Press release from the Libertarian Party of Florida (LPF):
The Libertarian Party of Florida announced Monday that it will join Floridians for Solar Choice in a ballot initiative for the 2016 election.
The ballot initiative will allow for market competition in the field of energy and especially alternative energy by allowing citizens to produce solar energy for profit. This measure will not only encourage the use of solar energy, something found in abundance in the Sunshine State, but will allow small business to flourish in a newly created alternative energy industry.
“Energy is our most valuable commodity and for Floridians, solar is one of the easiest forms to harness. Our party has been a longtime advocate for the independence of every individual to flourish from their endeavors and we feel this ballot initiative will allow for the market to dictate the effectiveness of this alternative energy.”
Chairperson Dana Moxley-Cummings said in a statement. “It is time to break the monopolistic field surrounding our energy production of consumption that has been a stronghold by the major parties for too long. This initiative is an idea whose time has long passed and we are excited to see this become a reality for the citizens of Florida.”
Thanks.
Most likely not someone we know, but you never know. Not a high priority but I’m mildly curious.
If I can find the guy’s name, I’ll get it to you or Andy privately, just to see if you know him. Like I said, he described himself as local and operating a small crew for whoever pays. As you well know, when I have a project that might require petitioning, or know anyone else who does, you are my first call. I was just curious about the guy, so I chatted him up for a moment when he clearly wasn’t busy (I suspect he decided to go find a different place after that — we talked for two or three minutes and nobody else walked past for him to flag, even though we were maybe 100 feet down the sidewalk from a Wal-Mart).
Fair enough, you are probably right then…refer to one of the other hypotheses.
I doubt the guy wanted to get rid of me. There was no one else walking nearby at the moment to solicit, and I was talking to the guy about hiring him while my wife was also signing both petitions. I suppose it’s POSSIBLE that he didn’t want two additional signatures and another possible paying job (if I decided to go the ballot route, which I won’t), but I doubt it.
That’s possible too.
The petition, I meant 🙂
They also may be on a crew that is not doing the Medical Marijuana petition, or they were opting to not work on the Medical Marijuana petition because they do not think it is paying enough.
Tom, one of the Solar Energy petitions, the newer one, is written with deceptive language, and it is backed by the utility companies.
You could email the name of that petition circulator to Paul or myself (I think you’ve got one, or both, of our email addresses). I am just wondering if it was anyone I know or know of.
Surprised they did not have MJ. Maybe you were taking too long talking to them and they wanted to get rid of you so they could move on to other people or maybe they just hadn’t picked it up yet.
Could be. I’m kind of promiscuous about signing petitions. I think all parties and candidates should have easy ballot access, and for the most part I’m fine with initiative petitions unless something immediately jumps out at me as authoritarian. As far as not getting far enough to see how many petitions they had, they had two.
Tom – the other one is worded deceptively to make you think it is other than what it looks like if you don’t dig into it. The purpose is to keep the first one from passing. Common tactic.
I heard some of them are working both, unconfirmed but likely given past experience and precedents.
Tom most likely did not get far enough to see how many petitions they had.
Andy,
I got the guy’s name and number, but can’t find it at the moment.
This guy was collecting for two solar petitions. Neither of them looked likely to be backed by the power companies. One was the one LPF is noticed as backing in this story. The other one, as I understood it from the explanatory text, was a sort of anti-monopoly thing where you could choose your own power company. Since the grid is all interconnected, there’s no particular reason that someone trapped in the Gainesville Regional Utilities monopoly couldn’t decide to instead join and by from the Clay Electric Cooperative which, if what I hear is true, charges about half as much per kilowatt hour.
Tom, there is a new Solar Energy petition that just came out in Florida that is meant to subvert the other Solar Energy petition. The new one was put out by the utility companies.
Since the petitioners you encountered were only working the Solar Energy petition, I bet they were working the one from the utility companies, and I bet I know which petition crew they are on.
