Our monthly open thread. Post news tips about alt parties and independent candidates, discuss any story that should be posted here but has not yet been posted, or even delve into completely off-topic stuff….just avoid quarantined thread subject matter and things that could get us and/or you into legal trouble such as threats, libel, and copyright infringement.
News tips can also be sent to the IPR writers who have chosen to make their contact info available at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/about/.
It’s also become an IPR tradition to post videos in the open threads. Here’s the latest from Juice Rap News:
And no, it’s not for me……I am not going all the way to Wisconsin for $500, LOL.
On 12/29/2014 5:32 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> I am currently soliciting donations towards getting Phil Atwood on the ballot. Phil is a local Red Cross volunteer and semi-retired restaurant manager running as a Libertarian for Wisconsin State Senate. I am his campaign manager/treasurer, in the April 7 special election for the 20th District. The state has given us the most difficult gathering period possible- Dec 16 to Jan 6 for 400 valid signatures- and has refused our request for administrative relief lowering the threshold based on past court decisions re: special election ballot access.
>
> I have an arrangement in place with somebody who’s willing help us get enough signatures to put us over the top, for $500, and he’s ready to start immediately. Phil has gathered aprox. 100 sigs already, with him and myself and hopefully one or two more volunteers we can knock out another 150-200 in the next week, leaving us to need 200 paid signatures. I think it is an important priority for our state to have a candidate in this election, which will almost certainly be the only partisan election in 2015 in Wisconsin, and I feel strongly that Phil is a great candidate for us to have who will make a competitive effort, so I’m asking for help to make it happen.
>
> The state party will be chipping in some amount less than $300, under our chair’s discretionary spending limit, but the state party budget is very meager at the moment. I already have $70 pledged from our local members, including myself, and except to be able to get at least another $100 in pledges this evening here in Wisconsin. If any members of the LNC, or other persons affiliated with LP-national, would be willing to chip in, it would be greatly appreciated. I will have an online donation function and campaign website up and running within the next 48 hrs, for now we’re just looking for pledges so I can authorize the agreement with our petitioner in good faith. This is a modest effort in scale, but very time-critical and will make a huge difference to the continued growth and activity of LP-WI over the next year.
>
> Sincerely,
> Andy Craig
> Libertarian Party of Wisconsin
>
> fb.com/Atwood4Senate
I wish everyone a moderate to severe Krampus.
AND… a Kwazy Kwanzaa!
Have an extremely fun Festivus!
Have a (moderately) Merry Christmas! 😉
I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas as well.
Merry Christmas to everyone here at IPR!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja0SuN4bn1w
Merry Christmas to all! And to all a Good Night!
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Jetsons-World-Jeffrey-Tucker/dp/1621290689
The technology is there, and slowly working its way down the chain to popularization. It would have long since happened already but for all the red tape holding back innovation.
http://chaossection.com/2014/12/24/alert-christmas-to-be-cancelled/
Happy Holidays to everyone, since nothing says Christmas like a Boston Terrier in a Santa suit riding a Roomba!~
http://youtu.be/J9P20HuX7mo
looking forward to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyinD6ZDqeg
pf: Depends on which ones. Positive rights are a feature of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, too.
me: Note that I said, “…when it comes to matters of war.”
Depends on which ones. Positive rights are a feature of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, too.
Yes. I would make those a priority.
Much further down my list of priorities, but I’m not nearly so pessimistic about it. Actually, the problem may solve itself soon, as everything from personal jetpacks to self-driving cars already exists and is just working its way towards mass adoption in the not too distant future.
pf, don’t fixate on the UN, for I don’t, either. You make a good point about international standards, but we could say that same thing about ANY law-making body.
I was offering a serviceable model for President Langa, one that makes sense to me in this time and this place. Deferring to international standards of conduct is reasonable to me when it comes to matters of war. Prohibiting the use of torture and WMD is something I support. I would think you do, too.
You might think that traffic signs are a form of torture, unacceptable ones. Certainly you could form Amnesty from Street Signs International to abolish this red-light scourge, but honestly, I don’t think you’d be likely to remove this stop-sign blight that holds back human progress.
1. They haven’t had much power yet. Just wait until they become empowered to coercively collect taxes, have much larger forces of UN “peacekeepers” to deploy all over the place, make UN membership compulsory and universal, etc.
2. It depends on what international bodies you are talking about. Is the Eurasian Union an international body? NATO? The “coalition of the willing”?
pf: Am I the first or only one who has introduced you to the concept [of the Frankel Singularity]?
me: No, but you brought it forward in my consciousness. It wasn’t something I thought about prior to your underscoring it. In my mind, it will always be the FS, though I can’t guarantee that the term will catch on.
Take care of yourself!
pf: I think that contrast is incorrect, because torture has been carried out by coalitions of nations working together, and there’s no reason to believe the UN would always follow its own laws any more than the US or any other regime has.
me: I’m with Jefferson…eternal vigilance is necessary to maintain peace and liberty. There’s no reason to believe that a mass conversion to anarcho-capitalism or voluntaryism will stick, either. The impulse to constrict peace and liberty seems part of the human condition.
pf: why should we expect the UN charter or international treaties to be any more effectively binding on the UN or any of its member regimes, whether working alone or together?
me: So far, the UN and other contemporary international law bodies has been pretty consistent in opposing torture as a legitimate tactic.
Keep in mind: I used to buy the entire Rothbardian deontological NAPsolutist line, even believing the fetuses are parasites. I no longer do. So it’s always possible that the UN will change its collective mind on torture, but I hope not.
It’s also possible that NAMBLA’s position on man/boy love may one day be widely accepted. Or that toting machine guns in the subway will become an every day occurrence.
Morality is plastic.
It can be used to extract information. It could also be used as punishment and/or deterrent, i.e. a weapon of war.
There’s also the international treaties the US has signed, and the constitutional provision which says they are the supreme law of the land, along with the constitution itself.
But if we agree that the constitution, and international treaties, don’t bind the US in its practical application of law, why should we expect the UN charter or international treaties to be any more effectively binding on the UN or any of its member regimes, whether working alone or together?
Pulie–
I disagree that torture is not legal under Amerifcan law.
There are, no doubts, lots of laws which provide for torture including without limitation, the NDAA and Patriot Act.
Of course, the word torture does not appear therein, but that does not mean anything.
There are literally tens of thousands of laws which violate various constitutional provisions, so relying on the the existence of the 8th Amendment to say it is illegal to torture people is not enough.
It is clearly legal, and the US government does it all the time.
That is, in part, what’s wrong with the current law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfIGrFHoN1w
One of your two proposed major contrasts between torture and “humanitarian” war was “HWs can be authorized by multi-lateral organizations like the UN, so that others can help to discern justification. Torture cannot.” I think that contrast is incorrect, because torture has been carried out by coalitions of nations working together, and there’s no reason to believe the UN would always follow its own laws any more than the US or any other regime has.
LOL @ “Frankel singularity”. If I die before it happens, will it still be the “Frankel” singularity? I don’t think it’s that far in the future, and many people here may live to see it happen, but I may not be one of them – my health isn’t great, and I came close to dying a few times just this month alone – everything from heart palpitations to a car accident that totalled the car I was a passenger in. There’s a whole literature and entire website communities discussing the singularity, and I haven’t made any significant contributions to any of it, so I am not sure how it came to be the Frankel singularity for you. Am I the first or only one who has introduced you to the concept?
jp, well, sure. In this case, many/most individuals and lawmaking entities agree that it is inappropriate behavior, doesn’t work anyway/is unreliable, and is not peaceful.
You might, for ex., feel that eating chocolate is “immoral.” Thankfully, that view has not been codified.
pf, yes, the UN is unreliable. The US is unreliable. And, yet, SOME believe that torture IS justified. If you can come up with a better way to dissuade their dysfunctional behaviors and attitudes, I am all ears. Until then, the law is a rough approximation of widely agreed morality and practicality.
Or God might pay us a visit after the Frankel Singularity so that there’s NO question what is appropriate behavior and what isn’t. Until then, the best option available is to structure baseline peacekeeping mechanisms and domestic tranquility institutions to keep the peace. It’s not so great right now, but then again it never has been perfect.
Torture isn’t legal under US law either. There’s the 8th amendment and the constitutional clause that makes treaties the US has signed the supreme law of the land, which includes international law against torture. But the US government has invented absurd legal justifications and loopholes, and if the UN became more of a “real” world government I would certainly expect the same, and worse, from them. The US was already part of an international “coalition” when it carried out these acts and some of them involved international cooperation in the form of so-called “rendition,” which means shipping people between countries to be tortured.
