The Libertarian National Committee is meeting on Saturday, July 18 and Sunday, July 19 (though if they finish all business on Saturday, the Sunday session may be canceled) in Alexandria, Virginia. Please leave comments about the meeting in this open thread.
Broadcast channel #1:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/libertarian-party1
Broadcast channel #2:
http://libertarian.caster.fm/
Other relevant links:
LP.org blog entry
Proposed meeting agenda
Agenda + all reports
LNC-business email list archive
I’m not on the LNC anymore, so I may not be privy to it either.
Paulie, thanks. May chat with you on this one… And what I was curious about wouldn’t be in FEC I don’t think…
I’m not sure just how specific the public information gets. There are FEC reports and budgets – proposed and approved – and additional information that is available to LNC members if they ask. Not sure if the additional information is public beyond that unless on FEC reports.
Out of curiosity, Is it possible to see more than a line item for printing and merchandise?
With the new logo approved, It would be interesting to see what the party is looking to get made.
Heck, Maybe a way to lower the $, Or Not, Who knows?
Indeed.
Just not the (in)famous Iowa Howard Dean speech.
What the Libertarian Party needs is a Howard Dean to bring us a successful 50-state-strategy.
Does he have them posted? If yes, where?
Bruce Majors has some, I believe.
Still trying to get videos and phots from HQ reception. Haven’t had any leads yet.
Thomas Knapp said: “The best course, IMO, would be for the only in-person business meetings to be one at the beginning of the term (at close of the national convention where the new LNC is elected) and one at the end of the term (the day before the national convention opens). The other meetings could be held by public video- or tele-conference. That would save the LNC money, it would save the LNC members money, and it would make the meetings more accessible to the membership.”
I agree. Another good option would be to reduce in person meetings to once per year.
Having at least some of the meeting via videoconferencing would also create more competition for LNC seats, because there are a lot of people who do not even run for these positions due to the time and money involved in travelling back and forth to meetings several times per year.
Agreed, with the caveat that I would hope the LNC would still have optional non-business in person meeting weekends along the lines I explained earlier.
Maybe somehow coordinate them with things LPEX, LSLA meetings, etc. Also some that are just hang out and befriend each other meetings for LNC members, some that are training and speaker events with LNC members and other party activists, and so on.
Paulie,
I’m not necessarily suggesting that the LNC should have a travel allowance for its members. I’m just saying that that would make more sense than requiring LNC members to cover the entire cost of in-person meetings out of their own pockets.
The best course, IMO, would be for the only in-person business meetings to be one at the beginning of the term (at close of the national convention where the new LNC is elected) and one at the end of the term (the day before the national convention opens). The other meetings could be held by public video- or tele-conference. That would save the LNC money, it would save the LNC members money, and it would make the meetings more accessible to the membership.
That would certainly make it more feasible for a lot of people to run for LNC.
However, it could also make a lot of donors balk and possibly stop or reduce donating because they think it’s a waste of their money.
I thought that hitting up the entire national list to help out a few LNC members who were screwed over when a meeting was rescheduled, after some people already traveled to it or bought nonrefundable tickets, at the last minute due to weather last term looked bad. It would IMO have been better to handle that somewhat more disceetly with an appeal to major donors.
Likewise, I would not be against having an LNC meeting and travel budget as a project fundraising item, but I’d be a bit hesitant to make it part of the general budget.
If I had a lot of money, but no time to be on LNC myself, I could probably be persuaded to in effect donate to such a fund so that other people could afford to do the work that I would not have time to do. I am sure that there are a fair number of people in that situation that such an appeal can be made to.
Lots of good points on the obsolescence of in-person meetings. And if we’re going to stick to that model, it should be the other way around — instead of requiring LNC members, who were elected by the delegates to do the organization’s business, to fund the meetings themselves, there should be a budget for a travel and lodging allowance for each member. Nothing luxurious, but a coach ticket and a bed for the night isn’t unreasonable.
Pretty sure that conferences can be recorded. Why make it a burden on the secretary, if that is the issue? Just post the recording files on the website, other than any legitimate executive session portions that can be deleted from the recording, and if anyone wants to listen to the whole call they can.
If we say that LNC members need to pay for meeting costs out of pocket, won’t that even further bias who is financially able to serve on the LNC? It’s already very expensive with the out of pocket costs for travel several times a year. If paying meeting room costs is added on top of that, only wealthy party members will be able to serve and that will impact the culture of the LNC and the decisions it makes. We’ll also miss out on the talents and ideas of many people who may have a lot to contribute and the time and willingness to do it but simply can’t afford it.
I get that there is a value in having LNC members meet face to face and interact informally outside the meeting, build camraderie and set aside dislikes and misunderstandings that arise in a text chat and/or phone conference only relationship with each other. But that doesn’t have to be in the context of business. The corporate quarterly meeting model made a lot of sense in the days when communication consisted of snail mail and expensive long distance phone calls over land lines. It also makes more sense for directors of a large, profitable corporation which pays them well for serving on its board as well as in most cases lining their pockets with a share of corporate profits. Even in the ostensibly non-profit sector, executives are well paid for their management activities on boards of large non-profits with national scope that have quarterly meetings. It makes less sense for a volunteer-based organization many of whose members are not wealthy or even financially comfortable.
As mentioned somewhere far above, I think it makes a lot more sense in the era of modern communications to combine the ability to do business over email, which we already have, with a 1-3 hour phone/web conference per week which can also conduct business. Even if it can’t conduct business it would make a lot more sense to offload all the reports and other such non-action items onto the virtual conferences and save physical meeting time for action items and big picture discussions like what this meeting did on Sunday morning. Then again either or both of those can be done over email, phone and web conference too.
We could still have optional in-person meetings of the LNC, but with no formal actions taken or formal meeting structure. Camraderie-building, fun activities and informal discussions could still take place, but the actual formal business could be done on the phone, web conference or email vote afterwards, and members who can’t afford it wouldn’t have to go. However I think a lot of members would want to go if they can afford it, especially if it was combined with, say, speakers, training, etc.
No one has yet, but I am concerned about a future LNC doing something short sighted like that.
Agreed.
Please post a few highlights or some kind of write-up on what was interesting about it from someone who was there if you find time.
Paulie wrote:
There was a 15 minute break to get lunch from a line of serve yourself deli sandwiches outside the room before the working lunch meeting resumed. That was more than enough time for me to walk to Subway, get a sandwich and come back. I was a couple minutes late, but only because I chatted with Norm Olsen for 7 minutes on my way out.
We did see two male navy officers kissing and posing for pictures in the lobby surrounded by people. Maybe that was the wedding party.
Regarding Chuck’s comment about the room. The room we used for the meeting Sat was NOT available Sun (as of 2 days before). We ONLY paid for one day. We were given another room complimentary at no cost to make up for it (the Duke Room). The group (a wedding we were told) was suppose to be using the “conference room” Sun but for whatever reason did not. However THEY paid for it. The hotel could not “legally” (as they put it) let us use that room officially and we did not know ahead of time (including Sun am) that the room was not going to be used (as the on-site meeting person only works Mon-Fri). Thanks to the entire LNC for agreeing to try the basement. Yes it was tight but doable for a short meeting.
Thanks for the live-blogging, all of you. It really is worthwhile to know what goes on in the meetings.
I wish I’d been able to live-blog the CA Ex Com meeting in Los Angeles. A report was that it was “interesting”. I’ll try to attend the next meeting.
I hope no one decided to get a second mortgage on that office. That will be the death of the LP if someone does. More importantly the money spent on safety is a good investment. Having dealt with that issue the last thing we want is to have someone stay overnight on a fire watch. That is a major hazard especially in politics. People have been known to torch political offices.
I thought it was a matter of being in a rush?
I agree that LNC meetings are an operational expense that benefits the party. The food provided to LNC members, not so much (it was a working lunch, but it would have been trivial for LNC members to go to Whole Foods or Subway individually and come back with takeout). The LNC should seek to economize on the meeting room expense. I think comfortable but not fancy is a good way of putting it.
Even if an expense benefits the party though, it can still make sense to seek targeted donations so that members who may not like that expense know their dues or contributions were not touched for it. That applies to the building, the logo, and some ballot access drives. In my opinion it also applies to LNC meeting rooms.