Did you happen to get their name?
Solar petitions are paying more, especially the fake ones. But many of those petitioners also have the MJ petition if you stop and talk to them. They are just not leading with it since it pays less.
Yes, 99% plus of them are mercs.
The solar energy initiatives definitely have petitioners out — I’ve run into them in 2 or 3 places around Gainesville in the last couple of weeks.
Haven’t seen a marijuana petition in this cycle yet.
My impression of the one petitioner that I talked to is that he’s a local “mercenary” (as Andy would put it). When I mentioned I was running for office, he didn’t even ask what party before starting to chat me up about what he would charge. Said he ran a crew of himself and usually two or three others.
Welcome on board. If you post in the future with the same screen name and email address it should post your comment automatically unless it has more than one link. We can retroactively approve other comments.
I am new to this site, but just felt I needed to throw in my two cents — or probably closer to a nick …
As to the length of someone’s comment, I see no reason to criticize and certainly nothing to be gained in such a disagreement. “Winning” that debate is akin to winning a pi$$ing contest.
I do, however, agree that it would probably be better served as it’s own topic and thread.
Lastly, I find most ‘in- fighting’ to be counterproductive at best. And those of us who align ourselves with libertarian ideology, should understand that logic better than anyone. Even though I think collectively, our philosophy may very well, be the MAJORITY opinion of the general public, because of the barriers we — and any “third” party — face, to say we face an uphill battle is quite the understatement.
I’ve gone on long enough. Don’t want this to be too long, like someone else …
Exactly.
“Jude
July 16, 2015 at 9:41 am
paulie, i noticed your advice on getting up to $5.50- $6 per signature on the marijuana petitions, .. do you got any idea where or who I could go to in the Tampa bay area that will pay that much?”
When the last Medical Marijuana petition was done in Florida, from around June of 2013-January 22nd of 2014, the top petition contractor got $4 per signature through most of the petition drive, but the last month or so they got $8 per signature. However, the actual petition circulators never saw most of this money.
The Medical Marijuana petition paid $1 per signature for the first few months, then around sometime in mid to late October or early November it went up to $2 per signature, and then around the 2nd or 3rd week of December it went up to $3 per signature, and then the last couple of weeks it was out it went up to $3.50 per signature. These were the “street rates” paid out to most of the petition circulators. They did offer other perks on top of this, such as there was $200 per week to go towards motels, but this was contingent upon getting a certain number of signatures per week. They also offered travel money to and from Florida. When they got desperate during the last month of the petition drive they also paid out a $1,000 bonus for more out-of-state petition circulators to go to Florida to work on the petition.
I did work on the Medical Marijuana petition the last time in Florida, but I was only there from late December until it ended on January 22nd (or maybe it was the 21st).
I’d go there and work on it right now if not for the fact that I am leery about the deal currently being offered because I do not think that it is paying enough.
Nobody is paying that much to circulators. The client may well be paying that much to the tp level petition company, but that doesn’t mean you can get the same deal. You can try going to the client directly, but most likely they will tell you that they have an exclusive contract, or waste your time with endless discussions that go nowhere, or just not return your calls, and they may report it to their existing contractor, who might blackball you as a result. Right now I think it’s paying 1.00, which is crappy, and I sure would not go down there for that.
paulie, i noticed your advice on getting up to $5.50- $6 per signature on the marijuana petitions, .. do you got any idea where or who I could go to in the Tampa bay area that will pay that much?
Intra-libertarian movement controversy… LP of Florida supports a solar energy initiative being circulated in Florida …
While the “Kochtopus” somewhat-opposes
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/americans-for-prosperity-criticizes-solar-but-avoids-ballot-position/2220790
http://blog.heartland.org/2015/03/heartland-daily-podcast-james-taylor-florida-solar-ballot-initiative-hoodwink/
Not too surprising if you consider what businesses the Kochs are in…
I will vouch for the statement that the LP-FL delegation chair was yelling at FL members during the 2014 national convention. It was a breach of decorum that probably should have been cited as such by the convention chairman, with a warning that his next outburst would have been met with removal from the venue.
