Meeting is starting. I will edit the article as I go but most of it will be in the comments. See http://www.lp.org/blogs/staff/lnc-meeting-dec-13-14-2014-new-orleans or https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/12/libertarian-national-committee-meeting-dec-13-14-2014-in-new-orleans/ for broadcast channels, preliminary agenda and written reports.
Maybe ten. But that’s my own damn fault for the way I eat and drink, and that needs to change.
Every little bit helps….but to be honest neither my health nor my wealth can take these trips any longer. I’ll need a good long break from them, maybe for good, maybe not.
So there is some “Good News” on IPR!
🙂
I, for one, would like to see you receive enough contributions to reimburse your travel/lodging costs associated with covering the LNC meeting. I assume that would take another 4 or 5 contributions of an equivalent amount?
Sometimes the only thing missing is just asking for what you want/need — I assume there are folks here who would feel good about contributing and all they need is a suggestion/reminder.
(But as a “professor” of marketing, maybe I’m wrong about that . . .)
So, let me know if this post helped!
Joe
I’ve now had two people contribute $50 each, so it is working. Not sure if they want to be thanked by name here, but thanks again!
Including for your own accounts, or anyone else you tried to send money to, regardless of whether you have tried or want to try sending me any?
First draft of the meeting minutes is at http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/attachments/20141220/90f5b0e6/attachment-0001.pdf for anyone who wants to take a look. Alicia’s meeting notes are much better than mine.
Ask away folks; don’t be shy!
Ron Nielson has offered to do another Q & A with me. Would some of the critics who have posted negative thoughts on OAI, or more open minded people who just have questions, like to submit some questions for me to pose to him?
Photos from FB that I posted December 15 seem to not work here anymore. Not sure why that is, but they still seem to show up fine on my FB wall.
https://www.facebook.com/paulie.cannoli/posts/10152422379291277
Has anyone tried to actually do this? I had one person email me that paypal is saying that my email address no longer works for this, but I hunted around in paypal settings and don’t see where the problem is. Anyone else have a similar problem with paypal?
Thanks. It’s not that simple though. Not just any CPAP machine would work. It has to be auto-titrating for one thing, since I haven’t had a sleep study and have no idea how I could arrange it given my circumstances, and it can’t be noisy or large or heavy (I would have trouble disturbing other people, being able to get to sleep myself, and lugging it around). As I mentioned with the earplugs, I have a low tolerance for anything invasive, so I would have to see if there is any way to tolerate the mask, and I would need the cleaning machine for it also. So I would appreciate what you can find out but not too optimistic on that.
The sleep apnea is more of an underlying problem. I mostly need to lose weight to deal with that. I don’t even snore much less have sleep apnea when I lose weight, and I’ve done it before.
Right now I am dealing with more of a short term problem.
Having weakness, chest pains and shortness of breath so it’s kind of slowing me down. I’m house sitting by myself with no transportation so I am not going to the ER just yet, unless I really have to. That may be a mistake, because some of the arythmias have been pretty bad and have felt like they could be life threatening. Most of the time it is a dull ache but I am having some sharp pains at times. The New Orleans trip was a mistake. Trying to work and party around the clock, drinking, restaurant food, megabus…. it all took a pretty bad toll. I may need a pericardial tap and possibly heart surgery based on the results of that. Hopefully I don’t have to go to the ER this week, since I have no way to get around, no transportation, no one else to watch the house and no one to help me out when I get released from the hospital. And hopefully not going to the ER won’t kill me.
Paulie,
I have a friend with a CPAP who also uses a dental appliance when camping (no 110 volt power). I hear ads for those on the radio from time to time. If you want, I;ll ask him for more details.
Joe
Does anyone know if/when the ustream videos from New Orleans will be posted to the archive and whether/where the caster archive is?
It’s come to my attention that the ustream archives are actually from the Virginia meeting, not the New Orleans meeting. I still haven’t found an archive link on caster.
It would have to be the non-noisy, auto-titrating, small and light weight one, for a variety of reasons, and would need some other things such as the machine for cleaning the mask, since it goes inside the nose/mouth. I’m not sure I would be able to sleep with it even then – I couldn’t even tolerate ear plugs, much less nasal strips.
I don’t think the sleep apnea is necessarily the biggest problem at the moment. From looking at the symptoms online it sounds like most likely pericardiatis:
It may actually be several of these things – the hospital in Wyoming said my EKG indicates I have probably had multiple micro-heart attacks and maybe a couple of small ones, although there is no absolute proof.
Paulie wrote:
I don’t understand why people penny pinch with their health. If you need a machine to significantly improve your quality of life or to prevent you from dying, find a way to get it.
eBay sometimes sells used machines much cheaper than retail. Or check CraigsList. Apparently a lot of machines are sold at estate sales.
Joshua Kata wrote:
Joshua Katz wrote:
Joshua Kata wrote:
Paulie wrote:
Paulie is right. It’s very important to send corrections to LPHQ or your dumps will never get better.
For many years Virginia was one of only a handful of states that actually sent corrections back to national (due entirely to Marc Montoni). If every state was as attentive as Marc in making database communication with LPHQ a two way street, the data in dumps would be dramatically improved.
It looks like Dave Terry is a new suspect for being “Vernon.”
I think gofundme is a good way to raise money. Has anyone set one up before? We’ll have to know the cost of the machine to set it up.
How about an IPR fundraiser for Paul to get a sleep apnea machine?
Paulie, I’ll bet you’d get better and feel much better if you could get a good night’s sleep by controlling your apnea. Are there facilities that sell refurbished machines that might be less expensive? It also might be helpful if you joined the antidepressant club for a few months. Many of us have been there, and sometimes it just takes a few months to turn things around.
Take care of yourself. We need you.
Good points Paulie. Thanks for the ideas.
If you are getting the info sorted by date you should be able to phone, email and/or snail mail the most recent month’s inquiries only (or even shorter time periods if that can be arranged) as soon as you get them. Probably phone and email first and try to correct snail mail addresses that way. Make sure to send all corrections back to national so they can correct their list too. I do believe a list that is real time accessible would be better than a monthly dump – perhaps a login feature to an online database allowing state as well as national level officers the ability to correct records.
I’ve also been given to understand that many of these features already exist in Raiser’s Edge, and that we are failing to use a lot of them.
I discussed the options with Robert, and, to be clear, I’m not complaining, I’m making sure everyone in the conversation is clear about data dumps. I did import into Excel, and did sort by date – that was part of how I got it down from 10000 to 1500, yet I still got this many returns. It’s not Robert’s fault, it’s not HQ’s fault, it’s just a problem that IT probably needs to look at.
By the way, when the dumps are sent out, a note is appended reminding chairs of the different options, and there is a document attached explaining the differences and how the fields work, but none of that solves the problem of the underlying data being problematic. There are lots of reasons this happens – the most obvious being that our population is far more transient than it was in the 1980s when Reagan used direct mail to win an election, based on a list he got from a 1964 campaign. Two summers ago, I didn’t move – the first time in 7 years I got through a summer without moving, and the last since then. I am hoping not to move this summer, but we shall see. If things go well, I may finally buy a house. If not, I may move into a smaller apartment. This wasn’t the way we lived 1964-1980.
Less obvious problems are things like misspelled names causing perfectly valid addresses to bounce back, people writing addresses where a 4 looks like a 9, etc. When I teach CPR and have to decipher hand-written rosters in order to order cards for my students, I understand fully how a name or address can end up incorrect on a list. And perhaps I’m blowing this out of proportion because of the money it just cost my state. You’re right, the data dump issues have nothing to do with the campaign, of course – I’m just saying that throwing good information into a bad aggregation is problematic. Most states make very little use of their dumps, from what I’ve heard – and I can see why, especially after trying. (Not that I’m giving up – my next plan is to send an email to 6000 addresses. This will cost me nothing, or nearly nothing, and I’ll probably use a newly created email account for it at our domain, just so I don’t have my regular account bombarded with bounces. Maybe I can even devise a program that will record the bounces and mark the emails as bad on the spreadsheet…)
RC, thanks!
Joshua, I believe the data dumps already have a field for date of inquiry. If you import them into excel or whatever program you can sort inquiries by date and contact only the most recent ones.
I believe there is also some way to get them on a more-frequent-than monthly basis. Ask Robert Kraus about the options. If they are inadequate, that may need to be addressed with the IT committee. I think also a lot of states don’t know what all the different options are for receiving data from national, what all the fields are, how they can be sorted etc. That should perhaps be discussed on the statechairs list and maybe some FAQ or training materials should be created, or states should be frequently reminded if these already exist.
I looked it up. Apparently it’s this: http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/pericardial-tap
It does say that surgery may or may not be needed depending on test results.
I believe that vote was at this meeting, not VA. I don’t feel like scrolling to find it but I think it is in the comments above. Otherwise I agree, you are correct.
This is a problem, but not necessarily on the campaign end. Perhaps you can address this with LNC and staff and come up with a better way that states can get any data shared by future presidential campaign(s) with the national LP in a more timely manner and separate from the rest of the data dump.
PF, please do take care of yourself! To a speedy recovery!
Paulie, I work in the medical field and have no idea what a heart tap or heart cap is. I’m guessing you misheard. With the symptoms you describe, I’d certainly want a few tests, but I wouldn’t jump to surgery immediately until I saw the results of those tests.
Starchild – I’ll defer to members of the last LNC about the contract with the Johnson campaign and whether or not it was fulfilled. My main issue is that the campaign, OAI, don’t share information with their own people. States never received data from their state campaign – partly because the state campaigns didn’t have it. Sure, states get data dumps, and if the campaign sends information to national, then we’ll see it in the dump – but the dumps are, well, just look at the name. I took my latest data dump, removed anyone who didn’t want to be contacted, every known bad address (there are known bad addresses in there), everyone who was dead (there are known dead people in there), and a few other characteristics, then combined duplicates, multiple names with one address, etc. This left 1500 addresses. I mailed a letter to those addresses. Almost 20% of those letters came back undeliverable. It would be nice to receive information directly about campaign contacts.
OAI, of course, has no need to share data with the LP, but I will not participate with OAI so long as it doesn’t share data with it’s own people (and a few other reasons which I’ve gone into above.)
Alicia tracked down past convention information. She made a motion at the last meeting, which I’m guessing passed, to have future convention committees maintain that same data, which is far more detailed than the financial summary. That information, I believe, will be publicly available.
There already is a rule requiring the convention oversight committee (which is now the only convention committee) to submit financial data, and to make that data public. That rule was placed into the Policy Manual during Aaron’s last term on the LNC, as a result of a motion he made. The problem is that the convention committees are all vacated at the close of the convention, and it’s hard to compel anything from a non-existent committee. The information from the last convention was very slow to come in. At our Virginia meeting, we changed the rules so that the committees are not vacated at the convention, which will hopefully make this easier in the future.
Since I mentioned my financial and health situations earlier in this thread, I may as well catch everyone up on that. I don’t think very many people care but for some reason I feel compelled to tell you.
On the financial side, I don’t have a paying job, and on the health side may not be able to take one any time soon. Joe and I discussed people sending me contributions somewhere above, but the reality is that none have come in for this trip as far as I can tell, so it’s somewhat of a moot point.
On the health side, I have been on blood pressure medications since August and have tried a few different ones but none of them have brought my blood pressure down as far as they are supposed to. I was also supposed to get an auto-titrating CPAP machine for my sleep apnea but it turns out they are expensive so that’s a no go. The EKG that was done in August shows I have serious heart problems.
The sleep apnea is causing chronic headaches, concentration problems, insomnia and fatigue; it’s also related to the blood pressure problems and possibly to the stomach problems I have. I get chest pains, rapid heartbeats and arythmias frequently. My hearing also seems to kind of come and go, and I have chronic breathing problems. At times, numbness and tingling in arms and legs.
These problems have been chronic, but they have been worse than usual the last few days. The extreme travel schedule I described above, drinking too much booze and caffeine, irregular eating schedule, lack of sleep, not so heart healthy restaurant food, and everything else that went along with the trip contributed to this, so the problems have been pretty severe the last few days. I described my symptoms to a friend who is a nurse by profession and she said I need to go in to the ER for something called a “heart cap” or “heart tap” right now (she said it on the phone so I couldn’t quite make it out) and possibly heart surgery, but also that I need to have people around me to help take care of me when I get out, so I will have to delay that by at least a week because right now I am by myself house-sitting in a house with no transportation and no one else here to help me out. Naturally I have no health insurance, and I keep off government insurance since I don’t have documented income and don’t use a SS number (I’ve long since forgotten what it was even if I was willing to start using it again, which I am not).