LNC meetings cost less since I’ve been Chair than they did before I was Chair. However, they need to facilitate getting business done. We don’t do fancy, but we do need to do comfortable.
The logic of having the members of the LNC or the Chair pay for the meeting rooms is the same flawed logic used to support floor fees. LNC meetings are a function of the party and should be an operational expense. We do our best to minimize that expense, but LNC service is hard enough as it is, we shouldn’t make it harder.
Starchild wrote:
In my opinion the room was too small for a LNC meeting — especially with the tables. It would have been fine for a bylaws committee meeting, but we (informally) met in a hotel meeting room that had already been reserved and paid for.
This Sunday session was really the worst of both worlds: it was cramped and it didn’t save any money. When the bylaws committee walked to the hotel at around 11:30 am and met in a smaller conference room than the room the LNC had used, we noticed that the LNC’s room was empty and was still labeled as being reserved for the LNC. We asked hotel staff, who confirmed that not only was the room available, but it was reserved and paid for by the Libertarian Party for a Sunday meeting as well as Saturday. Robert Kraus repeatedly claimed that the room was unavailable on Sunday, necessitating a LNC session at LPHQ or the smaller hotel conference room. Either he was lying or there was some sort of miscommunication between Kraus and the hotel.
However, I should note that staff was broadcasting the LNC meeting on a few computers in other rooms. In theory they could have set up chairs for a gallery who could be in the same building yet not the same room as the meeting — essentially overflow rooms –, with the opportunity to run down to the meeting if they wanted to pass notes to their representatives or request permission to address the body on an issue. Therefore I don’t think it’s a huge deal that a large gallery couldn’t fit in the meeting room if the basement were used. The bigger issue is that LNC members themselves were quite cramped.
I agree with Starchild that the LP shouldn’t waste a lot of money on meeting rooms. I disagree with him when he concludes this means the LNC shouldn’t be meeting in hotel conference rooms. A long term solution is for the LP to get a bigger building (in 15-20 years) which has a room large enough to comfortably accommodate the LNC and a reasonable gallery. A short term solution is for the LNC chair to pay for the meeting room / lunch himself as a donation to the party (that’s what I would do if I were chair) or take up a collection from LNC members. Put the choice to LNC members: a cramped room for free, or a comfortable room where everyone pitches in a few dollars. I would choose the comfortable room and pitch in.
Chuck Moulton writes (July 19, 2015 at 8:59 pm), “I made a lot of typos / spelling errors. Sorry about that.”
No worries Chuck, I wasn’t trying to fault you. It’s hard to take lots of notes quickly without making such mistakes. I only mentioned it to be sure I was getting the correct meaning of what you wrote, and to note my correction of spelling because it was part of a direct quote. Having a journalistic background, I consider direct quotes sacrosanct! Again I much appreciate you being there and taking notes!
Chuck, I agree with you that eliminating the requirement to record what was said on LNC conference calls where no action was taken was definitely an anti-transparency move, and should have been vigorously opposed.
One of the most desirable qualities in an LNC member, I think, is simply the willingness and inclination to argue against every bad proposal that comes along, even if they may seem like “no big deal” and even if it gets you a reputation for being “obstructionist” or “contrarian” or whatever. Committees that lack individuals with the personal chutzpah to stick their necks out in this manner tend to get steamrolled by a thousand little incremental moves in the wrong direction.
Speaking up against bad proposals as often as they are brought forward, even if you sound like a broken record, discourages people from making more of them, even if it’s just because they don’t want to hear your arguments again.
Remember Ron Paul, who wore his “Dr. No” sobriquet with pride, and was right to do so.
Figured that out later. It shows up in my texts as a blank message but then if I open it asks if I want to receive it. So I probably can get the pictures on my phone, but I don’t do internet on there so I would have had no way to get them on here from there, so email was better anyway.
Chuck Moulton writes to Paulie (July 19, 2015 at 9:04 pm), “I was texting you pictures of the room so people not on-site could get a better sense of how cramped it was.”
Compared to the usual LNC meeting it was not spacious, but I’ve sat for many hours and taken notes effectively in lots of places that were far more crowded on numerous occasions — at various talks, City Hall hearings, etc. Often alongside older people and others of all physical descriptions who were managing to do the same thing, in auditorium-style seating with the connected chairs, with virtually every seat full.
The density in the LPHQ basement today looked to me like maybe a quarter of that at most. As visual evidence of the fact that plenty more folks could have been accommodated with truly tight seating, I noted that the UStream camera in the room only captured four people most of the time — Gary Johnson, Arvin Vohra, Nick Sarwark and Alicia Mattson. If things had really been that packed, more people would have been in the camera’s field of vision.
Do most members of the LNC normally go first-class when flying cross-country to LNC meetings or other destinations? My guess is that most do not.
To these folks, then, I ask the following question: If it’s not worth it to you to spend hundreds of dollars extra of your own money to upgrade to first class in order to have a bit more space around you when seated for many hours, how can you justify spending hundreds of dollars more of Libertarian Party members’ money in order to achieve the same effect for yourselves at LNC meetings?
Chuck Moulton wrote (July 18, 2015 at 4:33 pm):
Now that I have a little time to research, here are examples from just last term where the executive committee had conference calls which took no action. 3/22 (13.6%) of all EC conference calls resulted in no action (I’m not including a 4th call which passed a motion without objection). The Mattson motion (which passed) basically means a record of such conference calls will no longer be posted. Some transparency was lost here and the LNC didn’t seem to notice or care.
https://www.lp.org/files/20120531_EC.pdf
https://www.lp.org/files/20130501_ECTC.pdf
https://www.lp.org/files/20130528_ECTC.pdf
Chuck Moulton wrote (July 19, 2015 at 8:38 am):
It was somewhat hard for me to follow as I arrived late and was standing or sitting just outside the doorway rather than in the meeting room. You all seemed to be covering it pretty well, so I didn’t contribute much on Sunday. Thanks to Paulie, George, Tom and others for the Sunday liveblogging!
paulie wrote (July 19, 2015 at 8:54 am):
I was texting you pictures of the room so people not on-site could get a better sense of how cramped it was. I later emailed them to you and you posted them in the thread.
Starchild wrote (July 19, 2015 at 4:47 am):
I made a lot of typos / spelling errors. Sorry about that. I generally try to correct my mistakes later since I have comment editing privileges here as a contributor… I’ll do that over the next couple days.
A monitoring system does not put out a fire. It tells you that there is water flow through the system, for example because a pipe broke, and thus a flood risk. It is a sound investment. A system to stop buglers from attacking our building is reasonable, given that the risk exists.
Thanks Nick… I think that’s it.
Hopefully some of the people with phones out will share the pictures/video they took somewhere where I see it.
Thanks to you and the other volunteers who spent your time and money to travel to the meeting and do the party’s business.
I don’t know if it’s online. This may be it: http://ecollections.scad.edu/iii/cpro/DigitalItemViewPage.external?lang=eng&sp=1002276&sp=T&suite=def
A lot of people had phones out at the meeting, so I think there may be video.
Great! Let me know if they let you do it. I’d like to list my contact info on there for ballot access committee. For that matter I would do the rest of the list, although I doubt a lot of other people would. Somehow I expect that the answer will be that only staff will be allowed to update the website and they are too busy, but I am open to be proved wrong.
“the gratuitous sniping at the quality of the design is misplaced”
Obviously any estimate of quality design is a matter of personal opinion.
My personal opinion is that the goddamn thing is hideous and that to the extent that it might convey any useful information at all, that information will be erroneous (the bird’s head with that kind of beak tends to be associated with militaristic nationalism). If my state party considers changing its own logo or ballot symbol in a similar way, I’ll lobby against the proposition.
Granted, my opinion is not informed by five years of post-secondary education in the subject of logos and branding. But it does remain my opinion. And it is indeed offered gratuitously (“given or done free of charge”).
I say we because I did vote on it, even though I was an alternate so my vote would not have actually counted.
Not having a physical office wasn’t an option. The new office is saving us money every month (about 6k), generated a lot of dedicated contributions from people who specifically wanted the LP to own rather than buy (including me, although I was by no means a major donor), money the party would not otherwise have got for any reason. Assuming the future LNCs don’t somehow completely screw up the deal, we’ll be saving even more money when we finish paying it off.