I would gladly have served on the Sergeant At Arms committee to to escort him from the room.
There is no excuse for such unprofessional, childish behavior.
But then, there were numerous other breaches of procedure and decorum that went unremarked also; such as the monopolization of floor time by Aaron Starr and a few others.
Excellent idea.
Lots of people get paid and don’t accomplish much. As a full time liberty activist myself, I do plenty that I am not paid for, even though I get paid for a few things here and there. I am sure it’s the same with Snitker.
Mike, did someone “infer that you haven’t done anything for the party or the cause”? I know I haven’t, because I know that is not true. You do a lot.
Mike Kane support the death penalty for marijuana users.
I meant “They sent their own inferior version at the 11th hour”.
Unless something changes, I will be personally boycotting the state convention, although I’ve encouraged local Libertarians to attend.
I informed them of the possible locations (Brevard, Pasco, and I think it was Lee county), and had it been chosen in Brevard, I think representation from my county would have been a lot higher. Brevard had a superior bid as well, near the beach on the Atlantic side.
Unfortunately, the Convention Committee Chair (Vice Chair Alex Snitker), used his power as committee chair to select people who were going to suggest his own home county as the best convention site. I’m going off memory here, but I believe the first round of voting was 8 for Brevard, 5 for Pasco, and 4 for Lee. When Lee was eliminated, the 4 people who voted for Lee voted for Pasco on round 2. If one other person had voted for Brevard, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, as Brevard would have been selected on the first round.
It’s really too bad that people use their positions of power to select locations that best fit their interests.
And as for “Alex Snitker busting his ass”, I’d expect he would be. He’s getting paid, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s not act like he’s just some volunteer.
The way he treated me at the National Convention when I simply asked for transparency by roll call voting for LNC officers was abhorrent. He was yelling and screaming, pointing fingers, and throwing paperwork all around. If you don’t believe me, just ask pretty much anyone from the FL or VA delegations (3 of them who witnessed it are current LNC members). He yelled at other people too.
And after the way my reputation and good name have been dragged through the mud by these people, I do not have any interest in working with them. As a Regional Representative, I was censured when they misapplied a copyright rule as a confidentiality rule. They tried to kick me out of the party. I’ve heard recently that a large donor (5 figures) to the Wyllie campaign shares the same sentiments in not wanting to work with them as well. He’s focusing local now only.
I ran for Vice Chair in 2013 on a platform of running as many candidates as possible, fundraising, and making the FL LP messaging more radical. Alex ran on a platform of “Full affiliation by years end”, which hasn’t even come close to occurring a full year after his goal. Off the top of my head, the Florida LP has +/- 5 county affiliates as when he ran in May 2013. (Of course, that went by the wayside, their current plan is to get “major party status” by getting 5% of people to register to vote Libertarian, which really doesn’t give the LPF anything else than saying they are a major party. Ballot access remains the same, and they claim they can get into the debate. They think this is a doable goal — getting over 200,000 people to register to vote Libertarian.)
As a member of the Candidates Committee, I’ve received ONE yes ONE run for office inquiry forwarded from LP.org national. How can I recruit candidates when I can’t even get the “warm leads” sent to me?
This summer, I spent over 6 hours writing a fundraising letter to go out in advance of the elections for the LPF. I sent it the LPF with the caveat that it not be edited for anything aside for grammar or clarity. Instead of sending out the letter, which many people thought was well written, they dragged their heels on sending it out until the 11th hour, only a few weeks before the election.
Everything I’ve done or attempted to do for the state party has been met with heavy resistance by a select few.
I’m focusing pretty much all my efforts here locally, and of course pushing National Memberships. So to even infer that I haven’t done anything for the party or the cause is totally false.