Luckily I am not feeling as bad at the moment as I have for the last couple of days, but it has by no means gone away either. Yesterday, last night and this morning it was bad enough that I seriously thought about going in to the ER even with no one to help me with recovery when I get out.
Anyway, that’s some of why I said above that this will probably be this last trip like this that I will do, or at least the last for a long time. It’s also part of why my reporting was not as good as it should have been.
I may have to hang up my road spurs for good, because the travel comes along with too many things that seem to push my health problems into an unacceptable level now. I need to stay here but I don’t know what kind of work I can get in the future if I do, so I would have to figure that out too.
I also hope it won’t surprise anyone if I die soon. I’ve survived a ridiculous number of times that I should have died, mostly a long time ago, but again in the last couple of years with my health issues, which are chronic, but at times such as the last couple of days have also been acute as well. Maybe I’ve cheated death too many times already and my number may be coming up soon.
Sorry for the solipsistic diversion. Back to your regularly scheduled deprogramming…
Yes, thanks, I know about both Barr and Badnarik. Browne shared his in real time or near real time with national, and national was working much more closely with (almost all) states at that time.
We were talking about Johnson though. Sorry if that was unclear.
At last report, Barr still has his data, and we do not, though I may be out of date. Badnarik supplied his data to states that would pay shipping, which I happen to know because I paid for the MA data.
It doesn’t sound to me like the sort of thing Geoff, Wes and Robert would have just let go or swept under the rug. As far as I know the data sharing issues were resolved, albeit it took longer than it should have or than would have been expected, and to my knowledge they stayed resolved.
Joshua may have been alluding to the period when these negotiations over data sharing protocols, reciprocity, timing, etc. were still under way, or perhaps to the campaign sending all the data to national rather than directly to state LPs; he would have received the data in the monthly dumps from national, but with a time lag, and not necessarily with any notation that it was passed along from the campaign.
If any of this is not correct, someone please correct it.
Paulie – Good to hear Alicia made a motion on collecting and posting convention data, and that it passed. That formalization of the process should help ensure the data is collected and institutionally retained.
I don’t recall hearing of any issues with the LP getting data from the Johnson campaign, but then I wouldn’t necessarily know if there had been, if LP staff did not bring it to the LNC’s attention.
I mention it now because of Joshua’s comment about OAI not sharing information, and because it seems like the kind of thing that could have easily fallen through the cracks. Especially after the election, when the campaign may have still been taking in some money, or processing donor/contact info previously collected, but the data-sharing issue may not have been as much on staff’s radar.
Alicia has compiled a bunch of information from this last as well as I believe several previous conventions and my understanding is that it will be posted at LP.org. She also had a motion for future convention committees to compile and post this info and extending their terms by 90 days to do so, which passed.
As far as data sharing, my understanding is that there were some roadblocks on both sides during the post-convention negotiations that unnecessarily ate up several crucial months before the election, but that it was finally resolved before the election happened and data sharing got underway. I don’t remember any problems with this process being successfully completed being mentioned during the term Starchild and I served on the LNC. Do Starchild, any of our colleagues from the last LNC and/or any other close observers remember otherwise?
Joshua Katz wrote (December 14, 2014 at 12:09 am), referring to Gary Johnson’s Our America Initiative, “What kind of organization doesn’t trust its own directors with its contact information (let alone sharing lists with the LP after the campaign.)”
A question for Joshua or someone on the LNC to ask or look into: Has the LP gotten all the donor/list information from the 2012 Gary Johnson campaign that the campaign was obliged to provide per its contract with the LNC?
Another (unrelated) question: What/where are the detailed numbers from the 2012 convention? Are the vitals about the convention being recorded for posterity on LP.org or the LPedia wiki? They should be. Alicia Mattson said something on the LNC list about putting together convention info, but she is not a big supporter of transparency, so others on the LNC should seek to ensure that any information she compiles makes it into the historical record.
Going forward, this should be a written requirement for the convention contractor or point person, with some kind of automatic consequence if it doesn’t get done. Otherwise, judging from past experience, there is a tendency for it not to get done. And then the party loses out over the long term by not having the institutional knowledge base of knowing what happened at its past conventions, to be able to better plan future conventions.
More photos https://www.facebook.com/groups/LibertarianPartyofLouisiana/permalink/918173374868332/
I think I said this also: if anyone gets a chance to listen to the archives later and compare them with the thread, or anyone else who was there besides myself based on memory, please fill in the gaps and correct any errors in the coverage above.
Ustream does have an archive but it is not permanent: I have been told it can be taken down after 30 days, although it may be longer.
I’ve asked here above and several places, and tried to look myself, but have yet to see an answer: does the caster (sound only broadcast with the better audio) have an archive?
You are both correct on those points.
Andy Craig wrote:
A big problem with the Fair Tax is we’d be likely to get both a sales tax AND an income tax. Read the plan. It goes into effect before a constitutional amendment. Even with the income tax (and many other taxes) repealed by statute, the political reality is it’s a lot easier to put an old tax back into place than to put a new tax in place. Politicians love new sources of money for their crazy spending. They’ll take a big new sales tax — with a lot of stupid “libertarians” as allies — then in a few years say “oh yeah… we need this income tax revenue after all…” because terrorism or because think of the children or because granny is going to starve without social security.
You can’t just assume a bill will be passed and implemented exactly as written. That’s not how government works. That’s not how politics works. There is an amendment process. There is wheeling and dealing. Enacted plans are revisited later as circumstances change, and the incentives for politicians are quite clear: they want to separate you from as much money and freedom as possible.
Andy Craig wrote:
That is not the obvious implication at all. Revenue is different from spending. Wanting to cut spending doesn’t mean you want to cut revenue. It would if there were a balanced budget both before and after the spending cut, but that’s not the case here. Spending cuts can happen with revenue held constant to reduce the deficit or even create a surplus to play down the debt.
More photos from NOLA
https://www.facebook.com/jeffry.sanford/posts/10205006332935540
https://www.facebook.com/zander.biro/posts/10205175232277992
That’s https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.werther.5 and https://www.facebook.com/t.b.infinity Photos by https://www.facebook.com/ginger.patrick.12?fref=ufi&pnref=story
I think you must have missed the text because it was small between the pictures.
Text in between the first and second photos was:
Text in between the second and third photos was…
And below the photos I wrote:
Who are the people sitting next to you in the photo, Paulie?
Those are all good too.
Excellent job – thank you! Much better than the term I was on.
The rules for electronic meetings were agreed on at this meeting, which will make electronic meetings in the future feasible. Technical details had to be worked out before they could start experimenting with implementation. See http://www.lp.org/files/4j-Electronic%20Conference%20Rules%20Committee%20Report.pdf
Yes it is. And both are doing an excellent job this term!
I highly doubt I can make it out there, but if I do, I look forward to it as well.
Yes, and Gary is not necessarily in favor of the “revenue-neutral” part of it either, so why do you keep bringing it up? He just wants the “fairtax” to be the “starting point” of a “conversation” about how to replace existing taxes with something much simpler and less bureaucratic, not necessarily the exact existing “fairtax” proposal.
I agree with Gary’s point that the complexity of the tax code is a whole separate problem on top of the extent/volume of extortion. I also understand his concern that replacing existing federal taxes (not only the income tax but also FICA payroll taxes, corporate taxes, etc) with nothing sounds crazy to the general public – personally I find the FICA tax to be the worst of those, and would start by getting rid of that even before getting to the income tax if I couldn’t do both at once.
Many people would in fact find that crazy, but over and above that, it also fails to address all the other federal taxes. The income tax is not even necessarily the biggest or worst of them, as bad as it is.
Thank you, it would be much appreciated. I know I could have done better but I tried, and between health issues, lack of sleep, and trying to party like I was still half the age I am now, well, I did what I could. I would love to keep doing this but this may have been the last one, or the last one for a long while.
Paulie – that goal could have been achieved either by setting the condition that pledges raised cover travel expenses, without setting it unreasonably high, or by setting conditions that you’ll only come if the event is promoted, a certain number of people are signed up, etc. I think there were some unreasonable assumptions on the campaign side, though – which makes sense when all the senior people have never done a third party run before. Ron Paul had to deal with small crowds when he ran as an L also.
I’m not going to rehash the numbers. As you said, you’ve already posted what you think. I’ve already posted what I think they say. As for the list – you can spin it any way you like, and any policy is just fine – I just sick tired of hearing an organization with the policies OAI has try to describe itself as “grassroots.”
During the campaign, though, there was no reason for not sharing information and contacts with the affiliates. By the way, that also ties into those low-attendance events – state parties weren’t the coordinating entities for the campaign, they formed a different organization, with its own state directors, etc., which hurts the motivation for the state party itself. The affiliates were cut out of their own party’s run for President. That is a bigger issue to me than what OAI has done since, because I can just choose not to be part of OAI.
You’re welcome and thank you for yours! Thanks to Jennifer Werther and Danny Bedwell for housing, transportation and comradery and to way too many people to mention for making this weekend’s activities fun and interesting, especially our hosts in the Louisiana LP and the LNC and everyone who gathered for the party as well as the partying. Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting!
A few photos from New Orleans by Ginger Burgess Patrick:
This one probably reflects my hazy state of mind at the time more accurately:
With Jennifer Werther and Tia Bittner:
Some additional discussion is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/LNCVotesDiscuss/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/DesignforLiberty/
Thank you for the clarification.
I think OAI and the LP have a good synergy potential. It’s too bad some people want to make that relationship negative.
It was developed through trial and error. Gary tried it the other way first, flying all over the country to talk to five or six people because the state parties had no “skin in the game” and didn’t promote the events to any meaningful extent. Neither the campaign nor the state parties benefited nearly as much from poorly attended events. Having well attended events benefited both far more, and making state parties responsible for a share of the costs ensured that they would make a real effort to make the events a success.
It’s too bad you decided not to run, because I was looking forward to you demonstrating a better model of organizing the party through a presidential campaign. Maybe Chuck or someone else will.
We take what we can get, and sometimes don’t know what we get until we try. People may be just fine, but they did not develop the list and so I understand why Ron doesn’t want to just give people the list because they happen to be the only person to volunteer to step forward as a state director.
I’m sure you probably mean Ron.
Is he making a lot of money on this? Dunno. I’ve read the allegations, and I asked him. I’ve conveyed his responses here before.
Basically, he said that they estimated their costs/expenses on the very, very high side in FEC reports with the understanding that they would get matching money, and he personally spent money as if that matching money was in the bag to reimburse him, but then FEC changed personnel and not only did they not get the money they were counting on but they got ordered to repay the amount they previously received (I haven’t followed up to see what happened with that). Meanwhile the ultra high side estimates of costs and expenses remain on FEC reports and are being used in places like here, various places on facebook, Liberty for America, by Roger Stone, etc., to slime OAI, Ron and Gary. Whereas, according to Ron, the actual reality is that he lost a lot of money – maybe 6 figures. He also says all of this was completely legal, and did not in fact amount to an illegally large campaign contribution by himself; he intended for it to be a temporary loan and is just not going to be very aggressive about collecting because he rates his chances of recovering the money as very low. Other people I have talked to dispute that this would be legal, and I don’t have any way to tell if he told me the truth, but I have no reason to assume it is not.
And Gary says in retrospect he should have taken the Harry Browne position on FEC matching funds.
Is Ron making money on OAI? I don’t think it brings in a lot of money at all, and he does have a small staff that does a hell of a lot of work, even though they get paid very little it adds up over time. So again I doubt he is making all that much. Since there is no financial transparency with OAI I have no way to gauge this, other than what I see happening at the fundraising events.
“Roll call vote on prohibiting the chair and staff from portraying LP candidates as spoilers:
Mattson – yes
Olsen – nay
Kirkland – nay
Tomasso – yes
Goldstein – nay
Hayes – nay
Wiener – nay
Lark – nay
Bittner – nay
McLendon – nay
Johnson – nay
Hagan – nay
Redpath – yes
Vohra – nay
Sarwark – nay
Fails by a roll call vote: 3-12-0”
I actually agree that it shouldn’t be outright prohibited, but hopefully the fact that this vote took place sends a message that LP activists and minor party activists do not want this narrative to be promoted.