Who cares if torture is condemned by international law? It’s morally wrong. End of story.
more….
I guess I should have said at 6:34 “By law, torture cannot.” That would have been clearer.
Hope that helps…
MP, it’s prohibited by international law, iirc.
“HWs can be authorized by multi-lateral organizations like the UN, so that others can help to discern justification. Torture cannot.”
Why not?
more…
You have received death threats, but it turns out it was a ring of DC-area real estate agents. They clearly lose from Langanomics.
L: opted to resign a la Nixon.
me: Hmm. Like Nixon, really? Up to this point, President Langa has performed at Mt. Rushmore levels. Your administration has been squeeky clean, with no scandals. You have forthrightly challenged the cult of the too-powerful state, negotiating win/win solutions to decades-old dysfunctions. While the special interests don’t like your taking their slop from the trough, you are a masterful and amiable politician, so that even they are not livid with you. After all, the economy is humming, capital and labor are rising to their best and highest use, lifting all boats.
It’s a shame that the complexity of this international crisis has scared you off! I hope you will return my phone calls, as your sage counsel is invaluable to me!
L: So, it seems that you’re not really opposed to torture per se, but rather, only torture for which inadequate justification is provided.
me: I would say that torture is prohibited by international law, so I would honor that law, as it makes sense to me on every level. COULD there be an exception? As I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent ;), at this moment I cannot say, though I can’t think of one.
L: “… Does President Capozzi agree to allow a few to be tortured to death, in order to save dozens (or maybe even hundreds) of others? Does he consult with the UN, and do whatever they recommend? Or does he perhaps commission some surveys, in order to gauge public opinion, and use that as his compass?”
me: Yes, I would confer with Atty General Moulton and international tribunals. I would refer to extradition treaties the US has with Canada. I would be very uncomfortable with both prospects of punitive torture and the death penalty’s that are threatened (although it seems highly unlikely that the Ottawa would make their plans so plain).
If they were daft enough to reveal that, I might counter that I would extradite the leader and his/her family if both torture and the death penalty are off the table. (I oppose both.) Were the UN amenable, I might also call for an authorization for multi-lateral forces to suppress the RMPs as a card to play, should it come to it.
Since the Canadian PM is obviously insane, I might engineer an exile arrangement so that he or she could save face and exit what must be a nightmare life.
Somehow, the end of the last paragraph got cut off. It was supposed to say, “… Does President Capozzi agree to allow a few to be tortured to death, in order to save dozens (or maybe even hundreds) of others? Does he consult with the UN, and do whatever they recommend? Or does he perhaps commission some surveys, in order to gauge public opinion, and use that as his compass?”
Broadly, there are two big differences between HW and torture.
1) HW is designed to counter unjustified aggressive wars, and generally involves civilian deaths, often for ethnic or racial motives. Torture is used to extract information, presumably to minimize the torturer’s side’s deaths.
2) HWs can be authorized by multi-lateral organizations like the UN, so that others can help to discern justification. Torture cannot.
So, it seems that you’re not really opposed to torture per se, but rather, only torture for which inadequate justification is provided. Advocates of “humanitarian war” do a better job of spin. So, it’s really more of a marketing problem. Torture advocates need more compelling yarns to sell you on it.
I could dream up some crazy hypothetical to illustrate what I mean, but since you’ve already concocted one, let’s just roll with it. Let’s say the main leader of the Quebec insurgency has fled to the US, and I have granted he and his family amnesty. However, shortly after doing so, I have been threatened with impeachment (remember, 90% of the country now hates me), and opted to resign a la Nixon. You, as Vice President (chosen by the LP to “balance the ticket” and avoid looking “too fringy”) now assume the Oval Office. Shortly after being sworn in, you receive a call from the Prime Minister of Canada. He tells you that he has agreed to stop the killings, but he cannot allow the main leader to escape. He must send a message that treason will not be tolerated. So, in order for him to stop the slaughter, you must turn over the leader and his family, so that they can be publicly tortured, and then executed, for all the world to see. If you do not agree, then he will continue to round up and kill the citizens of Quebec. Does President Capozzi agree to allow a few to be tortured to death, in order to save dozens (or maybe even hundreds) of others?
I second that!
George Phillies, above you list Robert Underwood as a 2014 Libertarian candidate for State House, Hampden 9 district, and I am glad to agree with you that he should be included. But he was on the ballot as “unenrolled” instead of “Libertarian.” Also you list Michael Coombes as one of our 2014 candidates, and again I agree and will include him in my records. But he was on the ballot as “Liberty”. Why did these two abjure the ballot label “Libertarian” this year? Thank you.
It’s nice to see you here, George, and especially when you’re talking about jury nullifaction, which is one of my favorite causes. This sounds like a good way to start the year.
We’re promoting Jury Nullification in NYC during the month of January, simultaneous with Ross Ulbricht’s trial. Join us. End victimless crimes prosecution in NYC 2015. Join our crowdfunding campaign and get some awesome perks: http://igg.me/at/NYCJuryRights2015/x/94256 Tight, exciting, passionate educational video: http://youtu.be/UCJqbm151Es
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56ftJKUOkKk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o-bO715Asc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ82_3tGM3U
L: explain how you reconcile your support for “humanitarian war” with your opposition to torture, since they are based on identical rationales.
me: Technically, I don’t “support” humanitarian war. I rather am open to the possibility that one could be justified. Were I President Langa’s CoS, I’d be urging you daily to save the French Canadians, Rockwell, and DiLorenzo.
Broadly, there are two big differences between HW and torture.
1) HW is designed to counter unjustified aggressive wars, and generally involves civilian deaths, often for ethnic or racial motives. Torture is used to extract information, presumably to minimize the torturer’s side’s deaths.
2) HWs can be authorized by multi-lateral organizations like the UN, so that others can help to discern justification. Torture cannot.
Hope that helps.
RC, rather than delving even deeper into your absurd hypothetical, I would rather you respond to my third point above, and explain how you reconcile your support for “humanitarian war” with your opposition to torture, since they are based on identical rationales.
Or, we could skip these tangents altogether and go back to discussing my original point: the total shamelessness of politicians (including, unfortunately, LP standard bearers) who choose to use sanctimonious rhetoric to persuade the public to support wars that will undoubtedly lead to massive bloodshed and suffering, with a substantial amount of it being inflicted on innocents.
That’s good news. Does that citizen petition have some sort of number yet?
Mr. Marciano ran as a Libertarian. Mr. Loya did his own petitioning, and followed Joe Kennedy in running as “Liberty” rather than “Libertarian”. He is a fine young man, even if he has on occasion drifted over to the Republican Party.
There is nothing in particular to say about Mr Winger’s offer, so I do not waste my time saying it. There is, I happen to know, a citizen petition before the Senate and House that would cut all of the petitioning requirements in half.
I admire and salute the Mass. LP for running candidates for the legislature this year. I especially am glad that Euplio Marciano got 26% in a two-candidate race. I want to note that in 2010, Jonathan A. Loya ran for the legislature in a two-person race and got 28.72%. We were a qualified party in Massachusetts at the time (because we had polled over 3% for US Senate in 2008), so the LP ignored its primary and petitioned Jonathan onto the November ballot as the “Liberty Party” nominee.
George just won’t talk about the fact that I offered the Mass. LP $1,000 if it would get a bill introduced in 2015 (a real bill, not a bill in which the title says it was introduced as a favor to a particular constituent) that significantly eases the petitioning burden to get a candidate on a primary ballot. It should be easy to campaign for such a bill, because Massachusetts had 6 US House races this November (out of total 9) with only a Democrat on the ballot. That is scandalous. No other state had a majority of its congressional elections one-candidate affairs. The same thing is true for legislative elections in Massachusetts. I watch news articles in Massachusetts and I never, ever see any reporter acknowledge any of this. There is such a huge need for a public relations push in that state, but the Mass. LP doesn’t seem interested.
I suspect wishing him a Happy Kwanzaa would be counter productive! 😉
It’s been a group effort the past couple days, NF. Vernon must be snowed in or something, since he apparently has nothing to do this holiday season than write ugly words.
Merry Christmas, Vernon! I hope you can find some love somewhere!
Thanks to whomever pulled down the offensive junk posted under the names of legitimate posters.
Langa, right. So you as prez would let this happen. It would be “evil” to stop a holocaust, even on “your” (illegitimate) borders.
