recent “Chair of Record.” This is
being contested in a variety of venues and we expect the situation
will be resolved soon.”

At the present time, the LNC recognizes the Libertarian Party of
Oregon currently headed by Mr. Wagner as our affiliate in the state of
Oregon. As such, the beginning of your second sentence is incorrect.
If you could please correct it at your earliest convenience, I’d
appreciate it.

If the legal situation changes with regard to your appeal in Reeves v.
Wagner, please let me know. Similarly, if the LNC takes any action to
change which organization is our affiliate in Oregon, I’ll inform you
promptly.

Yours truly,

Nicholas Sarwark

Chair, Libertarian National Committee

_______________________________________________
Lnc-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-discuss_hq.lp.org

[Lnc-business] Top Two
Nicholas Sarwark chair at lp.org
Thu Jul 17 16:32:13 CDT 2014

Previous message: [Lnc-business] Top Two
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Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

The LNC can, I believe, spend money to oppose top-two in Oregon. It
is simpler, if the Libertarian Party of Oregon is FEC filing to
transfer funds to them to spend in Oregon. That’s my read on it,
though I’ll defer to our lawyer and/or FEC consultant if they believe
my interpretation is incorrect.

The Libertarian Party of Oregon has placed language in the voter guide
before to argue for or against initiatives, and can do so in this case
as well. It costs $1200. I believe we would also be able to place a
separate argument as the LNC, though if we choose to do so, we should
coordinate with the Libertarian Party of Oregon to ensure we’re not
making the same arguments in both.

If top two passes, the Libertarian Party of Oregon would still be
recognized as a political party, it would just become much less likely
that their candidates would appear on the November ballot. See, e.g.
California.

-Nick

On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Joshua Katz wrote:
> Is it within the jurisdiction of the LNC to take action to oppose top-two in
> Oregon, perhaps by setting aside money for a legal challenge or advertising
> before the vote? If so, I suggest someone with the ability move to do so,
> as I do not think our affiliate there is in a position to fight it, being
> somewhat busy with other things?
>
> As a side note, does if top-two passes, does that impact the JC decision?
> Will there still be such a thing as SOS recognition for a party?
>
> Joshua A. Katz
>
> Region 8 (Region of Badassdom) Alternate
> Libertarian National Committee
>
> Chair, Libertarian Party of Connecticut
>
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> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
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[email protected] via googlegroups.com

5:57 PM (6 minutes ago)

to lnc-business
With two days remaining in the voting, the current count on “Email Ballot 2014-08: Oregon Resolution” is 1 Yes vote and 10 No votes. So it appears very unlikely that this resolution will pass. I would therefore again invite co-sponsors for my alternate Oregon resolution (below). There are already three co-sponsors, so one more is needed for an email ballot.

Daniel Wiener

On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Daniel Wiener wrote:

I move to adopt the following resolution, and request co-sponsors for an email ballot:

Whereas, the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party state that “delegates to a Regular Convention shall be selected by a method adopted by each affiliate party” (Article 11, 3 (b)), and

Whereas, the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party state that “each state-level affiliate party shall, in accordance with its own Bylaws and these Bylaws, determine who shall be its delegates to all Regular Conventions.” (Article 6, 3), and

Whereas, the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party state that “the autonomy of the affiliate and sub-affiliate parties shall not be abridged by the National Committee or any other committee of the Party…” (Article 6, 5), and

Whereas, a dispute over the Oregon delegation was placed before the Credentials Committee, which subsequently presented a report to the Libertarian Party National Convention on June 27, 2014 which did not describe the details of that dispute, and

Whereas, a motion was made to amend the Credentials Committee report to include three individuals as delegates within the Oregon delegation, and

Whereas, in response to a Point of Order the Chair of the National Convention ruled that the proposed amendment was in order, the Chair’s ruling was appealed, the Chair’s ruling was sustained by a vote of the assembly, and the assembly subsequently approved the amendment, and

Whereas, the 11th edition of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, which is the Parliamentary Authority for the Libertarian Party as stated in Article 16 of its Bylaws, states (p. 483) that “In any event, no action of the board can alter or conflict with any decision made by the assembly of the society, and any such action of the board is null and void (see p. 577, II. 23-33).”, and

Whereas, the Libertarian National Committee nevertheless regrets the situation wherein some delegates believe the above decision was incorrectly decided, therefore

Be it resolved that it is the sense of the Libertarian National Committee that it wishes to convey those regrets to the Libertarian Party of Oregon.

Daniel Wiener
Region 4 Representative

paulie (at 1:05pm)

The problem when you put bits of Star Trek up, which I loved as a kid in its original iteration, is that it is sooooooooo much more enjoyable than Roberts Rules, jurisdictional debates over state affiliates, who’s trying to screw up whose organization this week, etc. etc. that somehow one just enjoys watching Nimoy and Shatner and forget about the rest of this stuff.

Beam me up!

Wes implemented it the best way. One list, with one name: lnc-business. I like the solution.

I like it too, but I think it is just a proposal at this point, e.g. the LNC-discuss list still exists as far as I know.

It is not a proposal, it is how it will be implemented. Implementation is not instantaneous.

Try running a poll with libertarian members in Oregon and see what happens 🙂

Dunno about the video, but yes there was a coin flip to settle that tie.

If you interpret the approval bylaw literally, IIRC neither Doug nor Guy had 50% approval so we should have had another round of voting, but given that the first round took hours no one wanted to go there.

I vote for calling it [LNC-Gossip]

I’ve heard LNC-Discuss called LNC-Disgust and I can see a good case for that.

There was a tie for fifth place At-Large LNC membership between Doug Craig and Guy McLendon.

I vote for calling it [LNC-Gossip]

Does a decision by the Judicial Committee even matter?

Yes. It would mean LP.org would point to the Reeves group rather than Wagner group, LPHQ data would be sent to them, they would be on the statechairs list, they would be the default option for the credentials committee, and so on.

It wouldn’t matter to the Oregon SOS, which would continue to recognize the Wagner faction as far as who is on the ballot.

It would likely hasten the point at which LPO and LNC no longer affiliate with each other and start suing each other (trademark and other issues), although that is likely coming anyway with or without a JC decision, the only question being when.

It will probably hasten the timeframe under which LNC starts spending a bunch of money to qualify an alternative ballot line in Oregon for the purpose of putting the national LP presidential ticket on the ballot. Note: I’m not going to work on that, or anything else in Oregon.

Wes implemented it the best way. One list, with one name: lnc-business. I like the solution.

Now we all need to sign up and overload the mail server!!!

“does it mean only in the case of Oregon, the faction which just so happens to be the one recognized by the SOS, in this case the Wagner faction, is the legitimate LP of Oregon? ”

That’s how I read it, but I remember thinking that the writing was not especially clear on the point.

“Does JudCom jurisdiction extend to overruling decisions of past JudComs? If so, on what basis does it have such juridiction?”

That’s not a matter of “jurisdiction.”

The Judicial Committee’s “jurisdiction” extends to decisions of the LNC which are appealed via a particular process and to national convention platform votes appealed on the basis of conflict with the Statement of Principles.

But if a matter conforming to those jurisdiction outlines is appealed to the Judicial Committee, there’s nothing to stop that committee from making a decision opposite that made by a prior Judicial Committee in a similar or identical case. The Judicial Committee is not, in other words, bound by precedent (although like most judicial bodies, it would be wise to consider precedent and defer to it absent a strong reason not to).

Regarding Daniel Hayes’ point about Alabama and Oklahoma, which Aaron Starr posed to me in person as well at a platform or bylaws committee meeting:

Did the JC decision mean that in any and all states, even ones in which no LP is recognized as a party by the Secretary of State or equivalent elections official, the LP can only be the one recognized by the Secretary of State as Hayes and Starr are interpreting it? Or does it mean only in the case of Oregon, the faction which just so happens to be the one recognized by the SOS, in this case the Wagner faction, is the legitimate LP of Oregon? I believe Nick Sarwark told me it was the latter, but I can’t remember when or where (or for sure that he told me that), so I would appreciate a clarification on that matter again.

Perhaps it may mean something in between those two interpretations, e.g.:

In a case where two or more factions claim to be the legitimate state LP, and one of them is recognized by the SOS, the LNC should always recognize the faction recognized by the SOS.

That would be a reasonable interpretation as well, but then there is a question of how the Judicial Committee came to be empowered to make such a rule, as reasonable as it may sound, given that it does not come from LP bylaws and JudCom is supposed to rule on the basis of LP bylaws only, as I understand it.

Also: Does JudCom jurisdiction extend to overruling decisions of past JudComs? If so, on what basis does it have such juridiction? If not, and if it does so anyway, what can be done about it? IE: to whom would someone appeal and how? (I suspect there is no one to appeal to).

I see a reference to hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on Oregon. Who spent it?

Aaron Starr on one hand (according to some here, allegedly acting on behalf of some Republicans, although little if any evidence of this collusion has been presented).

Wes Wagner and perhaps some others on the other. I’ve been told, I don’t remember by whom, that 6 of 7 Wagner LPO board members are millionaires.

If it was the LNC, it was in the last two years, because I am certain that the 2010-2012 board did not authorize this.

I don’t remember the LNC in the last term, while I was an alternate member, authorizing any money at all for any matter related to Oregon.

Yes, I have heard people say that the Chair (Mr Hinkle) spent some money out of his $1000/quarter they traditionally get for pet projects/travel/etc, but that isn?t hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I have heard the number ~4k floated in regards to this. I don’t remember where or by whom.

And since statements have been made here and elsewhere that a large sum of money was spent by Mr Starr and others, how does this involve the LNC?

It doesn’t and IMO shouldn’t.

I do not believe that is the case, so why should LNC members care what it has cost?

“More in sadness than in anger.”

Supposing that the people involved believe this money is being used to somehow ultimately promote the larger goal of making our world more free, one can only hope they would have spent it towards something intended to help move us towards that goal in some way or another in the absence of this lawsuit.

But in any direct sense, it should not be any of the LNC’s business.

And with all of this top two junk starting over again in Oregon, isn?t it time for both sides to just let it drop, shake hands, and work together to stop this horrible destruction of what remains of the political process in our country?

I wish. But it’s probably too late.

We?re playing the fiddle while Rome is burning?

The Oregon combatants would probably keep fighting if they were the last humans left alive in the universe.

https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/04/allen-hackers-galactic-tribunal-resolves-oregon-libertarian-controversy-once-and-for-all/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_That_Be_Your_Last_Battlefield

It should be ponted out that both the World Court and the Galactic Tribunal did give both sides a chance to withdraw their claims as an alternative to carrying out the decree, but neither side chose to do so.

Once the Ariannus mission is completed, Bele takes control of the Enterprise again, but this time he deactivates the auto-destruct in the process and sends the ship to Cheron. Once there, the two aliens find the planet?s population completely wiped out by a global war fueled by insane racial hatred. Both Lokai and Bele stare silently at the destruction on the monitor and realize they are the only ones left of their race (or, as they see it, their ?races?).