Speaking as an LNC member (who unfortunately missed this one due to a conflict) I find the expenses incurred well worth it. I would find that to be the case, even if every single business item could have been conduced by teleconference. For one thing, debate via phone just isn’t the same. For another, there is an intangible benefit of board cohesion that comes from meeting together, having meals together, and gathering in person at least a few times per year.
Truth be told, though, I think complex, substantive issues do get decided in a more fair manner in person, even as compared to videoconferences, which themselves are far better than other means of distance decision making.
Thanks, Nick, for your explanations, even if some are obviously tongue in cheek. What’s important is if the LNC members believe their travel costs are important to reach these objectives.
I can’t speak for the rest of the LNC, but here’s my list:
1) In-person tour of a potential future national convention site.
2) Support of an active state affiliate, including LNC members helping to raise over $2,000 for the Libertarian Party of Louisiana at their Christmas party.
3) In-person discussions that I believe made the adoption of the budget and electronic meeting rules go much more smoothly.
4) A working lunch with LNC members and members of the public all in the room to discuss requirements for the Libertarian Party website.
5) An opportunity to give each LNC member and alternate a copy of Peter Drucker’s “Managing the Non-Profit Organization” while only paying for one shipping fee.
6) A chance to buy Danny Bedwell a drink and thank him in person for running for Congress as a Libertarian.
I’d also note that our annual budget meeting concluded at 1:10 pm local time on Sunday, thanks in large part to the willingness of the LNC, and especially staff and the Treasurer, to participate in a couple of long conference calls to discuss and revise the draft budget in advance of the in-person meeting.
So what, of substantive value, was accomplished for the $25K or so that LNC members spent for this Natcom Meeting that could not have been accomplished via a couple of long conference calls?
re: the FairTax, I disagree that method is irrelevant, and that the Boortz plan if adopted wouldn’t be an improvement. But I agree I’m not wild about it. I think a lot of people miss the point with personal income tax vs. single consumption tax, when that’s not actually the proposal. It’s *all Federal taxes* vs. single consumption tax. All those other awful taxes, that the “replace the income tax with nothing” folks always rely on to make their revenue assumptions, would stay as-is if they had their way. Forget gradualism vs. purism, I don’t even see how that’s a more libertarian answer in substance.
I also find it odd that so many of the criticisms of Johnson focus on the revenue-neutral part, with nobody mentioning that he also pledged to cut Federal spending by 43% in his first year. The obvious implication being that he’s not talking about revenue-neutral.
re: OAI and speaking events, we did have to raise a certain amount for our Wisconsin convention to have Johnson speak. But it was hardly unreasonable, and while I’m sure he decides to some appearances gratis, if that was the general policy than they would be flooded with far more requests than they could possibly meet. Not that I was really close to either side of those negotiations, but the very fact that he does it doesn’t bother me. I also find talk of him “owing” the LP anything at all to be a little distasteful. We don’t treat any other party member like that, and I think he is entitled to a little more respect than being a piece of party property, obligated to do anything and everything that anybody decides would be a good use of his time. When he could, just as easily, be enjoying his retirement and leaving the LP to its own devices.
Mark,
Like Shultz in Hogan’s Heroes, “I know nothing.”
At least nothing about their current operations, debt, business practices beyond what they put out and what I occasionally hear from folks I used to work with there (and that with a grain of salt).
That said, at least for me, there are other more effective ways to target the money and/or time I choose to give to causes I care about.
Joe
Mark – I’m glad to hear it. I just stated what the organization policy was. I’m not surprised that they made exceptions; I know they did pretty frequently during the campaign especially if Johnson or Gray, for instance, were going from one state to another and someone wanted them to make a stop along the route. I think it’s a good thing to make frequent exceptions to a bad policy; I’d prefer not to have it in the first place. My issue with this applies more to the campaign than OAI, though – I think it’s part of what a candidate owes the party to appear frequently without needing promised money. But yes, I acknowledge they made exceptions, and that’s a good thing. I just wish they wouldn’t have set up the rule in the first place, particularly during the campaign.
Regarding Joe’s comment that 2012 campaign has not fully paid its vendors (about which I know nothing and I presume Joe knows much more than I):
How much does Barr 2008 still owe Jim Bovard for ghost-writing Barr’s campaign book that summer?
Josh wrote, in part, during the OAI discussion:
>I was very surprised, early on, to learn that Johnson and Gray would only appear if promised a specific amount of money pledged for the event – an amount well in excess of travel expenses.
That was not my experience in New York. Both Gary Johnson and Jim Gray appeared in New York many times, and never at any cost to us.
Most importantly, purely to support LPNY, Gary agreed to appear as our keynote speaker at a New York LP fundraiser in November 2013, a year after the Presidential election. Neither OAI nor GJ received any money from the event; we had approx. 90 people and all profits went to LPNY (which we used in 2014 for petitioning and litigation).
Of course, I coordinated the Nov. 2013 event for a time that Gary would already be in NYC to save on his expenses. The only cost to us was a Ukrainian lunch, and as he is vegetarian, Gov. Johnson did not eat any of the expensive stuff!
Oh, the person with whom I coordinated Gary’s appearance: Ron Nielson.
So I got no complaints about how the Johnson campaign organization or OAI treated my state.
Fundraising letter expense increased by the cost of approximately three additional house letters, fundraising revenue increased by the average return on two letters. The LNC wanted to be more conservative on the revenue side than the expense side.
I think there was one no vote from Mr. Olsen.
There were a couple of items on the agenda today that I wanted to speak on, and it’s usually inappropriate to speak for or against a motion while holding the gavel. It’s also inappropriate to take it back until that motion is resolved.
As to the time immediately after executive session, I needed to talk to Wes Benedict in the hall.
It’s good to have a Vice Chair.
Andy, I agree, I was just responding to the particular platform plank quoted.
Vegas – I was referencing LSLA.
Hospitality suite in Vegas? If you are talking about the 2016 LP National Convention, that is going to be in Orlando.
The method of extortion is not as big an issue as the rate of the extortion. The Fair Tax is a 30% tax on the sale of goods and services. Moving from the present income tax to a 30% national sales tax is not going to make us anymore free.
I prefer the Harry Browne style of getting a conversation started about taxes, as in, “Did you know that if the federal government actually followed the Constitution that there would be no need for an income tax?” This is a factual statement that directs the discussion toward less government, and it does so without coming off like what some would call a “crazy anarchist.”
I consider all taxation to be theft, and therefore, illegitimate, but this is another discussion.
I have no problem with libertarians offering campaign positions that are incremental steps in the direction of more freedom, I just do not consider the Fair Tax to be an incremental step towards more freedom, because it is not.
Anyway, we can discuss it in my hospitality suite in Vegas.
“All persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor. ”
If I go to work, the fruit of my labor is, say, $10. If an item costs $10, I then pay the $10 and get the item; the item is equivalent to the fruit of my labor (assuming everything happens instantly.) But I can’t actually buy the item, because there’s a sales tax on it – so I have to reach into my pocket and pull out another dollar, the fruit of previous labor, and hand it over to the government. So I’m not actually keeping the fruit of my labor.
Not that I think it’s a great idea to always position ourselves as in favor of 0 taxes, but the case can be made that proposing a new tax violates the platform.
Personally, I’m less concerned with it being a new tax, and more concerned with it being a particular type of tax I find objectionable. To me, getting rid of the prebate doesn’t help at all – I’m not in favor regressive taxation, and certainly don’t favor putting a sales tax in place without an item that makes it less regressive. I’ve posted here previously about why I find the prebate to disrupt economic calculation, but that’s only part of my argument. My argument is that the thing is so regressive that it makes a prebate necessary to not be obviously unjust to begin with, but the prebate itself is destructive also.
I disagree. Gary Johnson has repeatedly stumped for the Fair Tax, which is at best no better than what we have now with the income tax, and may actually end up being worse than the income tax.
Replacing the income tax with the Fair Tax does not bring us closer to liberty.
Paulie:
Actually, yes. OAI found that state parties promoted the events a lot better and they were much better attended after they stuck those commitments in.
Me: I wasn’t talking about OAI. As I said, I was only involved in OAI for a short time. I’m talking about the campaign itself. And, in case I’m being unclear, when I suggest that someone or some organization try to help the party grow, I don’t mean berate it into growing.
Paulie:
I think Ron’s concern is that we have all kinds of volunteers that don’t pan out step up as directors who may abuse the list so he wants the central office to approve the letters before they go out.
Me:
Then have better directors. Seriously. Or, more likely, stop distrusting people who will be just fine. You’re not telling me anything new – you’re telling me he wants communications centralized. I know. I don’t even really care, in that it’s not my organization; it’s just a reason I’m not willing to participate.
Paulie:
A lot of people made a lot of suggestions. OAI is the still evolving result of those.
Me:
The choice of vehicle makes certain suggestions (such as mine) impossible. It is also directly contradictory to the spirit of my suggestions. Again, I don’t care – people do what they want. I think my suggestions would have done more for the party but less for a certain PR firm. Take it for what it is.
Paulie:
I don’t know how you think you know how much of it goes to overhead. All that I have seen is that some of it can. Tom Mahon resigned because he was getting little or nothing for his fundraising efforts, Charlie Frohman as I understand it gets a very low salary and works very hard. I doubt Alexis gets some big salary, and she does a lot to update all these accounts and sites. As for the lawsuit, it’s a great idea, and could help all future LP, alt party and independent candidates, and raise public awareness of the issue even if we don’t end up winning.
Me:
I don’t doubt any of that, but I do notice one name not mentioned there.
And nothing Johnson has said about tax reform- which is hardly his “main issue”- violates any part of the LP platform. The relevant plank reads as follows:
“All persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor. We call for the repeal of the income tax, the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service and all federal programs and services not required under the U.S. Constitution. We oppose any legal requirements forcing employers to serve as tax collectors. Government should not incur debt, which burdens future generations without their consent. We support the passage of a “Balanced Budget Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, provided that the budget is balanced exclusively by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes.”
Spin it however you want, Johnson has never contradicted any of that. At best, he’s contradicted what you wish the platform says. And even that is questionable if you actually listen to what he has to say about the topic.
I’m fairly positive those who speak about OAI somehow harming, competing with, etc. the LP have never seen either organization in action.
You know what the difference is between OAI and Cato, LvMI, reason, IHS, etc. when it comes to the LP? OAI is actually willing to work with us. The others, for the most part, aren’t. Activists who join OAI, rarely if ever leave the LP to do so. We can all name a dozen good, hard-working activists who have left the LP for one of the other lowercase-l groups. And yet somehow I don’t hear nearly as much grumbling about how those broader-movement organizations are “hurting” the Libertarian Party.
Paulie,
“I was playing up how insulted I was to keep from falling asleep and snoring loudly during an LNC meeting.”
Thanks for the laugh today.
Again, I’d encourage anyone who found value in Paulie’s reporting above to:
1) Go to http://www.paypal.com
2) Use Paulie’s email address, [email protected] to send money. It’s easy and IMO a better “bang for your buck” than donating to the LTLORFMs (less transparent libertarian-oriented requests for money).
🙂
Joe
Paulie wrote:
Liberty Forum.
http://nhlibertyforum.com/
It’s a good event. I went 2 years ago. I might go in 2015… not sure yet.
The LNC meeting is over.
Thanks to Paulie for his liveblogging!
And we’re done.
Tomasso plugs something in NH…Porcfest?
LSLA will be held on May 29-31 in conjunction with the CA and NV state conventions in Las Vegas. Brett Pojunis wants it to be a libertarian political expo.
Announcements and comments. Dr. Lark mentions Bill o Rights day. Aaron Starr mentions he will run for city council again. Lachine says LSLA will be weekend after Memorial Day in Vegas.
Last weekend in March, Phoenix seems to be consensus.
Redpath moves to hold next LNC meeting Apr 11-12. Also dies for lack of 2nd. Vohra proposes DC. Sarwark wants somewhere around Phoenix.
Mattson moved that Neale be requested to reimburse the LNC $699.15 for the cost of his hotel room. The motion died for lack of a second.
Mattson motion that Neale refund 699.15 for motel room. Dies for lack of second.
Alicia is pointing out that the Neales were comped a room at the convention (accidentally it seems) in violation of a LNC policy.
I can’t believe LNC meeting time is being used to discuss this. 10 minutes so far.