My guess is most of your supporters — partly persuaded to vote for you because of your sincerity and charm — would think your rigid application of the NAP goes too far, and that their worst fears about you are being borne out by this case. Despite all the good you’ve done in changing the nation’s direction, it is canceled out by this decision.
It gets more complicated, because in 2018, you’d asked Lew Rockwell and Tom DiLorenzo to be unpaid, unofficial emissaries to the Canadian separatists, as experts in secession. They have been taken hostage by the Mounties, too, as agent provocateurs.
Perhaps you could start a Lincoln Brigade up there. Question: Could you ask the military to participate in a Lincoln Brigade on a voluntary basis? If so, could they bring their government-issued weapons?
“Even in the unlikely case that 90% of the public disagreed with me, there would be nothing stopping them from taking up their own arms and marching into Canada on their own, or even from hiring mercenaries to do the job for them. ”
There actually is. It’s called the neutrality act, and it needs to be repealed. Of course, if we had 33%+ of the public voting for a radical Libertarian for president, we’d probably have the political capital to repeal the neutrality act as well.
Also as a practical matter, if there was a holocaust in Canada and blood flowing across the border (I know I just contradicted myself about this being practical) no one would be enforcing the neutrality act anyway.
I can think of about ten different things wrong with your hypothetical, but in order to avoid hand cramps, I’ll stick to pointing out three of them:
1. Even if you ignore that I have no desire to be President, if I were to somehow be talked into running, I definitely wouldn’t try to trick people into voting for me. So, if I won, that would mean that at least half the public was in general agreement with my political philosophy. Given that, it seems highly unlikely that 80% (of the half that voted for me) would disagree with me on such an important issue, doesn’t it?
2. Even in the unlikely case that 90% of the public disagreed with me, there would be nothing stopping them from taking up their own arms and marching into Canada on their own, or even from hiring mercenaries to do the job for them. Of course, I would make clear to both them and the Canadians that this was strictly between them, and the US remained neutral.
3. Here’s the big one. Not only is your hypothetical far-fetched (blood spilling over the border, seriously?), but it’s also quite hypocritical, given your stated opposition to torture. After all, the argument you present is based on logic that is virtually identical to that frequently employed by torture advocates, and indeed by tyrants of all stripes: the idea that the ends justify the means.
Not only do I reject the notion that righteous ends justify evil means, I will go one step further, and say that rejecting this idea (and accepting all the logical ramifications and implications of doing so) is literally the very essence of libertarianism. I don’t think that libertarianism is a coherent philosophy unless it is based on the principle that unjust actions can never produce truly just outcomes.
L, yes, I suspect most advocates for the possibility of humanitarian war recognize that hurtful things happen in war.
Say it’s 2019. President Langa was elected in 2016, and he or she has skillfully rolled back the State on all fronts. The US is out of NATO, SEATO. The budget is down 15%, balanced, and on a glide path toward 10% of GDP, if not better. Government is out of the marriage business. Drugs have been decriminalized on a path toward legalization. Immigration is much freer. Etc. Etc.
However, the Canadians have been acting up. The French Canadians get serious about Quebec secession, but Ottawa will not stand for it. They dispatch Royal Mounted Police squad to Montreal, and forcibly march the secessionist ring leaders to the VT border to be summarily executed, the blood actually flowing into VT.
Langa wants to stand for a second term, and is wildly popular. S/he has the makings of the greatest transformative president ever, marching the US back in a strong L direction. However, 90% of Americans want the French Canadian Holocaust to be stopped, by force if necessary. President Langa has attempted to use moral suasion, to no avail. The killings continue.
Langa’s inaction threatens his/her presidency, even threatening to reverse the Langan Legacy. The Mounties don’t have much firepower, and Secretary of Defense “Rebar” Davidson has a plan to will stop the killings with minimal collateral damage.
Does Langa enact the Davidson Plan?
http://theantimedia.org/us-soldiers-raped-boys-in-front-of-their-mothers/
Stuff like this is why I get so upset when I hear people (especially LP presidential candidates!) talk about “humanitarian war” or other, similar bullshit.
Regardless of all the sanctimonious rhetoric, this is the kind of shit that really happens during wars, and there’s absolutely nothing “humanitarian” about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg0Ioxhk5yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-glMLXWHPU
Amen!
The LP of Massachusetts, as well as the Greens, UIP, Pirates, etc. should be pushing the legislature to ease ballot access laws.
We need opposition candidates on the ballot in every state, for every office, nationwide. We need to give every voter the option of voting against the two corporate parties. Bad ballot access laws can and must be repealed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56duVYLsd4Q
Andy Craig,
The difference is that our state party wants to be a major party, not have the Secretary of State hand us a shiny badge whose front says “Political Party” and whose rear says something less favorable. The strategy you propose, running candidates for lower statewide office to get “political party” status, screws over all of the other candidates for partisan office, including possibly 9 Congressional candidates, 8 candidates for Governor’s Council, 40 State Senate candidates, 160 State Representative candidates, candidates for “County” offices (In quotes because we have largely abolished county government here), and in some places candidates for city and town offices. The advantage of having had a real attorney on our State Committee (he is not our attorney, but he is an attorney) is that we got serious evaluations of the nattering nabob theories of litigation and why suing is generally a bad idea.
The Greens follow the strategy you are advocating, namely running people for lower statewide office, and as a result run a candidate for President and little else. We also have a third party group, the United Independent Party of Evan Falchuk, that is pursuing political party status, now via getting 3% of the vote and underway by enrolling 44,000 UI voters. The Green strategy appears to work less well than ours does, as witness the relative size of the two parties. We shall see how Mr Falchuk’s effort is supposed to work. He at least can solve the problem the American way: bomb the problem with money.
In contrast, Mr Marciano this year had the all-time record for vote percent for a Massachusetts State Rep candidate running as a Libertarian, and three of this year’s candidates were in the top six ever. Our strategy took a while to get in place but is now doing something rational, as opposed to the 1998-2002 activities that left nothing behind. A few years ago, we thought we had four Congressional candidates, but one ran, one had personal issues, one took political asylum in a foreign country, and the one who proposed to invade and conquer part of Mexico fortunately did not in the end run as a Libertarian.
George
“How many candidates did the LP of MA had on the ballot in the 2014 election?”
State Senate (in a three-candidate race):
Mullins, Heather 1,596 4%
State Representative (two way races)
Van Tassell, Kenneth 2,569 25%
Marciano, Euplio 3,442 26%
Morris, Daniel 1,932 16%
Roberts, Kenneth 1,090 12%
Coombes, Michael 1,906 16%
Underwood, Robert 2,002 21%
Suffolk County Sheriff
Smith, Hassan 20,973 17%
The LP of MA has not run a candidate for Governor since Carla Howell ran for Governor back in 2002. That was 12 years ago.
Should read, “have on the ballot…”
The LP of MA should raise their own money and put candidates on the ballot. Back in the days when Carla Howell ran for office (3 times) they did not get any money from LP National, yet they still got multiple candidates on the ballot.
How many candidates did the LP of MA had on the ballot in the 2014 election?
Really, the petition requirements in Massachusetts are not so bad that they could not at least get candidates on for US House or state legislate.
The way to grow the LP is by running candidates, not by sitting on the side lines during elections.
Andy, other Andy, George et al: What works in some states does not necessarily work in others. Each state has unique laws and circumstances, so I would caution against over-extrapolating.
http://theantimedia.org/us-soldiers-raped-boys-in-front-of-their-mothers/
A “professional” who had stolen money in the past, and who is a known liar (in reference to the “professional” recommended to the LP of WI).
George- is that campaign finance restriction unique to Massachusetts?
In Wisconsin, LNC came to us and proposed that we run a full statewide slate, but prioritize for a lower statewide office. We did in fact run a full slate, and did in fact meet the vote threshold (1%) for lower statewide offices but not at the top of the ticket. In other words, their advise was perfectly sound and correct from a political standpoint, and had we not followed it might not have secured ballot status (we had some advocating for running just a Gov ticket plus legislative candidates). It was, granted, not a new idea when we heard it, but it was still sound advise.
This was also done, not by a direct LNC->LPstate contribution, but though a dedicated fundraising effort for LPWI by a professional recommended to us by them. I do not see why Massachusetts could not do the same thing, unless your objection is that you want the LNC to just hand you the money (which you note they can’t do) rather than help LP-Mass to help itself.
