As our regular readers know, what started out almost a month ago as a thread for live updates from the Libertarian Party national convention has turned into a thread for LNC discussions and updates. It is now the thread with the most comments in IPR’s six-plus year history, with well over a thousand comments at this time. While some people have expressed a wish to continue using that thread, others have given up on it because it takes too long to load and scroll to the end of the thread depending on your internet connection, browser and/or device. Thus, I’m putting up a new thread for those who would prefer one, while others are welcome to keep using the old thread if they wish to do so.
So far, the new term of the LNC has focused on two controversies: LNC transparency, particularly as it relates to internal communications, and Oregon, especially in relation to outgoing chair Geoff Neale’s controversial ruling that a motion to seat the Burke-Reeves delegates in the Oregon delegation over the objection of delegation chair Wes Wagner was in order and incoming chair Nick Sarwark‘s attempt to have the new LNC apologize for that ruling in an attempt to make peace with “the Wagner faction,” which is the party recognized by the Oregon Secretary of State and in control of ballot access for Libertarians in Oregon as well as the party recognized by the national LPHQ, per a ruling of the Judicial Committee in 2011.
On the issue of transparency, the LNC passed by a vote of 11-5 chair Sarwark’s motion to make the LNC emails from this term public. Dan Wiener proposed a motion to exclude any email marked confidential by the sender from the public archive as well as any email quoting any portion of any email marked confidential by the sender; that motion failed by 6-10. At first, a public reflector of the LNC-discuss list was created and at this time remains available as an archive, but it was found to be unsatisfactory because the individual sender of each message was not identified unless they chose to sign their emails (all messages are shown as coming from LNC reflector). In response, Sarwark and HQ asked LNC members to move all of their conversations to the LNC-business list, which was previously only used to make and tally votes, with discussion held on a separate list. That separate discussion list has now been frozen, with new messages going to the business list. This allows LNC discussions from this term to be public, with the sender readily visible on each message, but does not make LNC discussions from past terms equally accessible to non-LNC members. You can subscribe to LNC-business at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lncvotes and choose individual message delivery or daily digest, or view it on the web and choose to group messages by thread, subject, author or date.
On Oregon, Mr. Sarwark’s motion failed by 5-11. A more qualified version authored by Dan Wiener is currently being voted on through July 29, and at this time leads by 7-5 by my informal count:
Yes: Wiener, Sarwark, Feldman, Kirkland, McLendon, Hagan, Vohra
No: Mattson, Goldstein, Lieberman (alternate, superseded), Johnson, Oates, Estrada, Hayes (alternate, superseded).
Full members who have not yet voted: Redpath, McMahon, Olsen, Lark, Tomasso.
Aside from Oregon factional and email list transparency controversies, the votes the LNC has held so far this term have been non-controversial: A motion to create the ceremonial position of international representative, as directed by the convention, passed by 16-0 (Alternate Daniel Hayes voted no, but was superseded). A motion to set the date/location of the next LNC meeting as Alexandria, VA the weekend of September 20-21, 2014 at a hotel within walking distance of the Libertarian Party headquarters passed by 17-0. There will be a new office Grand Opening ceremony on Saturday evening, Sept 20. LNC members have been introducing themselves to the group, and there has been some discussion of electronic meetings, but no motions to that effect yet. The proposal being floated for the December LNC meeting is to have it in New Orleans in early December, but there is no motion yet. There’s been some discussion of spending $1200 to put an anti-top two argument in the Oregon Voters Guide, but no motion yet.
In IPR comments, Nick Sarwark has said he will try to make a simulcast of the September LNC meeting available.
Further updates will be in the comments.
^
New thread is up. Please move further discussion there.
I just read the message. We negotiated a higher rate for 2016? That’s insane! We were guaranteed $99/night by Mr Rosen himself (I was there), so if Helms -Briscoe raised the party’s cost they should be sued for misrepresentation.
I hope that I misunderstood what Robert wrote and that we eventually got the $99 rate we were offered.
We tried using them before. Using them, the 2016 convention would have been $139 or more a night. We went around them (since they were not involved in us looking at the hotel at all) and got $99/night.
They are a waste of money for an organization of our size and meeting requirements.
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/001491.html
Interesting.
Mattson wants to use Helms-Briscoe
for convention site selection.
Kraus points out this will result in room rates $20-$30 higher.
It was decided at the last meeting that the next 2 would be in person. The LNC also may set guidelines for other committees to have electronic meetings. It would appear to me that if the LNC fails to do so, those other committees can still have meetings and make their own guidelines, within the parameters of our parliamentary authority and bylaws.
I proposed authorizing borrowing rather than asking for extensions on payments. If we want to work with, say, the Hyatt chain in the future, it would probably be good to pay our bills on time.
I also mentioned that I’d hope we could control costs for our next meetings, given that we don’t have any money beyond what we need to pay, and we don’t even have that much. I have suggested using a suite instead of a meeting room that requires the purchase of $2k in food and beverages. Perhaps we could also make do with less staff at the meeting.
Details not available yet. Something about writing a 90k check to the hotel, which is not a good sign, but I could be misinterpreting that.
It allows the LNC to consider electronic/phone meetings, but does not mandate them. No motions for any such meetings have been introduced, although there has been some discussion. The actual meetings that are being planned are a September meeting near DC and a December meeting in New Orleans. No actual plan for any phone or web meeting yet, othe than what already existed before the bylaws passed (email discussions and email ballots for LNC and phone conferences for EC).
How did the Convention do? Didn’t they pass the Conference/Online/Ohone Meting bylaw if it’s so bad?
Meanwhile on the LNC list the alternate from Alaska is arguing that top two is a good thing and that LP.org blog doesn’t need to be updated any more frequently because there are other libertarian blogs out there and because LNC members could be writing op-eds in newspapers. Daniel Hayes, meanwhile, seems ambivalent on top two. There’s a disjointed conversation-fragment that alludes to some sort of strife in the Texas LP without any details, with a couple of LNC members saying the LNC should stay out of it. Also, more votes on non-controversial motions for an LNC meeting December 13-14 in New Orleans and one appointing Dr. Lark as an international representative (in addition to Geoff Neale). Also some more discussion of just how bad the current financial hole is.
Paulie,
The question isn’t “what is an acceptable means for an organization to thrive?”
The question is, “is this a successful strategy to reach our goal?”
I would suggest that if our goal isn’t based on manipulating based of power, this organizational structure isn’t helping us accomplish our goals.
If I don’t hear too many objections I’ll post a new one of these tomorrow, or tonight after midnight if I am still awake.
Wagner wrote; “They did not even ask our side of the story. I can only speculate that was because the Reeves/Burke side of the story was so uncompelling that they did not feel the need to even get a counterpoint view before issuing their ruling.
……..so HOW MUCH did you contribute to Secretary Brown’s reelection campaign? :>)
Wes Wagner July 31,
“There was something different about this case.”
You can say THAT again!
” They called me up and asked me about what Burke/Reeves had filed because it looked suspicious.”
So, WHY did the SOS call YOU and didn’t call Mr. Reeves, et al.? WHAT, if anything, was suspicious,
“I advised them that it was a rump event and to disregard their filing”.
…..and they agreed without question? And without checking with Mr. Reeves at all?
Now THAT’S suspicious!
To answer Paulie.
1. No the outgoing officers did not usually, much less always, notify the SOS of a change in officers.
2, Generally it was the responsibility of the new officers to notify the SOS of the change (usually, at least one of the four officers was carried over.
3. There was something VERY different about this case; previously, the ‘outgoing’ officers did not refuse to acknowledge the NEW officers. Wagner & Co were the first.
4. BUT, if their Wagner bylaws continue unchanged, it WILL happen again.
.
I was actually surprised when they issued a ruling at all, to be honest. When the Trout ruling came out, I had no idea they had even taken the matter under consideration. They did not even ask our side of the story. I can only speculate that was because the Reeves/Burke side of the story was so uncompelling that they did not feel the need to even get a counterpoint view before issuing their ruling.
Thanks for the additional info.
I can try to answer some of the other questions:
“What had past practice been when officers were replaced…did the outgoing officers always inform the SOS that the new officers were legit each time?”
What I have typically seen is that all parties are copied on the communications and it can go either way. The lack of transparency of the Burke/Reeves filing added to the suspiciousness of it.
“Were there times when the new officers were the only ones available to inform the SOS?”
Not that I am aware of.
“If so, did the SOS accept their paperwork?”
I don’t think it has ever happened.
“If outgoing officers were on the losing end of a party election and refused to acknowledge new officers would this always cause the new officers to not be recognized by OSOS, or was there something different in this case…if so, what?”
Unknown. It is difficult to speculate what the SoS would do. Even though the Reeves group says that the SoS will only act on the authority of the chair of record, that is not what the SoS actually said. Just like the overly interpret rulings from the national judicial committee, their lawyer overly interprets the SoS. The SoS had previously made an affirmative ruling on who they believed the chair of the LPO to be. That letter ruling made during the 1st district special convention was never appealed. Under the APA that made it a fact not in dispute from the position of the SoS – so later references to the chair of record actually hinged on their previous decision on the matter. It does not mean that they will never evaluate the administrative status of an individual on a forward basis as Tyler Smith contends… it just means they have no intent to do it in this case because they already decided the matter.
Thanks, that is more like an answer I was looking for.
I’ll leave this tangent for others for now.
On a different note, should we keep this thread or start a new one for August? I am not looking to beat the comment record again.
Thanks. What exactly? And please answer the other questions too (anyone who knows the answers).
Note the received date.
http://oregonvotes.org/doc/cand/bylaws_lib.pdf
The SoS was well informed that the party rules had been changed, the manner in which it was done, who was involved, etc.
A new set of minutes and assertions of leadership from a group of people that had zero congruence with what they had on file so soon after such a major change, is going to be suspicious.
There was something different about this case.
What exactly was suspicious about it? What had past practice been when officers were replaced…did the outgoing officers always inform the SOS that the new officers were legit each time? Were there times when the new officers were the only ones available to inform the SOS? If so, did the SOS accept their paperwork? If outgoing officers were on the losing end of a party election and refused to acknowledge new officers would this always cause the new officers to not be recognized by OSOS, or was there something different in this case…if so, what?
There is a part of the whole Burke/Reeves narrative that people don’t get or seem to understand. The SoS didn’t just keep me as the “chair of record” because I existed. They called me up and asked me about what Burke/Reeves had filed because it looked suspicious.
I advised them that it was a rump event and to disregard their filing.
They did not simply fail to accept the filing because the current chair of record wasn’t the one who filed it.
I believe there is a chain of succession, ie vice chair and so on.
If the whole state committee died in a natural or man-made disaster of some sort…dunno, under Oregon law they might be screwed? Good question, Joshua.
What would happen in Oregon, under state law, if a chair of a party died in office? (Shouldn’t need to be said, but this is a hypothetical, not a death threat.)
I’m sorry if anything I wrote led anyone to think otherwise. Of course, I agree with you in both respects.
Organizations without judicial committees frequently take their internal disputes to outside courts instead. A JC may resolve disputes before it gets to that. That’s why many organizations have them.