Should Neale compensate the party due to the oversight? Probably. But this is being pennywise and pound foolish. Why spend so much time creating ill will with a past chair and very large donor?
They seem to be arguing about Geoff and Nancy Neale’s motel room upgrades again. Why?
Electronic meeting rules were adopted without objection.
Electronic meetings discussion
Not true. I keep a close eye on media appearances, have been to many live events, monitored the blog, FB and twitter accounts, etc. It is not his central issue by a long shot. If it was I would not support Johnson. I do believe he should continue to be challenged on the issue.
Furthermore as I pointed out before neither Johnson nor OAI necessarily support many of the aspects of the “fair” tax we disagree with the most such as revenue neutrality, “prebate,” etc. The state organization projects that mention “fair tax” all only talk about getting rid of state income taxes, nothing about instituting new taxes or “prebates” at the state level.
Sarwark moves to authorize Alan Gura to re-open litigation on the subject of contributions to political committees from bequests that exceed the annual contribution limit and raise the litigation budget by $7500/year for that purpose. [gist, not exact text]
Mattson – yes
Olsen – nay
Kirkland – yes
Tomasso – yes
Goldstein – yes
Hayes – yes
Wiener – yes
Lark – yes
Bittner – yes
McLendon – yes
Johnson – yes
Hagan – yes
Redpath – yes
Vohra – yes
Sarwark – yes
Motion passes by a roll call vote 14-1-0.
Unpaid activists. However, it takes money for handouts that they produce, we get training on OAI phone calls, we get an OAI staffer (who by the way is paid very little) to continuously work with us on the lobbying efforts, the OAI website, blogs and social media accounts help with these lobbying efforts, the OAI email blasts to their list, etc etc, all that is run from the paid national office. It all works together.
I don’t know how you think you know how much of it goes to overhead. All that I have seen is that some of it can. Tom Mahon resigned because he was getting little or nothing for his fundraising efforts, Charlie Frohman as I understand it gets a very low salary and works very hard. I doubt Alexis gets some big salary, and she does a lot to update all these accounts and sites. As for the lawsuit, it’s a great idea, and could help all future LP, alt party and independent candidates, and raise public awareness of the issue even if we don’t end up winning.
They’re discussing a lawsuit about a bequest larger than the annual legal limit to national political committees. We had a past lawsuit on this issue that was dismissed as moot and non-repeatable… yet here we have a repeat.
Logo motion:
Chair appoint committee of 3 LNC members or alternates to solicit new logo designs and report back to the LNC no later than March 1.
It passes without objection.
Passes without objection.
Chair to appoint a committee of 3 LNC members (full or alternates) as part of that motion.
I think that was Goldstein? I wasn’t paying close attention.
Motion is to create a committee to solicit and evaluate logo designs between now and March 1.
I agree. I was just questioning how actually significant it was in this case. But after a while I did understand the explanation of what the precedent was and why it is potentially bad and I agree on that point… but see my prior responses on that.
Thank you. Not sure how much longer I can keep that up. Seems to have drained my health too much and I can’t keep my head above rising water forever. I’ll go down swinging though.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Paulie wrote:
He does promote a lot of good issues. But his central issue he hammers the most is the Fair Tax. He is Gary “Fair Tax” Johnson. That poisons the LP brand.
When Ron Paul ran for president as a Libertarian, he did not make his areas of disagreement with the LP platform central parts of his campaign. He did not talk about abortion unless specifically asked about it. In contrast, Gary Johnson actively tries to steer interviews and speeches to his big new government tax. It’s insulting to libertarians who work hard to lower and eliminate taxes and government bureaucracies.
It helps to have a non-partisan organization as well as a partisan one, to get people who are for whatever reason uncomfortable with the LP partisan brand working together with us on issues and to give us additional hooks to get media coverage in between campaigns among other things. A nonpartisan organization also has different angles to lobby legislators than a partisan organization does. It helps to have both. And having two organizations rather than one showing up to lobby actually makes us look bigger. Additionally, both organizations have separate lists. Some OAI supporters also support the LP, but other people on OAI lists do not. We can get them involved on working together on issues and perhaps over time get some of them into the LP as well.
Roll call vote on prohibiting the chair and staff from portraying LP candidates as spoilers:
Mattson – yes
Olsen – nay
Kirkland – nay
Tomasso – yes
Goldstein – nay
Hayes – nay
Wiener – nay
Lark – nay
Bittner – nay
McLendon – nay
Johnson – nay
Hagan – nay
Redpath – yes
Vohra – nay
Sarwark – nay
Fails by a roll call vote: 3-12-0
Third yes was Tomasso.
Fails with only 3 in favor. Sorry, I was too slow to keep up with roll. Two of the yes votes were Redpath and Mattson. On to logo discussion.
We have limited resources. In many states that is all we have the bandwidth to do. If we build both organizations, they can bot do more, and those efforts can combine in synergy.
Good point on ballot access lobbying, another thing we are working together on in Alabama.
Also in many other states.
As for other issues, legislative lobbying may or may not succeed, but it gives libertarian (and Libertarian) activists something to do in between elections, keeps the list fresh, the party as well as OAI can use it as an angle to issue press releases, get media coverage, op-eds and LTEs that can mention LP, OAI or both, gives donors the sense that the organizations involved – including the LP – are doing something. And we may actually win on some things. But even if we lose at least we tried. Candidates also lose a lot of times; that’s not a reason not to run them, and it’s not a reason to not lobby legislators when we don’t succeed in our lobbying efforts. We also combine those efforts with various ways to educate the public.
Paulie wrote:
Oh really?
Please outline any lobbying activities of Gary Johnson. What issue, when, what state, and what state governor, state legislator did he meet with to advocate for a particular bill or issue? What issue, when, what state, and what committee did he testify in front of a state legislative committee to advocate for a particular bill or issue?
Please outline any professional lobbying activities by OAI. What issue, when, what state, and what lobbyist has OAI used its donor money to pay a professional lobbyist to lobby for a particular bill or issue with a state legislature?
Or are you just talking about unpaid OAI activists who happen to be lobbying for things individually while OAI collects donor money without actually spending it on lobbying?
Please outline any OAI lawsuits. Are you just talking about the presidential debate lawsuit, which is both self-serving for a future Johnson presidential campaign and generates massive fundraising much of which is steered to “overhead”?
Mattson motion to curb “spoiler” angle in LP communications.
I’ve never particularly cared who holds what title, but from my experience in Alabama, OAI has been a huge positive to the LP and the movement and has helped revive the LP. I saw it working well next door in Mississippi and in Texas. I disagree strongly with your “net negative” assessment.
He promotes a lot of good issues both you and I would agree with too.
When the LP and OAI cooperate more people go to the events and both organizations raise more money, add more people to their databases, get more activists involved … then work together hitting both lists to do legislative lobbying and public outreach efforts… then some of those people run as LP candidates, and Johnson and/or OAI can also endorse them as well as issues that are on the ballot. Why is any of this bad?
Mattson motion to give outgoing convention committee … 90 day addition? to term to update convention archive after the convention passes (I think without objection).
Now discussing Mattson motion on awards committee.
Back from break. Seems to be discussion of a different Mattson motion? What happened to the one they mentioned before break…I did not hear a vote on that?
I disagree. We work on state and national projects. See https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/take-action.html and https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/live-free-projects.html and state projects under each state https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/state-organization.html … there’s also the advisory councils and various efforts to circulate their opinion pieces through traditional and social media alike, and hopefully a lot more to come.
Yes it is. We are working on legislative lobbying and lawsuits. Initiative petitioning was also discussed, but not enough money has come in to fund any of those yet as far as I know.
Those good things are why I am working with OAI. The only reason.
Organizational issues exist. I don’t have as big a problem with them as you do, although I would much prefer more transparency, and sometimes faster response times.
A lot of people made a lot of suggestions. OAI is the still evolving result of those.
I’ve read the filings and I have Gary’s and Ron’s explanation. I don’t find their explanation to be implausible. I’ve tried to convey it as best I can in past comment threads.
Actually, yes. OAI found that state parties promoted the events a lot better and they were much better attended after they stuck those commitments in. And then benefitted more from the resulting fundraising at the events and in getting new people involved and active. Worked out well for us in Alabama and other states I know of.
Thanks for the liveblogging today! I’m following your comments even though I can’t listen to the stream right now.
Thank you.. Anyone who gets a chance to listen to the recordings later please fillin and correct anything I missed.
20 minute recess. Mattson motion was not voted on yet.
Mattson moves to refer to EPCC to research structure of past employment cotracts.
Roll call vote to pass whole budget passes on roll call vote. I did not catch any nos.
I think Ron’s concern is that we have all kinds of volunteers that don’t pan out step up as directors who may abuse the list so he wants the central office to approve the letters before they go out.
I am not disputing they are related, but they are separate.
40k passes on hand vote. I think that’s a three letter increase rather than four? Sorry, not following the numbers well enough.
First vote amendment to amendmen from 64 k to 40 k passes on hand vote.
My mind is wandering again. They are arguing about how many fundraising letters to do per year.
No one disputes that sometimes people do that. I am disputing that it is in my financial self interest, much less obvious, in this case and I am disputing that this has anything to do with my motives here. Very simply, OAI costs me money, it does not pay me.
Similar proviso to limit affiliate support also fails on a hand vote.
Vohra chairing most of the time but Sarwark is still at the table.
Proviso to restrict projects to 5k on IT . Failed on hand vote.
Substitution passes heavily on voice vote, Gary Johnson was the only one I saw vote against.
Goldstein substitution. Proviso instead of reduction. I missed most of the argument.
Thanks for the liveblogging today! I’m following your comments even though I can’t listen to the stream right now.
Division passes on a hand vote.
Goldstein wants to do a substitution instead. I think that was ruled out of order.
Guy McLendon moves to split to the Affiliate support from the IT (divide the question). Nick is back chairing the meeting.
Can’t remember if I mentioned Vohra has been chairing the meeting during the budget discussion after the exec session.
Mattson amendment to reduce — capital adminstrative costs? — by 5k. IT expense. Also to reduce affiliate support by 10k from 15k to 5k and she says 3 categories – capital and adminsitrative on IP each to be reduced to 5k. Wants to approve projects as they go rather than budget them. Wiener seconds. Goldstein speaking against.
I was playing up how insulted I was to keep from falling asleep and snoring loudly during an LNC meeting. I said about two minutes later that I was over it. My apologies too for the drama, it was not necessary.
I do what I can, and it has been discussed in comments before plus the information I get is pretty incomplete. I haven’t been posting a lot of articles of any kind and the few I do are mostly cut and paste stuff that only takes a few minutes and stuff like this. So no, I haven’t done the kind of blogging you suggest, but I am pretty overextended anyway and have health issues so there’s a lot of things I could do here that I just haven’t got around to. As the IPR writers know I pass a lot more stories on to our internal email list than I get around to posting myself.
As I said I see the possibility but not any certainty. I prefer to allow my hopes to outweigh my concerns, at least so far.
Thank you! If anyone would like to send it to [email protected] or use that same address if you want to ask about other options besides paypal. Make sure to put two Ls in travelling.
Thanks again Joe for your contribution in December.
There was an amendment to the amendment which I missed to make it 3,600 from 17.5 k for electronic only by Vohra. Redpath calls question. Amendment to amendment fails heavily on hand vote. Also fails heavily on Johnson’s original motion.
We have a couple of different structures set up but none of them can do political party ballot access petitioning. We do have a structure that could do initiatives, and there was some talk of using it for marriage equality and/or other state initiative petitions, but I have yet to see any of that pan out nor am I aware of any future plans along those lines.
I am aware of all of one person that sued the Johnson campaign for money allegedly not paid on a contract, and OAI is not the campaign; I am not aware of anyone who has had to sue OAI to recover money for work on contracts.
I have read every issue of Liberty for America, a very useful and appreciated publication, cover to cover and I do not see that clearly. I can see the possibility exists, and I also know and have conveyed Ron Nielson’s explanations.
Paulie – precedent is always interesting to me. For instance, it’s a common libertarian argument against a law to say “passing this establishes that the government has the power to…” I always respond that, actually, suggesting and debating the law in the first place establishes that the government has the power to do it.
Gary Johnson motin to increase communication expenses by 17.5k to do 6 issues of LP News rather than 4.