Instead of calling a truce, the two beings begin to blame each other for the destruction of the planet and a brawl ensues. As the two aliens fight, their innate powers radiate, cloaking them with an energy aura that threatens to damage the ship. With no other choice, Kirk sadly allows the two aliens to chase each other down to their obliterated world to decide their own fates, consumed by their now self-perpetuating mutual hate. Forlorn, Lt. Uhura asks if their hate is all they ever had. Kirk ruefully says, ?No ? but it is all they have left.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vi7QQ5pO7_A

I see a reference to hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on Oregon. Who spent it? If it was the LNC, it was in the last two years, because I am certain that the 2010-2012 board did not authorize this. Yes, I have heard people say that the Chair (Mr Hinkle) spent some money out of his $1000/quarter they traditionally get for pet projects/travel/etc, but that isn’t hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And since statements have been made here and elsewhere that a large sum of money was spent by Mr Starr and others, how does this involve the LNC? Why would a discussion by the LNC involve money spent by someone else? I believe that there are LNC members who do not understand that if someone spends their own money it is not the concern or responsibility of the LNC unless the LNC made some sort of deal in advance to cover the costs. I do not believe that is the case, so why should LNC members care what it has cost?

I seem to have missed the talk about disaffiliating Oregon. There is supposed to be a cause.

http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-reflector_hq.lp.org/2014/000208.html

Members,

it appears that we owe an apology to the members of Alabama and Oklahoma and various other states for seating delegations which were not recognized by their Secretary of State’s office. Based upon the ruling of the JC which can’t be disputed, ” LNC must by default recognize the affiliate representatives that are currently recognized by the affiliate’s secretary of state,”Hopefully they won’t disaffiliate because we issued apologies just to Oregon and not to them. But then again there seems to be no official affiliate in these states..
Who will Co-author these motions.?

Now..what I just said above is silly and dilatory…just as this Oregon Resolution is. If we decide anything about Oregon..its about who the affiliate is..or NOT.. People are worried it will cost us $80,000 to get our ballot access back in Oregon? Is that all? When do we start..this has apparently cost hundreds of thousands in legal fees already..and it blows up my Email box for nothing. I will pledge the first $1000 towards Oregon regaining ballot access for the LP should we have to disaffiliate the party there. The sooner we start over, the sooner we start over. I am dead serious about this. If disaffiliation is on the table,which Mr Wagner says it is.. then let’s get to it and get it over with or jt will be lorded over our heads for eternity. Additionally, the Wagner faction has to my understanding allegedly abridged some of the requirements of their affiliate agreement. If this is true our action is clear.

How much time and effort has been wasted on just this supposedly minor, yet supposedly important resolution? If we plan to work to save this country, its going to take guts. Guts to cut programs..departments..and we can get used to that cutting by cutting an affiliate that has violated numerous provisions of the national by laws and various basics of civility.

Daniel Hayes
Region 7 Alternate Representative

http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-reflector_hq.lp.org/2014/000260.html

Vicki said it nicely not too long ago: “Is it too much to ask for our members to be able to disagree without
being disagreeable to each other?” Perhaps Mr. Wagner should watch the video that Mr. Krause sent us recently. I’d like to thank Mr. Wagner for making such a persuasive case for his personal disaffiliation, but as Mr. Katz is wont to say, that motion is not before the group at this time.

Ron Windeler
rowindeler at aol.com

I was very careful in my phrasing. Some people believe that there’s an unidentified (or identified — the Republican group that Burke worked or works for) paymaster angle to Starr’s actions. “If desired, read this as …” was intended to accommodate, not necessarily endorse, that belief.

As far as conspiracies are concerned, the term doesn’t really deserve the oppobrium it has. Any group of people working in concert toward some goal is a “conspiracy,” and Starr/Mattson/Carling are irrefutably and ongoingly acting as conspirators, although what their goal is and who their fellow conspirators (if any) are is certainly debatable.

For Nick,

You had mentioned several times about reaching out to the millennial. Here is some data to crunch a munch. It is taken from multiple sources and gives a pretty decent look into the future. I use data mining all the time for my clients. Numbers don’t lie.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/opinion/thomas-edsall-a-shift-in-young-democrats-values.html?_r=0

Tom: I do not see how voluntary disaffiliation would help the Oregon group, other than by saving them money on trips to National conventions. National would then be free to recognize the other faction and assist them in creating mischief. Your strategy on contesting “the” national party (I moved the punctuation a bit) is certainly an option. Your tit for tat response is also plausible.

Wagner continues to hint at a strategy beyond (or possibly instead of) disaffiliation.

It occurs to me that that strategy might conceivably include steps with an impact on the claim of the LNC to be the “national” party.

It also occurs to me that that strategy might include some tit for tat. The LNC hasn’t disaffiliated the Oregon LP — it just continues to act as if it has done so without actually doing so. There’s no reason why Oregon might decide to continue as a formal affiliate while, like the LNC, ignoring the obligations/restrictions thereunto pertaining.

I’m not sure what you mean by question? Which question? Ballot line is controlled by the Wagner group, and it looks like they will disaffiliate from national – and national may also disaffiliate them, separately, although that is up in the air.

Oh well… I had this on my youtube list of “watch it again” … this is a blast from the past:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnX40iDjA40

paulie

Perhaps… though it is impossible for them to win. In theory even if they “win the appeal” and it gets bounced back to court (which will take 2-3 years depending on how long it takes for the appeals court opinion to be written) – they have to deal with the other 6 reasons their case must be dismissed that are not the 1st amendment … and this is saying alot too because the appeal court has to order the lower court that they can’t exercise judicial discretion (ouch).

On top of that if we ever got to the facts, it would be proven that they had no standing to raise any claims AND they sued the wrong parties to get the relief they are asking for.

paulie

We all assume Starr is smart enough to not waste his own money on legal filings that are riddled with false statements, holes you can drive a truck through, and no credible basis for victory.

Generally people who have money get that way by not being complete idiots.

The memberships were purchased to increase the size of the Ohio delegation.

July 15, 2014 at 9:01 pm It was a gift of $10,000 for 400 extra members. The filing as a loan is represented as having been a filing error.

They don’t need to buy memberships to get enough signatures from members for a JudCom appeal if and when they want one.

Oregon Top Two should be viewed as a significant issue for the LNC, but it will likely be ignored.

Yep. And it should also be seen as a paramount issue by Libertarians in Oregon, yet they are too busy spending hundreds of thousands of FRNs and who knows how many hours fighting over control of the state party which may soon be effectively removed from the ballot altogether if top two passes.

I can count the number of people on one hand from the LNC that have ever bothered to pick up a phone and call me to ask about what happened here.

They are a coalition of the corrupt (which is a form of cult)

July 15, 2014 at 9:01 pm It was a gift of $10,000 for 400 extra members. The filing as a loan is represented as having been a filing error.

Oregon Top Two should be viewed as a significant issue for the LNC, but it will likely be ignored.

+1 points for Knappledore

Starr (if desired, read this as “the as-yet unidentified paymasters for whom Starr et. al act as proxies”) has already allegedly dumped more than $100k into trying to destroy the Oregon LP and replace it with a Republican doppelganger. $3625 to pay “sustaining member” dues for 145 ringers doesn’t sound like a sticker shot item.

Even if he had to pay them an additional $50 apiece to sign an appeal petition and so forth, it would be 1/10th the amount already invested in the project (assuming that $100k represents the real total costs of the project which is highly unlikely given e.g. the LSLA’s perfidy in the matter and so on).

However, I suspect that Phillies believes it won’t go that way and that the wreckers would rather keep the LNC and everyone else ineffectually twisting on the hook than actually do something irreversible that would undercut their ability to act effectively in the future.

To put it a different way: The wreckers have long enjoyed an LNC and other party organs which have been cooperative with their objectives half the time and completely ineffectual at countering them the other half of the time. Why the hell would they want to blow that up and risk the establishment of a national Libertarian mechanism which actually WORKS? They might do it if they see the current LNC becoming effective, but not until — and these first votes are fairly obviously test votes to tell them whether or not that’s likely to happen.

Massachusetts has a fusion process. Any person eligible to be elected can run a sticker campaign (“writein” to you folks who think a milk shake is made with ice cream) in the primary of any major party. If you win and get as many votes as there are signatures required for successful nominating papers, you are the candidate of that party in the general election.

It is inobvious that a majority of the LNC takes seriously Alicia Mattson’s claims, let alone the ones they replaced.

The more serious issue is that Mr. Vohra ruled that the Oregon motion was in order, and the LNC allowed it to be brought to a vote, a decision however executed. That decision can be appealed to the Judicial Committee, which gets to rule on the validity of the act, including the reference to Wes as Oregon State Chair. Matters go down hill from here.

Alicia continues her fraud on the LNC list, posting documents that have facts in them that have already been proven wrong during depositions — and continuing the baseless arguments.

The 1-9 vote seems strange to me. I would have thought that there would be quite a few than that voting yes, and I would not have expected them to wait until the end of the voting period to vote.

The national LP will have to live with that decision … and it will be painful.

Chuck

Archives for LNC-discuss: http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-reflector_hq.lp.org/

appears to answer your question.

George

There is always a way. It will probably take a little bit of configuration tweaking of the reflector, or possibly a pre-processor script to pull the original sender from the headers and insert it into the body.

That should be suggested as a quick project for whoever ends up on the IT committee to look into.

Vicki Kirkland voted no on Oregon. By my count that is now 1-9 so the motion can’t pass unless someone changes a no vote to yes, and that’s if all full members vote on it.

Google group for LNC-discuss: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lnc-discuss-reflector

Archives for LNC-discuss: http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-reflector_hq.lp.org/

There are many factions in our party, but only one that has a habit of using fraud and deception to win and abuse the privileges of office. We learned in Oregon if you just purge that one faction, all the others can get along with each other just fine.

(That is why we are so successful and are now able to have so many candidates – and they collaborate without acrimony)

Folks,

Just catching up on all the convention fun. Congrats to Nick.

IMO the Oregon matter pales in comparison to some real state party disputes–with guns–like we had in AZ 10-15 years ago. Being seated in a room with those folks, performing shuttle diplomacy among the purportedly pure and less pure, for me back then, it really served as a reminder that factionalism comes with being part of the LP or any similar organization.

The biggest problem with being involved in a political party is the politics. Some of it is dirty, a “battle without honor or humanity.” Let alone integrity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P-c2k-HgRA&feature=kp

With best wishes,

Mark Tuniewicz

Depending on the state, they would incur liability for SLAPP from either filing the legal threat, to just making the legal threat if their intent is to suppress participation and they really have no basis for their claims.

Wes,

Well, it goes like this: Yes, if you fail to protect your trademark, that can weigh against you in future attempts to protect your trademark. And it can also encourage others to violate that trademark with presumed impunity.

But this trademark IN PARTICULAR is completely unenforceable. It’s fraudulent from the word go. If the LNC ever went to court to try to enforce it, all they’d get is a dismissal and responsibility for the defendant’s legal costs, plus possibly some sanctions for malicious/frivolous litigation.