By comparison, I know a guy who was on the LNC about 30 years ago and they narrowly voted down buying an office on capitol hill for 140k that term. If that building still exists today I’m sure it’s probably worth a few million now, and the LP has spent probably 3 or 4 million on rent in the meantime. I think we made the right decision and that past LNC made the wrong one.
Starchild:
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. I pledge to work towards transparency on the Credentials Committee, and ensure that all the members names and contact information are posted on the LP.org website.
>>When the LNC bought an attached office instead of the building it claimed it was going to buy, it assumed responsibility for making sure that if a fire starts in its office it doesn’t burn down everyone else’s office, too.>>
I know I am late to comment on this, but this point is hugely important. It isn’t just one’s own stuff but responsibility for the safety of other’s stuff. Arguing over $50 seems pointless (and I don’t know this for a fact, but I bet there is a more of a discount in any property insurances for having the monitoring that makes it even more worthwhile).
Is it online?
I already told you but may as well make it public. I only asked two non-libertarians. They agreed with my personal ranked order (older logo, current logo, future logo last). Neither of them would have fond memories of the LP back in the day. I did not tell them my choices before asking.
Any video?
A few short updates:
The responses that were received from the paper fundraising letter indicated a majority in favor of the new logo, not a plurality. I hope that we receive more responses, since some of them come with contributions that will help cover the costs associated with implementing the selection of the committee.
The responses I received personally from members were the opposite order from the responses to the mailed letter. Most popular was the older statue, followed by the current logo, with torch eagle last. My theory on why is that it has a lot to do with long-time members having the best memories of the party during the 1990s and early 2000s when that logo was in use. My sincere hope is that the party’s best years are in front of it and we seize the opportunity to associate our new logo with success.
I understand that not everybody loves the new logo, but the gratuitous sniping at the quality of the design is misplaced. I have a copy of the written portion of Will Taylor’s Master’s thesis, “Political Discourse: Campaign Visual Identities and the Rise of the Consumer-Voter.” It’s just under 100 pages and very thorough and well-written treatment of campaign and party visual identities. The graphic design portion of the thesis, is our new logo.
Meeting in the room in the basement of the national office was not ideal. With Dr. Lark unable to attend and only one non-LNC observer, it was still a very tight fit and very limited table space for taking notes. The pictures above give you a good idea, though I like having campaign posters of Hospers, MacBride, and Clark too look at during meetings. Also, having a coffee maker very close to me was much appreciated after a very successful reception the night before. Inspirational speeches, lots of Libertarians, and plenty of refreshments make for a fun evening but a somewhat rougher morning. 😉
Thank you all for paying attention to how your party is governed. I’m happy with the results of this meeting and have to thank all the members of the committee for treating each other with respect, even when the disagreements got heated, and coming prepared for the meeting and ready to make decisions to move us forward.
I did vote for Cynthia McKinney in 2008. The Boston Tea Party’s ticket was neither on the ballot or registered as a write-in in Missouri that year, and the LP had chosen to run an anti-libertarian ticket.
Was that a good choice? No, it wasn’t. In retrospect, I should have just left the presidential slot blank.
No, I did not vote for Roseanne Barr in 2012. I didn’t vote in 2012.
Tom ” if a particular Republican or Democrat is strongly pro-freedom”
I line the probability of this up with the likelihood of seeing the Ashtar Command Saucers on my doorstep next inauguration day.
I recall Tom Knapp saying that he voted for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2008. He may have voted for Rosanne Barr who ran on the Peace and Freedom Party line in 2012.
“So if a particular Republican or Democrat is strongly pro-freedom, and is associated with a more pro-freedom faction within that party, my calculation is that this can in some cases outweigh the fact that their parties on the whole are strongly anti-freedom, in terms of the impact a given vote will have.”
I agree.
The problem is that that impact will be anti-freedom.
Neither the Republican nor Democratic parties will EVER be strongly pro-freedom.
The effect of making them “a little more pro-freedom” than they are by strengthening their pro-freedom wings is the effect of telling pro-freedom people to go to them instead of to the strongly pro-freedom party.
The “withhold support” experiment has been tried, by the Republican. I urge you all to read Abramowitz, The Polarized Public. The consequences are exactly the opposite of what you are claiming.
As the Republicans drove out their more liberal members, their base became more conservative, and demanded more conservative candidates, who drove out their currently more liberal members, so that their base became more and more conservative.
This change was reinforced by changes in opinion among politically active Republicans (and Democrats) who became more conservative and liberal, and more consistently conservative and liberal (respectively).
With respect to Presidential candidates, I would prefer that the Republican run Keyes-Duke, in either order, though I will settle for Trump. I am a partisan libertarian, and I am here to destroy the Republican party. I would also like to do the same to the Democrats, but they are falling down on the job, by not giving us candidates as colorful as Trump, Keyes, and Duke.
With respect to Americans do not Elect and companions, Abramowitz shows that there is very little middle out there among activists to use as a base for a middle party.
Well, I tend to see it as a matter of degrees and tradeoffs. When you vote, some percentage of the “energy” or impact of that vote can be said to accrue to the candidate, and some of it to the party.
To the extent there are discernible camps or factions within parties, such as Tea Party Republicans vs. establishment Republicans vs. neocon Republicans, etc., some percentage of the energy/impact of voting for a candidate will also accrue to the faction with which s/he is perceived to be associated.
I have no idea what these percentages are, and suspect they are for all intents and purposes unknowable (for those who are inclined to try to measure everything!), but I do believe that when you vote for a candidate of an alternative party, a greater percentage of the “energy/effect” of the vote goes to the party, than is true when you vote for a Republican or Democrat.
So if a particular Republican or Democrat is strongly pro-freedom, and is associated with a more pro-freedom faction within that party, my calculation is that this can in some cases outweigh the fact that their parties on the whole are strongly anti-freedom, in terms of the impact a given vote will have.
That being said, the only time I can recall ever voting for a non-Libertarian when there was a Libertarian on the ballot since joining the party in the early ’90s was in casting a write-in vote for Ron Paul in 2008. So my comments here should definitely not be construed as encouraging people to rush out and vote for Republicans or Democrats! I’m just saying party affiliation isn’t everything, in either a good sense or a bad sense.
Starchild,
I agree — if the pro-freedom party strays from being pro-freedom, it makes sense to withhold support from it. That doesn’t require chasing off after one of the anti-freedom parties, though.
A vote for a Republican or Democratic presidential candidate is a vote for the Republican or Democratic parties. That one of them might have a moderately less anti-freedom frontman than usual doesn’t change the fact that it’s a vote against freedom.
Tom – Just as the anti-freedom parties (the Democrat and Republican parties, and arguably many others as well) have no incentive to get better if people vote for their candidates no matter what, the same is true of the “freedom party” or “freedom parties”!
Being willing to withhold support from the Libertarian Party or its candidates when they are not pro-freedom enough, incentivizes the party to run candidates who are more pro-freedom and take positions that are more pro-freedom.
Isn’t that in fact pretty much what you did when you went off and got involved with the Boston Tea Party? I didn’t personally think that was the right vehicle at the right time — it’s always a matter of timing and details and so on — but I respected the principle.
“Bottom line — support the most pro-freedom candidate in every race, no matter what party they affiliate with.”
That is a recipe to make sure that pro-freedom candidates never, ever, ever win.
If electoral politics can work for achieving freedom — and that’s a big if — freedom requires its own party.
Every diffusion of effort into the anti-freedom parties, even when a few of their candidates happen to be not too terribly anti-freedom at any given moment, is a decision to put off freedom in favor of chasing a hallucination.
Of course, your own efforts and energy are yours to dispose of. But please don’t kid yourself about what it is you’re doing. And definitely don’t blow smoke up MY ass about what it is you’re doing.
On reflection I’d like to qualify my last statement somewhat. Building a stronger Libertarian Party, drawing more people away from the 2-party cartel — these things have value independent of a candidate’s personal positions or beliefs.
A candidate with good meta-positioning of that sort might in some cases lead me to support him or her over a candidate with marginally better personal views or stands on the issues who was part of the two-party cartel. I might support a candidate whose candidacy was somehow beneficial to the freedom movement for reasons external to his or her views and beliefs, over a candidate of whom this was not true, even if the latter candidate was somewhat better on the issues.