I know – that’s why I used the parenthesis to separate it into two disagreements – how OAI is run, and how the campaign was run. I have serious issues with both. I don’t know if I’m included in your jumping to conclusions group, but my proof for most of my statements is either personal experience (how the mechanics worked when I was on the campaign, and during the short time I was with OAI) or the FEC filings. But the point stands – your work is invaluable and has been instrumental to many states. Having a real libertarian petitioner is always a huge advantage, and your willingness to travel and sacrifice in order to fill that role really matters.
Thank you to the Louisiana LP for a great party last night! It was awesome.
Thank you, that is correct. I hadn’t thought of that angle.
I agree that could become a bad precedent but then it would take 3/4 to remove someone for cause IIRC, so even in theory, if one side had that kind of majority and was using it vindictively against LNC members you really think the lack of this precedent would have stopped them? I can now see such a slippery slope being theoretically possible but it still seems highly unlikely, and if we do slide to that, I don’t see the lack of this having been done previously as even a speed bump of any significance on such a path.
Thank you! As far as the way the campaign and OAI (which are separate entities) are run I have my concerns as well but am not jumping to the conclusions that many here leap to without proof.
Thank you, I appreciate that. My work with OAI and liveblogging also costs me a lot of money. It would be nice if it paid me or led to better work contracts but that just does not happen.
I did not hear that discussed. Can you help keep track of the votes?
Goldstein’s amendment was to drop compensation by 35k. Carried without objection.
Goldstein offered an amendment – I am not catching what it is. Carries without objection.
Mattson offers amendment to restrict ballot access to not exceed authorization and require 2/3 of exec comm. Redpath says it will not cause a problem. Passes – I did not see anyone vote no.
Passes on hand vote. Olsen was the only one I saw raise his hand against.
Thank you for yours!
Where is the money coming from?
Olsen objects
Redpath moves that ballot access be increased to 57.5 k, seconded by Lark
I’ll try as best I can. May someone else from home can help? We just got back in open session.
I hope someone will liveblog — especially the votes. I won’t be able to listen to the stream for another 2.5 hours.
Meeting has started. They are rearranging agenda again. I am not fully paying attention yet but the streaming should be working if anyone wants to help. However we may have an executive session here in a minute on employee compensation so in that case break. And approved.
Chuck writes:
As far as I know OAI does not share its leads with local affiliates or the national LP (at least, last I checked they didn’t).
My response: When I was involved (briefly) with OAI after the campaign, and during the campaign (usually a safe bet that OAI maintains structural components of the campaign) they not only didn’t share leads with affiliates or the LP – they literally didn’t share them with themselves. They shielded contact information from their state directors.
Now, to be fair, OAI in CT has stepped forward to help us with lobbying efforts on ballot access, registration forms, and gun control. The last is not going to go anywhere, and I’m not willing to invest much time lobbying the CT legislature to repeal anything, let alone a gun control bill passed after Sandy Hook, but if it makes them happy, and their volunteers want to go up there and lobby for it, fine. But certainly I’ll take all the help I can get from OAI on ballot access lobbying.
At the same time, there’s an attitude, a lot of the time, of just buying in. When the Sandy Hook report came out, and homeschooling was under attack, I contacted the OAI chapter here to see if they wanted to coordinate on a response. The response was that if I told them who the “lead organization” was, they’d put a link on their website and send out an email. The thing is, there was no lead organization – the LPCT was the first to the press, HSLDA was preparing a legal challenge, and NHELD was preparing to watch the legislature, but no one was “in charge of protecting homeschooling.” The reason I contacted them was to generate a push, but all they wanted was to sign on, add a link, send out an email.
Luckily, I haven’t seen anything appear on the calendar about this issue. We hit the press hard, and the organizations lobbied hard, so the state may have decided to back off on it. I’m hoping that’s what happened, but keeping an eye on it.
But yeah, I don’t really get it. Our 2012 candidate, who seems likely to want to be our 2016 candidate, doesn’t want to promote the brand of the vehicle that he’d need? If he’d build the organization and promote it, then gets nominated, he’d have an easier time. By forming this outside organization and separating himself, he’s not doing a potential 2016 run any favors.
Now, I understand why other candidates do it – they disagree with their own party. Kuchinich did it for that reason, as did Ron Paul, Alan Keyes, etc. But that’s not really Johnson’s reason – his organization isn’t meant to pressure the LP to change its positions the way those organizations are. So why not, after the campaign ended, simply merge his organization with an existing organization that was part of his Presidential run, which exists in all 50 states, and which fights for many of the same things he talks about? For that matter, why have a campaign organization during the campaign that was so walled off from the LP and affiliates?
Joshua Katz wrote:
Exactly.
OAI is a self-promotional vehicle for Gary Johnson. It does not build the Libertarian Party or the libertarian brand. If anything it poisons that brand by leaving people with the misimpression that libertarians favor a big new government tax.
Gary Johnson is a nice guy and a great speaker for liberty. However, campaigns and non-profits centered around a cult of personality do not move the ball forward for liberty. When Johnson disappears from the stage — POOF! — all that work is flushed down the drain.
I understand how some people can be distracted by flashy cults of personality. If Gary Johnson and OAI were out there actually accomplishing things while puffing up Johnson, I could be more forgiving of their efforts. For example, he could be talking up libertarian principles, sending new contacts along to the Libertarian Party, and working on issues through initiative petitioning, legislative lobbying, etc. That’s not happening.
All I’ve seen is OAI and Johnson slapping their names on coalitions, which is just a form of self-promotion to the choir. As far as I know OAI does not share its leads with local affiliates or the national LP (at least, last I checked they didn’t). Johnson isn’t out there talking to legislators personally about issues. Pretty much every time I see Johnson talk to the media, he promotes a big new government sales tax. Donors are pumped for money which is used to fly Johnson around to promote himself (with little benefit to the Libertarian Party or to the libertarian movement) — minus a generous overhead to his paid staff and stained by a lack of transparency. It’s a drain on activists and donors.
To the extent that OAI activists also happen to be independently activists for the Libertarian Party who support Libertarian Party candidates with petitioning, volunteer time, donations, etc., that’s great and I thank them for their contribution. To the extent that OAI activists also happen to be leaders in their LP state affiliates who build up a lasting LP infrastructure, recruit candidates, and keep the trains running on time, that’s great and I thank them for their hard work. To the extent that OAI activists also happen to be actual libertarians who spread the libertarian message on a variety of issues without poisoning the brand by advocating for a big new government tax while pretending that’s a libertarian position, that’s great and I thank them for being fellow brand ambassadors. But let’s be clear: from my perspective, an OAI title (“state coordinator”, etc.) Is not the badge of honor Paulie and some LNC members seem to believe. I’m not going to give good libertarian activists a pat on the back for their contributions to OAI because it’s a net negative for the liberty movement.
A telling example that has been representative of the Gary Johnson / OAI attitude in my experience was the Students for Liberty conference, where Gary Johnson was a featured guest on the Stossel show filmed at the conference a couple years ago, yet Johnson didn’t coordinate with the Libertarian Party at all and never once stopped by the Libertarian Party booth. Someone serious about growing the Libertarian Party would not only have stopped by the booth, but stood by it for hours talking one on one with students and encouraging them to join the Libertarian Party.
I’m in this for the long haul to build a political party that moves public policy in a libertarian direction by running candidates and electing people to public office. When I ran for U.S. Congress in 2004, I put the word “Libertarian” prominently on all my yard signs and literature. The whole point was to build the Libertarian brand and the Libertarian Party membership / mailing list, not to build my personal brand.
OAI is not a transparent organization. As I’ve pointed out many times before, OAI does not even let its state directors know who their emails go to – the state director sends the “email blast” to the central office, which sends it out in the state. What kind of organization doesn’t trust its own directors with its contact information (let alone sharing lists with the LP after the campaign.)
While they’re not the same organization, I think it’s missing the point a bit to claim that OAI has nothing to do with the 2012 campaign. It’s mostly the same people, it’s run out of the same firm, and it was billed explicitly, at least when it first started, as a way to “carry the energy forward,” so to speak.
The whole idea of building a non-profit corporation, on a national scale, then recruiting state directors/coordinators/whatever you call it, under the banner of “starting a grassroots movement” strikes me as bizarre. Definitionally, grassroots movements are locally grown – not centrally-managed and started on a national scale. Grassroots organizations don’t have the sort of control that OAI exercises over its directors and volunteers, including the need to get permission to pursue any project in the state, and having every contact you send out checked and approved (or not) by the main office. It’s a serious lack of trust in the people they recruited. Not to mention, even when an email is approved, you can just forget about it (at least in my experience during the campaign) if you want to write a timely email – it will take a week to go through approval and be sent out. Its’s Byzantine and absurd – unless the point is that you really don’t trust your people, or the central office is itself not trustworthy. Those are the only 2 good reasons to do what they do.
As for what I think – read the FEC filings and draw your own conclusions. If Gary Johnson is our nominee in 2016, I will be obligated to support him, and I will do so. I disagree with him on some policies, but my major criticisms aren’t of him, just of the people he’s put around himself. Until then (and continuing then, actually) my job is to watch out for the LP, its members, and its donors. Read the filings and figure out where the tv ads that the funds were raised for went. Were Libertarians told at the convention, or during fundraising appeals, that money was being raised to pay Ron Nielsen back for a Republican campaign? Are Libertarians generally interested in doing that?
Our past nominees, even Ron Paul, made every appearance they could. I was very surprised, early on, to learn that Johnson and Gray would only appear if promised a specific amount of money pledged for the event – an amount well in excess of travel expenses. Party-building?
I suggested at the end of the campaign that Gary Johnson and his campaign organization make a serious push, over the next 4 years, to really build the organization at a local level – appearing with local candidates, maybe putting together a training program for candidates…instead we got OAI.
I understand that some think it’s a valuable organization. I think it does a lot of valuable things. I’ve told OAI that I’ll work with them on anything worthwhile in my state (in my capacity as state chair.) I get that it’s doing good work. That doesn’t change these organizational issues.
Mike @ December 13, 2014 at 7:58 pm
“The writing was on the wall along time ago about Gary Johnson and OAI. Pre lp nomination in 2012. They weren’t honoring their own fundraising and legal contracts with people. People had to sue to get their money.”
The precipitating event for my departure was a series of phone calls to my home and cell from more than one unpaid former vendor to the GJ2012 campaign. These were folks that found my IPR articles endorsing down-ticket candidates –articles which had my contact information, or enough of it to find me here. Alicia apparently sent cease-and-desist letters to those vendors and I was told they had subsequently been paid. That said I just had a conversation last month with someone who claims to still be owed a significant amount of money (more than $10k) who does not expect to ever be paid, and is resigned to that without much in the way of anger or regret.
I am not that kind of enlightened soul apparently. I am today owed money from two other projects, utterly unrelated to OAI/GJ/LP etc, and I loose sleep over it. I see the folks that I loaned money to, with a written agreement, now making similar promises to others and I wonder if by not warning them I am somehow complicit in, or ultimately responsible for their losses?
I see explanations why various women did not try to blow the whistle on Bill Cosby 20+ years ago and wonder what I would have done in a similar situation. I’d like to think I’d have blown the whistle. . .
Such are my thoughts after being a bit taken aback by some of the comments above after my post suggesting that sometimes people act in what is their obvious financial self-interest! And frankly, looking back, I often wish I’d not resigned tenure. Much of that feeling has been brought on by having returned to what was my “dream home” 16 years ago, and living in it for the past two months wondering why I left . . .
Best,
Joe
Well, that was fun.
Was away from the house and Internets and just read the above.
For what it’s worth, I would be more insulted by accusations of “drinking the kool-aid” than by potentially having a bias in favor of a current, former or potential future employer. It was not my intent to heap on a mountain of insult.
As for loyalty, I was being purely self-reflective. This time last year I resigned from the audit committee, 15 years ago I resigned tenure, I’ve “gone Galt” on the BSA over their anti-inclusive and expel-gay-Scouts-on-their-18th-birthday policies and am justly accused by my friends still in the BSA of “not being a LOYAL Scout.” When I said Paulie was more loyal, I did not mean it as an insult. The smiley face was meant to be self-deprecating — I resign in a heartbeat. The only significant exception is my marriage, which is not to say it didn’t skirt the edges of divorce a few times, although not in the past 4+ years.
So Paulie, I apologize. I appreciate your coverage of the meeting on IPR, work for liberty, etc.
That said, you seem to have a bias in favor of defending all things OAI related. Some of your defense may be accurate/objective/justified but this . . .