Knowing this, they’ll never try it. If someone they don’t want using the name “Libertarian Party” uses the name “Libertarian Party,” they may rattle the litigation saber and hope the other party is uninformed enough to believe them, but they’ll never, ever, ever draw it — because once they’ve drawn it, they lose it.

Wes,

The LNC will never make an actual attempt to enforce their trademark claim. That claim is fraudulent and frivolous on its face. It’s only useful as a threat against people who don’t know any better. Trying to enforce it would forfeit even that usefulness.

Speaking of Oregon, Wes …

While looking at presidential nomination procedures in Oregon law, I happened to notice this statute:

“248.010 Use of party name. Each major political party and minor political party, its nominated candidates and its members and officers shall have the exclusive right to use the whole party name or any part of it.”

On the one hand, I’m not big on the whole concept of “intellectual property.”

On the other hand, given that the Reeves/Burke impostor group is clearly engaged in both fraud and violation of state law by claiming to be the Libertarian Party of Oregon, is the real LPO taking any legal action to stop/punish the fraud/statute violation?

The bylaw is a poor one.

It should be removed.

However, a national convention passed it originally, and a national convention just reaffirmed it.

Any LNC that DOESN’T enforce it is doing exactly the opposite of what the national convention has now twice ordered it to do.

I know in Oregon there is alot of support for the idea of running the presidential tickets on our primary and sending a bound delegation — but there are of course issues with that as Knapp points out.

If we only had to send 7 delegates because states were given EV totals instead of today and could send a bound delegation, I can guarantee you that we would always have 7 people in presidential years and alot more interest in our election processes domestically.

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

It’s not. Or at least it’s not NECESSARILY.

Just for example, if delegate selection was competitive, presidential candidates would have an incentive to campaign heavily in the states prior to the national convention and get states to select delegates who support the candidates those state members support, instead of just rolling into the convention with plans to wow a random assemblage.

“Or, having fewer delegate slots could lead to factional battles at state levels, so that the factions could control who gets to be delegates from those states.”

1) That already happens on occasion, and I expect it to happen more and more often regardless of how many or how few delegate seats are allocated.

2) Factional battles are not necessarily a bad thing, and with respect to national convention delegate selection could in fact be a good thing. National convention rules forbid use of “unit rule” or “unit voting,” where all members of a state delegation can be required to vote in certain ways (other parties make use of that in e.g. their presidential nominating process), but I see no particular reason why, if a state party decides in convention or whatever on some particular goal, it couldn’t select delegates pledged to support that goal.

It’s been ten or fifteen years so my recollection is probably faulty in detail, but one time in Missouri, something like this happened at a state convention where national delegate selection was up for consideration:

An opponent of the LNC’s “pledge” (he opposed it for the same reason I support it) introduced a motion which would have required the delegation chair to introduce a motion at the national convention calling for repeal of the pledge requirement, and which would have required, as a condition of being selected as delegate, affirmation of support for/intention to vote for said motion at the national convention.

That was the amended form of the motion — I objected to the original form, which would have violated the “unit rule/unit voting” national convention rule by requiring the delegates to actually vote as instructed.

We defeated the motion (and instead passed a state resolution opposing the pledge, IIRC), but I don’t see that it was out of order for a state party to consider choosing only delegates who supported one of its goals. It just turned out that either that WASN’T one of our goals, or that we didn’t want to impose it on our delegates in any way.

If NOTA 2016 gets any great traction, I fully expect that the dominant presidential campaign, and state party leaderships supporting that dominant presidential campaign, to attempt to block known or suspected NOTA supporters from getting delegate slots. That’s how politics works — you support your side, and you oppose the other side.

“Most of the delegates understand little of the issues involved when being asked to vote.”

One reason for that, in my opinion, is that delegate allocation (set by bylaws to produce approximately 1000 delegate seats) is waaaaaaaay out of phase with the number of actual, involved Libertarian Party activists.

There are never as many people interested in being delegates as there are available delegate slots.

Every two years, most of the states other than the convention state and those located very close to it are pretty much forced to beg people to be delegates.

It should be the other way around — there should be few enough delegate slots that the state parties have to pick and choose their delegates instead of taking all comers and begging for more.

Personally I think a good start would be to set the number of delegate seats at 538 and to apportion them according to a state’s electoral votes instead of on the basis of how many people in each state have sent $25 to the LNC and how many people voted for the last LP presidential slate.

That would not only have the effect of making the delegate selection process more competitive (hopefully meaning that the state parties would choose people who demonstrate an acquaintance with the issues to be considered, etc.), but it would also remove some of the bias toward maintenance of the status quo (the states where more people voted for the LAST presidential ticket get a larger voice in selecting the NEXT presidential ticket, which tends toward offering more of the same, when perhaps doing something different might increase the vote in those other states).

Fritz,

I can think of two actual and one previously existing and future hypothetical practical consequences of disaffiliation of a state Libertarian Party:

1) No voice in the selection of the Libertarian National Committee’s presidential slate (although that state LP could, if it wanted, nominate the same slate as the other state LPs did in the national convention at which that state LP went unrepresented; and more than one state LP not affiliated with the LNC might set up their own affiliation/presidential ticket selection mechanism);

2) No Libertarian National Committee assistance for ballot access (not all states have needed, now need or will ever need such assistance, and ideally none of them would, but some have, do or will need it); and

3) If the “Unified Membership Program” or something similar was resurrected, some money from the LNC based on contributions to the LNC’s “membership” program.

Whether or not those practical consequences are significant, and if so HOW significant, is of course a matter of opinion.

Like I said, I think that the LNC’s bylaws should allow for its state affiliates to engage in fusion.

But they don’t do so. And they were just reaffirmed in national convention as not doing so.

It’s not a good idea to have a rule, to reaffirm that rule and to then not enforce that rule if for no other reason than that tends to reinforce the LNC’s tendency (more and more pronounced in recent years) to simply do whatever the hell its majority feels like and then creatively reinterpret the bylaws to allow it when challenged.

“Disaffiliation is the only remedy available in the bylaws.”

Indeed. And the practical consequence of this to a state party is pretty close to zero. And we in WA state modified our bylaws to allow cross-endorsements.

This could have come up in WA state this year — there are some libertarians running as Republicans in races and the state convention could have chosen to endorse them. Which is as close to fusion as WA election law sets out. It certainly may happen in 2016.

Paulie wrote:

The Wiener semi-transparency motion is now down 4-10, which means it will fail unless some people switch votes.

Evan voted twice (no both times) on the Wiener motion, so I don’t think your count is correct (I didn’t bother to re-count everything, but my running count was 1 off from yours). You’re right that it will probably fail.

“Furthermore, what is the [Libertarian National Committee] going to do about a state party endorsing fusion candidates? What would be the consequences to a state party for telling [the LNC] to sod off and mind their own business?”

Disaffiliation is the only remedy available in the bylaws.

Personally I support the bylaws allowing “fusion,” and was surprised that the national convention rejected the amendment. But rejecting the amendment is the same as re-affirming the prohibition.

Jay Estrada and Evan McMahon have voted no on semi-transparency.

To the contrary: The dues paying national party members do not have a right to a newsletter, though they will get issues if one is published. They can call special conventions, send matters to a judicial committee,… In addition, if the individual members stopped sending National money, the national party would swiftly croak.

Given that membership is defined for us in the LNC Bylaws, it is reasonable to apply that definition uniformly. You can indeed belong to the national party.

The fusion effort needed a somewhat better wording and a lot more delegate preparation.

In our State, membership in a party is defined by showing up at precinct reorganization and/or a county party convention, a state convention, or VOTING IN A PRIMARY.

So…someone who votes in another party’s primary, as some (not all) Libertarians do, makes you a member of that other party by our state election laws.

Assuming that a candidate filed as both a Libertarian and…let’s say…a Democrat, if he or she voted in the Democratic Party Primary (or in the Republican Party Primary as some Democrats do to mess with them), then the ByLaw would apply in our state.

Either way, if we have an opportunity to win an election by cross filing in another party where there is no candidate I will encourage our candidates to do it. The ByLaw is wrong and hurts states like South Carolina and New York.

“But the definition I gave of membership was not registration. http://my.democrats.org/page/content/joindnc”

But does that “join” make you a member? Does it give you control over the organization? Is there a dues structure? Do the people who do this choose the delegates to their NatCon? No, No, and No.

Perhaps it dives you a membership card?

I guess she will not be listing the superseded alternate votes.

The results of the Sarwark transparency motion are now official, matching my count:

Voting has ended for the email ballot shown below.

Voting “aye”: Estrada, Feldman, Hagan, Johnson, Katz, Lark, McLendon, McMahon, Olsen, Sarwark, Vohra

Voting “nay”: Goldstein, Kirkland, Mattson, Redpath, Wiener

With a final vote tally of 11-5, the motion PASSES.

Alicia Mattson
LNC Secretary

Transparency wins!

Democrats and Republicans. Yes, there are states where you can register D or R, but there are others where you cannot, including the one that does not have party registration at all.

Josh,

Where did you see the proposal that the convention in voting to add these delegates to Oregon the convention actually replaced the entire delegation. To my ears this claim sounds less like LNC and more like LSD.

George

Joshua Katz

Either way the entire incident is yet another casus belli for war.

Wes, I wouldn’t have accepted that either, since it was passed during the convention and is unclear. However, assuming you had no provision before, the replacement of the delegation chair remains, in my opinion, unjustified, since the convention rules specify that the chair of the party is the delegation chair, and the chairmanship was unchallenged in the Credentials Committee report that was approved, even after amendment.

I’ve seen one argument for it being justified, which I believe is premised on the idea that, rather than adding 3 members, the body actually replaced the entire delegation (since the final slate, once amended, was identical to that submitted by the entity that is not the LP of Oregon.) This is then taken as implicitly accepting that other entity as the affiliate. If I am misrepresenting this argument, that is just another argument in favor of making LNC-discuss transparent.

Needless to say, I find that entire argument problematic.

Katz,

After the shenanigans had already take place, I was able to run an email ballot back home which produced the following policy:

“That if the Chairperson of the LPO is present at any LP National convention, he/she will serve as delegation chair for the duration of the convention. The order of succession in the absence of the chair shall be: vice chairperson, secretary, any member of the board selected by majority vote, any member of the delegation selected by majority vote.”

The credentials committee and secretary were still unwilling to adjust their idea of who the delegation chair was.

As far as effect, if both transparency motions passed, or if only the second one passed, I believe the impact would be the same. So there are 3 possible outcomes: first motion passes, second doesn’t; both or second only passes; none pass.

1. Attempts to apply consistent thinking to email ballots generally fail. Robert’s defines a deliberative assembly as a group of people able to see and hear each other. Asynchronous voting produces odd results. If not for the bylaw (wisely adopted) that email ballots constitute previous notice, the vote required for the 2nd transparency motion would, I think, depend on the results of the first. This is not a good situation, hence it’s a good thing we have that rule. In any case, that’s assuming that we try to apply Robert’s, which is a losing task.
2. Wes – do you have a copy of the rules you sent to the Credentials Committee regarding the choosing of your delegates and delegation chair? Unless the affiliate provides otherwise, the delegation chair is the party chair.