The fact that LP national can’t literally do it for you, doesn’t explain why LP-Mass would not pursue the obvious and well-proven strategy of seeking a higher percentage for a lower statewide office. I’m curious in what way such an attempts “ends badly”, other than not getting party status, which is where you are already.
Dunno about presidential, but they absolutely can and do for legislature or any other office they feel like doing so.
There is a mandatory petition requirement for Democrat and Republican candidates for their party’s Presidential nomination in the Alabama primaries, but it is only 500 valid signatures. I’m pretty sure that the can not reject candidates for the Presidential nomination so long as they turn in the 500 valid petition signatures on time.
At least they allow you to run around in the ice and snow and petition your way on. Alabama has a “better” system: take your money, keep it, and tell you to go eat dirt and choke.
The LNC keeps proposing that they should fund to get on the ballot a candidate for one of our minor statewide offices. Every four years, we explain to them that it is illegal for them to use their Federal money to fund a candidate for Massachusetts nonFederal office, that if they did have a Massachusetts PAC that they could only spend $500 on the effort, etc etc etc and that there are a whole series of ways this idea could lose badly including not getting ballot access. Every four years, the LNC idea returns from the dead, much like the Vampire Nostradamnus. This happened in 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014.
I am reminded of a word. Mumpsimus.
Richard is well aware of how it is now. We were discussing a proposed change in the law. Given the court case that led to the insane 15% of registered voters requirement in the first place, if PA came up with a more reasonable standard for ballot retention, it could not then require nearly the number of signatures from smaller parties that it does of larger parties in the primaries, based on that 1980s court case.
And the way it is set up in Alabama is that the D/Roids take your money (not a trivial amount, either) and then reject you from participating in their primary if they don’t like you, and keep your money. Alternatively, if you want to run as anything else, they stick you with an insane signature requirement and deadline, which they keep making worse, don’t let you get a copy of the registered voter list without paying a huge fee, and don’t enforce the deadlines against your establishment opponents when they clearly violate them.
Having met both of them, I can confirm they are not the same person. But whoever you were responding to, you expressed a response to an argument Richard made.
Which mistake?
California has a lot of character, and a lot of characters. As does IPR.
“The character from California” For a minute, I thought he was talking about me!
http://paballotaccess.org/
In the 2013-2014 session of the legislature, it was SB 195, but it will need to be re-introduced into the 2015-2016 session. There is a Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition that holds meetings and maintains a web page. Senator Folmer, a Republican from Lebanon County, has introduced it in three sessions already and there seems to be no reason he won’t re-introduce it again, especially since we have two strong ballot access lawsuits pending and Pennsylvania legislature can’t keep ignoring ballot access problems.
Completely agree with Richard on the MA situation. And frankly, dismissing him as “the character from California” shows an unbelievable level of incompetence.
Richard, is there a bill number for the Pennsylvania ballot access bill, and/or a link to its text? I would like to learn more about it & contact my local representative & senator about it.
Back in 1990, David Hudson, a wonderful Libertarian activist in Massachusetts, took the lead in getting an initiative on the ballot in Massachusetts, to cut the number of signatures for general election ballot access from 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, to one-half of 1%. He paid for the paid circulators himself, for the most part. He had to go way into debt to do that. He is an unsung hero. His initiative passed, and as a result the number of signatures for getting on the November ballot went from about 40,000-50,000 signatures, to one fourth that. Then the legislature amended it and made it an exact 10,000 signatures. That is the sort of activism the Massachusetts LP once engaged in. I do salute the Massachusetts LP for recruiting candidates for the legislature in 2014 and getting them on the ballot. But at the same time, there were six US House races in Massachusetts with only one candidate on the November ballot (a Democrat) this year, and it is a shame that no Libertarians got on the ballot for Congress or any statewide office in Massachusetts in 2014. We could have had 300,000 votes for US House, cumulatively, if we had been in each of those six races.
Andy,
In the last election we had 7 candidates for State Rep or State Senate, most of whom ran serious campaigns and raised money. Of the top six all-time Libertarian vote totals at this level, going back to the 1980s, the last election had three of them. That’s related to recruiting candidates who campaign, not paper candidates as was often the case a decade ago. We also spent considerable net money on their campaigns, including maximum donations to each campaign that got up and running, and party Get Out the Vote ads (That’s Federal Election Activity; there was a Federal candidate on the ballot.) We occasionally contact people who are registered Libertarian. Many of them are surprised to hear this, because they thought they were enrolled with another party. We score points with them ‘at least you guys are honest’ when we hand them a form so they can correct their voter enrollment. With recent voters we are much better off, because they had to write “Libertarian” in order to enroll with us.
Please don’t let the character from California bother you. It’s just the way he is.
George
Richard at 7:32 wrote:
> If the New York Libertarian Party had qualified for its own primary in November 2014, Libertarians in some US House districts in New York could get on the Libertarian primary ballot with one or two signatures, because New York makes the primary petition a percentage of the number of registered voters in the party.
True, but that requires us to have party status first which, as you know, we have never achieved in 42 years of running candidates (and in fact only came close once in all those years). Personally, I don’t think there’s any chance of the New York legislature reducing the 50,000 votes for Governor requirement, and, in fact, I fear that it some entrenched politicos may want to raise it now that we have eight official parties in New York.
Lobbying the legislatures in the various statehouses to reduces ballot access barriers makes a lot of sense in states where it may happen (or has already). Unortunately, I don’t think New York is one of them.
“paulie Post author
December 19, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Some states just make it really hard to run if you are not part of the establishment. In Alabama, they make it really hard to run as anything other than a D or R, and then the establishment party committees charge high non-refundable fees and reserve the right to reject your candidacy from the primary if they don’t like you.”
The way the D’s and R’s have the deck stacked in favor of the controlling establishment in their party’s in Pennsylvania is that the primary petition signature requirements are easy enough to be done (at least for the most part) by the party’s “good ole boy” network, but this is only the case if you are the favored candidate of the party bosses. If you are not one of the favored candidates of the party bosses, then you’ve got to go out and collect your signatures the traditional ways, as in going to public venues to ask people passing by to sign, or going door-to-door in neighborhoods. It is actually pretty tough to get on the PA primary ballot if you are not one of the party’s establishment choice candidates.
“Richard Winger
December 19, 2014 at 7:32 pm
Andy’s comment of 6:22 p.m. ignores what I had said earlier, that the court said those difficult primary petitions could not be imposed on a small qualified party. If the Pennsylvania legislature hadn’t taken away the primaries for small parties, the state would have had to let people on the primary ballot of the Libertarian Party with a very small number, such as perhaps 3 signatures in a legislative district.”
The way that it is set up in Pennsylvania know (as far as I know) is that in order to get a primary, a party has to achieve major party status, and the only way to do that is by getting 15% of the registered voters in Pennsylvania to be registered to vote under your party banner. This is an extremely difficult requirement to the point of being unreasonable. Pennsylvania currently has over 8,000,000 registered voters. So the Libertarian Party could carry Pennsylvania in the 2016 Presidential election, and the Libertarian Party could win the Governors race in 2018, and the Libertarian Party would still not have major party status, as the only way to get that in Pennsylvania is to get 15% of the registered voters in the state to register to vote under the Libertarian Party label (which under the current number of registered voters, would mean that a party would have to have over 1,200,000 registered voters in order to be gain major party status). If by some miracle, the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania were to get over 1,200,000 people to register to vote under the Libertarian Party label, then I’m pretty sure that Libertarian Party members seeking a spot on the Libertarian Party primary ballot would have to get the same number of signatures as Democrats and Republicans have to get to get on primary ballots.
I’m of the belief that the Libertarian Party should always be working on getting ahead. It seems that the LP of Massachusetts has been on a downward spiral since Carla Howell ceased being active in that state party about 10 or so years ago. The LP of Massachusetts used to regularly get candidates on the ballot, even after they obtained major party status by getting 3% of the vote or higher, which made the petitioning requirement more difficult because petitions for major party candidates can only be signed by people who are registered under said party’s banner or by people who are not registered with a party banner (which is called registered Unenrolled in Massachusetts). I remember when Libertarian Party voter registration was on the rise in Massachusetts, and at one point they were talking about doing a registration drive to keep major party status through registrations.
What has the LP of Massachusetts done lately? How many candidates has the LP of MA had on the ballot in the last few elections?