Paulie, my search turned up only that the LNC can call a convention in a year that there isn’t scheduled to be one, not that some number of sustaining members can demand one. I think that should be something that can be done – obviously with a higher threshold than a JC appeal – actually, it should have to be a very high threshold, with perhaps some requirement for regional and state ‘spread’ in those petitioning.
I agree with eliminating the JC, and not only because of the problems I outlined above. Several points have been raised to me by others (I will write to them and see if they’re ok with me saying who they are.) One is that many JC candidates are disappointed office seekers for other offices. What makes us think that is a good qualification for overseeing the LNC’s judgment? More generally, why should we think that people elected, with no special qualifications other than longevity, know better than the LNC? Additionally, motions that require a high threshold, in a committee formed by electing officers, at-large, and regional representatives, can be overturned by a simple majority on the JC – but rescind or reconsideration by the LNC itself would require a higher threshold – which is true even for motions whose adoption required only a majority. How is that logical?
As far as there being no final arbiter, yes, it seems impossible and unworkable, which is why I decided, without logical justification, to hold that the JC decision stands unless reversed by the JC or a convention. However, there is a sense in which there is no final arbiter – that is, each person still has the right to an opinion. It is only when it comes to action that a final decision is needed.
I would strongly disagree that the LP’s structure is anything along the lines of “do as we say or else.” While I’d like to see the party run in a more libertarian way, it’s not being run as a dictatorship at present. The LNC cannot decide what goes on in a state, but it can, and must, decide who it is going to recognize for its own purposes – who gets data dumps, who submits slates (subject to RONR provisions, but you’ve seen my arguments on that point if you read LNC business,) etc. The LNC did so, was appealed, and overruled. The LNC believed 1. that the appeal was illegitimate and outside the jurisdiction of the JC and 2. that the JC issued an overly broad ruling. They passed a resolution to that effect. I have an opinion on which side is right, you have an opinion, everyone has an opinion. We all can hold our opinions, but it is logically impossible for actions to follow all our opinions.
To run a voluntary organization in a particular manner is not always authoritarian or statist, although it may be. I am a left-libertarian, and tend to think that exclusion by race, even in a private organization, is authoritarian and not compatible with a free society (although it is compatible with one following NAP, because I don’t think NAP is sufficient for a free society.) In any case, I think it is rather absurd to consider it a statist mindset to think that, in a dispute between the LNC and the JC, some outcome must be reached in order for actions to take place.
As far as having multiple voluntary organizations each going their own way – we do have that. The LP is not the only organization in the world. For example, there’s the Elks. They do things very differently from us – they aren’t libertarian, don’t run candidates, etc. There are also other libertarian organizations, such as Mises, FEE, etc. If we want multiple political parties that are libertarian, we can have that too, just organize some. It raises more logical impossibilities, though, if we insist that they all have the same name. If the idea is that the LP itself should have multiple affiliates in each state, I would disagree – but why not suggest the bylaw change and see what comes of it? Or, better yet, form another party to run libertarian candidates, and organize that one to have multiple affiliates in each state. I think it would be a disaster, particularly given how our election system works, but give it a shot.
However, I must ask – when we have multiple competing voluntary organizations, each doing things their own way – will not at least some of them have governance of some sort, perhaps even bylaws and officers? In fact, I think all will find it necessary. Then members of each can complain that it is authoritarian and that we need multiple voluntary organizations…
Here is a quote that was recently provided to me from Henry Robert:
“Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there
is the least of real liberty.”
paulie
We are recognized by the Oregon SoS because he have the chain of custody f the organization.
We are recognized by the registered libertarians in Oregon for a similar reason as above, and because we have the popular support (which matters in politics… oddly enough)
There are reasons why more than 5 people show up to our events. 😉
You mean as recognized by the state or as recognized by the national LP? The two don’t necessarily coincide, although they may.
For example, in Arizona a few years ago there were two factions – one which followed the letter of some state regulations and one which refused to do so on principle. Paradoxically, the state courts recognized the faction that did not follow state rules. But the national LP recognized the other faction – the one that did follow the state rules but was not recognized by the state. Go figure. Somehow, the factions resolved their differences there eventually.
To take another example in Alabama some years ago we had a local affiliate that did not like the state party, and declared themselves to be the actual Libertarian Party of Alabama. However, neither side had ballot access or any recognition as a party by the state. Now, fortunately for us, the faction that was not recognized as our state affiliate by the national party didn’t seem to care about the national party and never went crying to them to recognize them instead. But what if they had? National would somehow have to make a decision, right? And the state recognition wouldn’t have helped us in that case, since neither side had any.
As a side note, in case anyone cares, the South Alabama faction eventually drifted away from the LP altogether. At one point in 2008 they got us to have the state convention down there, 250 miles or more from most LP active members, and said they would bring a large group of people and reunite the two factions. What happened instead was that they all (the local folk that is) went to some Ron Paul or Campaign For Liberty event. One guy showed up to LPA convention and proposed we dissolve the state party. The motion failed. He continued to host a local supper club which at some point stopped calling itself the Libertarian Party. But in the meantime they had a webpage for a number of years which said they were the “party of principal” (I deduced that this was because they gathered no interest). Sorry for the sidebar, but I hope I have illustrated my point.
“There’s one state affiliate in Oregon and two groups that claim to be our affiliate. If the LNC and JC disagree which group that is, someone gets to make the decision that gets implemented. You can still disagree, but a decision has to be made. There’s nothing statist about that fact. We aren’t going to have recognition of multiple statewide affiliates per state any time someone claims to be the real LP of __________ state. That’s not statism, it’s just sanity”
And none of those decisions changes the reality of which group is actually the Libertarian Party of Oregon.
I guess someone else can accuse your LPO of statism as well because you participate in state elections, define a state as your territory and use state voter registration as your membership. I understand you also have an executive board that makes decisions, i.e. a final arbiter.
Bunch of damn statists!
LOL.
Our structure does not prevent dissent.
There’s one state affiliate in Oregon and two groups that claim to be our affiliate. If the LNC and JC disagree which group that is, someone gets to make the decision that gets implemented. You can still disagree, but a decision has to be made. There’s nothing statist about that fact. We aren’t going to have recognition of multiple statewide affiliates per state any time someone claims to be the real LP of __________ state. That’s not statism, it’s just sanity.
Fred
Change yourself as the first step to change the world is difficult for many people. It is necessary … but difficult.
We will fail if we don’t take that first step.
There are ways to create an organization that promotes connections and shared resources, but does not create a structure that prevents dissent.
Yes, it is a voluntary organization– but the structure is set to the default position of –do as the organization wants or don’t be a part of it.
I think that is a very poor model on which we would build leaders to promote freedom.
What we seem to be building is a structure that teaches leaders how to use authoritarianism to get their own way. This may seem like a valid strategy, when leaders are promoting less governance, but in practicality that line of thinking was used when this country created its structure– and we know what the results of that line of thought has created.
We can do better–but only if we are willing to purge our desire to control systems and gain authority.
It might.
That would be a non-voluntary system taking precedence over a voluntary system.
Exactly.
I wouldn’t expect any different interpretation from you.
We are a voluntary association. If you want to have “each direction” be explored what is the point of an organization at all? Sounds like a way for individuals to do their thing which is fine; just go ahead, you don’t need anyone’s permission.
No, it doesn’t. In your organization, national LP, national association of parliamentarians, audubon society or any other organization you can think of decisions get made, which means not everyone will agree, therefore some structure has to exist to make decisions. It’s not a hallmark of statism for that structure to have more than one branch; if anything, the opposite.
Statism has to do with the decisions being involuntary. Since we are a voluntary association statism does not apply to our internal governance.
There’s no point in having any kind of organization at all of any kind if there is no final arbiter empowered to make any kind of decision.
George
Sometimes the final arbiter is an organic system… not an individual or structure.
Whether or not “first to grab the cookie jar gets the cookie” depends on the relative merit of challenging that process/system. That could be the final arbiter…. it might not.
Likewise, to dial it back the LP, if the LNC fights the Jud Comm, and the Jud Comm fights the LNC, and they are fighting over the attempt to commit an immoral act, the final arbiter might be a bankruptcy court. 😉
The LNC and the LPUS ARE voluntary organizations.
However, at some point if there is an agreement to generate a shared resource, some process has to determine how the resource is expended. That process is the final arbiter, even if it is ‘first grab in the cookie jar gets the cookie”, that process is the final arbiter.
If the process is JC can overturn LNC *and also* LNC can overturn JC, then the final arbiter is either ‘current state of system’ or ‘must reach agreement’.
The notion that there is no arbiter appears not to be possible.
The non-apology after careful scrutiny, shall be interpreted as:
“We don’t agree with them, but some people though us raping you was wrong and we want to let you know that.”
Or we could try to set up our own organizations to remove the power structures and let each direction be explored through voluntary associations.
It may not be uncommon–but it also may not be a good structure to help create a free and voluntary society.
“Someone has to be a final arbiter”
This just shows how deeply rooted statism is.
It’s not a matter of authoritarian positions. In any form of governance, including voluntary associations, which we are, there will be disputes over which direction to take. Someone has to be a final arbiter. It’s not at all uncommon for organizations to have a judicial committee, nor is it uncommon to have disputes over jurisdiction and who is the final arbiter between legislative, executive and judicial branches.
Arguing which branch of the Libertarian Party has the most right to authoritarian positions, shows that our tendency toward statist solutions run very deep.
If we want to rule and exclude each other–how will be any better if we are elected to public office?
I saw that, and I agree.
The problem with the LNC overruling the JC, if in the judgement of the LNC the JC exceeds its authority is at least two-fold:
1) JC would then serve no purpose as you point out. On the last Bylaws Committee Aaron Starr took this position to its logical conclusion and proposed eliminating the JC entirely.
2) In this particular case, the whole basis for LPHQ currently recogizing the Wagner group is that the JC is supreme even when the LNC believes JC exceeded its authority. Thus, it would be illogical for those resting on that argument to claim JC will have exceeded its authority if it rules the other way, based on whatever narrow pretext.
Personally I do not believe the JC should be eliminated or ignored.
I’ve been told there is already a provision for a special convention. Is that correct, bylaws experts? If so, what does it take?
Paulie – you’re basically asking who guards the guardians, ie how do you correct the JC if you believe they have acted improperly, either by taking a case not in their jurisdiction or making a broad ruling not justified by the appeal. This has been discussed on the list, and my opinion remains that nothing can be done, and the LNC will have to let the decisionstand aand act accordingly, as will hq, except that the LNC cannot be forced to vote any particular way, but voting in a manner that contradicts a ruling might be appealable.
I take this position with no real justification. You’re probably familiar with the argument that we right now live in a state of anarchy, since if, say, the potus disagrees with scotus, the only resolution is for one to give up, or both to take up arms. Maybe that’s why Cheney shot his lawyer. Anyway, that seems to me to be the case here too, so we’re really just choosing.
However, what are the alternatives? If the LNCcan ooverrule the JC, then the JC has no purpose. To say there is no general rule and each case must be dealt with individually is rationally defensible, unlike my position, but provides no guide to action. To put a fine point on it, the JC rules, the LNC resolves, but data dumps have to go somewhere. I think the JC should be eliminated or reformed. I also think there should be a provision for members to call for a special convention, since a convention can overrule the JC. It needs to vote to do so directly, though.