I’ve recently come across a travesty called “TwitLonger.” For Andy, they may need “TwitWayLonger” or “TwitWayWayLonger” 🙂
I’m still looking forward to following Andy on Twitter.
A lot of times when people wake up from a nap they need to take a leak, so maybe it was on your mind.
Sorry, I just got up from a nap. Don’t know why I wrote “leak.” I meant “link.”
I assume you meant link. Of course, it’s what I do 🙂
Paulie,
Thanks for taking the time to pull up the Kane reference leak for me.
@ Paulie,
“Your criticism more specifically in this case was that the LP is not taking a leadership position in a large coalition.”
I actually made a poor choice of words (did not have my coffee yet). I should’ve said something like “not really trying to sell the Libertarian pov on the issue,” or something to that effect.
“I thought you announced a short while back that you quit the LP and joined the Constitution Party or the Reform Party or something?”
I changed my voters registration, but since I’m helping out another affiliate I re-registered.
“And you’re not joining Mike Kane’s boycott of the convention?”
No, if good Libertarians boycott the convention the Party, that baboon & his associates will have won and the LPF will be irredeemably compromised. Granted, I am only going to the business meetings and boycotting all other events at the convention.
“Is he also a poopy-head and does his mother wear combat boots?”
Lets see. He and his special friend discounted one vote for Doug Craig at the National Convention (which would have effected the LNC composition). He yelled at a Florida delegate at the National Convention. Not to mention his behavior during the process to select the 2015 convention site: rejecting the only bid submitted by the original deadline, trying to essentially extort that County to meet his demands to host the convention, recruiting his home county to present a bid, and than calling EC members to find out why they didn’t vote for his County’s bid. He actually is an authoritarian bully and awful human being.
“although the prospect of Stefan Molyneux as a speaker does put me off of it a little bit.”
Ugg, why oh why must our conventions always just be preaching to the choir with extreme ra ra rhetoric?
We really need to have a different theme and having him is going the opposite way.
As I predicted, there’s little or no signs of anyone having read the whole thing.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/01/2015-libertarian-state-conventions-listing-in-progress/#comment-1068523 is all I have about that.
“Mike Kane’s boycott of the convention”
Don’t think I’ve heard about that. Anywhere I could learn more about why, etc.?
I haven’t made any definite plans to attend or not attend yet, although the prospect of Stefan Molyneux as a speaker does put me off of it a little bit.
Oh, I agree with Paulie re: the Text Wall post.
Agreed!
This is great to see!
Is he also a poopy-head and does his mother wear combat boots? Your criticism more specifically in this case was that the LP is not taking a leadership position in a large coalition. Who exactly is going to allow the LP to take the leadership position and why would they allow it? LPF is a relatively small organization compared to the size of what this effort would take and did not come up with the idea.
I thought you announced a short while back that you quit the LP and joined the Constitution Party or the Reform Party or something? And you’re not joining Mike Kane’s boycott of the convention?
I plan to be at the convention, and planning carpool with some of my friends in central Florida. I’m looking into who is running for what, and supporting the slate willing to fix the party. I don’t plan to run for anything at this moment, too focused on helping out in an affiliate in central Florida and my own personal affairs right now to think about that possibility.
Idk about forming a new party, although it would be cool to have a NOTA Party in Florida, lol.
The LPF’s 2015 convention is June 5-7.Are you running for party office, or are you supporting or recruiting a slate of candidates to replace the party officers you think are doing a bad job?
Or, if you think the LPF is irredeemably compromised, have you considered starting another party that will do things your way?
You’ve established that you’re not going to shut up, nor do I think you should. But putting up makes not shutting up a lot more effective.
My criticism is based on fact he is a poor spokesperson for LPF. He is authoritarian, a bully, and the most awful human being in the LPF. I can think at least 5 people I dislike who would be a better spokesperson. Even better, Mr Wohlsifer would have been a better spokesperson b/c he’s likeable and has some name recognition from his Attorney General run. Anyone would have been better than Mr Temper-tantrum and his special friend.