I was near the secretary’s table when Burke came up to say that they’d elected a new delegation chair. He looked over and saw me and started acting like he didn’t want me to hear what he was saying so I walked away.

I only saw Burke up there. If there was anyone else with him, he/she/they where standing back far enough that I didn’t pick up that they were with Burke.

The secretary looked a bit upset when Burke came up, so I don’t think that he did it voluntarily. My guess is that he was told by someone else what would happen to him if he didn’t accept Oregon’s change of delegation chair. That’s only a guess. Maybe they didn’t use force and only used fraud alone.

paulie

At the time the credentials committee said they would respect our sovereignty. Blau changed their mind with a little parliamentary voodoo saying that the since the delegates put them in our delegation and they were a majority they could caucus without us and that the national LP had to accept it.

I think discerning people will understand why what is going to happen over the next 2 years is going to happen, why, and why the LP deserves it.

wrto transparency 2, Vohra and Sarwark are yet to vote, and will surely vote against, so one or two more negative votes will kill it.

Yes — in those states where fusion is essential, the national ban on endorsing such candidates will continue to be ignored. Because, fundamentally, what is the national party going to do about state parties ignoring the mandate? And then there are “Top Two” states where candidates pick which party or combination of parties they prefer and parties decide which (if any) candidates to endorse.

Reeves, Burnett and Burke held a vote to elect Reeves delegation chair. I advised them that their motion was out of order because they were trying to vote on something that had already been considered and adopted. They chose to ignore me and my objections, went to the secretary’s table without us present, claimed to Blau that they invited us to the secretary table and we refused to come (fraud) and Blau advised the credentials committee to mark Reeves as the delegation chair.

Wes W., there’s apparently a discrepancy in my understanding and Phillies’ as to whether the Burke-Reeves move to take over the chairmanship of your delegation succeeded or not. Did it?

Unsurprisingly, Mattson voted no on Oregon, making it 0-7 by my count.

Vohra has voted no on Wiener semi-transparency; my count on it is 4-5.

There are two competing outcomes in Oregon at the moment as a result of 4 years of abuses from the LNC and the national LP delegates.

One is to disaffiliate.

The other is to go Galt and refuse to produce until reparations have been made.

In both circumstances we will not be alone and will be joined by states of good conscience.

The motion appears to have passed.

Paulie wrote:

I may have this wrong but I think these need 2/3?

Even if Wiener’s motion is considered a motion to amend something previously adopted (which would require 2/3 of the vote or a majority of the entire membership without previous notice), the bylaws specify that email ballots constitute notice, so a simple majority vote is all that is required.

Bylaws, Article 14 (last sentence):
“Motions dispensed through electronic mail ballots satisfy the requirement of giving previous notice.”

Please explain why you think they need 2/3? They had advance notice…that’s in the bylaws.

That was my recollection, but I could easily be wrong.

Please explain why you think they need 2/3? They had advance notice…that’s in the bylaws.

In an unusual move, Dr. Lark has also voted well ahead of the deadline (which IIRC he almost never does) on Wiener semi-transparency (nay), making that one 4-4.

Jim Lark just voted on Oregon (nay) and Sarwark Transparency (aye), so that makes it 0-6 on Oregon and 10-5 on Transparency.

The new national committee is about to make a significant vote. The ballot on opening the LNC-Discuss list via the method used with the LNC-business list will close at 3AM – 1 second EST tomorrow morning, By my count, it appears that the motion may well pass, though it is still up in the air.

Paulie wrote “I asked Wagner about this at the convention. If I understood him correctly, the attempt to make Burke the delegation chair failed. Did I misunderstand?”

I inquired of the Convention and National Secretary. He reports that the three Reeves faction delegates marched up to him, claimed to have caucused and elected Tim Reeves as delegation head, and so the change should be made. After discussion, the convention Parliamentarian supported their claim, so the change was made. The Oregon State Committee then voted a Bylaws change that the State Chair (meaning Wes Wagner) is delegation head if he attends the National Convention.

Tim Reeves according to the secretary wanted to make sure that Oregon did not join a Region.
Wes Wagner was, I am told, of the same opinion.

> paulie July 12, 2014 at 2:10 am

“I don’t think Dave Terry’s comments should count
Period.”.

On the other hand, EVERY word that Porky udders should
be recorded and used as evidence against him.

Oregon: Yet another no vote, from Guy McLendon.

Still no yes votes to date.

I don’t think Dave Terry’s comments should count

Period.

towards 700, having nothing to do with this thread and perhaps a tad repetitive.

That’s why I gave up reading them a long time ago and encourage others to do same.

I hope Chris recovers quickly, gives up his hatred of us jewcommies, and returns to Planet Earth.

Well, we can always hope.

I hate to be a record-breaker, but all the discussion of post-Convention LNC activities really belongs on a new thread too…

Maybe, but I have a perverse desire to keep this one going, and I just haven’t had the thread posting mojo lately. Someone else can do it if they have a yearning to do so.

I haven’t even started posting convention pictures in a serious way yet. This one will leave the 2012 thread in the dust before I am done with it.

Hey Markie, are you gonna pick up your marbles and go home?

The QUESTION is, WHY is the number of comments even relevant?

The NEXT Question is; how many of the comments already posted
have ANYTHING to do with the Libertarian National Convention? 50?
100? maybe 200?

By and by, we will see what the LNC is doing.

Memo to Pollack Lesiak

Do NOT pass Western Europe –
Go DIRECTLY to Hell!

(699)

Memo to Krzysztof Lesiak:

Go To Hell!

This should be a call to all of us to double our efforts to bring in new libertarians. If you can’t beat them, replace them. I was very encouraged to see Rachel is becoming active in our party, she is working on the Sarvis campaign, her writings make sense.

http://thoughtsonliberty.com/millennials-and-left-libertarianism-part-1-they-need-community

My information on OR is not the same as yours, but perhaps I misunderstood.

FIRST QUESTION OF THE DAY!

The 2014 LNC is the funniest act since,

1. The Three Stooges
2. Laurel & Hardy
3. Abbot & Costello
4. Martin & Lewis
5. The 2012 Libertarian National Convention
6. NOTA
7. AOTA

SECOND QUESTION OF THE DAY:

How many members of the LNC can squeeze into a
telephone booth?

THIRD QUESTION OF THE DAY

What the hell is a telephone booth?

Moulton writes “he could be removed for cause”.

On one hand the faction doing this would need the votes. On the other hand, they might not enjoy the reaction of the members.

Dan Wiener has voted no on the Oregon resolution.

No one has voted yes yet as far as I can see, although none of the no votes are surprising.

I presume Nick probably knows this already but here are a few simple transparency issues we pushed for last term which I *think* he can make happen without having the rest of the LNC vote on it. I could be wrong.

1) Allow LNC members who choose to do so to list additional contact info such as phone number and snail mail on the LNC page at LP.org (I realize that some people want to go further than that, but I think this would be a reasonable compromise for now.)

2) Direct that the official recording of in-person LNC meetings be made public, rather than destroyed and/or kept only for the Secretary’s use. If possible also make it a livestream.

3) Give LNC members the same access that staff has to post at LP.org blog. This was the policy Wes Benedict instituted in his first stint as ED. When Carla Howell was ED, she discontinued this. Her reasoning was that Wayne was dominating the blog with messages that diverged from the party’s stance and clearly seemed to favor Republicans and Romney and/or promote himself and a hybrid libertarian-conservative ideology during the height of the presidential election season. However, long after Wayne resigned from LNC and long after the presidential election ended the more restrictive policy is still in place, even with the return of Wes Benedict as ED. If need be, I have no objection to APRC review before submitted blog content goes live. I *think* Nick can just make this happen on his own, but I’m not a bylaws or parliamentary expert.

Looks like the fix may be in.

Guy McLendon, who voted aye on the original motion, is now co-sponsoring the Wiener motion.

That’s too bad about Sam flipping his vote but I was rather surprised at his original vote to begin with.

BTW why does any of this require a motion?

The original bylaw change, resolution or whatever it was that passed in the 2012 convention applied to LNC discuss, since at that time there was no separate LNC business list. IIRC Geoff created LNC business by fiat – without any vote of the LNC, and over Starchild’s objection that this violated the spirit of his motion which passed in convention to make the list public, including discussion.

I don’t see why Nick could not have just made LNC-discuss public by fiat without a motion to the LNC, but maybe it would have cost him too much political capital.

I also don’t see why confidential emails need to be on LNC discuss.

Why not instead create a LNC-exec list subject to the same rules as executive sessions at in-person meetings?

Confidential emails could also be sent to a CC list of LNC members who agree to keep them confidential. In fact Dan Wiener already has the list set up for that and all he has to do is update its membership.

Just to be clear: under the Wiener motion if Starchild were on the LNC and maintaining the public reflector, he could be removed for cause due to running afoul of the following sentence “any such email shall not be transmitted to anyone who is not a member of the LNC-Discuss list without the explicit approval of that email’s author”.

George Phillies wrote:

How is transparency doing?

Paulie wrote:

http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/thread.html

Ayes

Katz (alt-not yet superseded)
Goldstein
Johnson
Feldman
Estrada
Vohra
McMahon
McLendon
Hagan
Olsen

Nays

Lieberman (alt-superseded)
Wiener
Redpath
Mattson

Full members not yet voting:

Kirkland, Lark, Oates, Tomasso, Sarwark

Wiener proposed a new competing motion to sabotage it. His motion was co-sponsored by Goldstein, Kirkland, and Redpath. Goldstein flipped to nay on the original motion.

Wiener motion:

*Insert a new sub-section 4 to Section 2.07 PARTY RECORDS:*

*4) EMAIL DISCUSSION LIST. Copies of LNC-Discuss emails from June 30, 2014
forward, shall be made publicly viewable with the following limitations:
The Chair shall appoint, and may replace at any time, a moderator who will
pre-screen and exclude any email with the word “CONFIDENTIAL” in the
subject line or which quotes or references or copies any other email with
the word “CONFIDENTIAL” in the subject line. Furthermore, any such email
shall not be transmitted to anyone who is not a member of the LNC-Discuss
list without the explicit approval of that email’s author.*

*[Proviso: This section replaces any previous motions on the subject of
making public the LNC-Discuss emails.]*

I just re-joined the national LP thanks to our new EC, I only wish Starchild had made it again. Maybe he can be incharge of an alternative or outreach oriented portion of the next convention? (hint hint)

(For the record… I got comment 666)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsmcDLDw9iw

Nick–
I second that motion!!!

Wes–
That’s one powerful number!!!

(For the record… I got comment 666)

My bourbon preference is yes. 🙂

As the only person here who actually lives in Manhattan, I will be happy to join you guys in Orlando for Manhattans.

What is the bourbon preference?