I agree.
Paulie,
Right, Still stinks, with what the state has to pass and fight off this cycle
BTW if anyone is wondering, the pace on the LNC has picked up quite a bit with discussions of December meeting details, Dr. Lark as an additional international representative (both now motions but not controversial ones) and a controversy over opening up LP.org blogging to LNC members again and/or allowing reader comments on posts at LP.org blog again that has not produced any motions at this time. Also a few new posts about Top Two. The list is hopping again (compared to a few days ago) but the motions aren’t controversial and the controversies are not motions (at least not yet).
I think Wes W annd friends will say that two successive national conventions effectively disaffiliated them and anything they do is in response to that.
paulie,
after all that disaffiliation anyway? well, hopefully legalization and GMO passes and top-2 fails.
Stewart, it never occurred to me to time my vote either to get in ahead of the regular region rep or to defer. If I felt strongly about something and wanted to vote on it I would vote early. If I had to think about it I voted late. If I didn’t care much and/or did not see my vote making a difference I would just not vote. Whether I got superseded or not was never a major concern.
If a JC expanded a somewhat-related case to do that, who would overrule them and say they don’t have the right to do that?
I expect something related to Oregon will get appealed. Not sure what exactly – it may be the motion that just passed, or LPHQ’s de facto recognitin of Wagner et al., or something that has not happened yet.
I believe Wagner said there will be a vote by his LPO to disaffiliate or effectively disaffiliate from national on August 4. National may then take some actions in response.
Regardless of the pathway I expect it (IE something about Oregon) to end up in JC this term, most likely this year, and the ruling to be a broad one, not a narrow one relating only to the exact subject of the appeal, and given who is on JC I also expect it to come down on the Burke/Reeves side. That’s my prediction, not my hope.
An alternate voting on the last day makes sense, since you want to give the rep time to vote. That’s the polite way to do it. When I served, alternates would frequently vote the first day, then seen if their rep voted. Some still do that from what I can see…
I don’t think you can appeal actions pursuant to a previous JC decision to the JC. The motion that just passed can probably be appealed, though I’m not sure it will be.
George, not much to say on the Secretarys post. The numbers speak, which you saw. I hope that the EC will consider them, as well as the LNC when voting. I believe both will.
I vote late because I’d prefer to vote either on the last day or after my rep.
Some people vote early, others vote at some point during the ten days as they see who voted how and consider the arguments on the list (or just get around to it), and some people habitually almost alwasy vote on the last of the ten days for email ballots – Dr. Lark comes to mind among the latter.
Dr. Lark abstained. 9-7-1.
As I understand it that means it passes, unless enough votes change (today is the deadline, by midnight pacific iirc).
All full members voted except Rich Tomasso, and Joshua Katz voted for their region.
This also creates a more substantial opening to bring a case to the JC than Arvin having ruled a motion in order that ultimately failed and the LNC upholding that ruling.
There’s also the chair’s and LPHQ’s continuing official recognition of Wagner et al. (data dumps, LP.org, state chairs list) per the 2011 JC decision that Mattson, Burke and others believe is void because they say it exceeded JC jurisdiction.
Not trying to string out the responses…had another thought on the issue: while the second motion is certainly not as good as the one that was defeated, it is better than being silent on the issue.
It may not be exactly what Mr Wagner wants, but it is far more than his opponents want him to have. That is a victory.
It should only take a few minutes to make up your mind on something like this. Why does everyone wait until the last minute to vote?
Oh…that motion. Ok. It had been out there so long I’d almost forgotten about it. 🙂
Norm Olsen voted yes, making it 9-7.
Josh Katz has voted no, making it 8-7 (unless Rich Tomasso votes, which he has not yet done).
Bill Redpath voted yes on Wiener Oregon, making it 8-6.
No, a more weakly worded apology to the Oregon LP. Sarwark’s more strongly worded one was defeated.
The better transparency motion by Sarwark passed, and Wiener’s attempt to water it down failed.
Mark Axinn got a hold of LSLA and we should be getting videos of the LSLA seminars including the petition panel we were on and some others, hopefully soon.
Stewart,
That one was defeated.
George
Is this the motion to require messages labeled confidential to be censored from the public list?
Paulie, many thanks for the Links.
Does any one want to predict the fate of the new Oregon motion? Before the vote is counted, I mean?
George
Dave Terry,
You are welcome to create conditions for membership on whatever basis you desire, however–when it comes to the “members” of a political party being discussed in the Oregon Revised Statutes you must use their definition.
The rules they are explaining are for the definitions that they are using. You can’t try to create your own definitions and apply your definitions to their rules. They supply the definition for the very purpose of clarifying who they are talking about.
You may find the law restrictive or not to your liking. That doesn’t change it from being the law.
George, regarding responses to Alicia on the financial picture see
Wes Benedict http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/001375.html
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/001376.html
Dan Wiener http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/001379.html
McMahon has now voted no, making it 7-6.
That’s possible. We did have some lulls last term, and this term they don’t have me to keep things hopping. But then again they may have submerged. I don’t have high hopes for finding out if so, but I may as well ask.
I am pretty sure there were some replies.
Perhaps no one has anything to say. After all, Last term they could have an argument over Starchild or Mister Starchild.
Note that Alicia Mattson’s excellent demonstration of the LNC’s dreadful financial position also evinced no comments.
It seems no one on Dan’s list wants to discuss it in any way here, but in case anyone does, I don’t think the volume of the list has to be a secret. Last term Dan commented about its volume at least once on the LNC discuss list which he knew was getting publicly reflected. Of course you can’t mention the specific content off list since that is a condition of being on it.
LNC list is completely dead now…no voting, no discussion.
I wonder if we have been talking about them too much here and drove all their discussion underground?
Wiener Oregon motion voting goes til Tuesday evening. No new votes on that since the last update several days ago.
Lotsy–
Thanks anyway.
Would anyone on Dan Wiener’s non-public LNC list be willing to let us know how the volume on that compares with the volume on the public list so far this term? I never joined that list last term (thought about it but never did) but was told the volume was fairly low compared to LNC-discuss, which was not officially public, but everyone on the list knew it was getting publicly reflected.
Paulie, Thanks. Mark, Nevermind.
NY has to have NY registered voters only circulating petitions.
And Mark, If I could walk, You’d probably have another part-timer there after Kentucky wraps. Next year/2 years. 😉
Thanks!
That does not mean I don’t make lots of mistakes and have to take some people on faith. (The biggest problem with petitioners, both paid and volunteer, is that they often promise much more than they deliver. As coordinator/manager, I have to take some of what they say at face value and hope for the best.)
I wish I could do it all with just people who score 100/100 as Libertarians, but that ain’t happening. I have been able to weed out the bullshit artists from those who produce, and am just using the latter.
BTW, I have over a half-dozen different paid petitioners working right now so there is no one person who contracted for the whole show and then is sub-contracting it out to others whom he manages. I understand how that works.
And I agree. My point was that this did not apply to this particular crisis situation, which I agree was entirely avoidable.
Andy–
How many $40,000-plus, 25,000-plus signatures in six weeks petition campaigns have you managed? This is my third in five years.
I am very happy with my petitioners right now.
i do not blindly take somebody’s word when they proclaim to be libertarians, especially if they are in the petition business (a business which is filled with bullshit artists / hucksters). I observer their actions, listen to what they have to say, and prod them on the issues in conversation. The bullshitters/fakes who falsely proclaim themselves to be libertarians always seems to end up exposing themselves as such if you spend enough time observing them and talking to them.
Mark Axinn said: “Fully agree. I cannot run the New York campaign without a lot of help from Libertarian candidates, volunteers and paid petitioners (who happen to also be enrolled Libertarians or, as we are not a recognized party in NY, fellow travellers). I have been approached by many mercenaries, and we are not using them.”
I know for a fact that there are non-libertarian mercenaries who petition for the Libertarian Party of New York every time there is an LP of New York petition drive. Either they are using witnesses to sign off on the declarations and you don’t know that they are working, or they have bullshitted you into believing that they are really libertarians when I know damn well that they are not really libertarians. I only know of one person who I’d classify as a Libertarian who regularly works as a paid petitioner in New York, and I know who many of the petition circulators are even if I’m not there.
The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of bullshit artists in the world of petitioning who will tell a proponent whatever it is they want to hear just as long as they are writing them paychecks. One week they are Libertarians, the next week they are Greens, the next week they are Republicans, the next week they are Democrats, and so on and so forth.
I do not throw the term “libertarian” around lightly. I consider it like being a black belt in jiu jitsu. The only way to become a black belt in jiu jitsu is to have other black belts in jiu jitsu say that you are black belt, and the black belt test that I use is not easy to pass.
I’ve actually caught several bullshit artists over the years who claimed to be libertarians just so they could suck up to people who were writing their paychecks, and it was only upon further examination of them did I find out that they were not really libertarians.
” paulie Post authorJuly 27, 2014 at 10:07 am
Andy, while everything you wrote in the middle of the night after my last comment is true, none of it applies to a case when there were twelve days, no experienced or capable petition drive manager on the ground involved with the campaign or the state party, and the actual Libertarian petition pros that do exist being busy elsewhere. Thus, in this particular circumstance it did make sense to call Rob Wilkinson. What could have been done if NH asked national for help back in May or June is a separate question.”
Like I said before, the Libertarian Party has been running petition drives for over 40 years now. We SHOULD have it down to a science. We (as in the party) SHOULD be “pros” at it by now. The Libertarian Party should have its “act together” enough by now to where Libertarian Party candidates are not put in desperate situations like this.
” George Phillies July 27, 2014 at 10:21 am
I believe that blaming ‘NH’ is a bit obscure. The effort was being run, so far as I can tell, by Gardner Goldsmith, who has never run a campaign of this sort before, and who did not realize the challenges at hand. By the time he realized what the issues were, it was too late.”
State affiliates should do more to support their candidates. Really, considering that New Hampshire if the Free State Project state, and considering that this was a chance to have a Libertarian run in a race where Republican carpetbagger Scott Brown would be one of his opponents, one would think that there would have been more support to get this Libertarian Party candidate on the ballot. I mean with all of the libertarians in New Hampshire, they could not come up with any money and only 200 petition signatures. This is pathetic.
I’m open to explanations of what exactly I am getting wrong.
When Nick called me, he was upset that no one told him there was a problem earlier, when there was more time to figure out a way to solve it. He called me a day or at most two before the EC vote was held.
If someone let him know a couple of weeks earlier it very well may have been solvable.
I understand that neither Mr. Goldsmith nor LPNH officers have a lot of money at their disposal, and that Goldsmith doesn’t have prior experience running petition drives. I assume they all or almost have phones, computers and access to internet connections, though.
Paulie,
You are making a certain assumption that is not well-founded.
George
Paulie ALSO wrote: “Here?s a previous explanation from the other side that addresses the issue of who is a member specifically:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/06/oregons-burke-helping-other-3rd-parties-benefits-lp/#comment-886058
I?m not saying anything about who is right or wrong by introducing it for consideration”
At least you have the common sense, not to criticize what is an excellent exposition of the use and misuse of the term “Member”.