The fact that Snitker/LPF was mentioned in the article at all I would count as a huge win for the LP. A ballot initiative in Florida needs about a million signatures with validity margin, and costs millions of dollars just to get on the ballot and millions more in the campaign to win once it’s on the ballot. Any coalition to pass something like that which has any chance of success has to involve a lot more than just the LP.
Because in Joe Wendt’s version of reality, he’ll take any angle he can think of to crticize the LPF leadership or others in the national LP he doesn’t like, no matter how far out of touch with reality that angle may be.
You won’t go very far with the arrogant assumption that you know better what people are dealing with than they do themselves. Unlike you, I actually talked to them about it, and I understand and share their decision to focus their energies elsewhere. You didn’t talk to them, even though you were there, and are drawing conclusions without getting their side of the story. I did not want anything to do with that petition company either, and as you recall I got on the bus headed in the other direction. You can go on making pronouncements from on high, which will continue to be as effective as they have been.
How does a news article concentrating on the big parties prove show that LPF isn’t “even trying to take the lead?”
I’ve only been in Florida for a couple of years, and have observed libertarian politics here from only one place (Gainesville), so my observations are necessarily anecdotal. But, anecdotally, here’s what I’ve seen:
1) Alex Snitker, et. al busting their asses; and
2) You complaining that they’re not doing something the way you would do it if you did it, which you don’t.
They aren’t even trying to take the lead in this effort:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/coalition-of-conservatives-and-liberals-to-fight-for-more-florida-solar/2213527
Well, since a certain baboon from the LPF is now the apparent mouthpiece urging people to support this effort, I am fairly sure they will mess up this opportunity.
” will not this opportunity”
Should read, “will not let this opportunity…”
“paulie
January 14, 2015 at 11:53 pm
I was in communication with them the whole time. I suggest you ask them for their perspective on it directly.”
The only thing to talk to with them about it now is to tell them how badly they screwed up. Hopefully, the Libertarian Party of Florida will not this opportunity slip by them like the LP of Nevada did.
I was in communication with them the whole time. I suggest you ask them for their perspective on it directly.
Any idiot could see that they were separate petitions. The LP State Chair in Nevada had extensive conversations with you and Jake, so either of you should have been able to set them straight, and they could have spoken to me as well. Also, the marijuana petition came out months before the gun control petition even came out. These excuses do not pass the sniff test.
The negotiating was all screwed up, and it was essentially being presented as one campaign by the petition management. I can see why they took it that way. They aren’t petition pros. The petition company was not trustworthy. I would have been, and was, wary of dealing with them, too.
“paulie
January 14, 2015 at 10:02 pm
Nevada got confusing. They were going to have a deal with the petition drive, then got jerked around with the price changes and whatnot, then when the gun grabbing issue came out they didn’t want to be associated with it anymore because it was really being run as a joint campaign from what they saw, even though they could have worked on one and not the other.”
The price changing was a good thing, because the price went up. Nobody was required to work the pro-gun control petition. I worked there and did not carry the pro-gun control petition. So bringing up the pro-gun control petition is a lame excuse.
Nevada got confusing. They were going to have a deal with the petition drive, then got jerked around with the price changes and whatnot, then when the gun grabbing issue came out they didn’t want to be associated with it anymore because it was really being run as a joint campaign from what they saw, even though they could have worked on one and not the other.
“I know that Paul and Jake both talked to current LP Chair about getting Libertarians active in the petition drive, so they could use it to disseminate Libertarian information, canvass for Libertarian Party candidates”
Just to clarify, I was talking about the current LP Chair in Nevada.
OK, we’ll do that then.
“paulie
January 14, 2015 at 6:57 pm
If you want to submit it as an article, it’s more likely something that long would be read, as opposed to a comment.”
Let’s see how many people respond to my comments above.
Unfortunately, I think you overestimate people’s attention spans.