So the Massachusetts LP is perfectly content to have the national LP subsidize its presidential petition every four years. And the Massachusetts LP is perfectly content to remain off the voter registration form, so that Massachusetts LP registration is sinking while it rises in the remainder of the nation. In November 2010 there were 15,857 registered Libertarians in Massachusetts and there were 278,446 in the entire U.S., so Massachusetts had 5.7% of the nation’s registered Libertarians. But in November 2014 there were 10,920 Libertarians in Massachusetts and 399,302, so Massachusetts only had 2.7% of the nation’s registered Libertarians.
Massachusetts Libertarian registration has sunk more than any other state, easily, in the last 4 years. Another thing George never mentions is that when we are a qualified party, we get a presidential primary in March, when it is useful and interesting to us. And there is no ballot access problem getting our presidential candidates on our own presidential primary; the state party just tells the Sec. of State whom to print on our primary ballot.
@5:41 PM I am responding to Andy, not Richard. I think they are not the same person.
The thing that is fundamentally wrong is that Richard thinks his magic bullet ideas must have a priority above the many things we are doing in Massachusetts that make sense to us. We are busy enough with our own ideas. I get large numbers of magic bullet theory suggestions; responding to the out of state ones has a priority somewhat low on the priority list. We spend enough time every four years explaining to the LNC, once again, that their odd election proposal is totally illegal, and that they should get a ballot access coordinator who will try not repeating the same mistake as last time.
Andy’s comment of 6:22 p.m. ignores what I had said earlier, that the court said those difficult primary petitions could not be imposed on a small qualified party. If the Pennsylvania legislature hadn’t taken away the primaries for small parties, the state would have had to let people on the primary ballot of the Libertarian Party with a very small number, such as perhaps 3 signatures in a legislative district. If the New York Libertarian Party had qualified for its own primary in November 2014, Libertarians in some US House districts in New York could get on the Libertarian primary ballot with one or two signatures, because New York makes the primary petition a percentage of the number of registered voters in the party.
As to George’s point, he seems to think it is nothing for a party to be required to submit 10,000 valid signatures for its presidential nominee. The truth is that if the Republican Party were off the ballot in Massachusetts, it couldn’t get its presidential candidate on the ballot if it keeps its old national convention schedule. The old convention schedule (in 2012) had the Republicans nominating in early September 2012, and since Massachusetts won’t allow substitution on presidential petitions, it would be literally impossible for the Republican presidential nominee to be on the November ballot.
I have asked George to ask the Mass. Sec. of State to ask permission to show “not yet nominated”” on the Libertarian 2016 petition. I have asked him to look for a legislator who will sponsor a bill to make it easier for non-presidential candidates to have easier petition requirements for getting on primary ballots. I even offered $1,000 to the Mass. LP if they would get a bill introduced (a real bill, which the legislator himself or herself sponsors) in 2015 to do this. So far, no one has told me they are working on either of these things. We political activists are here to make the world a better place, and that involves doing that kind of person-to-person communicating with legislators and journalists. It is maddening that the Mass. LP seems so dead to this kind of work. Something is fundamentally wrong.
Some states just make it really hard to run if you are not part of the establishment. In Alabama, they make it really hard to run as anything other than a D or R, and then the establishment party committees charge high non-refundable fees and reserve the right to reject your candidacy from the primary if they don’t like you.
“Richard Winger
December 19, 2014 at 4:51 pm
Yes, but the number of signatures to get a Pennsylvania Libertarian on a Libertarian primary ballot would be a small number, because the Consumer Party won a lawsuit on that point in 1986. That’s why the Pennsylvania legislature took away primaries and permanent ballot status from small qualified parties. They were told they had to ease the number of signatures for a candidate of a small qualified party to get on his or her own primary ballot. So they just eliminated primaries for all but the Dems and Reps. But if we had primaries back for small parties in Pennsylvania, we would be protected against high primary petitions.”
The petition signature requirements to get on the ballot in major party primaries in Pennsylvania are lower than the petition signature requirements to get on the Pennsylvania ballot as minor party or independent candidates, however, they are still difficult. The major party primary petitions in Pennsylvania can only be signed by people who are registered to vote under the party banner of the candidate who is seeking a place on the ballot, so registered Republicans can only sign for Republican candidates, and registered Democrats can only sign for Democrat candidates. Any registered voter can sign to place a minor party or independent candidate on the ballot. The petition circulation period for major party primary petitions is only 3 weeks, and those 3 weeks are in the winter, which mean that it is cold outside. The minor party and independent candidate petitioning period goes for around 6 months, and while it may start when the weather is still cold, most of the minor party and independent candidate petitioning period is during the spring and summer, when the weather is nice. Minor party candidates can bundle together on the same petition sheet, as in all of the state wide candidates of a minor party can be printed on the same petition sheet, and there are spots lower on the petition where you can fill in candidates for US House, State Senate, and State Assembly (the district office signatures do have to come out of the districts where the district office candidate are running though). All of the candidates for the major party primaries have to have their petition sheets on separate pages, and a PA voter can only sign a petition for one candidate for each office (unless it is for something like Delegate to a national convention, in which they can sign for up to 3 or 4 Delegates depending on which district they are in).
The bottom line is that it is still not easy to get on the ballot in Pennsylvania even when you run under the banner of a party that has major party status.
Yes, but the number of signatures to get a Pennsylvania Libertarian on a Libertarian primary ballot would be a small number, because the Consumer Party won a lawsuit on that point in 1986. That’s why the Pennsylvania legislature took away primaries and permanent ballot status from small qualified parties. They were told they had to ease the number of signatures for a candidate of a small qualified party to get on his or her own primary ballot. So they just eliminated primaries for all but the Dems and Reps. But if we had primaries back for small parties in Pennsylvania, we would be protected against high primary petitions.
Exactly.
George, I think you misunderstood Richard. He wasn’t talking about existing Mass laws. He said if the PA electoral law in its entirety was the law in Mass, not just portions of it, given the number of registered Republicans you have, they’d find themselves in the same electoral boat as PA’s Libertarians and Greens.
“It requires a party to have registration membership of 15% of the state total. If that were the law in Utah and Idaho, the Democratic Party wouldn’t be on the ballot and all its nominees would need big petitions. If that were the law in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or D.C., the Republican Party wouldn’t be on the ballot.”
This is true, and it is insanely difficult,”
Unfortunately, it is not true. If the law were as described in MA, and if the Republican candidates for President and statewide state office all failed to get 3% of the vote — an outcome devoutly to be hoped — the Republicans would still be a political designation, and their candidates would still have “Republican” on the line after their names. Worse, they would find it easier than they do now to put candidates on the ballot, so there would be more of them.
Yes, but the number of signatures to get a Pennsylvania Libertarian on a Libertarian primary ballot would be a small number, because the Consumer Party won a lawsuit on that point in 1986. That’s why the Pennsylvania legislature took away primaries and permanent ballot status from small qualified parties. They were told they had to ease the number of signatures for a candidate of a small qualified party to get on his or her own primary ballot. So they just eliminated primaries for all but the Dems and Reps. But if we had primaries back for small parties in Pennsylvania, we would be protected against high primary petitions.
Errrr, I suppose I should have said Libertarians who want to run as candidates would have to get their names on the primary ballots.
“Richard Winger
December 19, 2014 at 3:26 pm
Yes, but the Republicans and Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania who are petitioning to get on a primary ballot are not the party’s nominees. They are just individuals who want to be the nominee. There is a big difference between candidates and party nominees. When Libertarians, Greens, and Constitution Party members petition, they are already the party’s nominees.”
If the Libertarian Party were to ever get major party status in Pennsylvania, as I understand it, Libertarian Party candidates would still have to petition to get their names on the Libertarian Party primary ballot.
Supposing it had 80% validity and was paying 2.50 and zero expenses, we’d still be talking at least $50k, and that’s huge for any state LP. Only a couple of state LPs have annual state budgets that are bigger than that right now, and those states have other expenses, including office space and employee(s). Then you add the cost/effort of defending the challenge – even if you succeed, you could need a dozen people to be there all day every day for weeks and weeks on end, attorneys, and so on. And if you lose you have to pay a massive fee to cover the challengers’ costs, with the candidates being personally on the hook for it if the party can’t afford to pay. And if all that is not enough, when you do successfully defend the challenge, you do NOT get the money to cover the costs you incurred to defend the challenge reimbursed.
Those are some reasons why the LPPA has not been on the ballot, except when subsidized by national, any time recently, if ever.
The last state I can think of which needed no national help for a drive this size was what, maybe Texas in 2004?… and I am not even too sure about that one.