Nor would I presume to improve on Mr. Burke’s (is the apostrophe in the correct place, Jill?)
explanation. I can ONLY add that we, as human beings, are “MEMBERS” of a multitude of groups, some voluntary and some not.
Hypothetically, when I (temporarily) registered as a Democrat in the California Primary in order to defeat Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and much later, when I reregistered as a Republican to support Ron Paul’s campaign, did either of these actions indicate that I was an
actual member of the Democratic or Republican Parties??????????????
I would like to see that video too. Paulie was not feeling well, but he made many good suggestions for petitioning and Bill and I both spoke about it from a slightly different perspective.
I will see if I can get it.
Stay on top of it and see how things are progressing as they go. Also very cheap – it may require a phone or internet connection plan, or perhaps a little gas money. Failing all that, use the USPS or a carrier pigeon.
And if your state party and the candidate don’t have money and can’t raise hardly any, make the call to national earlier than two weeks before the deadline. National may or may not have agreed to step in a few weeks earlier, but we won’t know because no one from the campaign or the state party asked, or even informed anyone at national how far behind they were.
It doesn’t take having millions of dollars, or indeed any, to pick up the phone and ask your nominated candidate what he is doing to get on the ballot and provide him with advice.
“They proactively tried …” They also didn’t give him a $20,000,000 campaign kitty.
What is your basis for your implicit claim that they could do these things?
Paulie wrote: “So all the state LPs, and national, that have dues paying and/or pledge signing membership are immoral? I don’t agree.”
This must be because you are not an egalitarian mob-o-crat!
Wouldn’t know where or how, but if you can get it, please let me know.
They proactively tried to make sure he was on top of managing the petition drive correctly, and he refused their advice? They repeatedly warned him that the way he was running it was going to fail? They approached LNC months ago to let national know that he was not on track to succeed with the way he was running, that he was ignoring their advice, and that outside help was needed?
Paulie,
Please get that recording. When I get well and caught up would love to keep going when I can, on ones I believe in.
Also, Limited support from State Chair. That’s another issue. May not be financial, but other support. We know David is not winning this time. Neither is New York’s Standard Bearer, Yet their chairs are going all out for them. Winning is not that issue right now. Eventually is may be, but they are going all out to get them on, then the candidates need to get their message out and give the voters an option.
I believe that the LPNH did what it could for him.
The LPNH nominated him at their state convention, or so I have read, leading to me believe that they were aware that he was their nominee.
Supposedly yes. I was hardly at my best but I’d still like to see it.
True. Although I thought I saw above that he did ask the state party for help and didn’t get much.
George, Did he reach out to NH Chair? Did NH Chair reach out to him? When did he decide to make it a race? Those can be important questions as to who didn’t get contact to LNC earlier (either LNC, New or Old).
I believe that blaming “NH” is a bit obscure. The effort was being run, so far as I can tell, by Gardner Goldsmith, who has never run a campaign of this sort before, and who did not realize the challenges at hand. By the time he realized what the issues were, it was too late.
Paulie,
Did anyone record your Petitioning seminar thursday at Convention?
Andy, while everything you wrote in the middle of the night after my last comment is true, none of it applies to a case when there were twelve days, no experienced or capable petition drive manager on the ground involved with the campaign or the state party, and the actual Libertarian petition pros that do exist being busy elsewhere. Thus, in this particular circumstance it did make sense to call Rob Wilkinson. What could have been done if NH asked national for help back in May or June is a separate question.
Mark Axinn did it the right way:
“As far as planning, I started raising money about six months ago, contacted the LNC about three months ago, had many follow-up conversations with members of the prior LNC, had many conversations with members of the current LNC, etc. etc.”
Ken Moellman did it the right way.
Unfortunately, NH did not. They replicated the approaches that have been known to fail again and again many times in many years all over the country – try to get the job done with just volunteers and inexperienced local petitioners hired for a dollar a signature off Craigslist. They got about what may be expected with that approach, 200 signatures. Then they waited until two weeks before the deadline to ask for outside help. The LNC tried to help, but it was too little, too late. The proposed budget was 15k, and the LNC was stretching itself to provide 9.9k of it. However Gardner Goldsmith wasn’t confident he could raise the rest of the money (over and above what the LNC was committing). Rob Wilkinson wasn’t confident he could hire enough petitioners to complete the drive (plus town distribution) in twelve days. At least he was honest about that, unlike some petition companies would have been. I wouldn’t have been confident in my ability to get that done in that time with that budget if I was in his place, even if I took zero override. There was nobody to call all the Libertarian petitioners, and all the ones I know of are busy elsewhere.
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
This was a case where there was no proper prior planning. They tried to reinvent the flat tire and got stuck in the mud, then called for a rescue while the mud was already up to their nostrils, and drowned.
Most unfortunate, but with twelve days left the problem was not that they called Rob Wilkinson.
Andy wrote earlier:
>I was making the point that large, grassroots activist organizations like the Libertarian Party ought to be able to coordiante their own petition drives “in house,” so there’s no need for a “hired gun” freelance mercenary coordinator, and the party should have its own petitioners as well, who all come from the grassroots activist base, instead of hiring non-libertarian mercenaries to represent them on the streets to the public.
Fully agree. I cannot run the New York campaign without a lot of help from Libertarian candidates, volunteers and paid petitioners (who happen to also be enrolled Libertarians or, as we are not a recognized party in NY, fellow travellers). I have been approached by many mercenaries, and we are not using them.
As far as planning, I started raising money about six months ago, contacted the LNC about three months ago, had many follow-up conversations with members of the prior LNC, had many conversations with members of the current LNC, etc. etc.
Long live Bill Redpath. He is vital to our success.
Nick Sarwark has also been a tremendous support (as was Geoff Neale before him). Nick inherited a commitment and has stood by it. In fact, he has called to see what else he can do to help.
Long live the LNC.
“”paulie Post authorJuly 27, 2014 at 1:31 am
‘Somebody in the LP could have just called the petitioners directly.’
Who is that somebody?”
And…Who would they call? All LP pros are busy on other projects right now that I can think of.”
The LP has been doing ballot access drives for over 40 years now. The LP should be “pros” at this by now. There is enough institutional knowledge in the LP to where a list of experienced petitioners should be in hand, and most of the names on the list should be Libertarians (the non-libertarians should only be called to fill in the gaps).
The fact is that the Libertarian Party has cultivated a culture of laziness and non-activism, as in most Libertarians don’t want to “get their finger nails dirty” by interacting with “the plebeians,” as in going out in public and asking people to sign petitions or to register to vote under the Libertarian Party banner, and also signing people up for the Libertarian Party announcement list and handing out Libertarian Party pamphlets, flyers, DVD’s, etc… I guarantee everybody that if more Libertarians got off of their asses and did stuff like this on a regular basis that the Libertarian Party would be bigger and more successful than it is. If a Libertarian does not have the time or inclination to do these activities, then donate some money and hire actual Libertarians who WILL go out and do these things. Whether they are paid or unpaid volunteers, the Libertarian Party needs more field activism. There ought to be Libertarian field activists on the ground in every state who go out and interface with the general public.
The Libertarian Party does NOT need any more petition circulators, the Libertarian Party needs more FIELD ACTIVISTS who also gather petition signatures. Yes, there IS a difference, and if you don’t know what that difference is then you are a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. If you want to be a part of the solution, then take part in increasing Libertarian Party field activism.
Some of you people reading this just don’t seem to get it. Almost every petition drive that the LP does could be handled by a small team of Libertarians. Really, as few as 5 actual Libertarian petitioners could knock out ballot access drives in states like Pennsylvania and Illinois.
I can usually get between 700-1,600 plus signatures per week by myself on an LP ballot access petition. If I have a bad week I may get less than that, like maybe 400-600. The biggest problem is lack of access to high foot traffic locations. This is why I think that it is so vital for the LP to develop strategies for breaking open access to high foot traffic locations. Libertarians who are attorneys by profession ought to write form letters for dealing with different types of locations (libraries, colleges, DMV’s, festivals, etc…). The letters should be faxed to whoever is in charge of said venue, as well as to the city attorneys, the heads of police departments, the Secretary of State’s office, the Attorney General’s office, etc… The letters should then be followed up with phone calls. Sometimes all it takes is a letter and/or a phone call from an attorney to get the thugs to back down, as in to stop harassing petition circulators.
I talked to Ken Moellman recently about what is going on with the LP drive in Kentucky. Petition circulators were running into problems with the police, security guards, etc… Ken is not even an attorney, but he got the police in Lexington to back off a bit by threatening to hit them with Section 1983 law suits if they kept harassing petition circulators.
If I’m able to work in areas with decent foot traffic unmolested (as in without being run off by the police, security guards, government bureaucrats, store managers, etc…), I can reliably get 700-1,400 signatures per week, under most conditions, and even more if the conditions are good.
I personally collected 10,000 signatures in 7 weeks on the petition to Recall Governor Gray Davis in California back in 2003. This was from around the middle of May until the first week of July, and was in southern California, mostly Los Angeles County, but a little bit in Ventura County, Orange County, Riverside County, and I even went up to Santa Barbara County for a couple of days.
Some states are more difficult than others, but I’ve pulled big numbers for the Libertarian Party in multiple states, from Pennsylvania (I once did 400 signatures in 4 hours on an LP ballot access petition there) to Arkansas to New Mexico to North Dakota to North Carolina to Maryland (to name just a few).
5 Libertarians could knock out 40,000-50,000 signatures in states like Illinois or Pennsylvania before the deadline, if the petition drives are started on the first day they can circulate, and if petitioners are not run out of a bunch of high traffic locations by the police, security guards, etc… Yes, that’s right, 5 Libertarians could do this.
Like I said above, I did 10,000 signatures in California to recall Grey Davis in 7 weeks, and this was in an environment that included hostile Democrats and lots of foreign people (who can not register to vote, and can’t sign the petitions). Access to locations was good in California, and the weather was nice much of the time, although it did get uncomfortably hot in some places some days.
Candidate and party ballot access petition drives generally require far less signatures than it takes to qualify an initiative, referendum, or recall for the ballot. So you really do not need large crews of petitioners and mercenary managers. A small team of actual Libertarian petitioners and one or two state party members to count signatures and cut checks is all that you really need for any LP ballot access drive.
Yep.
Yep.
Nope.
You already said that earlier.
Duh. I was quoting you and that is a cover of her song.
Who is that somebody?
And…Who would they call? All LP pros are busy on other projects right now that I can think of.
“paulie Post authorJuly 27, 2014 at 1:28 am
Whoops, I did it again.”
Reminds me of Britney Spears.
Why did the LNC have to call a non-libertarian mercenary who did not tell them anything that Paul or myself could not have told them? They could have just read the comments here at IPR and gotten the same information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WGsMplGxU
Somebody in the LP could have just called the petitioners directly. There was no need to hire a middleman. The job is not that big. 5,000 raw signatures is nothing for a petition drive. This certainly did not justify a middleman to take any of the money.