Orlando 2016: Return of the Manhattan Project

The straw that broke the camel’s back was Nick Sarwark getting elected chair, but there were a number of reasons, some of them cumulative over my four-year non-membership (e.g. election of Starchild to LNC, return of Wes Benedict to LPHQ and just flat missing a lot of friends — for many years, the LP was the bulk of my social life).

Breaking: LNC Chair Sarwark implicated in animal cruelty case involving a camel.

But appealing the motion itself is a belt and suspender approach.

Giving no quarter in any way is their whole game plan, and a strategic yes vote on the resolution which they don’t need to get the JC ruling they want would be out of line with that approach.

Motions and rulings on motions are not acts of the national committee.

I’m not sure the JC would agree with that (in fact I’m pretty sure they will not). Who would you appeal it to if they disagree with you?

True. A Fair Point. But appealing the motion itself is a belt and suspender approach.

If they had political sense, they would vote “Yes”. If it passes, they can take it to the Judicial Committee, and ask that the prior decision be reversed and the Reeves faction be recognized as our affiliate,which, since they have already packed the Judicial Committee, they are likely to be able to get as an outcome.

http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/thread.html

Ayes

Katz (alt-not yet superseded)
Goldstein
Johnson
Feldman
Estrada
Vohra
McMahon
McLendon
Hagan
Olsen

Nays

Lieberman (alt-superseded)
Wiener
Redpath
Mattson

Full members not yet voting:

Kirkland, Lark, Oates, Tomasso, Sarwark

How is transparency doing?

The LNC resolution on Oregon is now being voted on.

[email protected] via googlegroups.com

3:00 AM (7 hours ago)

to lnc-business
We have an electronic mail ballot.

Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by July 19, 2014 at 11:59:59pm Pacific time.

Sponsor: Chair Nick Sarwark

Motion:
Whereas, the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party state that “delegates to a Regular Convention shall be selected by a method adopted by each affiliate party” (Article 11, 3 (b)), and

Whereas, the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party state that “each state-level affiliate party shall, in accordance with its own Bylaws and these Bylaws, determine who shall be its delegates to all Regular Conventions.” (Article 6, 3), and

Whereas, the Bylaws of the Libertarian Party state that “the autonomy of the affiliate and sub-affiliate parties shall not be abridged by the National Committee or any other committee of the Party…” (Article 6, 5), and

Whereas the Chair of the National Convention incorrectly ruled that it was in order for the convention to vote to seat three delegates in the Oregon delegation over the objection of the affiliate party chair, and

Whereas the motion made did not challenge the report of the Credentials Committee as to who was the affiliate party chair, and

Whereas the convention delegates subsequently voted to seat those delegates over the objection of the delegate chair,

Be it resolved that the Libertarian National Committee apologizes to the Libertarian Party of Oregon for the erroneous ruling of the National Convention Chair.

Dave Terry: “Poles continue to fight on. Herr Wagner’s panzers have been “declared” the wieners, but some people just won’t accept defeat.”

.
.
You’re not trying to imply that Poland can be compared to Burke, are you? The same puke who’s been undermining and backstabbing anyone who happened to be have more sanctioned authority in the LPO than he had at various times?

.
You’re just a real cry-baby loser, Dave. You had your chance to be with good people back in the 90s, but you made your choice and now you have to live with it.

.
Bob T

Evil Jew libertarian reporting from LP national convention 🙂

“I remember that you wanted to destroy the entire concept of race, Paulie…at least you promoted interracial marriage to hasten that happening. I find that disgusting. Race is extremely important and there are racial differences. Most people, even if they don’t admit it, prefer to be among their own race and especially their racial subcategory, ethnic nationality. Look at Polish Chicago community. Look at all the Greek, Italian, Chinese, Irish, Russian communities…also look at the black ghettos. There is nothing wrong one choosing to be around one’s own people.”

You aren’t seeing the big picture. Read about the history of nationalism and fascism.

Capitalist elites have traditionally encouraged tribalism and nationalism because the best way to maintain their domination is to keep the people divided and conquered. Unlikes socialists, nationalists have traditionally allied with elites to attain their goals because their loyalty is only to their race/tribe. As long as the people are divided in competing factions, they are unable to unify against their real enemy.

If you’re really opposed to the NWO, nationalism and tribalism aren’t going to cut it. You think Alex Jones is going to lead a revolution? Reality check–Alex Jones is an NWO puppet. He works for THEM, just like the fake nationalist parties in England and France.

THe only hope of stopping the NWO is working class unity based on the right of every individual to autonomy and self-determination, regardless of their sex or race. It’s time to throw off the fetters of racism and nationalism that have enslaved humanity.

More from the “non-racist” Lesiak:

Krzysztof Lesiak Are you serious? The NWO wants to destroy nations! Nationalists are the only serious opposition to the Jew run NWO.

This kid is seriously confused.

He also posts human beings need strong leadership not a bunch of lawless, uncultured half-naked faggots running around all over the place. and Fuck anarchy, fuck libertarianism, fuck leftist scum. and Do you realize the Jews fund your bullshit anarchist/libertarian/CulturalMarxist movements. There’s much more like Skrewdriver (neo-nazi band) videos, “fuck the jews” and “eradicate the liberals” and confederate flags (from a northern Illinois kid)… Yet, he is still regularly “liking” posts about internal LP elections and such. Major cognitive dissonance.

Combined with the glorification of illegal drug use (which somehow escapes his cultural fascism) and he’s a prime candidate for sex slave to neo-nazis in prison in the near future.

Is Lesiak still claiming to be non-racist? Here is his current cover photo on facebook:

“He said nine men and one woman can’t make a baby in one month” The nine obstetricians will do just fine if at t=0 the woman is eight+ months pregnant

Clearly the reference was to a woman who was not already pregnant. The analogy was not unclear, all sophistry aside.

Whether you accept his point as being true in this case – that he would complete unfinished projects if given another term – is a different question, but it was not illogical nor difficult to understand.

“He said nine men and one woman can’t make a baby in one month” The nine obstetricians will do just fine if at t=0 the woman is eight+ months pregnant.

want =/= get. And the whole concept of foreigners relies on the idea of nation-states and their borders as being legitimate, which they are not.

So what? From what I have seen, immigrants tend to work harder and get less welfare than native born Americans. A lot of “illegal” immigrants are scared of anything official so they won’t go anywhere near a government welfare office or website form. Many of them leave the US when there is no work. Many use fake SSNs to pay taxes into the system and will never make any attempt to collect from it.

Just because there is some website that tells immigrants how to apply for government “benefits” that is a very poor excuse for migration barriers.

Nothing you said addresses this logic:

So let’s have border checkpoints and immigration quotas between states. How about between counties? cities? neighborhoods? blocks? ….

Some people cross those lines to get welfare, too. Some of them even change their voter registration address and vote for welfare and gun control. How about walls on the MA and CA borders? Maybe blow up the bridges and tunnels from Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens? Electric fences around Nevada?

Maybe people should never be allowed to move anywhere ever. And if they leave their house, they can cross a checkpoint every two five minutes, that way we can make sure that no one will ever move somewhere and collect welfare or vote for welfare or gun control.

Yeah liberty!

GOVERNMENT BENEFITS
hand clicking on a mouse
Depending on your immigration status, length of time in the United States, and income, you may be eligible for some federal benefit programs.

The links below will lead you to official government websites describing a range of assistance programs.

Official website with information on all available federal benefit programs. (English version – Spanish version)
Official website for Medicare, the health insurance program for people 65 years of age or older or who have specific disabilities.
Official website for Medicaid, the joint federal/state medical care program for low-income people.
Official website for the Social Security Administration. (English version – Spanish version)
Social Security information available in foreign languages.
Information on Supplemental Security Income benefits for aliens.
Information on the Food Stamp Program for low-income families.
A website containing links to available federal information in other languages.
Information on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program.
Information on access to federal benefits and services for immigrant survivors of domestic violence.

“”paulie
July 6, 2014 at 2:00 am

‘I’m opposed to anyone who is not an anarcho-capitalist or a small government constitutionalist living in the same society as myself, this includes both immigrants and native born.’

So let’s have border checkpoints and immigration quotas between states. How about between counties? cities? neighborhoods? blocks? ….”

I’m in favor of a libertarian separatist movement, as I described in my Libertarian Zone posts on another thread.

Libertarians are incompatible with non-libertarians.

I’m opposed to anyone who is not an anarcho-capitalist or a small government constitutionalist living in the same society as myself, this includes both immigrants and native born.

So let’s have border checkpoints and immigration quotas between states. How about between counties? cities? neighborhoods? blocks? ….

paulie
July 5, 2014 at 10:20 pm
I was fortunate enough to get a ride to Ohio and back from Bibb County Sheriff Candidate and new LP activist Kevin Knight. We split the gas, he provided the car and driving. He helped some with coverage also. I got Kevin involved in LP of Alabama when I got him to sign our ballot access petition at a gun show a few months ago.”

Everyone in the Libertarian Party needs to read the above comments over and over again, until the point is drummed into their heads, especially those who are on the LNC, serve on an LP state committee, or who want to run for office in a place where LP candidates do not have ballot access.

This illustrates the value of having actual Libertarians out in the field gathering petition signatures for ballot access instead of having non-libertarian mercenaries doing all of the work.

Does anyone out there think that a non-libertarian mercenary petitioner would have bothered to recruit a new party member, much less one who has become a candidate and a delegate at the nation convention? If a non-libertarian mercenary petitioner had been at that gun show instead an actual Libertarian activist like Paul, then you can bet that nothing more than a signature would have been gathered, and the LP would not have gotten a new activist and candidate that day.

> Mark Axinn; July 3, 2014 at 12:17 pm wrote:

“I am so sick of the Oregon situation. Wagner group may have violated local by-laws, threw a coup, took over the State Party. Burke group challenged and eventually lost in Judiciary Committee decision. That should have resolved it years ago, but the battle continues. Wagner group won the battle and the fight should have ended.”

Mark, I can’t believe that you understand exactly how SHALLOW and short sighted that thought process is;

Consider it in THIS Context;

“I am so sick of reading about the European situation. The German National Socialists MAY have violated the sovereignty of the Polish State and MAY have driven their tanks up the stairs
of the Polish capitol building and chased all the Polish government members into the streets.

A Polish group led by a Mr. Burkowski challenged the League of Nations to intervene and lost.
THAT should have resolved things then and there, but the “spoilsport” Poles continue to fight on. Herr Wagner’s panzers have been “declared” the wieners, but some people just won’t accept defeat.

Congratulations to Nick. I’d have voted for him!

Now if you can get Mark or Arvin as VC and Chuck as Secretary and someone other than Aaron as Treasurer, I think we will have the start of a great LNC!

3 out of 4 ain’t bad. I still think Chuck could have won also.