Yes, but he’s a special case.
Except for Sam Sloan (in New York).
Yes, but the Republicans and Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania who are petitioning to get on a primary ballot are not the party’s nominees. They are just individuals who want to be the nominee. There is a big difference between candidates and party nominees. When Libertarians, Greens, and Constitution Party members petition, they are already the party’s nominees.
“Richard Winger
December 19, 2014 at 2:32 pm
The real problem in Pennsylvania is the law on how a party remains on the ballot without having to repetition. Oddly enough, Pennsylvania ballot activists never talk about it. It is outrageous. It requires a party to have registration membership of 15% of the state total. If that were the law in Utah and Idaho, the Democratic Party wouldn’t be on the ballot and all its nominees would need big petitions. If that were the law in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or D.C., the Republican Party wouldn’t be on the ballot.”
This is true, and it is insanely difficult, however, it should be pointed out that in Pennsylvania, even the Democrats and Republicans have to gather petition signatures to place their candidates on the primary ballots.
“paulie Post author
December 19, 2014 at 12:28 pm
16k+ valid is not really a small petition job for any state LP that’s not getting help from national, regardless of the population of the state. When you add in Pennsylvania’s unique system of court challenges and assessing court costs, the (wo)manpower needed to defend the challenges and the issues PA went through internally just in the last couple of years it becomes easier to understand why they didn’t have it together to take this on successfully.”
If the LP of PA had its act together, 16,000 and some odd signatures would not be that difficult. Even with the challenge process, just do the job right, as in get good validity on the petitions (which can be done if the petition circulators just simply do a good job of screening people before they sign, and/or by checking the signatures before they are turned in to the Secretary of State), and you will probably survive the challenge, and you may not even get challenged at all if the challengers know in advance that you have good validity and will likely win the challenge (which under PA law would mean that the challengers would have to pay for the challenge).
Getting a good validity is not that hard in PA considering that the state has around 2/3 of its population as registered voters, as in about 66% of Pennsylvanians are registered to vote. This is true even in Philadelphia.
Another excellent point. That it is a totally insane law.
The real problem in Pennsylvania is the law on how a party remains on the ballot without having to repetition. Oddly enough, Pennsylvania ballot activists never talk about it. It is outrageous. It requires a party to have registration membership of 15% of the state total. If that were the law in Utah and Idaho, the Democratic Party wouldn’t be on the ballot and all its nominees would need big petitions. If that were the law in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or D.C., the Republican Party wouldn’t be on the ballot.
This terrible law was passed in 1986. Before 1986, any party that polled 2% of the winning candidate’s vote (for whichever statewide candidate got the biggest vote) was on the ballot with its own primary. If that were still the law, the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party, probably would be on the ballot automatically. That is why we are trying to get Senator Folmer’s bill passed. Those three parties would be on automatically, and would nominate by convention, if it were the law.
16k+ valid is not really a small petition job for any state LP that’s not getting help from national, regardless of the population of the state. When you add in Pennsylvania’s unique system of court challenges and assessing court costs, the (wo)manpower needed to defend the challenges and the issues PA went through internally just in the last couple of years it becomes easier to understand why they didn’t have it together to take this on successfully.
As far as the comment at 9:58 from Mark Axinn, I agree that Free and Equal does a good job of raising awareness. The “Franchi” in the report is Gary Franchi. His current project is called the “Next News Network”..I recommend following his work, also.
It is really rather pathetic that the LP of PA did not have its act together enough to get on the ballot being that the petition signature requirement in PA for 2014 was the lowest it has been in a long time as it was only 16,000 and something signatures. This is really not that many signatures for a state the size of Pennsylvania (6th most populated state with over 12,000,000 people).
I think they are in somewhat of a reorganizational phase. They had a kot of internal problems a couple of years ago that were only fairly recently resolved. There’s also the cost and potential liabiity of challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVfH9rNQV7E
“When it comes to filling legislative seats in Washington, unless your name is tagged with a big ‘D’ for Democrat, or a big ‘R’ for Republican, you’re often treated like a ‘nobody,’” Franchi reported. “The independent candidate usually gets scant press coverage—and that’s assuming that the Democrat-Republican machine does not deny ballot access to independent contenders.”
Bravo to Christina and F&E for fighting this battle each year.
Programming Note: Nicholas Sarwark will be a guest on the Old Dominion Libertarian radio show on Monday 12/22 at 7PM ET/6PM CT
Call-in phone number: (347) 994-2949
Live stream/podcast link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/olddominionlibertarian/2014/12/23/a-champion-of-liberty-with-special-guest-nicholas-sarwark (the URL says 12/23 but the broadcast is for the 22nd)
Meanwhile, Arvin Vohra issued a rallying cry on “Libertarians Working For You”
http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/82321/lnc-meeting-followuppre-holiday-show
“Jed Ziggler
December 19, 2014 at 12:04 am
Richard, I really hope you’re right about PA’s ballot access laws changing. That’s my state, I love this state, but I felt weird not voting this year due to a lack of opposition candidates on the ballot and the uncertainty of write-in votes being counted.”
It is really rather pathetic that the LP of PA did not have its act together enough to get on the ballot being that the petition signature requirement in PA for 2014 was the lowest it has been in a long time as it was only 16,000 and something signatures. This is really not that many signatures for a state the size of Pennsylvania (6th most populated state with over 12,000,000 people).
My state sucks too:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/12/eleventh-circuit-refuses-to-invalidate-alabamas-march-petition-deadline-for-newly-qualifying-parties/
I’ll be down on Goat Hill trying to change that. Wish me luck, because I will need it.
Richard, I really hope you’re right about PA’s ballot access laws changing. That’s my state, I love this state, but I felt weird not voting this year due to a lack of opposition candidates on the ballot and the uncertainty of write-in votes being counted.
Good point, Richard.
When someone writes that we don’t have presidential ballot status in Ohio, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, the author should also tell the whole story, which is that the laws in those states might change for the better and we might end up on the 2016 ballot with no petition. If the bill in Pennsylvania were to pass, we would be on immediately with no petition. There are two strong lawsuits pending against Pennsylvania, and if either one wins, much less both, the legislature will really need to change things. We are trying to get the Virginia vote test reduced. We are trying to get the Ohio law eased, plus we are waiting for a court decision on whether the new Ohio law is constitutional. There are also two strong lawsuits pending in Illinois, and I hope and believe there is lobbying going on in that state.
It is irrational for all of us not to give our all on changing these bad laws, instead of just accepting them and wasting our precious resources year after year on petitioning.
Lorie Meacham @ copblock
Grand Jury Witness 40?s Claim That Michael Brown Charged “Like a Football Player” Falls Apart: Darren Wilson’s collaborating witness completely fabricated her story and has a criminal history marked by mental illness, lying to authorities, and blatant racism. She also lied to the grand jury in the first story and had to change her story in the second. Sandra McElroy, a fan of crime dramas, had previously offered herself as a witness to another criminal investigation which had generated significant media attention, though police assigned to that case dismissed her account as a “complete fabrication.” It is inconceivable that state investigators were unaware of this when they placed her on the stand. Any state attorneys who handled Ms. McElroy’s testimony on the case should be disbarred.
http://benswann.com/grand-jury-witness-40s-claim-that-michael-brown-charged-like-a-football-player-falls-apart/
Here’s an interesting event happening on Facebook:
http://libertycrier.com/glenn-becks-person-year-votes-say-larken-rose-beck-says-votes/
Paulie at 5:08 pm–I agree.
Andy at 3:46–I don’t know what went wrong in Oklahoma and assume you know more than I do. I agree nothing is impossible, but that state does have an inordinately difficult barrier to ballot access, especially given its relative small population.
I cannot comment on your “thumbs up their asses” allegation regarding other states, but I certainly dispute it with respect to the LPNY. I have managed three state-wide petition campaigns in the last five years amassing a total of 90,000 signatures, many of them from volunteer Libertarian petitioners and candidates. (Just this year, we came in $7000 under budget because of the large number of volunteer sigs.)
So I know that allegation does not apply to my members.
J.R., so the Alaska CP doesn’t favor eliminating No-Fault Divorce like the Wisconsin Constitution Party does?
Yes, except CA has been screwed in non-presidential races.
They are some but not all of the states in which they attacked us.
Yes, although we have made some tentative progress – fewer states to do and lower hurdles in some of them. For those of used to staring at an equivalent of that map every four years it’s relatively good news.