George – The question to my mind isn’t just support Rand Paul, yes or no, but support him for what.
Do I support him to receive the Republican nomination? Sure, unless/until I hear of a better Republican candidate seeking that nomination.
Just as I would likely support Bernie Sanders over Hilary Clinton, Jim Webb or Martin O’Malley for the Democrat nomination.
It doesn’t mean I would vote for Senator Paul in November if he got the GOP’s nomination, unless perhaps if the LP nominated another ticket like Barr/Root or something, in which case I might consider it.
Bottom line — support the most pro-freedom candidate in every race, no matter what party they affiliate with. If that isn’t the Libertarian candidate, then we in the Libertarian Party are doing something wrong.
The most alarming feature of Trump is that many of his Republican opponents are even worse.
Several Libertarian State Chairs have been approached about supporting Senator Paul. They all gave the same answer that should have been given when his Daddy was running.
No!
Let’s consider some reasons.
He’s running as a Republican.
He wants to keep marijuana illegal.
He’s a homophobe who opposes Lesbian and Gay marriage.
He wants a much bigger defense budget.
He’s a supporter of the Republican antiabortion daughter-murderer cult.
He’s an “anti-evolution young-earther”, that being the polysyllabic substitute for “idiot”.
All this time the LNC spends talking about metrics, measuring things, whether state affiliates are “operational” or not, or how operational they are, etc.!
It’s like a bunch of cooks endlessly poring over and debating how much of various different ingredients there are on the shelves and in the fridge, and meanwhile actually cooking dinner gets forgotten.
If there seems to be any prospect at all of Paul, Trump, Paul-Trump or Trump-Paul being sworn in in 2017, I agree that the LNC should disband and donate its remaining assets — for the purchase of weapons and uniforms for a revolutionary militia to make sure that said swearing-in never happens.
Fortunately, neither Paul nor Trump nor any combination of the two has a chance in hell of being elected.
The bylaws committee is informally meeting now for a drafting session.
They should disband completely and donate their remaining assets to the Rand Paul 2016 campaign. I think that motion can pass easily in Orlando if the LNC doesn’t do the right thing and do it before then. And if Rand Paul drops out and teams up with Donald Trump, then give it to Donald Trump. Whether it’s Paul-Trump or Trump-Paul is not the main issue that should concern us, just that they should be sworn into office come 2017.
Paulie,
For more information, read George Phillies’s book “Stand Up for Liberty! An Action Plan for Libertarian Victory via Local Organization.” It was applicable in 2000 when it was written, and it’s about five times as applicable now because:
This is 2015. The LNC is still operating on a model that was applicable from about 1950 to 1990. It expects people to pay $25 per year for a “membership,” which consists of a membership card and a periodic newsletter.
That worked quite well in the heyday of direct snail mail.
These days, I can join 50 “membership organizations” a day at no cost and never run out of “membership organizations” to belong to. And I can donate money to the “membership organizations” that are actually doing the things I want them to do.
The LNC operates on a model of “send us $25, and we’ll come up with all kinds of wild shit to spend it on — like an HQ building at a time when every SUCCESSFUL organization is moving to a virtual storefront — and then complain that not enough people are sending us $25.”
The model the LNC SHOULD be operating on is “our job is to put on a biennial national convention, provide a mutual aid/mutual communications nexus for the state parties vis a vis issues like presidential ballot access, and provide spokespersons and news releases to the national media. Pursuant to that we should build the biggest ‘membership’ list possible using email marketing and so forth, and hit those ‘members’ up for support for that mission.”
“Other people are doing worse” does not appear to be a probelm solution.
Tom, a challenge was that an operational definition of “move away from a membership model” was needed before the empty words were adopted. George
“for which all National members should be profoundly grateful” is my comment, not something she said to brag herself up.
Mattson I think pointed out that she had cleared up the last some number of years worth of minutes, for which all National members should be profoundly grateful. Her predecessors left her a total mess.
Someone proposed increasing dues.
There was a motion to adjourn. It passed. Someone point out that an LNC goal is to get people to play Who’s Driving, and many members do not know what this is. (8^))
Please explain.
IPR gets shout out. Discussing whos driving training details and bylaws committee meeting, hotel checkout and so on.
Not sure who but someone suggests membership dues increase. Not mentioned by anyone at the meeting but that is against bylaws. Mattson getting computer help.
Meeting adjourned.
It wasn’t that the “move toward a donor model” failed. It was that the “move away from a membership organization model” was never attempted.
Membership/financial discussion is out of time
True, but I think in this case he is making a good point about learning for what works for all sorts of organizations
Starr: there are other successful membership organizations out there, we need to learn from them
Meet with experts and consultants on this
The LNC keeps letting Starr talk, after the last several National conventions were not enthused about electing him to the LNC.
McLendon happy with platform massacre of mid-2000s. Thinks celebrity presidential candidates are important.
McLendon: eliminate fatal flaws
Wes Benedict wes.benedict at lp.org
Tue Jun 23 12:38:30 CDT 2015
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Forwarding just for your information.
Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
*New address: 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314*
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
——– Forwarded Message ——–
Subject: revenue for other parties
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 12:16:38 -0500
From: Arthur DiBianca
To: wes.benedict at lp.org
from FEC reports:
Green Party revenue:
2012: 255,249.92
2013: 123,621.19
2014: 99,392.27
Constitution Party revenue:
2012: 177,517.80
2013: 85,542.77
2014: 85,115.39
-Art
Redpath reminds people that 10 years ago we tried zero dues. The ‘move to a donor model’ failed. Redpath points out we are in a long term income decline. He appears to be the first debater to point out that this is a real problem.
Redpath: dues/income falling even more rapidly with other alt parties
That was my own comment not liveblogging
How about pushing monthly pledges a lot more?
Olsen
Redpath fails how zero dues failed in the past.
Feldman: Take personal responsibility. Say what you yourself can do not what others should do. Many organizations of all sorts losing members.
The speaker concludes that members want to see more support going out more widely.
Speaker is saying that members complain: money is always going into the same few states for ballot access, and not into their own states. I would suggest instead that the problem is not enough money is going out to state support.
Olsen: new brochures, nationbuilder or something similar would make us a more effective mutual aid society
“Zero dues” was an attempt to move in the right direction. But “zero dues” by itself was not that move.
Until the LNC figures out its place in the LP (it’s an intersectional entity whose only job is to fulfill the “national party” functions of a confederation of state parties — national convention, mutal ballot access aid and interstate communications node), defines the tasks associated with that role, and rigorously 1) accomplishes those tasks and 2) LIMITS itself to those tasks, it’s going to remain a marginal entity.
The debate is becoming quite heated. Some LNC members are being vitriolically critical of other LNC members who are saying that ‘the sky is falling’ with respect to membership and dues.
Interesting point…the LNC is now all on the State Chairs list, at least as listeners.
Hayes challenges everyone to raise more money than him
Perhaps we will eventually get some concrete proposals for improving National membership or income. We did have one…lobbying in DC.
Yep
It seems to me that we tried “zero dues” before.
Here we are hearing a good idea, namely the National Office should be used for National lobbying and press contacts. This is a fine idea, which is why I suggested it a dozen years ago.
Bittner to LNC list
To follow up on my comments regarding the membership model today, please
take a look at this case study regarding a “radical” idea to change how we
view membership in the Party:
http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/scrapping-synagogue-dues-a-case-study/
Contrary to the current speaker, The Republicans had senators and Congressmen almost immediately.
Vohra is suggesting that a scenario, in which the Presidential candidate is not on the ballot in enough states to win, is of some significance. He also suggests that if the National party comes across as a group of crazy people it will hurt local candidates.
The LNC members seem to think that the LNC gives state affiliates money to pay for petitioning for Presidential ballot access. That’s not the normal historical cash flow, in my experience.
Vohra: branding is important; not just logo
How the website looks, how well the national spokespeople express themselves and so on.
This has a big impact at every level
Someone is debating if the dues paying membership model is no longer applicable.
Bittner: is a 1980s membership model really effective in the 2010s?
Vohra: Agrees. Gotta get people active. Volunteering is as important or more as money.