The LP should have more actual Libertarians who are experienced in ballot access drives, and who can be called upon for these things. Notice how there has been little to no effort in the last 14 years to recruit actual Libertarians to work as petitioners. Am I the only one here who thinks that this is pathetic and disgusting?
Paul said: “I don’t think there was enough money for that. Rob likes to take a pretty fat override, like 50% or more.”
The override factor is just one reason of several that the LP should not hire non-libertarian mercenary coordinators. Given the difficulty of this job in New Hampshire, especially with the short time frame, there really was not even enough money in the budget to pay an override to a mercenary coordinator and still have enough money left over to make the deal appealing at all to any pro petition circulator. Even if the coordinator only took a .50 cent override, that would have left $2.50 over to pay the petition circulators, which was really not enough for this job, especially since they did not offer any expense money for travel and motels.
paulie Post authorJuly 27, 2014 at 1:00 am
‘Oh bullshit! I don’t think that the person that was called has ever even done anything in New Hampshire,’
Dunno about that, and even if not, point was petitioners from other parts of New England could drive or bus in quickly rather than driving, and some may have even been able to commute from home (and motels are pretty expensive in NH).”
There are not that many pro petitioners in New England. When they have petition drives in Massachusetts they generally bring in a lot of people from other parts of the country to work on them. Maine brings in out-of-staters too, even though on initiatives they have to have witnesses (not on candidate or party petitions though). Most of the Maine based petitioners are part timers who do not travel.
Also, just because an experienced petitioner may be based in a New England state, it does not automatically mean that they’d have been available to work on this LP job in New Hampshire. Some of them have other jobs outside of petitioning, and others could be working on petition drives that are happening in other states right now, like Arkansas or Colorado (to name just two states that have paid petition drives going on right now).
Realistically, they would have called whoever they could to go to New Hampshire, and would likely have ended up calling petitioners from around the country.
“become ”
Should read, “because of the expenses involved.”
I figured that being on the LNC would cost me a good $8,000-$10,000 in expenses per year, plus it could be more if the meetings caused me to miss work, which in the line of work I’ve been in for the last 14 years, can generally not be made up. I just had a hard time justifying losing that much money, so I backed out of running at the last minute.
Dunno about that, and even if not, point was petitioners from other parts of New England could drive or bus in quickly rather than driving, and some may have even been able to commute from home (and motels are pretty expensive in NH).
I don’t think there was enough money for that. Rob likes to take a pretty fat override, like 50% or more.
I’m starting to regret not running for the LNC at this past national convention. It appears that after observing LP ballot access and the LNC in action for the last 14 years that the party is never going to get it right. This appears to me to be a case where if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.
The only reason that I did not run is because I was not comfortable with being on the hook to attend all of the meetings, given the travel expenses, and more importantly, the opportunity cost involved with attending the meetings. I had a rough outline of a speech prepared, and I had several people lined up who agreed to endorse me, including a couple of State Chairs, a State Executive Committee member, and two sitting LNC members. I decided to not go through with it only become of the expenses involved.
“Should read, “take and override…”
Whoops, I did it again. Should read, “take an override.”
“take and override ”
Should read, “take and override…”
W
Why is it considered to be such a “radical” statement that the Libertarian Party should handle its own ballot access, in that the party should NEVER hire non-libertarian mercenary coordinators, and that most of – or ideally all of – the signatures should be collected by actual Libertarians? I’ve been saying this for years and a disturbing number of LP members seem to think that this is some kind of “radical” statement. I don’t get what is so “radical” about it. It seems like common sense to me.
“paulie Post authorJuly 27, 2014 at 12:25 am
‘ Why is it that when they finally got around to calling somebody’
Needed to be someone with experience running drives in New England. There wasn’t time or especially money to fly people in.”
Oh bullshit! I don’t think that the person that was called has ever even done anything in New Hampshire, and keep in mind that New Hampshire is a more difficult state for petitioning for ballot access than Massachusetts is. This person was not going to collect any signatures themselves, all they were going to do was call up petition circulators and take and override off of them. I doubt they would have even found enough petition circulators in the New England states, so they probably would have had to have gotten petitioners from other parts of the country.
“paulie Post authorJuly 27, 2014 at 12:28 am
The NH is on LNC, both last term and this term.
As for ballot access committee, I did volunteer to be on it once again and have had zero responses.
I was on it before and…we’ve been over what happened in past threads.”
The LNC ballot access committee is a joke. It quickly lost any credibility it may have had when Paul was removed from it for no reason that stood up to intellectual scrutiny, and with Starchild being the only LNC member to even bother to raise an objection to this.
So back to the original point, they should have asked national for help earlier.
“Losty
July 27, 2014 at 12:23 am
Andy,
I agree with you. (Except Accountability, either from LNC or State Party, Or Outside Coordinator if for no other reason as to send a bill and verify counts.”
Actually, with somebody with a track record like myself, you don’t even need that. You could have literally paid me all of the money up front and the job would have gotten done with me working by myself, just so long as I had gotten in there by sometime in May or early June. Having said this, it would have certainly been OK to have somebody from the LP of New Hampshire to verify the signature counts and to write the pay checks.
The NH chair is on LNC, both last term and this term.
As for ballot access committee, I did volunteer to be on it once again and have had zero responses.
I was on it before and…we’ve been over what happened in past threads.
Needed to be someone with experience running drives in New England. There wasn’t time or especially money to fly people in.
Andy,
I agree with you. (Except Accountability, either from LNC or State Party, Or Outside Coordinator if for no other reason as to send a bill and verify counts. Think of it as who you turn the expense account into.). And it gets back to not every drive that would take more than one circulator for has the same leadership as Ken, Mark, Paulie, or even yourself. Heck, the NH Chair didn’t appear to contact LNC, the Candidate directly had to.
If I didn’t work with Ken before, I am not sure I would have known about David. Oversight is important by LNC, and if Paulie and/or you isn’t on a Ballot Access Committee by next LNC meeting I’m not sure they should have one.
I am looking to work with others the way I do best (Political Promotion and Merchandise, especially during my illness). However, This is another way to help. Howard Dean had his 50-state solution. The LP may not be ready to win elections immediately, and they do not have the supporters to be on the ballot for all partisan offices. However, to not be on a ballot for Any statewide elections in a state is upsetting to say the least.
“I’ve been to every state accept”
Should read, “I’ve been to every state except…”
I would have loved to have gone to New Hampshire. I’ve been to every state accept Alaska and Hawaii, but New Hampshire is one of the state in which I’ve spent the least amount of time, as I’ve just passed through it a couple of times. I’ve been wanting to check out the Free State Project for years, and I’ve been wanting to go to Porcfest for years as well. This would have been a great opportunity, and I damn sure could have gotten this candidate on the ballot if I’d gotten there in May or early June. Really, I would have even gone there back in January or February when I was just hanging out in Florida after the Medical Marijuana petition drive ended (I had no decent work offers to go to). Sure, it was nice being in Florida, but it cost me money. I could have gone to the New Hampshire Liberty Forum in February. I’ve worked in cold weather before (I’ve gotten signatures in North Dakota in the winter), so I can take it.
I’m sure that there are lots of libertarians around the country who’d have love to gone to New Hampshire to work on this petition drive as that would have been a good opportunity to check out the Free State Project and go to Porfest. So why wasn’t anyone in the Libertarian Party, at the state level in New Hampshire, or on the LNC, putting th the call out about this months ago? Why is it that when they finally got around to calling somebody, they called a non-libertarian mercenary coordinator (who, to my knowledge (which is probably correct), has never personally collected even one signature for the Libertarian Party)? I find it ironic that when questioned about the feasibility of the drive, the non-libertarian mercenary admitted that they probably would not be able to get it finished given the short time and difficultly, which is the SAME thing that Paul and I both said right here in IPR comments!
There has to be accountability anywhere you go.
“”Losty
July 26, 2014 at 11:44 pm
Andy, You could have probably done it solo.”
No probably about it. I could have easily done it solo if I had gotten in there in May or early June.
“But then we go back to the Coordinator and leadership discussion. Some states have Ken and Mark, Some don’t. It took the Candidate to try a conference call at the last Minute. Ken asked earlier.”
The LP does not need any petition coordinators. I can coordinate myself.
“paulie Post authorJuly 26, 2014 at 11:22 pm
You were busy with other things, they didn’t have the money, and no one who knows how to negotiate with and manage petitioners.”
The only reason that I was busy with other things is because the Libertarian Party – of which I’ve been a member of since 1996 – is so screwed up and dysfunctional that the party does not have enough work to keep actual Libertarian petitioners working most of the year, particularly since the way that LP ballot access has operated for years the system rewards mercenaries (some of whom are best described as scumbags) and screws over actual Libertarians.
Andy, You could have probably done it solo.
But then we go back to the Coordinator and leadership discussion. Some states have Ken and Mark, Some don’t. It took the Candidate to try a conference call at the last Minute. Ken asked earlier.
You were busy with other things, they didn’t have the money, and no one who knows how to negotiate with and manage petitioners.
“Losty
July 26, 2014 at 9:27 pm
As paulie said, not all drives, and not all states have that option.”
This is complete bullshit. Every state LP affiliate has this option. You are acting like things are more complicated than they really are.
The truth of the matter is that a small team of dedicated Libertarians could knock out every ballot access drive that the LP has to do.
One or two Libertarian petitioners could have knocked out this drive in New Hampshire for this Senate candidate. Heck, if somebody had gotten me in there back in late May or early June I could have easily done the entire petition drive by myself.
Other than NH, the LNC list has been pretty quiet so far this weekend..
(Obviously NH, Sorry)
I can guarantee they could have made it if they asked for help at the convention like Ken Moellman did.
They kept screwing around with volunteers and inexperienced people off Craigslist for months and apparently somehow failed to realize they needed outside help until two weeks before deadline with only 200 or so raw signatures in hand.
That Explains it.. From the Draft Minutes:
Mr. Goldsmith reported that he has received almost no response or assistance from the New Hampshire state affiliate, except that a week ago he was provided a spreadsheet he could use for fundraising.
If the NC Chair came to the LNC, Heck, Even the Pre-Convention LNC, this could have been Very Different. No Guarantee that he would have qualified, but..
Paulie, Hearing that it’s sadder. Not sure there’s a Balance of Power issue and saving the Republic issue as with Kentucky, But it is still sad people don’t have other choices. Just 2 weeks. Goodness. How do they not know deadlines at least?
Draft minutes of exec comm call:
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/attachments/20140726/98bab437/attachment-0001.pdf
They could have most definitely got it done if they asked national for help a couple of weeks, maybe even one week, earlier.
Andy works on a lot of different kinds of petitions, and I have worked with him on many of them.
I am predicting a broad ruling. And regardess, being a plaintiff in the Oregon legal case would substantially prejudice any decision having anything to do with Oregon.
Indirect or not I predict it will influence the opinion rendered.
Not required by bylaws is one thing, having an ethical obligation is another.
As paulie said, not all drives, and not all states have that option. NY has Mark, KY has Ken, not all are that lucky. and i believe Paulie works on other drives. he even mentioned a legalization drive opened up in NV. Do you just do LP Party ballot drives?