Oklahoma did almost cut its requirements for getting on the ballot in half last year. The bill passed, but the legislature unexpectedly adjourned early before the house and senate versions were reconciled, or something like that. There’s definite hope for a bill to pass in the next couple of years lowering the hurdle. I’d have to check, but I think the lower vote turnout also lowered it a little bit.
Given that we have better presidential retention than after any other midyear before, and relatively lower hurdles in many of the remaining states due to low voter turnout last month as well as legislation that has passed over the years since those previous times in some of the states, the situation – while still bad – is less bad than in the past, at least.
If the money can be raised, given that there’s less to do (cumulatively) in states other than Oklahoma, it makes it relatively more plausible to do Oklahoma. Region 7 is also making tentative plans to attack our ballot access problems through lawsuit, lobbying, volunteer petitioning, and maybe some fundraising towards professional petitioning. Those plans are a long way from being fully hashed out, but could end up helping the problems in Oklahoma and Alabama become resolved in one way or another.
OAI will be lobbying for ballot access reform bills as well.
None of these states are impossible. The LP failed in Oklahoma in 2012, not because it was “impossible,” but rather because the petition drive was grossly mismanaged.
Let’s see if the same players who screwed up in 2012 (and 2008 and 2004) are allowed to screw up again in 2016 while most of the rest of the party sits around with their thumbs up their asses while acting like a bunch of lemmings being led off a cliff.
Oklahoma is not “impossible.” The LP has successfully petitioned its way on the ballot there several times, 1992, 1996, and 2000 being the three most recent examples. Is it more difficult than average? Sure, but it is still doable.
The LP did not make it in Oklahoma in 2012 due to a lack of money or manpower, but rather due to mismanagement at the national and state level.
A few obvious observations on the map:
Our three largest affiliates, CA, TX and FL, are safely on, but unfortunately the next five (OH, VA, NY, PA and IL) are not. And, gee whiz, those are the exact same states where Republicans attacked us in 2012 and 2014. (I think VA was just a threat which did not pan out.)
Looking at the map, some of the states without automatic LP access are easy for us to have candidates petition on to the ballot (e.g., NJ) while others are virtually impossible (the most notorious being OK I believe).
So once again, we will have to spend huge amounts of limited donor funds just to get on the ballot, exactly what the large parties want us to have to do.
Thank you. I like them a lot, and do a fair bit of work with the https://www.facebook.com/groups/DesignforLiberty/ team to give them ideas and then post them, although I am not a designer myself.
If you haven’t had enough of Mr. Milnes, go check out and join the fun at http://rwm4prez2012.wordpress.com/ and http://thesaturnalian.wordpress.com/ . Please avoid further discussion of quarantined thread subject matter. The quarantined thread is at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/06/plas-open-thread-ii/ if you feel a need to discuss it here.
Paulie, thank you for posting all of the visuals. They are incisive.
This website was more entertaining when you let Robert Milnes comment. In fact, sometimes I would check back in just to see his PLAS rantings. #thegoodolddays #bringbackcrazyoldmanmilnes
I also want to say that the Green Party of Massachusetts went out of its way to regain party status in Massachusetts this year, as did the United Independent Party. Those two parties obviously think that having the status of a qualified party is a good thing.
I strongly suggest that all Massachusetts Libertarian activists work for a change in election law, so that members of a qualified party do not have such difficult requirements for getting themselves on their own party’s primary ballot. We are in an excellent position to make the case for this law change, because last month, Massachusetts was the only state in the nation in which a majority of the congressional races had only one candidate on the ballot (a Democrat). Out of the 9 US House races, six of them only had a Democrat on the ballot. Massachusetts requires 2,000 signatures to get a candidate on a primary ballot, more than any other state (for US House). It should be easy to get good government groups in Massachusetts interested in reforming this terrible law. I offered the Mass. LP $1,000 if they would get a bill introduced in the legislature to reform this law (but it has to be a normal bill, in which the legislator himself or herself is advocating it, not just one of those odd bills that the legislator says he is introducing at the request of a constituent). George told me he put this information before the Mass. LP state committee, but that was weeks ago and I hope they are working on it.
I haven’t verified this, but I certainly hope it’s true!
Excellent news!
http://thenationalmarijuananews.com/2014/12/the-federal-government-just-made-marijuana-legal-in-all-native-american-reservations-in-the-us/
I have no idea why the link won’t work, but perhaps it’s a temporary problem.
Here’s another article: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/11/7376929/marijuana-legalization-american-indians
Truth in Media: The Root of Police Militarization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsRV3y37qcs
As a spam reduction measure which I no longer have any control over you must use the same screen name and email address as a previous approved comment or you are held up for moderation until approved. It has nothing to do with your opinion. Other than that the automated spam filter sometimes makes mistakes, and people sometimes make mistaken assumptions just like you just did.
Is this website censoring comments now? Why even have comments if commenters aren’t allowed to have a different opinion than the editors? Lame…
Let me see if this will make it less confusing?
Exactly. Gold states are where we won’t have to petition for president for 2016, grey are where we will. I am not sure why I have to explain that a second time, much less multiple times, to this particular audience which should be well familiar with the ins and outs of this. Please read what I originally wrote again.
The LP had to do petition drives to get those candidates for President on the ballot.
It has to do with the map because it explains why the LP is going to have to do a petition drive in Massachusetts in 2016 to get its Presidential ticket on the ballot.
12/10 6:55 PM Libertarians in Massachusetts do have Presidential ballot access. We ran a candidate for President as a Libertarian in 2012, 2008, 2004, and many prior cycles.
Yes, but that still has nothing to do with the map, because the map is only about presidential ballot access only and nothing else.
“Yes, I know. That’s why the co mment you are replying to says presidential ballot access in the first paragraph:”
It should be pointed out that having party status in Massachusetts is not the same thing as having party status in a lot of other states, because in a lot of states, once you get party status, your candidates still have to gather petition signatures to get on the ballot. Massachusetts requires all candidates, except for the candidates for President of parties that have major party status (which is obtained by having a specified number of voter registrations, or by getting a certain percent of the vote for state wide office), to gather petition signatures to obtain ballot access, and unlike some of the states where even the major parties have to gather petition signatures, all candidates in Massachusetts have to gather the same number of petition signatures.
It is actually more difficult to gather petition signatures as a major party candidate in Massachusetts as opposed to being a candidate for a minor party or an unqualified party or an independent. The reason it is more difficult is because once your party has major party status, only registered voters from your party, or people who are registered to vote with no political party banner, as in registered independents, which in Massachusetts is called registered Unenrolled, can sign petitions for the candidates of major political parties. Any registered voter can sign a petition to place candidates on the ballot for minor parties, or unqualified parties, or for independent candidates.
Also, the petition circulation period for parties with major party status in Massachusetts is earlier than the petition circulation period for minor parties or unqualified parties or independent candidates, which means more cold weather petitioning for candidates for major parties, whereas minor parties, unqualified parties, and independents can do most of their petitioning in nicer weather.
Yes, I know. That’s why the comment you are replying to says presidential ballot access in the first paragraph:
Petition signatures are still required for ballot access in Massachusetts even if a party is a qualified party. If a party gets major party status in Massachusetts, which can be obtained by having a certain number of voter registrations, or by getting a certain percent of the vote for a state wide office, then I believe a party’s candidate for President is exempt from having to petition for ballot access. The LP of Massachusetts has minor party status, so the LP of Massachusetts will have to gather petition signatures to place the LP candidate for President on the ballot.
George, the map is supposed to show automatic 2016 ballot access for President. There are a lot of states that have limited or partial access for other offices, but that wasn’t the point, and any map that attempted to show all those state-level complications would quickly get so complicated as to be unreadable.
I was able to appear as “Libertarian” in Wisconsin this year too, not because we had any level of recognized party status, but because independents are allowed to self-describe without limitation in this state. But it wouldn’t have been accurate to say we had “ballot access” as most people mean the term.
12/2 6:05PM. Libertarians in Massachusetts *do* have ballot access. If I run for Congress in 2016 or Senate in 2018, I can run with “Libertarian” on the line after my name. (I may be well advised to emulate Joe Kennedy, our candidate who was covered at length in the New York Times Sunday magazine, and run as “Liberty”, but the press will still call me “Libertarian”). For all offices other than President, our current exact status makes it *easier* for Libertarians to run for office than would be the ease of access under the alternatives.
In 2014, I offered a toast to the greatest living American Patriot, Edward Snowden. In 2007, I called for war crime trials for the National Security State. You may contrast my stands with the stands of Barr, Root, Gray, et al.