Sarwark: A rising tide lifts all boats
Redpath starts riding his new election system hobby horse. He also is modestly short of losing his temper. The tone of voice does not come through the typing.
Redpath: it should be part of the responsibility of LNC members to talk national up and dispel the myth that national is not doing anything for the states.
Being on in so many states is what makes us the largest alt party which helps all the other states that are already on.
Repath: national is valuable, mutual aid society… being a national party helps all the states
Wes: Stop bashing national
Wes: national’s communications, outreach materials and press releases help keep people in touch and aware of LP and that helps build state memberships too
Wes: national’s data dump helps state affiliates
The sprinkler issue is not *having* a sprinkler system. It’s determining if the system as gone off and is flooding the building. That’s a routine precaution.
Presidential ballot access would be a non-issue if the LNC was substantially larger financially.
Bittner?: Organizations that come back to success don’t panic, they ask whether they are fulfilling their core mission.
I missed who is speaking.
Question is what value are we giving people. Membership model may be the problem. Dues and begging are not the way to get money – we need to demonstrate what we are doing for them.
Bittner?
You would have to spend significantly more than 50/month for that.
Hayes: even if we count the state only membership our membership has fallen quite a bit
Starchild,
Yes, I read and agree with your comments on the survey (and on transparency).
I’m confused on the matter of 24 hour office staffing. How could using a building that we bought be “against the contract?” I’ve never heard of a purchase contract for a building which dictates that it’s not owned for 24 hours of every day.
I suppose that there might be zoning ordinances against “residential” use, but that wouldn’t extend to “no napping while on duty” — so why not just get staff to agree to rotate overnight duty. One or two nights a week, each staffer works “the graveyard” shift and is free to sack out on a cot, or watch TV or whatever as long as he or she is there to answer phones, chase away burglars, etc.
That’s IF 24-hour staffing is needed. I don’t agree with the “why do we need the standard business building sprinkler system, that’s a waste of money” thing. When the LNC bought an attached office instead of the building it claimed it was going to buy, it assumed responsibility for making sure that if a fire starts in its office it doesn’t burn down everyone else’s office, too.
Olsen: a lot of states don’t want to subsidize ballot access in other states (Craig also mentioned HQ).
A lot of states asking what it anything national does and we need to change that. We need to serve the states that already have good ballot access and don’t get much of anything from national.
Easier to type here than on texts also, at least I have to only hit each letter once unlike on a text message.
Chuck – you texted me something – was it a video or some kind of file? My phone does not do those. I did upgrade to a phone that can show me photos in texts but that is about as high tech as it gets.
Doug Craig: comparison to UMP membership levels is not valid because some members are now state only and not national
The previous discussion was on assessing progress towards 6 goals decided on last year. We are now on to the national issue.
They finally they got to the survival issue.
Now moving to 30 minutes to discuss membership and financial issues
Olsen: affiliate support commitee should come up with alternative definitions
Wes: Carla is there specifically to do the who’s driving training
Hayes: suggests a state affiliate that does not show up for two national conventions should be considered defunct
https://www.lp.org/files/2010-11-20-LNCMeetingMinutes-NewOrleans.pdf page 15
a. Runs at least 2 candidates for non-partisan or p
artisan office every 2 year election
cycle
b. Has a REAL web site (not a Meetup Group or Blog)
that is updated with news or
meeting info at least once per month
c. Has a Chair or Contact Person who responds to mo
st inquires within 2 business days
Mattson has found the definition of operational affiliates from Nov 2010 meeting
Do they send out snail mail, email, have database etc
Wes: a lot of states don’t respond, even active states
Olsen: Dr. Lark covered this several years ago.
I missed this earlier but someone said we have 35-40 reasonably operational affiliates now.
Redpath: we will need to reevaluate once Andy Burns gets up to speed
Vohra: Starr’s star ranking system is used a lot of places
Marsh: region reps can help with this
Bittner: state LPs need to engage in political activity, not just be facebook pages or websites
One might have suggested that a body that is almost out of money and whose membership is crashing might be more concerned about their own operational existence rather than the operational existence of their affiliates.
I’m at the meeting now. It is quite cramped, but everyone fits. They are talking about goals.
Goldstein: given that we now have an affiliate support person employed by the national LP we can help get the parties that don’t have meetings, don’t send delegates to national conventions, don’t update their websites and social media and don’t respond to national inquiries within a reasonable time (P: what is reasonable?) to get up to speed.
Starr: It’s not binary…there are different levels of operational
Riemers: they need an updated website and/or facebook
Some have not been updated in years
Dr. Lark had that letter grading system.
Olsen: we had a letter grading standard a few years ago that we could resurrect.
Wes: most affiliates don’t respond within a couple of days.
Correction, I think that was Guy McLendon.
Wes: in the last survey there were 2 or 3 affiliates that did not reply at all. IE we can’t een get a hold of anyone there at all. A few others that took weeks to get a hold of.
The goals btw
1. . 1000 candidates in 2016
2. Take action to see that each state has operational affiliate by June 1, 2015
3. 300 candidates by 2016 trained in Who’s Driving
4. Updated issue-based outreach literature this term
5. 38-state party-status ballot access as of Dec 1, 2016
6. 200 elected Libertarian officials in Dec 2016
Nick doesn’t know how we define “operational” for the purpose of this goal. We need to define it in a measurable way.
Wiener: CA will have more candidates this time. New chair Ted Brown is big on candidate recruitment.
Wiener: membership and financial goals should be emphasized. Said it during original goal discussion. Suggests reconsidering in light of results. [Paulie: agreed]
Olsen: the most important goal for membership and financials is number of active affiliates. What is active?
Sounds like some people are questioning the 1,000 candidate goal.
Nick doesn’t know how many we have so far. Carla is keeping track.
Riemers suggests some kind of debate or forum with candidates seeking the presidential nomination at next LNC meeting.
ustream is on.
Caster is working now.
Camera is on line now or very soon
Graveyard shift generally pays more to make up for the inconvenience. I’ve had graveyard shift jobs before, and that’s a fact. It would be a lot more than 50/month difference. Also, we have a very small staff, and all of their jobs involve interacting with each other as part of their job duties, so you can’t just put them on different shifts.
As you said, I think that would go against the contract.
Anyone at LPHQ basement reading this?
Well, can’t cover what I can’t see or hear so maybe someone who is there can fill us in?
Neither broadcast working at this time as far as I can tell.
There’s no lack of people that say they will do it, but a sad lack of people who come through and do work. Maybe that could be changed, and I would certainly like to give people every chance to prove that wrong, I just don’t want to hardwire rules that presume they will contrary to all known real world evidence and tie ourselves in massie organizational knots if it turns out they don’t come through.
See above. A lot of people get on them and don’t do the work. That may become even worse if you create extra work for them to do.
Which committees don’t give written reports now that you believe should?
That’s a good insight. I’d like to start implementing some of your list gradually rather than demanding all of it at once, which makes it seem too daunting.
Agreed! I think it is starting to change a little bit though, which I am encouraged by.
I’ll be late to the LNC meeting this morning… perhaps even miss it. I’ll probably arrive at 9:30 am, whereas the meeting is scheduled to start at 9:00 am and last for an hour.
They may spend up to 5k, but an exact price is not determined yet.
But, ugh. Did you say the LNC actually spent $5,000 to buy this new logo? I hadn’t heard that! If true, I think they got taken for a ride!
That’s a very, uh, colorful description, Tom! Personally I don’t think it’s quite that bad, though I would hardly call myself a fan. But I hope you read my message earlier in this thread about how that survey — apart from the short time window — was seriously flawed.
As an addendum to my last message, I’ll add that when the Libertarian Party is less transparent in its practices as far as its ordinary members are concerned than some government bodies are toward their constituents, as sadly is sometimes the case, that should be considered utterly unacceptable!
So, after pretending to survey the members (my survey envelope arrived on Thursday), the LNC voted to ditch the only successful branding the LP has ever had and pay $5,000 for something that conveys no useful information and looks like it was drawn by a palsied kindergartener whose daddy fed him a wine cooler and handed him some crayons.
Perhaps not the most damaging decisions the LNC has ever made, but certainly one of the dumbest.