NH may have a state chairman, and they were forced to hire out, and failed. Hiring a legitimate coordinator (in or out of the party) early enough, and requesting funding earlier could have gotten them on. Maybe not due to the state complications, as It seems very hard in NH, but more time would have helped.
Paulie – you’re talking a hypothetical. A person is not obligated to recuse himself from a case because the body could made a broad ruling unrelated to the matter appealed to it. Recusal can only be advised if the matter referred directly impacts the person. Procedural questions never impact substantive questions except indirectly. By the way, no one is actually required to recuse themselves unless there are specific laws or bylaws about it.
I’ve seen a few references above to expenses related to obtaining a building. Where is this building? I am an LNC member, and I only aware of the purchase of an office condo, not a building.
Great point, but not all state parties have people who are willing and able to be unpaid petition drive coordinators.
Also, in this case, with as late as the Senate campaign took to sound the alarm, there was not much time to negotiate separately with, much less manage, a bunch of separate petitioners. Also, many of the LP regulars are busy elsewhere such as the LP drives in NY and KY and the project you and I are working on, so are not available in any case.
BTW the EC vote was 6-1 with Alicia Mattson being the only no vote.
“paulie Post authorJuly 26, 2014 at 8:01 pm
Either one can be a coordinator, as I have always used the term, but that’s just a terminology/semantics issue.”
Yes, and I was making the point that large, grassroots activist organizations like the Libertarian Party ought to be able to coordiante their own petition drives “in house,” so there’s no need for a “hired gun” freelance mercenary coordinator, and the party should have its own petitioners as well, who all come from the grassroots activist base, instead of hiring non-libertarian mercenaries to represent them on the streets to the public.
The LP should NEVER hire a non-libertarian mercenary petition coordiantor (many of them are ripoff artists as it is), and most of the LP petitioning work should be handled by Libertarians as well.
Either one can be a coordinator, as I have always used the term, but that’s just a terminology/semantics issue.
“Losty July 26, 2014 at 6:44 pm
Mark,
Glad to see Paulie answered your question. Yes, you are the coordinator, The Party (And Hopefully National) is helping fund, And you are coordinating everything for turn in and cutting the checks to the petitioners, managing, verifying, etc. That is Coordinating.”
Yes, but there is a big difference between a proponent of a petition, which in this case is the Libertarian Party, having a party member, Libertarian Party of New York State Chairman Mark Axinn, acting as a petition coordinator, and hiring a freelance mercenary petition coordinator (as in somebody who is just a “hired gun” and not a part of the organization). Can you understand the difference? If not then maybe you are beyond help.
Just to further illustrate, we are talking about Mark Axinn, State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of New York, and long time Libertarian Party member. We are NOT talking about Mark Axinn Petition Management, mercenary for hire, who one month is working the Libertarian Party, then next month is working for the Green Party, and then next month is working for the Republican Party, and then the next month is working to place Top Two Primary on the ballot in Oregon, and then two or three months after that is working on banning smoking in restaurants in Orlando, Florida, and then a couple of months later is working on a blocking campaign against a city pension reform initiative in Mesa, Arizona, and a couple of months later is working to legalize marijuana in Michigan, and then 3 months after this is working on a Republican voter registration drive in California, etc….
Do you not see a difference between my examples of Mark Axinn, State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of New York and long time Libertarian Party member, and the hypothetical “hired gun” Mark Axinn of Mark Axinn Petition Management?
There is a list at http://www.lporegon.org/index.php/2014-elections/2014-primary-results but I see no contact info with the names. Unlike many other states they also do not have them listed at http://www.lp.org/state/oregon .
The EC minutes, available on the public list, confirm that the contractor in the aborted NH drive would have been Rob Wilkinson (my top guess). At least Rob was honest and admitted he was not confident in completing the drive on time; there are many petition company owners who would have knowingly lied, milked the LP for whatever money they could get and failed to qualify without batting an eye or losing a second of sleep.
Gardner Goldsmith also told the EC that he would try to raise the rest of the money (over and above the 9.9 k from LNC) but was also not very confident in his ability to do so.
Mark,
Glad to see Paulie answered your question. Yes, you are the coordinator, The Party (And Hopefully National) is helping fund, And you are coordinating everything for turn in and cutting the checks to the petitioners, managing, verifying, etc. That is Coordinating.
And to me, The State Party (That is recognized for Ballot access in the state if there is one, and the group attempting to qualify if there isn’t) is the Proponent. Kind of like the Proponents of an Initative Petition, But that’s just me.
Burke Reeves et al have literally set the LP on fire. They lost when it was said, by a judge that they had no case, yet they forge on. They lost when the LP recognized the Wagner LPO, yet they forge on. This is forgivable.
However, what is NOT forgivable, is the fact tbat they, instead of helping Libertarians in the state of Oregon, they are expending their energy / money to continue their private little struggle. They have caused a great deal of drama to gain lots of attention all across the nation, and this, in turn, caused a large number of people to sink even more money into this private little struggle.
With 50 candidates on the ballot this year one would think that priorities should be all about helping them. I guess they ar3 not interested in doing what a political party is supposed to be doing?
Since that is the case then some contact information for these particular candidate might be in order…
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
Thank you for everything you do.
I should note that even some of us who get paid also contribute tons of time and money, although of course not all.
Oh and just to make it a little more confusing – I’ve recently discovered that, unlike in the petitioner “community” (aka circulators), some people (including legal codes) use the term petitioner to mean person signing the petition, as opposed to the way petitioners (professional as well as volunteer) generally use the term, to mean the person asking folks to sign.
I would use the terminology a bit differently than Andy.
A coordinator/manager may or may not also be a proponent, or they could be a contractor or subcontractor.
A contractor or subcontractor may be a petitioner, coordinator/manager of petitioners, or both.
A proponent may or may not be a coordinator – that is, they may be hands on, or they might just hire someone else to do it and limit their own involvement to writing checks.
A proponent may or may not also be a petitioner themselves.
A proponent may be an individual or an organization.
In the case of somewhat large organizations, or individuals who take donations to run a petition drive, I would not really call rank and file members/donors who have given small contributions to the drive “proponents.” Someone with some managerial involvement in the drive and/or personally writing checks to petitioners, coordinators, managers and/or contractors (including on behalf of an organization) would be more of what I would think of when using the term proponent.
BTW I have been in all of these roles myself, both paid and volunteer. But I can see where the terminology could get a bit confusing at times, since all the roles can intersect depending on specific circumstances.
Who’s on first?
Americans Elect is a good example of an organization that that did not really have any activists, so they had to hire people to do everything. The Libertarian Party is actually a pretty large activist organization, an organization which has at least some organizational infrastructure in all 50 states plus DC. The fact that the Libertarian Party is a large activist organization actually saves the party a lot of money. One reason that Americans Elect had to pay out so much more money than the LP pays out to get on the ballot is because Americans Elect did not have any activists, so they had to pay people to do everything that needed to be done.
Losty
July 26, 2014 at 7:22 am
Andy,
Not sure he’s getting funded, due to his Chairman position, but to my Definition, Ken would be the “Contractor/Manager”, His job is to find you guys, and me until my leg got itself broke.
Coordinator may be a better term, as he’s coordinating contracting you, and working with his volunteers/members who want to submit a few as well, and the personal signatures of his members.”
“Mark Axinn
July 26, 2014 at 12:02 pm
Am I a coordinator? What does that mean?
I am spending hours a day, every single day of the week, dealing with the petition campaigns to get fifteen candidates on the ballot in New York. So far, we have approx. 10,000 sigs., which is about a third of where we want to end up on August 19. I’ve got several paid petitioners and more volunteers than I can count.
I don’t get paid, but I do contribute tons of time and money to the venture. That’s what working state chairs do. Instead of fighting about Roberts Rules and who is in my fucking delegation. Mobilize people and get out the damn message. I’m too busy fighting Republicans to fight Libertarians.
What’s my role?”
Uuuuggggggg! You people do not get it. If you are a dues paying member of the Libertarian Party, then you are the PROPONENT of the petition. The proponent of the petition could also act in a coordinator capacity, but in the world of petitioning, when one refers to a petition coordinator, they are referring to a hired gun who is NOT the proponent of the petition, as in they are a freelance mercenary manager. All dues paying LP members are PROPONENTS of the petition.
So, since there is no freelance mercenary manager, the petition is being run “in house,” as in the proponents of the petition drive, as in the Libertarian Party, are managing the petition drive themselves, which is exactly the way it should be.
Thanks Paulie.
Those were rhetorical questions! 🙂
Yes.
This:
Am I a coordinator? What does that mean?
I am spending hours a day, every single day of the week, dealing with the petition campaigns to get fifteen candidates on the ballot in New York. So far, we have approx. 10,000 sigs., which is about a third of where we want to end up on August 19. I’ve got several paid petitioners and more volunteers than I can count.
I don’t get paid, but I do contribute tons of time and money to the venture. That’s what working state chairs do. Instead of fighting about Roberts Rules and who is in my fucking delegation. Mobilize people and get out the damn message. I’m too busy fighting Republicans to fight Libertarians.
What’s my role? To keep the wheels moving and the machine working. We have a lot of evil forces here in New York, as IPR’s owner knows personally, who would love to see us fail.
That’s not a word we use in New York.
I’m sorry to hear that, since this could have indeed been a strategic race. It’s a shame. However, as I told you earlier it would have taken a very high rate of pay to insure success, and even the national party was not in a position to spend that kind of money (I read the discussion on the LNC list). I’m glad you at least had the wisdom not to attempt a hail mary and most likely fail.
Ken is a volunteer coordinator (that is, he is not himself getting paid, although he deals with paid as well as volunteer petitioners). One who knows what he is doing. Unforunately, NH did not have that and sounded the alarm too late to save their drive.
Volunteers can work when the goal is tiny … like <1000 signatures and there is nothing overly complicated about it. All of us with jobs can pound it out in a couple weekends without getting burnt out.
Anything larger and you really need dedicated professional people who have the grit to go out every day and knock it out.
I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve been told by the petitioning company that the drive cannot confidently be completed in time, so rather than spend the donor’s money on a failed effort, we’re calling it off.
We considered it prudent to check with the petitioning company to ensure he had a high degree of confidence in success of the drive prior to spending donors’ money, and he could not provide that confidence.
I am advised by Nick Sarwark that the NH Ballot Access effort has failed. The contractor said he can’t do it.
Andy,
Not sure he’s getting funded, due to his Chairman position, but to my Definition, Ken would be the “Contractor/Manager”, His job is to find you guys, and me until my leg got itself broke.
Coordinator may be a better term, as he’s coordinating contracting you, and working with his volunteers/members who want to submit a few as well, and the personal signatures of his members.
Ken Moellman is a good petition manager who now has a past successful drive under his belt, and he did not wait until twelve days before deadline to effectively get started. He doesn’t have to have one signature per page or town or congressional district distribution. Did I mention he did not wait until twelve days before deadline to start?