CIA War Crimes Exposed. The Senate report shows massive lists of war crimes, crimes against civilization, and violations of American law/ We need mass trials.
And with respect to ‘you can’t try that many people’ . I return to what I said in my 2008 Presidential campaign. I was challenged on trying all the guilty parties, because there are a lot of them. And I answered that we had put a million drug criminals in prison, mostly for deeds that should not have been criminalized. Trying and imprisoning another 50,000 people for these hideous deeds is a drop in the bucket.
Also if anyone has tried to reach me on email or facebook the last couple of days I haven’t been on those either, and not sure when I will be. You can call me if you want but I may or may not be somewhere where I can explain why I am not logging into any accounts.
I don’t feel like explaining why I am not logging in, but can one of the other writers please update the timestamp of the open thread to today, but so it is not the top story? I think just changing the date without changing the time of day would probably work.
Richard – I did not make the map, but it was made at my request by the Design for Liberty group on Facebook and we’ve put it out through the national LP twitter account (which I am helping run). I don’t think we have used it on the national LP facebook main page yet, which is much higher traffic, and which I also help run, but I believe we will. You are more than welcome to use it, as well.
I would also recommend that you and others get involved with the Design for Liberty group even if you are not designers, as I am not. I collaborate with the designers there and suggest ideas, and they put together the graphics when they like the ideas suggested by me and others. This map is one of several examples of my ideas being implemented by the group. There are many other ideas which they could make happen if someone was there to push them.
Paullie, I love your map. It shows the extreme contrast between the west (good) and the east (horrible).
This pig pretended to be a supporter of gun rights and constitutional militias, but he was really a federal informant. I’ve got to wonder how many other people there are in the Liberty Movement who are really government plants.
http://www.infowars.com/former-police-chief-admits-involvement-in-federal-anti-patriot-operation/
Police: Would-Be Masters Who Masquerade As Servants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDFrnL9Bi9s
Thank you as always for taking out the trash. I noticed he wrote you and me little love notes there as well, how thoughtful! 🙂
I apologize to everyone that Vernon’s comments were up for a couple hours. I try to get them deleted right away.
@Paulie – Thanks! I also found some good points made in the comment thread below that Facebook post I linked to yesterday:
“FYI – Being LPKY chair I can tell you that KY has a 3-tier system and 2% only gets you into the middle tier. And that’s only for the popular vote for US President within Kentucky’s borders. It’s a messed up threshold.” – Ken Moellman
“Just to point out, 2 percent in NC is quite a lot. We are trying to get that lowered even more, though the two party duopoly has no interest in doing so. Might want to go even lower to 1 percent.” – Matthew Gorman
http://www.cracked.com/article_21614_5-things-i-learned-as-neo-nazi.html
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/15/6005587/ferguson-satire-another-country-russia-china
Alaska Constitution Party Platform:
ACP 2014-2015 PLATFORM Adopted in Convention 9/27/14 in Anchorage
We declare the platform of the Alaska Constitution Party to be predicated on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of The United States, and the Bill of Rights, according to the original intent of the Founding Fathers. Vigorous defense of our constitutional legacy with insistence upon complete local, state and federal government compliance with our Alaska and United States of America Constitutions with an emphasis on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We adopt the 7 principles and the platform of the national party with the following amendments and clarifications.
#1: “ACP supports the sanctity of human life from conception and opposes abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.”
#2: The right of individuals and of citizen militias to keep and bear arms, including concealed weapons; and the freedom to manufacture, purchase, trade and train in the use of such weapons and their constituent parts including the unfettered acquisition of ammunition.
#3: Reviewing the Alaska Constitution, and advocating needed reforms through the convening of an Alaska State Constitutional Convention every ten years. Specifically, we seek to amend the Constitution of the State of Alaska to re-establish the rights of all Alaskan residents to entry upon all public lands within the state, and to acquire private property interest therein, under fair and reasonable conditions. Such property interest shall include surface and sub-surface patent.
#4: Reinforcing the understanding of our unalienable rights endowed by our Creator by eliminating the use of the word “privilege” contained throughout Alaska statutes.
#5: Providing for the direct popular election of the Alaska Attorney General and all Alaska judges and magistrates.
#6: The right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, according to their conscience, otherwise known as Jury Nullification.
#7: Reviewing our local governments over-reliance upon property taxes, and developing more just methods of taxation to reduce and eventually eliminate property taxes altogether.
#8: The complete repatriation of our public lands, held by the federal government to the people and State of Alaska in accordance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal constitution.
#9: Strengthening the traditional family and supporting individual accountability without unwarranted government interference or regulation. This includes support of the educational rights of parents to privately or home school their children.
#10: The right to privacy is essential to liberty and shall not be infringed.
#11: We support the establishment of the office of Sheriff elected by the people.
We Need to Talk about Sandy Hook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxTafqejV6k
Rick:
Great point, and true of many other states as well. Here is a map we are working on over at Design for Liberty that shows states where the LP retained presidential ballot access coming out of the midterm (gold) and did not (grey). Right now is the best time to talk to legislators about introducing bills before the legislative calendars fill up. 26 states have made ballot access improvements through legislative lobbying in recent years.
Darryl: It’s been assumed by most for quite some time that Rand Paul intends to run for both president and re-election to the senate. There are legal difficulties with this, but Ken Moellman also told me there are ways around that.
Regarding running for LP co-nomination Rand Paul addressed that directly. I don’t have it in front of me but I believe the quote was, or was in effect:
Of course not. They keep writing me open letters saying I’m not a libertarian.
Of course, I don’t think there was ever any chance that he would run for LP co-nomination. It’s more likely that his supporters may try to go to the LP convention, sign up as delegates, and push NOTA.
I don’t expect Rand Paul to have much chance at the Republican presidential nomination, but VP may be possible, and he’ll run a stronger race than either the 2008 or 2012 Ron Paul runs for the nomination. Both of those times we had quite a few Ron Paul diehards who insisted he had a real chance at the nomination long after most observers had concluded correctly that the Republicans had made their decision all but formally, and I expect the same thing to happen with Rand Paul, but on an even bigger scale.
And unlike Ron Paul, I expect Rand Paul to actively campaign for whoever the Republicans put on their ticket regardless of whether he is on it himself. He is perfectly willing to let the NSGOP use him as a weapon against the LP and against alt parties and independents in general, as Ron Paul sometimes did with his non-presidential endorsements, but far more so and without the mitigating actions that Ron Paul did in favor of more political choice and advancing outside the establishment alternative parties and candidates.
This Is What Happens When You Call The Cops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlY9C6pzxKc
Not directly third party/independent related; though it should clear up some speculations about the LP nomination going to Rand Paul.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rand-paul-to-run-for-senate-re-election-in-2016/2014/12/02/46ef3372-7a23-11e4-8241-8cc0a3670239_story.html
Robert Sarvis on Facebook:
WANT a more open and competitive political system in Virginia?
HELP get bills passed in Virginia to:
** REDUCE the threshold for ballot-qualified party status from 10% to 2% of the vote in statewide elections. (It’s 1% in MD & WV, 2% in NC & KY).
** REDUCE the ballot signature threshold to 5,000 for all statewide offices (Gov., Lt. Gov., Atty. Gen., U.S. Sen.), just as it was lowered for Presidential Primaries recently.
** ENACT ranked-choice (instant-runoff) voting in Virginia elections.
The deadline for introducing bills is coming up VERY soon, so please send an email AND call your Delegates and Senators NOW!
TAKE ACTION: http://www.robertsarvis.com/electoral-reform-bills
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=736280993128981
For anyone who only reads comments but not articles here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W4nSjPdT788
In the new American Nazi Party Report, Rocky J. “Rocky J.” Suhayda explains how the party is different from “Hollywierd Nutzi types”. http://anp14.com/news/index.php
Speaking of https://www.facebook.com/libertarians I can now post directly to there as the page, as well as to https://twitter.com/LPNational … if anyone has any good ideas for tweets, memes, article shares etc for the LP National FB and/or twitter let me know.
Via LP FB:
Do you want to help advance liberty, work with libertarian candidates, and get media experience? Libertarians Working For You, the LP’s official radio show, is looking for 2-3 volunteer interns to help work with LP candidates, work on logistics, and assist with promotion.
Libertarians Working for You is hosted by Arvin Vohra, Vice Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. If you are interested, please email [email protected].
You can do this program from anywhere, since most of our work is done online.