“I am basically tell them ”
Should read, “I am basically telling them…”
If you want to submit it as an article, it’s more likely something that long would be read, as opposed to a comment.
”
paulie
January 14, 2015 at 6:46 pm
‘There is also a Medical Marijuana initiative petition that is going on in Florida. Is the Libertarian Party of Florida going to get involved with and/or endorse this as well? They ought to in my opinion. ‘
I agree.
Sorry, the rest of the comment was too long to read.”
I think that my words above are well worth reading, not just for Libertarians in Florida, but also for Libertarians in the rest of the country. I am basically tell them how they could grow the party without spending any money, and in fact could turn growing the party into a money making venture, as in Libertarians could work on building the Libertarian Party, and GET PAID at the same time, and it would not cost the Libertarian Party anything.
“There is also a Medical Marijuana initiative petition that is going on in Florida. Is the Libertarian Party of Florida going to get involved with and/or endorse this as well? They ought to in my opinion. ”
I agree.
Sorry, the rest of the comment was too long to read.
There is also a Medical Marijuana initiative petition that is going on in Florida. Is the Libertarian Party of Florida going to get involved with and/or endorse this as well? They ought to in my opinion.
Both of these petitions are paying right now, however, unfortunately, both campaigns have hired a mercenary petition coordinator who is infamous for low-balling and screwing around petition circulators, and they have put the petitions out on the streets for really low pay rates, which is no doubt so the mercenary coordinator can pocket a huge override. The only people who they will attract as workers will be bums, the naïve, and perhaps a few experienced people who know that they are being screwed but are really hard up for money. The final deadline on the petitions to get on the 2016 ballot is not until February 1st of 2016, so the mercenary petition coordinator is figuring that they will put it out at a really low price to start to see how many suckers than can rope in (they are putting out this story that “there could be up to 7 paid petitions in Florida this year,” which I believe is a flat out lie which is just meant to sucker people into going there, and then getting them stuck there because the pay is so low on the two that are paying (this is a common trick among unscrupulous petition coordinators, as in they will lie to get people to come to work bad deals, and then hope that the people they sucker to come in won’t be able to afford to leave, thus “trapping” them into working a bad deal)), this way they can pocket massive overrides, and they will raise the pay later depending on how many chumps they can find now, and how many signatures they can con the chumps into collecting at the low-ball pay rates. If I was a petition proponent, I’d be angry if some petition coordinator I hired pulled this kind of shit, but most of them either don’t care, or don’t even know when stuff like this happens.
I know several experienced petition circulators who are interested in going to Florida, but who are not going because of the BS with the pay I described above. I’d be in Florida right now, or be on my way there right now, if not for this crap.
Is the Libertarian Party of Florida going to take advantage of the fact that there are two pro-liberty ballot initiative petition circulating in Florida right now by getting actively involved in these petition drives? When I say getting involved in these petition drives, I mean doing more than just endorsing them, I’m talking about going out and collecting signatures on these petitions, either as unpaid volunteers, or as paid petitioners, and informing the people that you run into in the field that the Libertarian Party of Florida is supporting both of these petitions. They should go out armed not only with petitions, pens, and clipboards, but also with Libertarian Party pamphlets and fliers (particularly stuff that has the Libertarian Party positions on these issues), bumper stickers, sign up sheets (where they can get contact information from people that they encounter who indicate that they are interested in the Libertarian Party), and voter registration forms. I have been told in Florida that you can’t register people to vote and have them sign the petitions the same day unless you turn in the voter registrations to the county elections office the same day, and given what a hassle this is, the petition drives are not doing voter registrations for this reason, however, Libertarians who work on the petitions could still carry voter registrations so they can ask people who are not registered to register as Libertarians (just do NOT have them sign the petitions), and so they can ask people who are registered to vote, but who are not registered as Libertarians, if they could switch their voter registration to Libertarian.