Apparently in NH they screwed around with local volunteers and inexperienced people off Craigslist at rock bottom pay for months, then waited til two weeks before deadline to sound the alarm after they realized that the redundantly proven methods of failing to get on the ballot were (surprise, surprise) on track to fail to get them on the ballot. With only a few hundred signatures in hand and thousands to go this is now a crisis, far from the far more intelligent way in which Kentucky was managed. Or New York, or Illinois, etc.
“paulie Post authorJuly 25, 2014 at 10:21 pm
There should not be “a ballot access contractor,” there should be multiple petition circulators who are each paid a minimum of $3 per signature plus expenses, and of course, ideally, they should all be philosophical libertarian activists.
There’s ideals and then there’s reality. The budget is 15k – and that is if they can even raise that, since the LNC portion is capped at 9.9k – and there’s most likely not anyone with the time and knowledge to deal with multiple contractors, nor any room in the budget for expenses at that pay rate.”
This is bull. There are 4-6 petitioners working on the LP petition drive in Kentucky right now. There is no one “ballot access contractor.”
The LP should cultivate a culture where actual Libertarians gain experience in gathering petition signatures, and whenever the LP has a petition drive, actual Libertarians do all of or most of the work.
True. It also makes a lot of people think we are changing their voter registration instead of just getting on the ballot.
There’s ideals and then there’s reality. The budget is 15k – and that is if they can even raise that, since the LNC portion is capped at 9.9k – and there’s most likely not anyone with the time and knowledge to deal with multiple contractors, nor any room in the budget for expenses at that pay rate. My guess is that there is a single person such as Rob Wilkinson, Harold Hubshmuck, Stavros Mendros, Edee Baggett or ripoff artist John Michael who is getting the three bucks and hiring people off the streets at a much lower rate. This person claimed they can get 3k valid with 5k raw within the short time frame alloted and is most likely keeping at least half the money for him or herself. Whether they can actual get it done we will see.
July 24, 2014 at 7:28 pm: That list of expenses does not include building or mortgage costs.
“If the ballot access contractor promised to take care of that, take that with some caution – unless their contract specifically says otherwise, they will still get paid even if the drive fails, so long as they get people to collect signatures.”
There should not be “a ballot access contractor,” there should be multiple petition circulators who are each paid a minimum of $3 per signature plus expenses, and of course, ideally, they should all be philosophical libertarian activists.
I have worked on ballot access drives in 32 states plus Washington DC, but I’ve never worked in New Hampshire, although I have long wanted to work there being that it is the home to the free state project. I can not do it now though, due to other commitments.
Every petition circulator whom I have ever spoken to who has worked in New Hampshire has said that it is a difficult state in which to gather petition signatures. It is a low population state with apparently not that many places where petition circulators can get access that have much foot traffic, and I’ve heard that a lot of people in New Hampshire are reluctant to sign any petitions (compared to people in some other states, or at least this is what I’ve been told). The petitions in New Hampshire are one signature per page (the only other state I’m aware of that does this is Florida), which means you’ve got to carry lots of pages and you have to use a different page each time you get a person to sign.
The last minute nature of this petition drive is yet another example of the Libertarian Party doing ballot access poorly. It has been known that this candidate was running for several weeks or months, but now with the deadline only 12 days away, the party is finally trying to get paid petitioners in there. The LP should have had paid petitioners in New Hampshire weeks or months ago, and the petitioners should have been actual Libertarians.
The petitions in New Hampshire have to be turned in to each city/town clerks office from where the petition signers are from, and this is a very arduous process. It will take multiple drivers to accomplish this in a short time frame.
It is possible that this could be done, but I’m skeptical that it is going to be successful. I would be less skeptical if more money were being paid out, but even with more money it would still be tough.
Like in Washington State, where that just basically translates into getting a thousand signatures on a “nominating” petition which is technically called an “outdoor nominating convention” but looks just like a regular petition drive?
Including president?
So 2,000 something registrations if you get 1% of the vote in a statewide or 10,000-something if you don’t, if I’m doing my arithmetic correctly.
(There are just over 2 million registered voters in Oregon)
Candidate performance metrics require that you get >1% in a statewide office in a 4 year period AND still have 0.1% of registered voters – otherwise you get dropped.
17,893 signatures — or an assembly of electors of over 1000 signatures of people assembled in one place to nominate you within a 12 hour period of time.
What are the candidate performance metrics? For which offices, and do they include president? Is there an easier qualification method for president only (say, as an independent)?
0.5% of all registered voters in Oregon if you are not hitting the candidate performance metrics.
What do they have to have for retention?
$4-$5 per raw signature is the norm here. Additionally there would have to be a significant voter registration drive or you would lose ballot access close to immediately since they run no credible candidates.
mvetanen
I guess the number of signatures required would change based on how many people vote in this year’s election, correct? But let’s say it will stay roughly the same.
I believe the estimate of $80k has been floated around LNC. That may be correct, or slightly on the low side, especially since this apparently pertains to party qualification petitions:
http://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/circulatortraining.aspx
And especially if the Oregon petitioning happens when there is a lot of other petitioning going on in other states.
BTW, do the NH petitions still have to be distributed to all the towns, and is there a Congressional distribution on the Senate petition? Town clerks have oddball hours and days that they are open, it’s not uniform between towns and sometimes (especially in the summer, and especially in small towns) they are just plain on vacation. In most small towns it’s just one person with a part-time office. If there is a congressional distribution requirement, the northern NH district is especially difficult, with a sparse population and numerous small towns, which makes it harder to find good petition locations and harder to distribute and pick up from all the towns.
With twelve days to go til the deadline, there should be a call going out to Libertarians in New England who can take a couple of days off and help distribute the petitions to the towns and pick them up. There are lots of people who can do that more effectively and/or be more willing to do that than to petition. If the ballot access contractor promised to take care of that, take that with some caution – unless their contract specifically says otherwise, they will still get paid even if the drive fails, so long as they get people to collect signatures.
How to form a minor political party in Oregon
http://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/formaminorparty.aspx
“The number of valid signatures required to form a statewide minor political party is 1.5 percent (21, 804) of the total votes cast in the jurisdiction for governor at the last election.”
Paulie can probably supply details on cost and how much effort it would take to gather such signatures.
In my humble opinion, it is my belief that Burke and his cronies are not interested in running candidates or promoting any sort of Libertarian values in the State of Oregon, rather they are intent to deny anyone from using the Party to actually achieve those goals.
The enemy of Liberty is not outside of our walls, rather they are among us. They pretend to be our friends, our compatriots, board members and helpers – though everything they do sabotages and hinders our efforts.
Burke, Reeves et al have the ability to form an independent group e.g. Freedom for Oregon, function as a PAC, and help people get on to the ballot.
July 25, 2014 at 1:17 pm :They would let other people do the work, and remain behind the scenes. WHy they would bother, given their record on running candidates, is less clear.
Come to think of it, if Burke, Reeves et al had any involvement in qualifying a new party for the ballot with a different name, that would not be good for their court case, so that means LNC will most likely try to qualify some version of the Libertarian ballot label and hoping they prevail in the dueling trademark claims…which seems unlikely.
Dave,
Why don’t you just look up ORS pertaining to political parties. We are subject to following those. Particularly relevant to this discussion is ORS 248.002–which defines membership. The national party (or any other political organization–such as your PAC) can define membership however you like, political parties in Oregon have a legal definition they must follow.
Paulie,
Burke’s explanation (sighted above) states a truth. There is no requirement that the members of a political party according to the definition of a “member” as defined by the ORS must be a member of the political party as defined in any other way. However, the entire set of statues regarding political parties uses the definition of “member” defined in ORS 248.002.
To claim that they are not members in some other organization and therefore we can ignore the rules that apply to them is folly.
The only membership that matters (as is concerned by the SOS of Oregon) is the membership they define. While the party may have been formed before there was the ability to register, as soon as it became a legal political party it became subject to following the laws that govern political parties.
Again, we get back to where the we are now. The State has said that they won’t get involved. Burke’s group is relying on the hope that if the state does get involved that it would decide in their favor. I highly doubt that if the SOS (or courts) agreed to get involved that they would decide in favor of Reeves for several reasons, but they won’t even get involved because of ORS 248.011.
Still, the pertinent information is that the expectation for a political party is that they would follow the state law that governs political parties. Everyone who registers for that party would have the expectation that his or her rights as a party member (defined by state law) would be upheld by the party.
So all the state LPs, and national, that have dues paying and/or pledge signing membership are immoral? I don’t agree.
> Fred: ” Last time I checked political parties in Oregon were still subject to following Oregon election laws.
Are you being deliberately disingenuous?
WHICH “following Oregon election laws” are you referring to? Since you failed to list any, I must presume that you are simply passing wind.
You are also, clearly taking my words, out of context. OF COURSE, political parties are subject to the same laws as any private non-profit corporation, ie; 248.011¹ Enforcement of ORS 248.005 or political party rules:
“Except as expressly required by law, the Secretary of State, a county clerk or any other elections official shall not enforce the provisions of ORS 248.005 (Parties to insure widest and fairest representation of members) or any other rule adopted by a political party. [1995 c.606 §2]
Please forward your list of statutes that the LPO is subject to.
So,
Some appeal on something having to do with Oregon – whether it is LPHQ treating Wagner group as LPO, or Arvin’s ruling that Nick’s motion was in order or something that has not yet happened – will get appealed to JC.
M Carling should recuse himself.
I predict he won’t.
I predict the JC will issue a broader ruling, even if the original cause for the appeal is narrow.
I predict LNC will defer to JC since that’s the logic under which Wagner LPO is recognized by LPHQ now.
The Wagner LPO will disaffiliate or effectively disaffiliate from LNC, and LNC will disaffiliate or effectively disaffiliate the Wagner LPO.
The State of Oregon (SOS and courts) will continue to recognize the Wagner group; the Burke/Reeves appeals will keep getting dragged out.
The LNC may well launch a trademark case, which will fail, since LPO pre-existed any affiliation with LNC.
The LNC will attempt to get separate ballot access in Oregon. Will they be smart enough not to do so under the Libertarian label, or some label containing Libertarian, since Wagner et al will probably be able to sue that away?
Wagner will likely be suing LNC and/or waging guerrilla war to dissuade donors from contributing to LNC. How much will that cost LNC?
I notice (IIRC) there has not been a definitive answer whether the (Wagner) LPO presidential ballot access will be determined by a mail ballot to all registered Libertarians, only those who returned ballots previously, or the executive board.
Meanwhile, access to all other races may be lost if top two passes.
Did I get all that right?
If the bylaws of the super secret head-upon-a-head LPO that you had to pay dues to be a part of said that each super secret LPO member got to ring the doorbell of non-super-secret-LPO members once a year and kick them square between the legs, it would still not be right.
Immoral systems fall when ethical people get together. Deal with it.
Here’s a previous explanation from the other side that addresses the issue of who is a member specifically:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/06/oregons-burke-helping-other-3rd-parties-benefits-lp/#comment-886058
I’m not saying anything about who is right or wrong by introducing it for consideration.
As for David Terry, I’ve long since quit taking anything he says seriously, or even reading it at all, and highly recommend others do the same.