Lesiak and langa:

race-based affirmative action

I am against that.

the proposition state (as opposed to a nation rooted in common ancestry

The US has never been rooted in common ancestry, and I don’t support either kind of state.

elevating non-Western religions above Western religions

Personal preference, should be irrelevant to politics.

speech codes and censorship

If you mean by governments, I am opposed.

multiculturalism

I like multiculturalism, but I don’t see it as something that should relate much to government.

diversity training

I’ve taken it a couple of times and found it to be total bullshit. I am certaily not in favor of making it mandatory.

anti-Western education curricula

I am for separation of school and state.

maladaptive sexual norms

WTF is that?

anti-male feminism

I am against that.

dispossession of white people

I am against government classifying people by so-called race, and the whole “race” concept is not very scientifically sound to begin with.

mass Third World immigration into Western countries

I’m for it.

white people, instead of birthing white babies, should interracially marry or adopt non-white children.

To the extent that it helps erase the socially harmful concept of race, yes, but then the same should be true of all so-called races. This is a personal preference, and has nothing to do with government policy.

I find it curious that Lesiak can at the same time say that he finds “interracial” marriage to be abhorrent, that “white people should have white babies,” that immigration should be restricted for racial reasons (counterpoint to the wacky definition of “cultural marxism” he quotes approvingly), opposes multiculturalism and wants a nation based on common ancestry and yet says he is not racist. If that is not racist, what is?

BTW, once again, actual Marxists rule very differently – as in say the USSR – than what is called “cultural marxism” here.

langa:

As for interracial marriage, I couldn’t possibly care less who someone else wants to marry — although I am a fan of interracial porn (the contrast between dark and pale skin is quite aesthetically pleasing).

I enjoy so-called interracial porn (and the real life equivalent) but not in any way exclusively. I just really don’t care what so-called race anyone is. The only reason I like the idea of “interracial” marriage is to blend out these so-called races as soon as possible. But, again, that is personal preference. Government policy should be completely neutral as to so-called race.

Of course, my personal opinions about these things are really irrelevant anyway, since libertarianism is not about promoting any one set of preferences over another. In fact, libertarianism, as a political philosophy, is not concerned with ends at all. It is strictly concerned with the means that people use to achieve their ends. You seem to be confusing progressive ends with libertarian ends. In actuality, however, there are no such things as “libertarian ends”, unless you are referring to whatever ends naturally result from the use of libertarian means.

Exactly.

Shane

No, past LP presidential candidates are treated well by the party after Election Day.

From context, I think you inserted the comma by mistake, but how are past nominees treated poorly?

Johnson had numerous standing ovations and speeches (banquet, main floor, his own event and so on). Barr had the keynote in 2010. I am thinking back on other past nominees and I think they have generally been treated pretty well as far as I can remember. Granted, with some dissent; but then most of them were nominated with some dissent as well and we are a contentious bunch by nature.

Starchild’s resolution seemed to get a majority, but not 2/3, for consideration. Some people may have voted for consideration that would have voted against actual repudiation.

I don’t see any such sentiment to anywhere nearly that degree against Johnson/Gray, although there is some.

Losty

Well that was interesting..

Nice to put some faces with the names. Also, Got to talk to a few people I wanted to.

It was good to meet you also. I don’t know why you kept apologizing for disturbing me; you were not diturbing me at all.

Thank YOu to all who attended the 2014 LP Convention. I just left the hotel on Monday morning. It has been three years since I started working on a bid for OHio and now it is over, with a focus back on Ohio and LP candidates. My goal was to make this a very successful convention and LSLA event, conduct a great awards presentation, and have positive financial results overall. We wanted people to feel comfortable in Columbus and showcase the downtown area which was alive with the activities of the SHort North, Arena District, and ComFest. We also wanted to showcase the Ohio LP and provide a level of behind-the-scenes support that has not been seen before. I think we can say “Mission Accomplished”. Thank you again to all that attended, all the volunteers who made it happen, and congrats to all the folks that ran for office during the weekend. Well done. Now we set sites on Orlando in May 2016. Kevin Knedler State Chair of the Libertarian Party of Ohio. [email protected]

Thank you Kevin.

I agree you and the Ohio team did well with helping run the convention.

I think all the above worked out well.

Hope to see Texas and the BosWash corridor get conventions in 2018 and 2020, or better yet 2017 and 2019 if we can move back to odd years.

So if a LPUS member or state affiliate member wants to run for POTUS under the LP banner, are they still subject to the token system at the convention in order to be given a chance to share their vision?

As far as I know, yes.

Reporting from the Alabama delegation at the convention:

Sam Goldstein has changed a bit over the past few years. It doesn’t surprise me very much.

The email ballot on Oregon appears to not have been issued yet. I also don’t see an email ballot for the next LNC meeting on LNC-business.

The current email ballots are

1. A fairly uncontroversial policy manual addition, naming Geoff Neale as International Representative and

2. A motion to make LNC-discuss public, which is doing better so far than I would have expected:

*Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by July 12, 2014 at 11:59:59pm
Pacific time.*

*Sponsor:* Nick Sarwark

*Motion:* The LNC-Discuss email list archives will be made available from
June 30, 2014 forward and a Google group established, similar to the
procedure for LNC-Business.

Y: Katz (alt), Goldstein, Johnson, Feldman, Estrada, Vohra, McMahon, Hagan

N: Lieberman (alt), Redpath, Wiener

Goldstein’s vote is especially surprising, given discussions on the issue last term.

http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/attachments/20140702/f3820cf7/attachment-0001.pdf

First draft of post-convention meeting minutes.

Jill (and everyone else), please stop quoting David Terry. I don’t read his drivel, but when someone else quotes him I accidentally see it from time to time.

As for me being at large, sometimes I get caught, but so far they have released me every time.

Also, if that was a weight crack, I don’t mind those at all. If those bothered me, I would lose some weight already, right?

shoes?

Starchild FTW!

Starchild party in Orlando: everyone dresses like Starchild convention getups. Starchild in suit and tie.

Dave et al. (or for anyone following Oregon more closely (even Wes),

What’s your best case scenario for once again being recognized by the Oregon Secretary of state, and what is your worst case scenario for being recognized?

Just wondering because Aaron Starr was adamant at the LNC July meeting in 2012 that it was days to weeks, at most away.

I’m a bit at a loss to understand how Arron, who has been absolutely correct (sincerely) on every other detail regarding any other question I’ve had of him (mostly on the audit committee), could have been so wrong on this issue. I assume someone, your attorney, other legal advisors, etc, on your side was overly optimistic.

But I can also see that I have collapsed things a bit here (a halo effect I believe) and because the date of your winning the lawsuit was so wrong (and cost me time and effort that summer working for GJ2012, and ballot access there), that I’ve assumed you must be equally inaccurate about past events, and your likelihood of winning.

So can you share what’s next from your point of view (best and worst case)? I assume it’s something like an appeal’s court ordering the Oregon SOS to remove Mr. Wagner, and to insert your current chair (or the chair you will elect at your convention next month)? And I’d assume you have a court date for that appeal to be heard, and then some idea of the clock involved after that in terms of when a decision would be reached?

So best case is this fall, perhaps?

And if you lose there, would it go to the Supreme Court of Oregon? Or maybe beyond?

I’m not asking you to give away secrets, or strategy — but really am interested in hearing how/when you, Aaron, M. Carling, Richard Burke, et. al. expect to win here.

I’m seeing more Vonnegut than Sartre here. “No damn cat; no damn cradle.”

And having Starr child in the costume you mentioned would ruin it, because his costume would be perfectly suiting for the setting. He needs to be in something that clashes. Perhaps a large pink bunny suit with top hat and cane?

Sartre is there because hell is other people.

Not sure why the old bylaws would be on the table, given that all parties involved discarded them long ago.

Starchild:
Oregon, like most Libertarian parties, are in short supply of large breasted women (or, for that matter, small breasted women).
We do have a few large breasted men. Will that suffice?

Starchild that is a great idea.

Thomas I am pretty sure that there will also be a badly played bagpipe.

666th Edition

Ok, I concede. That one is difficult to top.

Ok…I’m done. Sorry about that. Spent most of the day in a quiet room, trying to remember what the h*ll I’ve done over the past 40 years…

Or how about…

An elephant is standing in a field in Oregon. Does that meet a quorum at an LP convention?

Ok, now that I’ve written my 14,000 word submission (abridged version) for the IT committee, time to get back online!!!

When I first introduced myself to Admiral Calley at an LNC meeting in Las Vegas years ago, I suggested that he not always accept M’s version or RONR without questions. In fact, I suggested that M’s business cards probably said: M Carling, MSU which stands for Makes Stuff Up. It appears as if that is still true.

Thanks for that opinion. So — does Wes Wagner (in your opinion) consider it to be a moral crusade? FWIW I think there is a huge amount of daylight between Bob Barr and Jim Gray and I don’t think it is all that useful to lump them in the same bucket.

Thank you, Joseph, for those expositions. If, as you state, at least one side in Oregon views their dispute as a moral crusade (a situation which occurs frequently in libertarian organizations), then it is clear that resolution of the issue will not be pretty nor soon.

I had been not involved in libertarian circles for a few decades (raising kids, Microsoft job, that kind of thing), so I tend to compare what is going on now with what was going on in the 80s. It looks like NAP has replaced Objectivism as the philosophical backstop for asserting moral superiority.

Joshua Katz,

I see your point, but much of the problem is that the national party is trying to involve itself in an argument that many of its members don’t understand. Even when the judicial committee has made ruling it has done so with incomplete and highly subjective information.
Regardless of the LPs choices, the SOS of Oregon is the only authority in regards to ballot access.
Yes, the party should follow what jud com decides–but jud com should only look at objective criteria. The most relevant information is ballot access. If the LP sides with one side based on anything else then they would either not be with the group that currently has ballot access- or risk losing ballot access if the other group wins it’s lawsuit. All the while continuing to divide the national party based on an issue that isn’t their business.

While I am a supporter of the right of woman to decide to have an abortion if they choose, try as I might I couldn’t figure out Joseph Buchman position.

I think anti abortion rights but I am asking for clarification.

Wes: “M Carling did not recuse himself on the credentials committee twice… why would he now? He is a man without honor.”

Not much of a man, either.

B. Tiernan

Fred – I think the LNC should recognize the party its own JC told it to recognize, not the one the Secretary of State recognizes. The practical difference is that a change in the SOTS stance would be immaterial. SOTS doesn’t govern a national party, but our JC’s decisions are binding.

Matt Cholko – I suspect that, in general, delegates fall into two groups – experienced and inexperienced. Experienced delegates are used to rubber-stamping whatever the Credentials Committee reports. Inexperienced delegates have no idea what’s going on. However, there certainly was a big deal made on the floor this time. We had a point of order followed by a motion to appeal, on which debate went to the time limit. I don’t think anyone had an excuse to say they didn’t realize there was more going on than a simple credentials report. Granted, though, anyone not familiar with the situation would be unable to learn on the spot what was happening, and anyone not familiar with the bylaws would be unable to learn them quickly enough, and anyone unfamiliar with Robert’s…the list goes on. Moral of the story – delegates really should know the bylaws and rules – especially since they plan to vote on amendments to them.

Now, let’s leave the Oregon saga for a far more important issue.