Paulie – I’m not convinced there’s a lack of people willing to serve on LNC-created committees. It only seems that way sometimes because the LNC only usually looks to its own members and the relatively small number of “usual suspects” to populate these committees. Certainly there is no lack of people interested in serving on key committees like Bylaws, Platform, Credentials, and Convention Oversight (or whatever the committee with the real planning power when it comes to conventions is currently called, I forget off the top of my head).
Regarding all the committee reports taking up too much time at LNC meetings, there’s no reason that would have to be a problem. I specifically stipulated that reports could be given in writing if the LNC prefers, and indeed that is already being done in some cases now.
I agree with you that rules are blunt and sometimes ineffective tools to accomplish the kind of change we’re talking about here. It would be far preferable to have a Libertarian Party in which the principles of transparency and accountability of leaders were as ardently cherished and defended as our knowledge of governments and the nature of power dictate that they ought to be. In such a party, peer pressure, the prospect of public shaming, and the real possibility of never being elected or appointed to leadership positions again would likely be enough to ensure transparent operations in most cases.
But it takes time to change the culture of an institution, and in the meantime I think some structural changes are needed to help develop a positive feedback loop that gets us headed back in the right direction. The Libertarian Party has been around over four decades, and has developed a culture where unhealthy levels of secrecy, top-down control, and lack of grassroots participation in leadership have come to be seen as normal.
I’m not saying the LP is any worse than most organizations in our society of similar size and longevity; indeed it is likely somewhat better than average. But anything close to “business as usual” — going by the standards of what normally passes for good governance in civil institutions which exist in a larger culture that is morally and sociologically sick enough to sustain the levels of government aggression that we see in the world — simply isn’t good enough!
To be effective in healing that sick culture, the libertarian movement has to hold itself to higher standards when it comes to the governance of our own organizations, and not succumb to the dangerous practice of simply adopting the standards of the diseased society around us because they are comfortable and familiar or because it is easy to do so.
A couple other items of interest from the meeting…
Chuck Moulton writes (July 18, 2015 at 9:52 am), “Someone (I did not catch who) suggested we change the policy manual provision requiring that an extra $60k of the mortgage be paid down in off years (like 2015) because we are very tight on cash. He will perfect a motion during the recess to submit later in the meeting.”
Utterly predictable! 🙂 While I often disagree with Dan Wiener, and indeed did not support the decision itself to purchase this office space which was poorly chosen in terms of suitability for hosting LNC meetings among other things, I think Dan was wise and prescient to insist upon a strict repayment schedule for the mortgage. Like politicians, LNCs seem wont, given the opportunity, to defer spending on ongoing obligations of this sort, essentially passing the buck (or rather, lack of bucks!) to their successors.
Chuck also writes, “Some members complained about the $50 sprinkler alarm monthly fee and the burglar alarm monthly fee. In my opinion they are being penny wise and pound foolish. I wonder what they will say if these things are canceled, then there are tens of thousands of dollars of damages if the building is floored or robbed.”
Given the context, I’m guessing that “floored” (above) was meant to be “flooded” and Chuck simply mistyped it while taking notes rapidly (I corrected the spelling of “burglar” in the same paragraph).
While I can see Chuck’s point, a $50 monthly charge for a sprinkler system to put out fires does seem like a lot of money to pay in anticipation of a relatively unlikely event. It is a brick building after all, and has there ever been a serious fire at LPHQ in the past?
Nevertheless, there may be an alternative to incurring significant expense on one hand or a level of risk deemed imprudent on the other. It occurs to me that by having one or more employees on night shift, so that there is generally someone present in the office at all times, we could eliminate the need for both the burglar alarm and the sprinkler system [just have some fire extinguishers handy for those present to use in a pinch]. Besides saving the monthly fees, the seconds lost each day to setting and disarming the alarm whenever staff leave and arrive do add up over time, not to mention the possibility of there being some kind of accident with the sprinkler system going off when it’s not supposed to or not really needed (e.g. in response to smoke from a small fire that’s quickly extinguished), causing the aforementioned expensive flooding damage. I suppose that might be covered by insurance or a guarantee by the sprinkler company or something, but by that same token, other fire/water damage might be likewise covered by the building’s insurance, etc.
Having the office staffed around the clock would also have the side benefits of allowing the phones to be answered 24 hours and the occasional after-hours visitor to be able to stop by any time. Not everyone likes working in the middle of the night, and it isn’t suitable for every type of work (e.g. making phone calls to businesses or people on daytime schedules), but for some people and some types of work it is ideal — nice and quiet with relatively few disturbances. (It is after 230am here in California as I type this!)
Letting someone use space in the office for living quarters at night would be another and perhaps even better option, potentially enabling the party to even make some extra money in rent — but as I recall, the contract that comes with the poorly-chosen space we selected does not allow that.
Regarding the committees and meetings I do like your goals, but I wonder whether we will actually find people who will do all that work, and do it consistently. Firing and replacing them won’t do any good if the next person is no better at fulfilling all those extra new responsibilities – we are having a hard enough time finding willing volunteers for all the existing committees, especially ones that do the work they say they will do, even without the extra stuff you propose. It’s possible that we could find people who would step up but then maybe not. What would we do then? Also, how long would LNC meetings last, with all those reports and possibly constant changes in committee appointments over and above what we have now?
What I would prefer instead of the current LNC meeting format of 3-4 weekend-long in person meetings a year all over the country would be a once a week teleconference of maybe 1-3 hours as circumstances dictate, with the power to conduct business if a quorum is present, in addition to the email discussion and votes. Maybe one in-person meeting a year with business, and maybe not even that – just an optional 3-4 weekends of informal meetings in person, no business conducted and no mandatory attendance, with fun activities and informal discussions, just to build team camraderie. I suppose we could have all those reports once every week, but that seems even less likely to be practically plausible.
Also, as was pointed out in the meeting today, several of the committees are not subordinate to the LNC and technically do not report to the LNC, although they can informally choose to inform the LNC of their progress if they so wish.
I would like more info on the committees page – I’d even like as much or more than you have proposed – but I don’t see how it would be practical to try to make it mandatory given the reality of how many people are willing to devote how much time. We would probably be lucky to get even a decent percentage of compliance. Maybe I’m being too cynical here.
Oh, I see, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!
Changed the timestamp so it would move up the page as if it had been posted more recently than it had been and remain on the front page after we post newer articles.
I think it would be better to keep using this post for the Sunday portion of the meeting as opposed to starting a new one since it is already linked at a bunch of FB, twitter and other places linking directly back to this post.
By the way Paulie, what do you mean by “bumped the thread”? I’m not familiar with that expression.
Paulie, I realize you’re trying to agree with me… 🙂 But when it comes to Libertarian Party committees operating transparently, I think we need to do more than “make the option available”. I think we must create a structure to ensure that it happens.
Of course there will never be a way to absolutely guarantee everyone follows through consistently on everything. But with the right structures and incentives, I think we can do much, much better.
Here are some proposed specifics:
—————————————————————————-
Add a proviso to the LNC Policy Manual (or preferably, to the party Bylaws) that the Libertarian National Committee may not legally appoint anyone to a committee until:
• an email list has been created for that committee on which committee business shall be conducted between meetings, and to which non-committee-members can subscribe on at least a read-only basis, with instructions for subscribing to this list published on the website
• a full description of the purpose, authority, and responsibilities of the committee has been published on the website
Further require in this Bylaws amendment or Policy Manual section that:
• Each current committee chair or his/her designee shall provide at each LNC meeting at least a brief report to the LNC on the activities of his/her committee since the previous LNC meeting on behalf of his/her committee (either orally and/or in writing, depending on the wishes of the LNC or if a committee representative cannot be present in person), and take questions from the body.
• Failure to comply with this reporting requirement shall result in automatic removal of the committee chair from the committee, upon which occurrence the LNC may or may not choose to reappoint the individual to the committee, either as chair, or as an ordinary committee member in which case another individual shall be appointed chair.
• A “Transparency Checklist” shall constitute the first part of every committee report, with persons giving committee reports required to publicly report “yes” or “no” on each of the following questions, and where the answer is “no”, explain why not, and give a date by which the information is expected to be published:
• Are all current committee members listed on the website along with their contact info and terms of office?