Paulie,
They continually try to bring up misinterpretation of the rules in regard to the authority of the state committee, which only applies to major parties. But that isn’t the argument that I am making. I am referring to ORS 248.002, “Member means an individual who is registered as being affiliated with the political party.” Which applies to all political parties. I have not seen any argument for why this doesn’t apply to any political party in Oregon.
And I am referring to ORS 248.005, “Each political party by rule shall insure the widest and fairest representation of party members in the party organization and activities. Rules shall be adopted by procedures that assure the fair and open participation of all interested party members.”
The only argument that I have heard against this is that they believe that they don’t have to follow this law because of ORS 248.011, “Except as expressly required by law, the Secretary of State, a county clerk or any other elections official shall not enforce the provisions of ORS 248.005 (Parties to insure widest and fairest representation of members) or any other rule adopted by a political party.”
The irony is that they only seem to like 248.011 when they have control of the party and can exclude all most all of the members of the party. They don’t seem to care for it much when the courts are deciding to not get involved in their dispute.
Regardless, Dave Terry seemed to be indicating that he didn’t think that the LPO was subject to following election laws. I would definitely disagree with him about that interpretation.
http://gard4senate.com/donate/
http://gard4senate.com
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Gard4senate
https://www.youtube.com/user/Gard4Senate
I sent Goldsmith $500. Last night. The rest of you might well do the same.
The Republican candidate is probably Scott Brown, the former Senator from Massachusetts, who is occasionally confused about his state, but who pursues liberal votes with his contribution to passing the ACA. He sells poorly in New Hampshire among conservatives.
Nick,
Thanks for the update. Given that the deadline is August 6 and they need 5,000 signatures I hope that will be enough. NH is a very tough place to petition, from what I have been told by a number of people who have worked there. Good luck to Gardner Goldsmith!
Fred, the other side says you are misinterpreting Oregon code and applying rules that do not apply to minor parties to LPO. I’m not an expert on ORS and don’t now who is right or wrong about that, but I have seen the argument made in some detail.
Dave Terry,
Last time I checked political parties in Oregon were still subject to following Oregon election laws.
Now that I know that you believe that political parties don’t have to follow the laws, it is easier for me to see why you think the Reeves’ group has any legitimacy.
Up to $9900, though the goal is to have Mr. Goldsmith raise most of the $15K total, with the LNC just making up the difference to make sure the drive succeeds.
How much support did the EC approve for the ballot drive?
WW: “The LNC is not governed by Oregon State Law…”
Neither is the LPO, so why is Wagner hiding behind the skirts of the Sec’y of State.
“and- its bylaws actually supported a dues structure that would allow life memberships.”
AND ironically so do the bylaws of the LPO, you know, the real ones, not those dummied up in the coup.
paulie
The LNC is not governed by Oregon State Law -and- its bylaws actually supported a dues structure that would allow life memberships.
Paulie
“He’s an Oregon plaintiff, so he does have a conflict in anything having to do with the Oregon LP. Specifically, as a life member of the LPO under the old bylaws (the ones Burke/Reeves still recognize)
Do you mean the bylaws that were never legitimately amended, revised or repealed?
Dunno.
If the national LP redefined membership such that my life membership was no longer valid, it would be more than just a matter of money to me.
Did the national LP sell something that was illegal to deliver when they sold me a life membership in 2000?
The Executive Committee has committed to support the petition drive to get Gardner Goldsmith on the ballot in New Hampshire. There is a good chance that Mr. Goldsmith can poll over 4% in November, since the likely Republican will be Scott Brown (recently of Massachusetts). If he gets 4%, the LP does not have to petition for President in 2016.
Every dollar you give to Mr. Goldsmith’s campaign is a dollar the LNC doesn’t have to spend. Please visit his website and donate as much as you can. He’s committed that all money raised until the drive is over goes directly to petitioning.
A thoughtful observation courtesy Alicia Mattson, who wrote on the LNC list:
“I inquired about our cash flow status, since things looked very tight at the end of May and I don’t think I have seen June financials yet. Robert Kraus provided me the following information, indicating that our cash flow has gotten worse since May:
THIS PARAGRAPH BLOCK INDENTED “Current unrestricted cash on hand is $110k. We are looking at the following upcoming expenses: $26k in ballot access obligations for LPIL and LPKY, Payroll $18k, Hyatt Columbus (estimated) $90k, Credit Card $21k (mostly convention related). That’s a total of $155. That would be a cash shortfall of -$45k. I think if funds come in as they’ve been the last week or so we can cover this over a period of a couple weeks and I can delay some of the payment to Hyatt. Also NY has generously agreed to spread their obligation over a 6 week period but that still doesn’t leave us any wiggle room for any additional expenses until at least Sept/Oct.
“We’re currently in a financial hole. In June of 2010 (a comparable point in our 4-year financial cycle), we were approximately $200k better off in terms of cash flow. I believe some contributing factors to be the fact that we hired a political director with “savings” from buying a building, but we hired the position a year before we actually bought a building and moved in so as to achieve any savings. The building fundraising efforts seriously cannibalized our general fundraising efforts. We have a political director and own a building now, but we left ourselves in bad financial shape.”
Paulie
Can M produce such a contract?
If he has a pecuniary claim he should have raised it and asked for reimbursement.
He would have been sold something that is illegal to deliver.
If they decide to issue a broader ruling, using this as a pretext to rule that the Burke/Reeves faction is the legitimate LPO, who is going to say they have exceeded their authority? Any argument that they will have exceeded their authority in such a case will also undercut the 2011 JC decision that affirmed the Wagner LPO as the legitimate affiliate as well.
He’s an Oregon plaintiff, so he does have a conflict in anything having to do with the Oregon LP. Specifically, as a life member of the LPO under the old bylaws (the ones Burke/Reeves still recognize) who is not an Oregon voter and is thus not eligible for membership in the Wagner LPO, he believes that the Wagner LPO violated the contract that the party made with him when he purchased his life membership.
> Paulie; In other LNC news, the LNC is currently discussing daylight savings time vs. standard time.
Chicago – Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
Does any body really care?
It sounds exactly like what was passed at convention, other than specifying more details and being more clear that it does not have budgetary authority – i.e. only the LNC can vote to expend funds. That or funds can be earmarked for this purpose. I believe we should have a lot more earmarking, as I’ve said before. If people wish to donate money for this international thing, they should be able to. In any case, I think Mr. Hayes is reading far more power into this motion than it grants. In addition, if anything, it grants power to the LNC – power the LNC already had. The LNC could have voted before this motion to spend money on some international project. Now…the LNC can vote to spend money on some international project, and can choose to coordinate it with someone with an honorary title. It does not create any additional power for bureaucrats. Even if we think the International Representative (an honorary title) is a bureaucrat, this does not entitle that person to spend money or have any particular authority. Arguably, it grants the ability to speak on the party’s behalf, but even that is unclear.
As an aside, this motion could have passed without any action of the convention, or if the convention had voted down the original motion.
I do not expect that a ruling of the chair, upheld on appeal, would be appealed to the JC, particularly since it had no substantive result. If it were, though, and the JC thought it was within their jurisdiction, they would be ruling entirely on a procedural matter, and their ruling would not impact the underlying matter. Mr. Carling does not have any personal involvement in that procedural matter, as it is impossible to have any personal involvement in a purely procedural question, and there would be no reason for him to recuse himself.
If the JC decides it has jurisdiction, and the LNC disagrees…this has happened before. You can see my comments on how to handle that on the business email list.
Was the issue of authority brought up in the resolution that passed in Columbia? If not, then the LNC was within its authority to say that the representative has no authority.
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2014/001177.html
Hmmm…is it just me, or is anyone else a little unclear what Mr. Hayes is talking about? Can you let us know what motion you’re talking about, Daniel?
Thanks.
My superseded vote was the only vote against this. Is that just because I am contrary? Or because what was presented to the LNC had a lot of details of significance that were not presented to the Convention that I think would have affected their vote.
Does this sound like the motion that was presented to the Convention regarding formation of the International Association of Libertarian Parties?
It did not sound like it to me.
Motion: Amend the Policy Manual to add the following as a new Section 2.09.3 (and renumber as needed):
————————————————
3) International Representatives
The LNC may appoint one or more individuals to serve as International Representatives, subject to the following:
The title is honorary, and does not convey any binding authority, unless specifically and conditionally delegated by the LNC.
The International Representative serves at will, and may be terminated by either party at will without cause.
The terms of service are from appointment until termination, and will not be tied to LNC terms of office.
Expenditures for this position must be made from either budgeted expenses or from restricted funds raised specifically for this purpose.
The purpose of this position is to establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between the LP and its international counterparts.”
No authority? Apparently it can hold some authority. And yeah..another action has to be taken to implement it but why not mention that to the delegates of the convention.
“The title is honorary, and does not convey any binding authority, unless specifically and conditionally delegated by the LNC.”
And then it has a budget? or might? Was a possible budget ever mentioned during convention? How would the delegates of the convention have reacted to knowing that some of their donations might be expended on this in the form of budgeted expenses?
“Expenditures for this position must be made from either budgeted expenses or from restricted funds raised specifically for this purpose.”
I am from the school of if you don’t want it to do something don’t leave the possibility for it to do it. Because if a bureaucrat is involved, sooner or later they are going to get it to do it.
Daniel Hayes
LNC R7 AR
The jurisdiction of the Judicial committee is *decisions* of the LNC, not actions of the body. Upholding a ruling of the chair is beyond any doubt a decision.
Because it is British and Snooty.
“Greenwich Mean Time” is a predecessor to the “Five Minutes Hate”
Why is Greenwich Mean Time so mean?
Worse thing about using Excel are the blogs you need to read.
Where is Dan Quale when we need him?
There is no trailing ‘e’ in tomato, and the serial comma is beneficial. Also, next time I’m just going to say “Eastern time.”
Coming up next, rousing debates on the serial comma and tomato vs. tomatoe.
They are actually arguing over timezones now?
They need to list everything in GMT and see if LNC members can do math…
Yep…
You just hit on my favorite question. When Libertarians are elected who will set the time standards? I will hope that the LNC can get their act together and leave the Oregon issue behind and start building towards the next election cycle. The party has a lot of work to do and this muddling around doesn’t help.
I’ll bet heavily against that.
In other LNC news, the LNC is currently discussing daylight savings time vs. standard time.
Stewart Flood wrote
On the other hand, if the JC decides it was an action of the body to sustain Arvin’s ruling, who’s going to decide that it isn’t?
If it does go to the Judicial committee, perhaps Carling can be shamed into recusing himself, as any ethical person should do. I plan to be quite public and noisy about his conflict of interest if he doesn’t..
It will be interesting to see if the second Oregon motion passes. If it does not, the usual suspects will need to take to the Judicial Committee the ruling of Arvin Vohra that the original Oregon motion was in order. Alternatively, they will wait for a more substantial issue on the same lines.
Well…the new thread is here. No one besides me on it yet. We’ll see if that changes…
Nicholas Sarwark chair at lp.org
Thu Jul 24 08:53:14 CDT 2014
All,
There will be an Executive Committee conference call tonight at 9:30
pm EST to discuss spending ballot access funds to petition to put
Gardner Goldsmith from the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire on the
ballot.
Wes or Robert will follow-up with the call-in details.
-Nick