“OAI is legally prohibited from engaging in partisan activity. So the above is literally impossible. Now you are levelling ridiculous charges against me. Even if it were legally possible for OAI to be a source of ballot access funds ”
is utter bullshit.
Same people. Same physical address. Same phone numbers. Same media director. Same Richard Burke in Oregon as OAI State DIrector and former State campaign director. Same.
I accept your other arguments for not being financially influenced in terms of your loyalty to/support of OAI, but not this one. I also applaud your public calling out on transparency.
What was missing over these past months, apparently, was ANY disclosure of the need to increase the fundraising hurdle for filing the suit, of the delays caused, as you indicate, by the illness or death of counsel, etc. etc.
When you learn such things that would be of interest to IPR readers/donors/supporters, it would be great if you’d start an article about that here (or somewhere). Even better would be a press release with regular updates that might reduce the anger of former donors, or not cause the kind of upsets shared earlier. On that I’d think we’d agree.
And, as it seems your preference, rather than assume you might be reluctant to criticize OAI/GJ2012/GJ2016 (if the latter happens), due to a desire to protect your income stream; I, for one, will remain in a bit of mystery because I do not believe you’ve drunk any kool-aid or wouldn’t see through a scam in a heartbeat.
Finally, I’d encourage every reader here to go to Paypal and use Paulie’s email address to send a dollar amount to you that reflects the value they feel they have received from your reporting here. Something that I would hope would add up from the pool of readers here to more than your travel expenses at least.
I see where I did that last December 16th, so clearly you don’t have problems “biting the hand that feeds you,” at least in my case!
🙂
(risking humor again and figuring I’ll be misunderstood again, but what the hell . . .)
Best,
Joe
If OAI i s set up as a 501(c)(4) they are prohibited from spending any money on political campaigns, which would mean no initiative drives.
OAI has never even paid for a petition drive. I am pretty sure they are set up as a non-profit, which prohibits them from spending money on candidates, which includes petition drive to place candidates on the ballot.
If OAI is set up as a certain type of non-profit, a 501 (c3) I believe, they could spend money on ballot initiatives, but I have never heard of them doing this, nor have I heard of any plan for them to do this.
The writing was on the wall along time ago about Gary Johnson and OAI. Pre lp nomination in 2012. They weren’t honoring their own fundraising and legal contracts with people. People had to sue to get their money.
Anyone who’s read 2 issues of liberty for America can clearly see that the Johnson campaign, and subsequent efforts in OAI are essentially a get rich scheme for a select few. Thanks George for compiling the data from the FEC reports.
@3:28 “You said George was incorrect, then you failed to contradict him.” Sounds pretty contradictory to me. I am a bit farther down the data pipeline and inverted who had been terminated for what.
@3:41 “If this highly theoretical precedent had been in fact set here, what good would it do these theoretical nefarious LNC members to strip regional reps of national membership? Their states could then just immediately reappoint those reps.”
As there is a requirement that LNC members must be National party members, it is inobvious that they could appoint a nonmember as their rep.
I object to the comments above targeting Paulie. Ron Nielsen’s behavior is not Paulie’s responsibility, and certainly I have every reason to think that Paulie does not work with OAI to get petitioning contracts. I might disagree with Paulie’s assessment of how OAI (and the campaign) is (was) run, but that’s no reason to try to paint Paulie as somehow being exploitative/manipulative. So far as I know, Paulie sacrifices a ton in order to help this party succeed, making far less than he could in other lines of work and doing tons of volunteer work.
I will say that Paulie has done a lot of the party with his work on ballot access and involvement on the national committee. Being on the national committee is expensive in both time and finances. For him, I’m sure his time often costs him his money. Thanks for all of your work Paulie.
Now as far as who is being a sucker, I will just leave that up to Aunt Esther to decide:
http://memecrunch.com/meme/2G8CC/watch-it-sucka/image.jpg?w=400&c=1
The LNC has entered executive session to discuss employee compensation related to the budget.
Thanks to the LP for video and audio streaming the meeting!
Thanks to Paulie for his on site live blogging!
I hope to tune in on Sunday as well; however, I may miss the first hour or two of that session.
Maybe. I acknowledge it is possible that I am being one.
Or maybe you are being a sucker for people who perpetually go around making the worst assumptions possible about anyone having a higher than usual level of success with the LP or the liberty movement as a whole and spinning it out as fact in a very nasty and negative way.
Paulie wrote:
You can only give people the benefit of the doubt so long before they are taking advantage of you as a sucker.
Paulie wrote:
There is not a fixed pool of donor money. Some people will donate to one thing but not another. Some pitches can get money that would have stayed in pockets otherwise.
But there are definitely circumstances where two donor pitches affect one another. That’s both the case when a state letter arrives the same day as a national letter and when there are two fundraisers at the same big event.
The answer isn’t for either states or national or OAI or Johnson to stop fundraising. But entities should take that into account when planning the drop date, asks, etc. of pitches.
I think the best way to make him reconsider is if you and others run against him and challenge him continuously on the issue.
As for OAI we do not take a position on the “fairtax” per se. Our national project only says that we want the income tax repealed, nothing about starting any new tax. The state projects cosponsored by the “fairtax” organizations only mention ending the income tax, not instituting a new tax, regardless of the separate goals of those partner organizations.
Gary’s personal opinions here are a separate matter and what he has actually said was that the “fairtax” would be a “good starting point for a conversation” about major tax reform. I don’t agree even with that, but it’s not the same thing as supporting the “fairtax” proposal per se – Gary does not necessarily support the so-called “prebate” or the revenue-neutral tax rate for example. He is using it as shorthand for tax reform when he refers to “fairtax” (generally due to time factors or ease of reference). And because it helps him tap into existing support groups.
Gary is actually big on transparency. Ron, not at all. I’m glad that this is being challenged, but sad about the negative and nasty way it is being done, the accusations based on assuming the worst, etc.
I agree that is a serious concern.
It’s possible, but I have no proof of it and no reason to make that my assumption. If I went around assuming the worst about people without proof I would have killed a lot of people and been dead a long time ago.
Nope. My eyes are wide open and I have said so publicly in the past. I am acting based on hopes, but concerns absolutely do exist.
I’m on your side regarding transparency, and with the possibility there could be some stinky shit, but you are not going to convince me to assume that is the case without evidence.
As for transparency, I have spoken up for it, including to Ron personally.
It was a potential factor in both directions. I think probably more so in a positive one. This reminds me of comments from people who believe national LP fundraising hurts state LP fundraising efforts and I don’t agree with that either.
Joseph Buchman wrote:
I disagree with any aspersions on Paulie’s motives.
As for myself I started out a big Gary Johnson supporter. He seemed very receptive to constructive criticism. However, it has become more and more clear that Johnson and his organization have no intention of ever abandoning their big new government tax or being more transparent. I can only give the organization the benefit of the doubt so long before I become a fool for continuing to throw them rope.
You know on second thought I am not insulted at all. Fuck it. I don’t give a shit.
Dunno about this first group (LtPF) – I can’t remember hearing about them. We are trying to reach out with the Greens and apparently the details of that negotiation is a lot of what accounts for some of the time delay from what I have been told.
Yes, everything has changed so it was removed.
Bullshit. My involvement is based 100% on the hope that we will do good things with OAI. I will walk away in a second immediately if I come to conclude otherwise.
How would that be? OAI is legally prohibited from engaging in partisan activity. So the above is literally impossible. Now you are levelling ridiculous charges against me. Even if it were legally possible for OAI to be a source of ballot access funds that would have nothing whatsoever to do with my decision whether to support OAI. I thought you knew me better to suggest anything that ridiculous about me. I’m beyond insulted.
And I get ballot access work based on past performance, not based on my volunteer activities. If anything, my volunteer activities such as being on LNC, expressing my views online via IPR and other means, etc, etc has hindered not helped me in getting contracts. You want to know what would maximize my ballot access contracts? Keeping my mouth shut online, not going to LP meetings, not doing anything whatsoever volunteer, taking any petition job regardless of ideological content, and driving a hard bargain. That’s what petitioners I know who are most financially successful do. And I wouldn’t even be in this business at all if financial success was my main goal. I am in this business for ideological reasons and frequently do things that run counter to financial interests. My volunteer activities mostly fall in this last category.
You don’t understand anything. You are inventing false accusationsand insinuations and insulting me. If my priority was to be rich, I would have been. I have given up my whole life for political causes. And now I am a greedy profiteer because I make a pittance of subsistence income (which would be inadequate even for that without help from family and friends) that allows me to focus 100% of my time and energy or very close to it on politics? Fuck that noise.
By the way, not that anyone asked or gave a shit, but my health is poor and it is dubious whether I will seek or accept ballot petitioning contracts in the future or be in shape to take them if they are offered or not. If I do, I’m sure offers will float my way. Whether I can take them or not, we’ll see.
I may be less rash about breaking my ties and burning bridges on the turn of a dime, but I have been known to do it. Democrats, for example. I’ve also known to put a lot of effort into internal accountability efforts such as the LP Radical and Sunshine caucuses. Loyalty, really?
The smiley face does not make me smile, it only adds a final smile to the mountain of insult.
These electronic meeting rules seem very reasonable.
The timeline of that lawsuit does not match what donors were told.
Some attorneys died/got ill/for whatever reason off the case. Others hired. Different potential parties to the lawsuit/fundraising/publicity have taken longer than originally hoped for/expected to negotiate their commitments, responsibilities and roles in the collaborative effort. Nick is signing some papers Monday that will represent an important step that had to happen before things could move further forward.
The amount of money raise exceeds the cost originally pitched — e.g., on the original donation thermometer on the website.
Yes, apparently they have now decided to hire a prestigious, well-connected and expensive lawyer/legal team/legal company, so the cost went up.
Paulie wrote:
I see that now.
I think my previous reply got eaten.
What we will be signing is the retainer agreement for the OAI lawsuit as previously approved by the LNC. The retainer does not contemplate any financial obligation for the LNC.
As to the FEC request for comment from the other group, a comment under my name in my official capacity will be submitted this weekend.
“However, you wrote that “Rob Oates, regional, has now dropped off the LNC.” You didn’t specify how.”
I did at 3:19.
Wow Chuck — pleased to see we have the same point-of-view on this.
“The timeline of that lawsuit does not match what donors were told. The amount of money raised exceeds the cost originally pitched — e.g., on the original donation thermometer on the website.”
That donation amount indicator, in the form of a thermometer, was removed after Columbus without being updated (as I recall), and I believe it is still missing.
Paulie has obvious financial incentives for supporting OAI (likely to be a source of funds for ballot access petitioning). I understand that. He’s also seems to be generally more tolerant and loyal to organizations that I’ve been known to be.
🙂
Joe
Paulie,
“LP would actually be a plaintiff, right? OAI is apparently not.”
I would hope so. And I’d hope we (to use the word broadly) would reach out to the attorneys at Level the Playing Field, and in the Green and other principle-based parties (the real distinction between “us” (to use the word broadly) and the non-principled R&D criminals/thieves/liars) — or at least the others of the principle-based parties that have attorneys, to join in the fight.
Joe
Paulie wrote:
The timeline of that lawsuit does not match what donors were told. The amount of money raised exceeds the cost originally pitched — e.g., on the original donation thermometer on the website. There is no transparency to how the money is being spent. Watchdogs like me suspect much of it is probably lining the pockets of Ron Nielson and other OAI fundraisers.
I understand that you drank the Kool-AID, Paulie, but you can’t convince me that the shit don’t stink without transparency.
Paulie wrote:
One factor of many. But it was a factor, your denial of such notwithstanding.
14 ballots were cast using approval voting by secret ballot.
Convention oversight committee votes:
Alicia Mattson (NV) – 12
Vicki Kirkland (FL) – 11
Daniel Hayes (LA) – 11
Jay Estrada (TX) – 9
Ed Marsh (TN) – 7
Arvin Vohra (MD) – 6
A majority of the votes were required to be elected. Therefore only those with 8 or more votes were elected.
Convention oversight committee:
Alicia Mattson (NV)
Vicki Kirkland (FL)
Daniel Hayes (LA)
Jay Estrada (TX)
ALSO — any mention of the Level the Playing Field FEC/CPS Petition?
Not that I remember seeing or hearing.
LP would actualy be a plaintiff, right? OAI is apparently not.