Bonnie is quite right that:

>Region 5N will henceforth be known as…the “Region of Badassery” until a numerical designation may be assigned.

We are now Region 8 which is a polite way of saying the Region of Badassery. 🙂

Cain killed Abel in self-defense?
What are you talking about Dave Terry?

Steven Wilson >July 3, 2014 at 9:59 am

“The Oregon LP has no power, but look at the resources being spent to run it. Evolution yeah?

NO, “counter-evolution”

Joe Wendt >June 29, 2014 at 1:54 pm
” wait… Starchild is no longer an At-Large? WTF!!!

NOBODY is “At-Large” when Paulie is in the room!!

:>)

I am so sick of the Oregon situation. Wagner group may have violated local by-laws, threw a coup, took over the State Party. Burke group challenged and eventually lost in Judiciary Committee decision. That should have resolved it years ago, but the battle continues. Wagner group won the battle and the fight should have ended.

Many state chairs including me offered to sit Burke delegates in their states. Those delegates should have been seated, but not forced upon a state delegation which did not want them as Dr. Phillies has pointed out many times.

I do not know what happened at 2012 credentials committee meeting as I was not in LV, but in 2014 when my representative called in sick two days before the Convention, M Carling volunteered to fill in. He thereafter chose to resign, which is fine with me. I am not going to call him names because he decided to resign. End of story.

Instead of fighting the Oregon battle, I am going to concentrate on getting a dozen candidates on the ballot in New York this summer and hopefully gain permanent ballot access for the first time in 42 years. That’s a lot more important to me than this petty, churlish battle in which I have no stake or position.

I am interested in building the Libertarian Party. Those of you who want to do the opposite can continue to opine on Oregon for the next decade.

A question if I may ask? BTW it relates to this issue.

I have been puzzled by this problem since I have been in the LP. That is going back to 1980. I have run for an office in the LP at various times and each time someone nominates me and tells the delegates what a great person I am. Then I get to do basically the same and how great a job I have done in the past. What no one ever hears is what I did wrong or failed to follow through on or my bad temper or lack of thinking skills or how I am really squishy on the issues. Basically my friends and I get to give me a great job review but ignores the truth. In the end this is harmful to the organization whether it is a local, state or national one.

How do we solve this problem? Maybe candidates should announce six months in advance with a closing date?

I’d like to read what others think needs to be done if anything.

Thanks.

Oregon is just an example of how political the human can be. Our LNC has been just as dysfunctional as our federal congress. Oregon is an example of humans fighting over politics.

In game theory, you must ascertain the objective of the game before you pick a strategy. In Oregon, the objective of the game is to play the game. Trying to win or lose is incidental, and for some it would be considered an error.

This is identical to what happens at the national level; people playing politics rather than achieving a “victory” at the end of the game. The modern Libertarian plays politics and confuses that for a “victory”.

Oregon is just a microcosm of the National LP.

I can always score a game looking at the opportunity cost. Candidates in Missouri would love to have the legal fees paid to the attorneys for Oregon to use on their own campaigns. But that might lead to success, and that is not the object for the LNC or others in National.

In the past month I have received at least seven emails requesting money for: ballot access, convention costs, general fund, and the office/closet fund.

How many emails have I received requesting money for libertarian candidates? Zero

Nick and his new team have a long way to go to regain a reputation for pragmatic solution based politic. Like Bush is blamed for Obama’s failures, Nick and his team will be fighting the past mistakes of those that came before him.

In the meantime, why would you complain about Oregon LP when that behavior can be found all over?

The Oregon LP has no power, but look at the resources being spent to run it. Evolution yeah?

It will be interesting to see the state-by-state votes when they become available.

“I have trouble believing that the chair’s ruling was intended as a Hail Mary play to achieve re-election.” – Tom Knapp

It’s the human desire to see intentional patterns, presuming results are all part of someones plan, that leads people into conspiracy theories (and religion).

Often, actions taken in the moment have no grand forethought to them. Given that rulings by the chair can be overturned by the convention, I’m dubious of any claim of a chair trying to control the actions of a convention. If a Neale was capable of doing that, he would have had a much easier time of it behind the gavel.

Joe,

What is it that you suspect/know that Wagner really wants?

I have always been unclear about what the true motives of both sides are in this, and it does look like there has to be something else they are both after.

I think you’ve got it Joe,

The funny thing is, even when you tell people exactly what Wes Wagner intends to do, and exactly how you can stop him from doing it — Many people keep trying to use aggressive methods to get him to stop.
Its as if they have an addiction to authoritarianism.

(which is pretty sad in the Libertarian Party)

Fritz,
You are probably correct in your choice to not get to close to this. It has been a drain on everyone in the Oregon party for far too long.
Can we move forward?
Yes, the LPO has in most ways already moved forward. Certainly there is the continuation of a lawsuit the could (and in my opinion should) be dropped, but the party is conducting business better than I’ve ever seen it run. More people are involved, more candidates are running for elections, more people are doing activism.
Can the national party move forward?
I believe that it could move forward too. It simply has to stop engaging in this battle. For years I have been asking those from other states to do one thing to help fix Oregon.
I usually state it more politely, but the message I’ve been giving is “mind your own fucking business” All the LP has to do to disengage in this battle is to except that the governing body of the LPO that will be accepted by the LP is the one that is recognized by the SOS of Oregon.
This would mean that if the Burke/Reeves faction wins their lawsuit the LP would recognize them. If they do not, they will recognize the Wagner faction. They don’t have to continue to debate which faction or group is the biggest set of bastards. Its not relevant.
They would also have to recognize that all state affiliates are autonomous. The most recent decision from the convention floor is that the national party can overrule a state and decide who they choose to represent them.

What most delegates don’t know or recognize is that there authoritarian response is the crack in the LP that will allow the controversy to continue. In past threads, I have explained Wagner’s strategy. What is now playing out on the national stage is a repeat version of what has played out on the Oregon stage. If you want it to stop, the LP must disengage in the discussion of which group is the better group and 1) use external criteria to determine which group has authority. 2) follow the rules and bylaws of the organization.
There have already been too many instances in which the LP did not follow those two simple requirements and have broken the trust of those who care about local autonomy. In order to regain our trust, the LP needs to find some way to prove they will not continue to break their own rules and to violate the local organizations.

Mark Axinn,
Were you aware that M Carling had not recused himself from the credentials committee in 2012 (when he was deciding which group was the Oregon delegate while he was a party in the lawsuit)?

If so, why would you even consider appointing him to the credentials committee in 2014?

“Thomas Knapp July 1, 2014 at 10:22 am
Hey Mike — you’re in Florida, aren’t you? I just re-joined the LP, so hopefully we’ll meet some time soon!”

Holy shit, Tom Knapp is back! What happened to Tom being done with the LP, and done with electoral politics?

re: Region 5N will henceforth be known as “The Land of No Steenkin’ Badges”.

Correction: The region formation paperwork named it the “Region of Badassery” until a numerical designation may be assigned.

Ah, Oregon… I admit to being mostly ignorant of the specifics of the fight there (yeah, yeah, I am in the next state north, but this all seemed like nothing to get too close to). The fight has lasted for five or so years now, right? They have two groups with utter dislike and distrust for each other and enough resources to engage in dueling lawsuits — that much I have figured out. I gather some of this is a proxy war between factions in the national party — showing another case of “Why we can’t have nice things”. Is there any way forward or is this going to just keep grinding on for another decade?

Jill Pyeatt Post @ July 2, 2014 at 10:30 pm

“LOL, Nicholas (plus, now we’ve hit 500 posts!)”

Jill, Paulie, what’s the record? didn’t one of them go over 1,000 a couple of years ago?

Sometimes when my children don’t get what they want from me, they run and ask my wife.

Just a thought.

Stewart is correct.

With respect to the Credentials Committee, I attended part of their meeting. What you are about to read is not an exact transcript, but I believe that captures much of what was said about Oregon. Dr. Lieberman moved to approve all state delegations except Oregon, and then to discuss Oregon separately. Someone indicated that M Carling had said that there was a controversy over the Oregon delegation. Emily Salvette said very emphatically that there is no controversy over Oregon. The national chair and the judicial committee have clearly and unambiguously ruled that there is one Oregon state party, the one with Wes Wagner as its chair. M Carling claimed that the LNC had voted six times that the Burke faction was the correct affiliate of our national party. Emily Salvette then gave historical background on the matter, with her version of the background sounding to me to be correct. She emphasized that the Libertarian National Committee had not spoken to her. The Judicial Committee had not spoken to her. They might have made rulings, but they have not addressed them to the Credentials Committee. M Carling indicated that the question is before the courts. Salvette said that in Oregon everything is before the courts. Gary Johnson of Texas asked: after we accept all except Oregon, do you have a motion? I believe the question was formally directed toward Scott Lieberman. Kane indicated that the issue was very important. Someone observed that California has 50 open slots for people from other states. Therefore, the Burke faction delegates will be seated. J.J. said that the committee should not cause an additional controversy. There was a motion on the floor to approve all except Oregon. The motion was defeated many-1. Gary Johnson and Beth Duensing moved to approve the entire list of delegates. The motion passed. Salvette hope that Wagner would see people from Oregon who want to be seated. At about this point, M Carling resigned from the Credentials Committee, and Burke departed the meeting. M Carling made a specific statement as to why he was resigning, but I didn’t transcribe it. Sorry.

During the opening bit of the convention, there was a motion to seat three Oregon delegates from the Burke faction with the Oregon delegation. I rose to a point of order, and urged that the motion was out of order because it violated article 6, section 5 of the bylaws. Geoff Neale unfortunately ruled the motion was in order. The delegates were forcibly inserted into the Oregon delegation. It seems that the three Burke faction delegates somehow convinced the National Committee that they got to choose the Oregon delegation head, and chose one of their number as the delegation head. Readers will be shocked, truly shocked, to learn that this action did not go over entirely well with the delegates from our state affiliate.

At the end of the convention, M Carling rose with a motion to ban the LNC from apologizing for or retracting the actions of the outbound National Chair or the Convention. That motion did not reach a vote.

Jill

Even moreso he was the deciding vote. Anyone who claims alliance and friendship with him owns that act too.

Mark

M Carling was supporting a bylaws swap using the same method we did in Oregon before we did it … he then reversed himself when we did it before Burke did it.

He is without honor and his actions in this and other states have proven it true so many times it is impossible to not notice unless you want to be willfully ignorant.

The assertion at the convention was that the three added delegates did not use LPO procedure to seek to join the delegation.

Dave,
I think you vastly underestimate Marks lung capacity

Wes Wagner >July 2, 2014 at 1:08 pm

“Like when you committed battery against Mr Vetanen because he said something you didn’t like?”

The incident which you have made into a ’cause celebre’ had absolutely NOTHING to do with WHAT he said, but the aggressive manor by which he expressed himself.

My response was purely a reflexive action based on the fact that he suddenly, without warning,
(or provocation) turned, jumped in my face and screamed an obscenity at the top of his lungs.