I think that too many Libertarians in this country do not realize what golden opportunities to do public outreach petition drives are. Anytime there is a petition drive, whether it is for Libertarian Party candidates, pro-liberty ballot initiatives or referendums, or to recall some big government politician from office, or even a non-legally binding plebiscite petition that is pro-liberty, there really ought to be as many Libertarians as possible out on these streets collecting signatures on these petitions, and disseminating the Libertarian message to the public. This is a great way to build the party, and it really does not cost much, and it actually could be a net profit if Libertarians just signed up as paid petitioners. That’s right, you can GET PAID to do Libertarian Party outreach. So if you are a Libertarian in Florida (or nearby in Georgia or Alabama), and you’d like to go out and do more Libertarian Party outreach, but you need extra money, then you should sign up as a paid petitioner, because then you will be able to GET PAID for going out and disseminating the Libertarian message and signing up new Libertarians.
Libertarians in Nevada just blew it big time with the Marijuana Legalization petition drive that ended this past November, in my opinion. The Marijuana Legalization petition went up to $5 per signature in October, plus there was a .50 cent bonus that boosted it up to $5.50 per signature, plus I know that certain people were able to get a sub-coordinator rate that included an additional .50 cents per signature, so if you got the bonus, plus the sub-coordinator rate, you could have gotten $6 per signature. I’d bet that if the LP of Nevada would have stepped up and negotiated with the Marijuana Policy Project (the head of which is an LP member), which is the group that funding the petition drive, they could have negotiated a special pay rate just for Libertarian Party members, so it is possible that if this had been done, Libertarians in Nevada could have gotten paid something like $6.50 or $7 per signature. Yes, you read this right. Libertarians in Nevada could have been paid $5-$7 per signature to simply go out and talk to the public about legalizing marijuana, and they could have pushed the Libertarian Party message along with it. I know that Paul and Jake both talked to current LP Chair about getting Libertarians active in the petition drive, so they could use it to disseminate Libertarian information, canvass for Libertarian Party candidates (note that there were petitioners in Nevada doing door-to-door canvassing for weeks, and that there were petitioners at colleges, DMVs, parking lots, etc….), signing up interested people for the Libertarian Party contact list, and getting more people to register to vote under the Libertarian Party label in Nevada, but unfortunately, there was no follow through, so Libertarians in Nevada let this golden opportunity slip by them. Instead, the petition drive in Nevada was run by Democrats and mercenaries, and it ended up being combined with an Michael Bloomberg funded anit-gun rights petition, so there was little to no Libertarian outreach that took place.
I do not encourage anyone to work for a crappy pay rate, where the petition coordinators pocket most of the money that is paid out by the proponents, but if a Libertarian can afford to go out and volunteer, I encourage people to collect volunteer signatures, just make sure that you turn them in to the actual campaign proponents and not to some mercenary petition coordinator who is going to get paid for your volunteer work. I also encourage Libertarians who need the extra money to work as paid petitioners, just as long as you are not being offered some crappy pay rate by some mercenary petition coordinator who is trying to take advantage of you by trying to sucker you into working cheap so they can keep most of the money that the proponent is paying out for signatures. If you don’t know if a deal is good or not, talk to a Libertarian who is more experienced in this type of work like myself, Paul, Jake, or a few others.
Duke and the other utility monopolies are already whining about it and will bring big money to bear on defeating it. It sounds like a good idea to me.
In a lot of states (including, if I am not mistaken, Florida), the law requires the utility monopolies to buy excess electricity generated by home solar/wind arrays at a price set by regulators. That law should be repealed.
In some states (I’m pretty sure I’ve heard about it in Oklahoma and Texas), instead of fighting for repeal of the law, the utility monopolies are pushing an ADDITIONAL law that would put a tax (or fee payable to the utility monopolies, not sure which) on home wind/solar installations to make them less affordable. Which is just stacking a second bad idea on top of the first one.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is a good thing and I’m happy to see Madame Cummings voicing support for this initiative.