• Are the date, time, and location of the next committee meeting listed on the website, along with an agenda for that meeting?
• Are the minutes of the last committee meeting published on the website?
• Is the committee’s most recent report published on the website?
• Are all previous existing committee reports and other official committee documents published on the website?
The responses to each of these questions would then be included in the LNC meeting minutes, and of course in the published committee reports.
For purposes of the above requirements, “committee meetings” would include meetings by teleconference, video conference, or other means as well as in-person meetings, and “the website” would mean a prominently listed committee information page on LP.org or a similar page on another website prominently linked to LP.org.
—————————————————————————-
I’m not suggesting the above reforms as a be-all, end-all solution — indeed, it can be argued that they lack teeth in some important respects — but I think they would be a good start.
Bumped the thread, hopefully that is OK.
I’m with you on making the option available, just less optimistic, I guess, that a lot of people will follow through consistently.
I agree with you.
I think the bigger problem though is that a lot of people (myself included) try to bite off more than we can chew.
Some people just like accumulating titles. Others really sincerely intend to do a task but then find themselves swamped with other things that take precedence. Or they get frustrated or their interest wanes over time.
Paulie — One probable reason why many committee members do not “do what they sign up to do” is because information on what they supposedly signed up to do is not readily publicly available, and there is little or no public communication from the committee to enable people not on a committee to tell whether its members are doing any work whatsoever. Thus if they are not performing expected tasks, who’s going to notice?
Indeed in some cases the committee members themselves may not know what they are supposed to be doing! Or they may have some idea, but feel they lack the authority to take the initiative to do anything about it and must wait for the committee chair to act, or the LNC to tell them what to do, etc.
If specific committee members are given access to post specific information, and it is made clear that they are expected to do it, and they still do not do it, then they should be replaced with committee members who are prepared to do their jobs.
Transparency and accountability measures should not be treated as some optional afterthought to the essential work of Libertarian Party leaders — they should be considered an indispensable part of that work.
My issue is not with allowing them to have access to the site, although that may be an issue for HQ staff or some LNC members. I’m just skeptical they will do all this extra work, especially on any kind of consistent basis. Many of them don’t even do what they sign up to do much less all this extra stuff. Ideally, I’d like to see it happen, or at least as much of it as possible. At a wiki site seems more plausible than directly at LP.org. But no matter where, finding people who will actually keep that much information current will be the biggest challenge.
In response to my call to make LP committees more transparent by publishing more details about them on the woefully lacking committee information page ( http://www.lp.org/leadership/bylaws-mandated-committees ), Paulie writes (July 18, 2015 at 7:09 pm), I’d love to have all of that on there but it seems a bit of a tall order (who will compile and maintain current all of that information on the site?).
Most of the missing information I cited should logically be provided by the committees themselves. Under a top-down, control-oriented approach, this would mean more work for staff to enter the data after receiving it from committee members, but a better solution would be to give committee members the access to make the changes themselves. (If we can’t trust these folks not to fuck up the party’s website, why are they being appointed to important committees?)
Alternately, as Paulie suggests, “If all that info could actually be kept current, say on a wiki, that would be awesome.” I agree, and have made the same suggestion previously, including while serving on the LNC.
As I brought to that body’s attention in 2014, the Libertarian Party owns (and is paying to maintain!) a Wikipedia-type website set up as a repository for information about all things LP — http://www.LPedia.org .
Sadly, this site has been allowed to sit dormant for years, instead of trying to make it a functioning public forum where information and history about the party can be crowdsourced.
For at least the past couple years, creation of new editor accounts at LPedia has been disabled, as a notice on the main page informs visitors. The notice also states that “We hope to get things back in order by mid 2015.”
While it’s not entirely clear who “we” is, we have a good idea when “mid 2015” is, and it is rapidly passing. Perhaps some enterprising member of the LNC or staff would like to make some inquiries about what is happening — or not happening — with the site, and let us know what the deal is?
Kudos to the Libertarian Party for subtly acknowledging their upcoming endorsement of Rand Paul by selecting a logo that looks a lot like his. Tomorrow morning, they should invite him to take the Libertarian nomination. The only one who could seriously challenge him would be Donald Trump.
>Gary Donoyan lives in New York and is highly recommended by former NY chair Mark Axinn.
Gary has a lot of better qualifications than just my imprimatur, but it’s nice to see that got mentioned. 🙂
Thanks, Chuck, for a very thorough job of reporting today.
>Wiener says our mailing list is our crown jewel.
I would argue that our message is our crown jewel, but I agree with Dan that the mailing list is an asset not to be treated lightly and whose use must be carefully protected.
Marc Montoni wrote that. I just quoted it. I’ll let you and Marc discuss that, since my LP status at the time was inquiry. I did vote LP in 1992, but hadn’t yet become a member. Thanks for the added information, although that was not the reason why I posted that quote from Marc. My interest was more in the part about real-time data sharing.
Paulie wrote (regarding the aftermath of the Marrou-Lord campaign)
“I note here with interest that then-ED Nick Dunbar shortly thereafter was sent packing….”
I was on the LNC at this time, and I recall vividly the LNC meeting at which Nick Dunbar announced that he was departing as National Director (the term in use at the time). He told us that at the beginning of his term, being hired by Dave Walter, his goal was “to last four years” — a reflection of the turmoil created by Directors entering and exiting through a swinging door, requiring the LNC to spend considerable time just scrounging for a new National Director and then bringing him up to speed. He wanted the LNC to have a Presidential-campaing-cycle long period of stability.
He was most definitely NOT “sent packing.”
Got called away to help finish off a bottle of vodka, but still hope I’ll get to see video later.
I’d love to have all of that on there but it seems a bit of a tall order (who will compile and maintain current all of that information on the site?). Contact info would be a great place to start. If all that info could actually be kept current, say on a wiki, that would be awesome.
Not off hand, but it’s less than most meetings, since there is no staff travel involved.
It’s possible that the slogan may have biased the survey results, but at this point the decision has been made, and I doubt it will be changed again (at least this term).
The slogan is not part of the logo.
Regarding the debate over adopting a new Libertarian Party logo, I sent the following message yesterday afternoon to (I believe) every member of the LNC except Ron Windeler, whose email was returned undelivered (Ron, if you’re reading, or someone else is who knows your current email address, would you please post it?).
So far no one on the LNC has responded to this email. However it appears from Chuck Moulton’s comments (July 18, 2015 at 3:47 pm) that LNC regional alternate Joshua Katz did ask a question alluding to it:
“Katz wonders whether the slogan “Minimum government, maximum freedom.” was attached to that one design (not sure which one).”
I have not watched the livestream, and it’s not clear from the notes provided whether anyone answered Katz’s question, but it is very relevant. According to the meeting notes in this thread, the results of a letter sent to LP members surveying their opinions on three different logo designs that were most popular among LNC members (proposed new logo, current logo, and previous logo) were mentioned repeatedly during conversation at today’s LNC meeting.
If Katz’s question had been addressed, the committee might have had to face the reality that those survey results indicating plurality support for the new “torch eagle” (aka “bird-on-a-stick”) design are dubious at best. Read on for explanation…
Subject: [GrassrootsLibertarians] Re: [Lnc-votes] [Lnc-business] Logo survey results to date – are they reliable? [1 Attachment], Scott Spencer , Brett Bittner , Doug Craig , Ed Marsh , Sean O’Toole , Ron Windeler , Norm Olsen , Joshua Katz , Bill Redpath , Alicia Mattson , Brett Bittner , Tim Hagan , Arvin Vohra , Scott Lieberman , Rob Oates , Marc Feldman , Rich Tomasso , Vicki Kirkland , Nick Sarwark , Sam Goldstein , Gary E. Johnson , Daniel Wiener , Daniel Hayes , Guy McLendon , Jay Estrada , Jim Lark
Date: July 17, 2015 4:23:49 PM PDT
To: Roland Riemers
Having looked at the recent Libertarian Party letter asking people to express their preferences on a logo, I suspect the preliminary results reported by Wes Benedict below of feedback received on it reflect the fact that in the letter, the “torch eagle” logo is accompanied by the words “Minimum Government Maximum Freedom”, while the current circular Statue of Liberty logo and the previous unadorned Statue of Liberty logo are not.