I trust the LNC will be vigilant not to see any financial support of this lawsuit wind up as OAI overhead.
OAI is only helping with fundraising. LP fundraising will go directly to the attorneys, as I understand it.
Paulie wrote:
I see now that he wrote that. You didn’t include that part in your quote of George’s comment.
However, you wrote that “Rob Oates, regional, has now dropped off the LNC.” You didn’t specify how. Anyway, semantics.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Paulie wrote:
Irrelevant. Again, completely missing the point. Nick was overruled. The LNC has said that ineligibility creates a vacancy.
Paulie wrote:
Irrelevant. The whole point is that the LNC as a group can now create an illegibility by revoking membership, which automatically kicks off a regional rep. The region would then decide who to appoint — it could be the same person. But the timing of this could be chosen to kick the member off during a meeting and that person would miss LNC votes and executive sessions until the region appointed someone new (possibly the same person).
Paulie wrote:
No, McMahon was not removed for missing meetings. He was automatically removed as ineligible for not paying his dues. That’s new.
Paulie wrote:
Reappointment could take time. That person could miss voting at a LNC meeting, miss executive sessions, be automatically kicked off LNC subcommittees, etc. It’s a terrible precedent.
To Paulies point, the region cannot reappoint a rep who no longer qualifies for LNC membership. But I agree it’s a rather hypothetical scenario.
The last JC decision on this topic sharply differentiated between failing to maintain bylaws sustaining membership, which the JC ruled required action to remove for cause, and missing two meetings. The majority decision explicitly mentioned missing two consecutive meetings as an example of, if I remember the wording correctly, the delegates being capable of passing bylaws with enforcement mechanisms. Thus, if we take that ruling as the status quo until today, then nothing has changed on that front.
The chairs ruling on the McMahon question seems to have been in line with the JC ruling, so failing to sustain it runs counter to that ruling. So the LNC decided that, contrary to that ruling, failing to maintain bylaws sustaining membership is like missing two meetings and does not require action by the LNC to cause removal.
If we thought that removal requires action, we can say that regional reps cannot be removed for lapsing since the LNC cannot take action to remove a regional rep. If the removal is automatic, it does apply to regional reps. Alternates are a bit more complex, in both cases.
So I agree with Chuck that there was a change in understanding . I had initially thought there wasn’t since I read Georges point to refer to Oates and didn’t think through the application of McMahon. That’s independent of my opinion on the underlying questions.
I disagree on a different point. I think the website should be based around a giant picture of Aaron. More seriously, I agree with the point that Aaron has set a standard for a professional, serious campaign.
Votes for the audit committee:
Aaron Starr (CA) – 10
M Carling (WA) – 9
George Martin (CO) – 2
Gary Johnson (TX) – 1 (write-in… he was already on as the LNC non-officer member)
11 votes cast, approval voting.
Starr and Carling were appointed.
Audit committee:
Aaron Starr (CA)
M Carling (WA)
Gary Johnson (TX)
Nick — if you are reading this, Paulie et. al. regardless, I’m a bit confused by the apparent contradiction in:
“Sarwark will sign papers officially signing us on with OAI debate lawsuit on Monday.”
and
“Our America Initiative has a no refunds policy & funds may be used for overhead cost. Our America Initiative, although not a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, is proud to help finance the lawsuit through its fundraising efforts and to support the plaintiffs and their lawyers in other ways.”
See the bottom right fine print at:
https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/presidential-debate-commission.html
I trust the LNC will be vigilant not to see any financial support of this lawsuit wind up as OAI overhead.
ALSO — any mention of the Level the Playing Field FEC/CPS Petition?
See:
http://sers.fec.gov/fosers/showpdf.htm?docid=306278
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/11/public-comment-sought-in-fec-petition-to-force-cpd-to-include-one-more-candidate-in-presidential-debates/
See: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c2023125/clip-presidential-debates-lawsuit
Convention oversight committee nominees:
Vicki Kirkland (FL)
Daniel Hayes (LA)
Alicia Mattson (NV)
Arvin Vohra (MD)
Jay Estrada (TX)
Ed Marsh (TN)
Post lunch exhaustion is setting in.
Nope, sorry, I have been distracted from that.
Paulie, are you keeping track of the committee votes?
I didn’t see who was finally appointed to the audit committee.
Nominees for the audit committee:
Aaron Starr (CA)
M Carling (WA)
George Martin (CO)
OAI raised money for a lawsuit that the LNC voted to sign on to, at a room in the convention hotel that no one else was using, and which could have been held somewhere else nearby. I see absolutely no reason to believe it cut into LP fundraising. In fact it may have increased it because it gave people the sense that the LP is doing something positive by being associated with a lawsuit that could help us in the future.
Most delegates felt positively about Gov. Johnson and were happy that he was there and still involved with the LP. My guess would be that this helped, not hurt, LP fundraising.
There were enough people with enough money there that the LP could have easily raised more, with or without the OAI fundraising, if it inspired more donors to donate more. Clearly something – the decisions made by a majority of the delegates, the length of the fundraising dinner, the quality of the fundraising methods, or any number of things I haven’t thought of – failed to inspire the donors. Blaming that on OAI would be silly.
I did correct him. George said Oates was removed due to a lapse in dues. That did not happen. I corrected that.
No, because the LNC is not the body that elects regional reps.
Nick explained on email:
Absence doesn’t require action. Per the bylaws, “A National Committee
member who fails to attend two consecutive regular sessions of the
National Committee shall be deemed to have vacated his or her seat.
The appointing body shall be free to reappoint the member who vacated
the seat.”
So if Oates as a regional rep had in fact dropped off the LNC for dues lapse rather than for missing two meetings, logic tells me his states would still be free to reappoint, remove or replace him, as they are anyway. And if McMahon as At Large had dropped off for missing two meetings rather than for a dues lapse the LNC would be free to reappoint him (as happened with Wrights near the end of the last term) or replace him. And as the LNC did with McMahon for dropping off due to the dues lapse.
That precedent had been set when the LNC voted to reappoint Wrights for missing two meetings last term, if not before that. No new precedent was created here.
If this highly theoretical precedent had been in fact set here, what good would it do these theoretical nefarious LNC members to strip regional reps of national membership? Their states could then just immediately reappoint those reps.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Paulie wrote:
They are a competing group in the sense that people who donated to OAI may have donated to the LP instead if OAI had not conducted a fundraiser.
My recollection was OAI had a fundraiser with a door fee and probably additional fundraising when people arrived. I’m not sure though.
I pretty much ignore OAI because they support a big new government tax, they send half their donor funds to line a few people’s pockets, and they don’t deliver what they claim in a timely fashion (such as the presidential debate lawsuit). So I didn’t attend any OAI events at the national convention. My recollection is therefore worse than anyone who gave their time and money to the big government tax Johnson organization at the convention.
Ah gotcha now. Sorry, I did miss that due to stepping out briefly, and the comments describing it here confused me because I was missing context.
George Phillies wrote:
Paulie wrote:
You said George was incorrect, then you failed to contradict him.
George’s point is that by overruling the chair, the LNC has said that failing to remain eligible — here failure to keep dues current — creates a vacancy. That same logic applies to regional reps according to what Alicia said before the vote on sustaining the chair’s ruling. He’s right.
You are pointing out that the region can reappoint someone kicked off. While true, that doesn’t address George’s point at all about throwing regional reps off.
Your example of Rob Oates is an interesting sidenote, but unrelated to George’s point. Oates was removed because he missed 2 LNC meetings in a row, not because he failed to pay his dues. George never said this precedent was already used to throw a regional rep off the LNC… merely that it could be used in the future.
Since the LNC has the power to kick out a member or revoke a membership through Robert’s, if it uses that procedure successfully against a sitting LNC member, that person would no longer be a LP member and would therefore be ineligible to serve on the LNC and therefore would be thrown off the LNC under this precedent. It’s an end run around the fact that the LNC cannot directly remove a regional rep.
Sarwark tried to prevent this bad precedent. The LNC overruled him.
In what way are we a “competing” group and when and where was this “huge fundraiser”?
Also incorrect. There is no such new ruling.
Someone should, but not the LNC.
Paulie wrote:
I’m assuming he meant OAI.
This is incorrect. Evan McMahon, At Large, was reappointed because his dues briefly lapsed. He is ill and is not at this meeting, but was at the last one.
Rob Oates, regional, has now dropped off the LNC due to missing two consecutive meetings. The states in his region are allowed to reappoint him now if they wish. The LNC took no action because he represents the states and only his states can reappoint or replace him.
Nicholas Sarwark wrote:
If it were actually only 1 visit per lifetime from each IP address, that would mostly be fine. I’m skeptical that’s as easy to implement as you implicitly think.
But I find splash screens especially obnoxious when I browse the web from my phone… often it takes 2 minutes of scaling and scrolling to be able to click the x closing the obnoxious window. Mobile browsing would also likely use many different IP addresses from the same phone over time.
So did I. I followed the reports and discussion on the LNC and that contradicts the impression I had from all of that.
What competing group?
Please explain these rules in more detail for those that don’t know. New bill moving thru congress could be a help with this in the future?
http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/12/congress-likely-to-allow-much-larger-contributions-to-political-parties/
Paulie wrote:
It was a joke.
Dan Wiener praised the Starr website and said he thought the LP website should have the same functionality and aesthetics… except he thought the picture of Aaron Starr on his website was way too large.
Did someone suggest otherwise? LOL. Maybe I missed something but the only thing I heard said about Aaron’s website is that it is laid out well and easy to use, not that he should be the face of the LP in the way he was trying to get Wayne Root to be for a while.
Excellent idea.
Chuck said: “I agree with Dan Wiener that the new LP website should not be centered around a large picture of Aaron Starr.”
Omigod! I spit out my coffee laughing!
Took a break to eat. There is a discussion of the website going on. Also logo.
I was thinking of one splash page on first visit from that IP address.
If a website aggressively spashes an annoying ad all the time that requires giving my email address every page I load, I stop going to that website. And I stop donating to that organization. It’s the most obnoxious behavior on the web. It’s the Internet equivalent of the “OH MY GOD THE SKY IS FALLING” fundraising letters… it lets me know the organization is completely unprofessional.
I agree with Dan Wiener that the new LP website should not be centered around a large picture of Aaron Starr.
George Phillies wrote:
Exactly.
ATBAFT: Let’s see. Allowed competing group to do huge fundraiser on site. Failed to take advantage of FEC convention site committee rules and effectively handed the booth fees to the LSLA.
I see treasurer’s reports. I seem to have missed one reporting that the convention took a major loss.
On a different note, there was a very important precedent set here, establishing that the LNC can throw Regional Representatives off the LNC. The assertion was that Mr Oates was off the LNC because he had been slow to renew his dues, and thus had for a bit not been a member. The regular interpretation in times past was that only State Chairs could remove their rep…unless they had created an alternative member. The new ruling is that if you are not a National member, even briefly, you are off the LNC, so therefore the LNC can remove regional representatives and alternates by the simple expedient of expelling them from the national party, as Roberts claims they can. Perhaps the LNC should revisit this point to make sure that they understood it.
How much did convention lose? Conventions used to be very profitable; what has changed?
90 minute lunch.
Paulie making nice comments about volunteer petitioners in New York. 🙂
Discussing the possible formation of a ballot access committee.
Can you tell how large the shortfall is?
I may have misunderstood the question, although I still answered it. http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/ also has each months membership report mailed out by Robert Kraus and sometimes some discussion of it.
Food is being brought into the room …
Bill Redpath discussing ballot access report.
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/ You can find each months report..
Treasurers report: http://www.lp.org/files/2e-LNC_11-14_MonthEndFinc_v1.pdf
Can you tell how large the shortfall is?
Staff going through petitions happens frequently in Pennsylvania.
OK, if you or anyone else gets a chance to fill in stuff I missed later from memory and/or broadcast archives please do so.
I’m not commenting much because I’m multitasking. But I’ve been listening.
Hayes is back, swapped back out now with Estrada.
I’m back. Still on region reports. Estrada is at the table now.
I haven’t had breakfast either other than coffee and fruit and no dinner last night other than booze..
I’ll take my P break now. Back soon if I don’t get into a conversation on my way back here.
Kentucky is in the midst of a request for a Federal civil jury trial.
Much of the gallery never came back after the break. I stayed here thru the brreak so I don’t know where people went.