I have absolutely NOTHING to apologize for.

Mr. Wagner has no authority to have rejected them as delegates if they asked according to LPO policy. If he had taken that action, I would have immediately requested his resignation. Likewise, Mr. Wagner has no authority to disaffiliate the LPO from the LP. He may (and likely will) request the leadership call for a special convention which asks the membership to decide the issue. But if he tries to take authority not granted to him, he would find himself without a platform from which to stand.
Which he needs to stand on to operate his pulley.

States being oppressed have a variety of other approaches to dealing with a rogue National Chair, National Party, and convention. (That’s not the current chair.) Attempting to reduce greatly the influence of the national committee comes to mind, as for example via propaganda. Ignoring the next national convention and its actions comes to mind. The Arizona approach…if we ignore them, they will ignore us…works poorly for the mythical let alone the real ostrich, and also worked poorly for Arizona.

The national party is under serious financial stress. While the LNC did save money by buying a poorly-chosen part of a building, that money has already been spent, so the building fragment is creating no free funds for political action. Doing things that may annoy donors is disadvantageous.

But on that point, I can’t see why Mr Burke and his associates would not be registered Libertarians.

Some of them may be registered Republican. Otherwise, they probably are.

So what’s the problem with them asking to be seated? Are they all just that pig-headed that they can’t ask?

Yes. They don’t recognize Wagner as legitimate, so they are not going to ask him for anything at all.

Is it giving in to ask to be seated?

From their point of view, yes, it is.

This set a seriously troublesome precedent. Allowing the body to seat delegates in a state that did not ask for the delegates is a direct violation of our rights as affiliates. I have no direct knowledge of the events that led to them not being in the Oregon delegation, but I was told that they never even tried to be part of it.

Agreed.

Is it possible that Mr Wagner would have seated them if asked in advance? Whether he would or wouldn’t have, t I can certainly understand the negative reaction to having the convention dictate to an affiliate — any affiliate — who their delegates will be.

So can I. However, I think he is reading too much into how deeply most delegates understood the issue.

What can be done to prevent such a precdent from being followed with more of the same in the future? JC has no jurisdiction over convention.

Dave Terry

Like when you committed battery against Mr Vetanen because he said something you didn’t like?

Wes Wagner
The “gut instinct” of a libertarian should be to not use force to achieve their goal

The OPERATIVE term is “a libertarian should not ‘INITIATE’ force to achieve their goal

BIG DIF!!!!!!!!!!!

Wes Wagner

The LNC delegates voted to abridge our autonomy again. This will be taken under consideration and we will reconsider our relationship with this party.

WHAT relationship? Clearly, your concept of “autonomy” trumps every other standard, by which Libertarians are defined. Your “faction” has, from the beginning, considered itself above and separate from active Libertarians.

Delegates to the Libertarian National Convention are not required to be members of the Libertarian National Committee (d/b/a “the Libertarian Party”). They can be state-only members, and not all states require the pledge certification. Missouri, for example, does not require the pledge and has on occasion chosen delegates who were not national members.

The Oregon LP accepts registered Libertarian voters as members. That’s their call to make.

I can say this much: if they did that to South Carolina, FOR ANY REASON, I would be in our next state executive committee meeting urging disaffiliation.

I hope this can be settled, and I hope that Mr Wagner gives Mr Sarwark at least some amount of time to try. He’s been chair for less than 72 hours…

This set a seriously troublesome precedent. Allowing the body to seat delegates in a state that did not ask for the delegates is a direct violation of our rights as affiliates. I have no direct knowledge of the events that led to them not being in the Oregon delegation, but I was told that they never even tried to be part of it.

Is it possible that Mr Wagner would have seated them if asked in advance? Whether he would or wouldn’t have, t I can certainly understand the negative reaction to having the convention dictate to an affiliate — any affiliate — who their delegates will be.

What if they decide in 2016 that there are extra delegates that can’t be seated and they want to take South Carolina’s unused slots? We came close with 9 of 13 this time, but we almost never fill up completely. If delegates approach us we may consider adding them, but we would certainly object to being told by the body that they were seating delegates in our state without our permission.

As I recall, everyone in South Carolina voted against this. My guess is that most small state’s delegations voted no as well.

paulie

I did take the microphone and asked the body to not abridge our autonomy. When someone says no, and you proceed anyway, what is that?

The “gut instinct” of a libertarian should be to not use force to achieve their goal.

I don’t think it seemed like force to most delegates who had not delved into the issues. They just simply thought it made sense that you had open spots and everyone should be seated. If you don’t think about it any more deeply than that it does seem to make sense.

paulie

The “gut instinct” of a libertarian should be to not use force to achieve their goal.

Paulie

I think Fred’s post clarifies exactly why that is a problem that cannot be rationalized away.

At the point the majority of delegates at convention believe they have the right to use force against a delegation (whether they agree or disagree with the delegation) they have shown that they don’t understand the underlying philosophy necessary to make sound decisions.

Burke’s argument that they would seat both sides and that there are lots of empty slots sounds compelling to the average delegate who has no understanding of the Oregon issues or of why this has bad implications for state delegation sovereignty. It sounds like a compromise and like your side is being petty. I know that is not what it is, but only because I have read and talked a lot about these issues.

The LP will probably learn this term why having a judicial committee does not work.

The entire Starr playbook has been played out in Oregon, we won.

Now national has to fight the exact same battle that we (in Oregon) already know how to win.

The Judicial committee’s purview is specifically described in Article 9, Section 2 of the bylaws.

Nowhere within that description do I find anything resembling “deciding whether or not it likes something Nick Sarwark said.”

They would call it an action of the LNC.

Jill,
Those that wish to take over the LPO may have been trying to get us to disaffiliate. That in itself is troubling and would potentially be reason to not fall into their “trap”
But the larger issue is that TOO MANY OF THE PEOPLE AT CONVENTION were willing to choose our representatives for us.
This is an unfortunate recognition that they are not worthy allies. To me the question isn’t which side someone agrees with, the question is, “should the national organization be able to tell the state organization what to do?”
When the majority of the members at the convention believe that they can force each local organization to accept the representatives of the national organizations choosing–then the national organization becomes something that we can no longer have a relationship with.
If the majority of the body doesn’t recognize the foundational concept of autonomy–they will continue to try decide between wrong choices.
They have no compass and try to discover North by watching the birds fly.

We have been having a similar discussion with Republican candidates who are seeking our endorsement. They point to the issues they have in common with us and say they only have a few areas we disagree–so we should vote for them.
But they don’t recognize that despite the things we agree on, they still believe in using the force of government to make others agree with them.

At the point the majority of delegates at convention believe they have the right to use force against a delegation (whether they agree or disagree with the delegation) they have shown that they don’t understand the underlying philosophy necessary to make sound decisions.

Nota2016? Really Knapp? Why rejoin the party if you’re simply going to resume the position of an adversarial troll? Do you just like the smidgen of attention?

If you feel the party should not be involved in electoral politics then go form a non-profit. The LP was formed to compete politically, not to be the standard bearer for libertarianism.

If you feel you have to back nota two years in advance, then that’s intellectually dishonest. Wouldn’t your time be better spent recruiting a candidate that you prefer? Or are you just giving up because you’ve finally realized that you’re simply no good at political strategy and your candidate would most likely lose at convention?

Nota is an option at the last minute if no qualified candidates step up or an extreme event occurs such as the 2012 chair race.

To shout nota two years out is like a toddler clutching his toy demanding that no one touch it — laughably childish for a grown man.

Joshua Katz the LP News could use something like that. If you have the time you might consider doing something similar. I’m not trying to rope you into something that you don’t have time for but we really need someway to spread the knowledge around.

Well, yeah. Except for the complete lack of anything that any sane person would call “power”. It’s one of the things that has always puzzled me in LP things over the decades — people get into all sorts of drama over organizations which have virtually no resources. Very confusing.

Indeed, Jill, that is correct. Until the major bylaws revision in the LPWA, state officers and SEC members were elected to two-year terms in odd-numbered years.

Michael Wilson, I agree. I suspect, though, that at national convention we see less mistakes and more deliberate action, while below that there’s more mistakes and lack of knowledge. I think a column would be good. There was a basic summary in the delegate bag. I used to write a parliamentarians corner that I included in the email where I sent out minutes, when I was state secretary.

Maybe the affiliate support committee can hold classes?

On Sarwarks motion, it’s worth noting that there wasn’t technically any debate on it. There was a point of order, an appeal, and debate on the appeal. As soon as the decision was upheld, a motion was made that was taken as a motion to postpone definitely, which passed.

“So it sounds like the only “hooded key holders” who remain on the LNC are Wiener and Mattson, no?”

I have said in the past that while they have influenced him at times, Mr Wiener is not a hooded key holder. I have no knowledge of or reason to believe that Mr McMahon is one. If he is, he joined recently. But his boss is/was one and was referred to by someone speaking at this convention as “the godfather” of his state party.

Olsen is not a key holder, but he is influenced by them.

Small correction: I gave the report on ballot counting.

The only person who can apologize for the action of the former chair without involving the JC is the former chair. He should, and it should be done before he is appointed our ambassador.

At the meeting and after: This appears to be the first time in a long time that the Chair did not get his choice of ExComm members, and that *after* he had modified his choice of ExComm members and apologized to people.

Knowing the people involved I think Jill is right on the money.

George Phillies: “With respect to OR, the LNC is discussing setting up a new libertarian under some name party in Oregon, if Oregon disaffiliates, without considering whether the LPOR may take positive action in response, action against the LNC”

If you are basing this on the post-con LNC meeting, They did not consider this. I believe it was mentioned by Redpath that if Oregon disaffiliates, and the LNC sought some other means of getting our 2016 nominee on the ballot, the downside would be that the nominee could not be listed as the “Libertarian Party” nominee but as something else, as the Wagner Group holds ballot access rights under that name.

This was not a proposal, but a listing of the consequences of such a disaffiliation. I think it was even in a response to a member’s question of what the consequences would be, to help make the decision wether to issue the apology or not.

If the Wagner group disaffiliates, I don’t see how they would have standing to prevent the national LP putting its presidential nominee on the Oregon ballot without the Libertarian label. If it was WITH the LP label, then they might have standing to act, depending on Oregon law.

No motion was even on the floor concerning actions to take if Oregon choses to disaffiliate.

M Carling did not recuse himself on the credentials committee twice… why would he now?

He is a man without honor.

If something on this goes to the JC and Carling does not recuse himself then he should be removed.

“Wes has already said that the point is moot, as negotiations have broken down.”

What was the nature of these “negotiations”? All I saw was that the LNC wasn’t about to issue a apology without some consideration first, which the didn’t have time for on Sunday.

Was the wording of the apology, and a timeline specified by Wagner? No deadline was mentioned at the LNC meeting other than an date when the Wagner faction LP Oregon state committee would be meeting, and would be able decide on their actions, if any.

Of course, Nick doesn’t need a motion or a vote for him to issue a public personal apology for the convention’s/past chair’s actions.