I missed that there was some discussion of the pending litigation. If I understood correctly Alabama is the only one that is live, Illinois is handling their own, and Sarwark will sign papers officially signing us on with OAI debate lawsuit on Monday. I did not hear Kentucky mentioned.
Regions in numerical order from that last link if I am not mistaken.
Now on staff reports starting with Olsen.
http://www.lp.org/lnc-leadership
Thanks for clearing that up.
Mr. Oates would need to be reappointed by his region, there’s no action that the LNC can take.
General counsel (Sinawski, RIP) has not been replaced. Sarwark has been filling in but believes we need an outside counsel with more time than he has for it and an outside perspective, so would prefer to hire, but has not done it yet. There’s a search committee. I think he said Rutherford, Redpath, and Bill Hall are the search committee. Hopes they find someone by end of first quarter 2015.
Hey to Beth and Jennifer.
LNC members NOT here:
Full members – McMahon (situation discussed earlier). Also Oates. Oates is missing his 2nd in a row and if I am not mistaken his alternate (O’Toole) is not here either. Missing 2 means Oates is not on LNC. This was mentioned, but not dealt with when McMahon was reappointed.
Alternates:
All but Katz, Windeler and (I believe) O’Toole are here.
Region 6 (Oates/O’Toole; Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin) is the only one not represented here at all by either their rep or alternate.
Lark: is Wes getting enough direction from LNC?
I think the answer was yes.
Beth Vest is here.
Carla’s job is currently in reality more communication director than her job title (political director).
Benedict: looking for volunteers to call all 50 state chairs. A task that can free up staff for other things if volunteers take it on.
Robert Kraus is checking the stream.
It’s back up.
Benedict is open to having LNC members blog.
The video seems frozen.
Meeting is back. More questions for Benedict regarding financials (budget cuts and/or revenue raising enhancement). The financials are in a shortfall. The facebook working groups are doing well with volunteers.
Can’t tell on the caster site.
Just checked. Ustream does have archive.
I asked this earlier. Anyone know?
10 min recess. 15 minutes to add to staff reports without objection.
Many people join in Oct/Nov/Dec of prez years so those months of any other years usually see a lot of expirations.
Has let people write FR letters when they criticize his. Offers this to LNC members here.
Benedict: wants to declutter and simplify LP.org
Discussion of this month’s membership drop. Most of it is Ohio members that joined for one year around this time last year. Prospecting on facebook is working well.
For those of us without time to listen at the moment, are either of the streams being archived?
Lark: are the people complaining about frequent FR letters major current donors?
Benedict: No
Johnson on FR letter frequency. Johnson, Redpath concur that FR letters should be sent more frequently. So does Wiener (and so do I). Some people complain about too many letters.
Wes on what is better for staff to do versus what is better to outsource. Thinks fundraising letters written by staff do better, graphics are better to outsource, etc.
LOL, thanks, but I know I am missing a lot. Partially because of the schedule mentioned above, partially because I type slow, and some other reasons.
National convention banquet did not raise nearly as much as hoped or expected. Texas did much better proportionately speaking. Wes says the national convention lost a lot of money. My previous info was that it almost broke even. Wes says some of his most popular letters have also been some of the most controversial ones.
I don’t mind saying it again but if people keep asking over and over someone else please re-give out the links or anything else that has already been previously mentioned.
Body of this article for those only reading the latest comments:
Meeting is starting. I will edit the article as I go but most of it will be in the comments. See http://www.lp.org/blogs/staff/lnc-meeting-dec-13-14-2014-new-orleans or https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/12/libertarian-national-committee-meeting-dec-13-14-2014-in-new-orleans/ for broadcast channels, preliminary agenda and written reports.
It’s in the article as well as comments above.. Broadcast channel #1:
Click here for the Ustream version of the broadcast or visit:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/libertarian-party1
Broadcast channel #2:
Click here for an audio-only version or visit:
http://libertarian.caster.fm/
They need someone to help with LP.org blog. I can do that if they let me.
Web site redesign/updating, discussion of various ways staff is replacing Eric Dixon in his various tasks. Wes wants to hire a new person or contract out some graphic design and layout on LP News, website etc. Receptionist has not been replaced.
Ustream. What is the caster link?
Mentions logo redesign and that it brings up lots of controversy.
Doing great Paulie, thanks!
UStream or caster? Chuck said above the caster audio is better than the ustream.
Work on improving our image. They may need to hire security to keep me away from meetings for that last goal 🙂
Also discusses LNC store and/vs LPStuff. Comparisons on various party performance metric 2012 vs 2014. Wes says he likes the goal of running a lot of candidates. Wes talking about his goals for this term: help for candidates with materials, updating literature and materials…
Benedict going over office move, Geoff Neale’s projects from last LNC term, the 2012 audit…this seems to be more of a report on what he has been doing for the last several years as opposed to the usual quarterly staff report. Also talking about implementing membership levels change.
My apologies for not doing a better job liveblogging. I was out drinking heavily late last night, got up early this morning, and spent the previous night on megabus: standing outside waiting for bus 11 PM-1AM, hanging half way off the seat from Bham to Memphis 1 AM to 5:30 AM, transfer in Memphis 5:30-10:30 AM, Bus to New Orleans 10:30-7, drinking 7 PM to 2 AM, one hour each way to Covington, up at 6 AM this morning.
The audio is a bit echoy.
Benedict going over his first days when he was rehired at LNC. I am not sure why that is part of this meeting’s staff report but apparently it is. Benedict is also discussing his work with the Booster PAC which he ran in between his two stints at LPHQ. I believe he has dissolved that PAC since he has come back to LPHQ.
We are on the staff report now.
Benedict is discussing graphics, printed materials, and photos of LNC. He will be taking photos of LNC members this weekend.
Wes Benedict is up. I guess this is staff report?
I had the good fortune to be out of the room at the time of that discussion.
Back.
They’re talking about taking pictures of Sarwark in action now.
When Geoff Neale discussed the creation of this wiki last term IIRC he said it would be public and explained this levels thing that I mentioned in my last comment.
There is an internal wiki for national LP for staff which LNC members can ask to access but it is not open to the public.
Someone on LNC please make it, or a motion to make it, accessible to public (if I am not mistaken, wikis have different levels of access which can section of portions of a public wiki so those sections are not public).
Motion to approve the minutes (Of last meeting?) with some kind of appendix. Passes with no objection.
Sorry, I did not see Chuck’s comment about ducking out for food or I would have paid closer attention to the meeting instead of my offside color commentary on the gallery etc.
Mattson is, I believe, giving Secretary’s report. It sounds to me to be the same as her written report which can be seen at http://www.lp.org/files/2b-Secretary%27s%20Report%202014_12_13.pdf
Also several us are with OAI. Guy McLendon is Southern Region director, Leigh LaChine and myself are Southern Region co-deputy directors, I am Alabama director and Werther is Louisiana director. Special thank you to Jennifer Werther for helping me out with housing and transportation down here and for keeping up with my psychotic schedule and aberrantly heavy drinking while remaining herself completely sober. .
Added to gallery: two guys, if I am not mistaken one of them is Chairman
Scott A. Lewis, III of Louisiana LP. I do not recognize the other one but he may be a relative or friend of Mr. Lewis (if I am not mistaken on identity).
http://lplouisiana.org/scc_members
Jennifer Werther is Secretary of LPL and Guy McLendon is Vice Chair of LPL so their committee has several members who are here.
Anyone here and/or anyone at home please help us liveblog.
Note from Estrada:
That is a physical note on a notepad so if there are any typos they are mine.
They’re going over the financials for the treasurer’s report now.
I’m ducking out to get food for 10 minutes.
Good question. I see people with computers at the table but don’t know if any of them are on IPR. Redpath asked me for a link to the broadcast, and I sent those along with a link to the IPR thread and to https://www.facebook.com/groups/LNCVotesDiscuss/1596432573918599/?notif_t=group_activity but I am not sure if that was for himself of for someone else. It was not to an email address I recognized; it seems to be an email-to-cellphone address based on the address.
Estrada saw my comment about him being in the gallery and gave me an explanation note I will get to in a second so he is at least reading. Bot sure if he will comment.
Gallery: myself (AL), Jennifer “Hap” Werther of LA, Leigh LaChine (AL), Danny Bedwell (MS), one guy I am not recognizing, Starr (CA). Guy’s sister Ginger McLendon of Mobile, Alabama was here but has left. Mrs. LaChine is in town but I haven’t seen her in the meeting, at least not yet. Bittner’s sister was here last night; not sure if she still is, but she did not sound like the meeting itself would be something that would interest her. She lives in Dallas, TX. A few other people were here last night that I have not seen yet today. The only one I remember from the top of my head is Ginger of LA. I don’t remember last name but yes we had double Gingers here last night.
They talked about the Johnson debate lawsuit. It will include anti-trust and equal protection claims. The LP will join the lawsuit.
Redpath asked that the platform and bylaws committees be appointed next meeting.
Sarwark says he delegates everything he doesn’t want to do to vice-chair Arvin Vohra.
Is anyone from the LNC or anyone else in the gallery besides Paulie checking IPR?
Last meeting I think Rich Tomasso and Nick Sarwark had laptops.
Estrada is here, but in the gallery, at least for now. Also here from LNC/staff: Lieberman, Kraus, Bittner, Marsh, Spencer.
Sustain ruling of the chair that there is no vacancy for Evan McMahon:
Mattson – nay
Olsen – aye
Kirkland – aye
Tomasso – nay
Goldstein – nay
Hayes – nay
Wiener – nay
Lark – nay
Feldman – aye
McLendon – abstain
Johnson – aye
Hagan – nay
Redpath – nay
Vohra – abstain
Sarwark – aye
Motion failed:
5 – 8 – 2
Re-appoint Evan McMahon as an at-large LNC member to fill his own vacancy:
Mattson – aye
Olsen – aye
Kirkland – aye
Tomasso – aye
Goldstein – aye
Hayes – aye
Wiener – aye
Lark – aye
Feldman – aye
McLendon – aye
Johnson – aye
Hagan – aye
Redpath – aye
Vohra – aye
Sarwark – abstain
Motion passed:
14-0-1
I’m pretty sure about the sustain chair ruling vote. But I may have made a mistake in the vacancy vote… I’m pretty sure no one voted no, but there may have been a few more abstentions. The only abstention I caught was Sarwark’s.
Unlike the last meeting I’m not actually there, so I can’t make corrections by checking with the secretary or other LNC members.
LNC members here: Sarwark, Vohra, Mattson, Hagan; Redpath, Johnson, McLendon, Feldman, Lark, Wiener, Hayes, (Benedict), Goldstein, Tomasso, Kirkland and Olsen are at the table.
Conflicts of interest is next to be discussed. Apparently there is not a vote on the other vacancy (the member who is missing his second meeting in a row) or at least no vote at this time.
That ruling of the chair was overturned by 5-8 so now they are voting on the actual reappointment.
I was wrong. Mattson was saying that a vote was needed, Sarwark was saying that it was not needed because there was no vacancy in his opinion
Ah, thanks.
Are they talking about a particular person being ineligible? Who?
Evan McMahon, who is not here due to illness, lapsed in dues briefly and did not know that there was a requirement to continuously be a dues paying national party member He has caught up with dues now. Discussion whether a vote is required or not. If I understand it correctly Sarwark is saying a vote is needed and Mattson is saying it is not but I thought Mattson was the one who put the reappointment on the agenda. Perhaps I misunderstood this.
paulie wrote:
I don’t know how to figure that out for live streams.
The caster has much better audio. I’m listening to the caster now with the ustream muted.
Mike Shipley posted in LNC Votes – Discuss
Thanks Chuck. That’s http://www.ustream.tv/channel/libertarian-party1
How about http://libertarian.caster.fm/ ? And do either or both of them have archive?
Anyone at home please let me know if any of the broadcasts have an archive. I was not taking detailed notes on any of the above.
The uStream is working.
4. Going over agenda and making amendments to it now.
3. Credentials/attendance check. They went over which LNC members are here and which are not, plus one or two that will need to be reappointed for missing two meetings in a row and/or dues expiring for a short period of time before getting caught up while on the LNC.
2. Moment of silence for passing of Mark Bodenhausen, John Wayne Smith, Chuck Donovan and Doug Butzier.
From memory while I am setting up. Anyone else here or watching at home please fill in and/or correct.
1. There were no public comments.
Has anyone at home checked the broadcast channels to see if they are working?