As LNC members and others may recall, “Minimum Government Maximum Freedom” was the slogan strongly preferred by respondents in an earlier poll over a slew of less-radical phrases offered as alternatives.
I’m not sure when the “Minimum Government Maximum Freedom” slogan was incorporated into the “torch eagle” logo — or indeed if it is even officially considered part of the logo, although the letter certainly gives that impression.
However, for purposes of fair comparison, it would be a fairly simple matter to incorporate the slogan into the current and previous logos as well, for instance in the case of the current logo by placing the words “Maximum Freedom” along the outside edge of the circle above the logo** and “Minimum Government” along the outside edge of the circle below it, or in the case of the previous logo, by placing the words “Minimum Government” on one side of Lady Liberty and “Maximum Freedom” on the other.
I suspect that presenting the three logo options in this manner would have a significant effect on the preferences expressed by respondents, because although I could be wrong, my guess is that a number of people favoring the “torch eagle” logo were really expressing their support for the “Maximum Freedom” slogan, and not for the logo itself.
Hopefully the inclusion of the slogan with one logo but not the other two wasn’t a deliberate attempt to enhance the standing of the logo option (“torch eagle”) that was most popular among LNC members. But in any case, given the disparity and ambiguity noted above, I would suggest taking these survey results with a grain of salt.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
**As currently designed, having the words “Maximum Freedom” above the logo yet directly abutting the circle would require them to either be placed slightly off center or for the word “maximum” to be interrupted by the protruding torch, since the torch does not extend beyond the circle exactly at its top center point. But this could be fairly easily fixed by slightly altering the angle of the statue to match the italicized slant of the word “LIBERTARIAN” in the logo, so that Lady Liberty and her torch arm appear to be leaning slightly forward and the torch does evenly divide the space above the circle.
P.S. – Survey results referred to above can be found at the link posted earlier in this thread by Paulie (July 18, 2015 at 3:13 pm) or online in text (not image) form at http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2015/003305.html
Paulie writes (July 18, 2015 at 5:53 pm), Nick gets bonus points for helping out while also chairing the meeting at the same time. A truly amazing talent!
No kidding! Definite props to our multi-tasking chair for not just blogging, but being engaged in the discussion among grassroots Libertarians on IPR.
I’m very glad to hear the LNC will be meeting in the basement of headquarters for at least a short time after all. Will frugality and common sense make a comeback? Stay tuned!
It will be interesting to see which members of the LNC complain tomorrow (without actually making the argument explicitly) that the Libertarian Party should spend hundreds of extra dollars out of its already-tight budget for a hotel meeting room so that they can have a bit more elbow room for a few hours (instead of spending the money on, say, outreach materials, or candidate support, or advertising, or campus outreach, or something else that will directly advance the cause of freedom).
Anybody hear any numbers on what this weekend’s LNC meeting is costing (meeting rooms and food)?
And if you are reading and haven’t commented yet please jump in! It helps us to know people are reading and motivates us to do more here.
If you haven’t commented at IPR before we’ll have to approve your first comment, after that you should be able to comment freely, other than truly egregious trolling (and comments containing more than one link per comment, which we can also approve retroactively).
Most of the credit goes to Chuck this time, and Nick gets bonus points for helping out while also chairing the meeting at the same time. A truly amazing talent!
Thanks to everyone else who is reading and commenting.
Chuck Moulton writes (July 18, 2015 at 4:28 pm), Mattson is presenting a proposed policy manual amendment which requires committees to report when meetings occurs and who participates in the meetings. This highlights what committee members aren’t doing any work, and what committee chairs are proposing things without consulting the rest of the committee.
The motion is adopted without objection.
Without objection? Amazing. I raised the issue of needing more public reporting and accountability from committees repeatedly while on the LNC, but it was like trying to pull teeth. Kudos to Alicia and the LNC for taking at least a small step in the right direction on this.
Still needed is for the committee information page on LP.org ( http://www.lp.org/leadership/bylaws-mandated-committees ) to contain some actual information beyond just the names of the committees and who is on them! For instance:
• What each committee’s responsibilities are
• Contact info for each committee member
• Each committee member’s term of office and how s/he came to be on the committee (e.g. appointed to fill LNC member slot, appointed to fill non-LNC member slot, ex officio member, etc.)
• How people can get involved with each committee and follow its proceedings
• List of past members who’ve historically served on each committee
• Schedule of each committee’s upcoming meetings and deadlines
• Links to any reports or other documents issued by each committee and minutes of committee meetings
Thanks to intrepid reporters Chuck and Paulie for blogging today’s LNC proceedings.
If you can’t get braaodcast I am hoping we get youtube afterwards at least, like last year.
Not sure about broadcast of the reception, I’ll see what I can do.
Vicki is not in attendance, Ed Marsh is here in her stead.
I’ll listen around that time if no one answers first, just in case.
Same broadcast channels for speech(es) at hq celebration?
Speaking of which, is Vicki there? I don’t recall hearing her speak during the meeting. Alicia mentioned who wasn’t there at the beginning but I only heard the end of that.
Sounds like more than an hour to me. At least one person said he had a new motion for the agenda (Ed Marsh? I was only listening, not watching)
They anticipate for only about an hour. It’s mostly an experiment to see if the space is too small for LNC meetings. They will discuss membership and fundraising issues, progress on goals, and entertain new business without previous notice.
Which topic? You went over my head there.
no public comments, executive session to discuss status of lawsuits and personnel matters. Short, maybe 20 minutes, then 1 hr break, one year anniersary at HQ next door
It is now opportunity for public comment. Next will be an executive session.
The LNC meeting will then resume in the morning at 9 am in the national office.
The bylaws committee will be informally meeting for a drafting session in the hotel on Sunday.
There will be a party celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the new office at the new building at 7 pm tonight.
Mattson has a motion to delete a policy manual section about conference call minutes. She thinks only meeting minutes (where business is conducted) should be taken, which falls under another policy manual provision. Her motion passed without objection.
I disagree strongly with this action by the LNC. There have been executive committee conference calls with no motions considered — or motions talked about then withdrawn with no vote.
The topic allegedly being discussed is the camel’s nose. Readers should recognize what idiocy is closing in the darkness.
Mattson is presenting a proposed policy manual amendment which requires committees to report when meetings occurs and who participates in the meetings. This highlights what committee members aren’t doing any work, and what committee chairs are proposing things without consulting the rest of the committee.
The motion is adopted without objection.
The discussion made it clear that an exact contract is not really being discussed right now.
The Mattson electronic meeting motion passes without objection.
The next item on the agenda is presidential campaign contracts.
Wiener says the bylaws committee has discussed a bylaws change to require that an agreement be drafted between presidential nominees and the LP — to avoid problems where a contract isn’t signed for months after nomination. Even if that bylaws amendment is not approved, Wiener thinks the LNC ought to make and circulate a contract among candidates for the LP presidential nomination. He forwarded some past agreements to the LNC.
Wiener says our mailing list is our crown jewel. He suggests we should think about whether we want the presidential campaign to go through a bonded mailing house. Who owns the responses?
Whose responsibility is ballot access? The contracts circulated might be too vague about that. Are there some states we are not willing to take on?
Wiener thinks the LNC should nail down a contract soon. Sarwark points out the LNC cannot require a presidential candidate to sign a contact in order to be nominated, but the LNC can advertise who signs a contract and who doesn’t.
Starr points out in 2008 there were qualifications to be listed on the website (FEC filing, etc.). He thinks the LNC could require signing the contract in order to be listed on the website. Starr points out some candidates are seeking FEC matching funds. He suggests we encourage (or contract with) candidates requiring them to use any matching funds they receive from the government to relieve ballot access expenses imposed by the government.
Sarwark says we are in the best ballot access position in 15 years, and we should use that good negotiating position when dealing with the presidential candidates.
Craig thinks any contract should require that the presidential mailing list be shared after the election.
McLendon asks if we require a bonded mailing house to handle our mailing list for the presidential campaign wouldn’t they require us to use a bonded mailing list for their list? Sarwark says that depends how we negotiate. McLendon points out some candidates may have a much more valuable list than others — some candidates are starting out with a huge list, others are started with nothing.
Tomasso wants different contracts for different candidates — ask for less and let candidates advertise if they go beyond and give more. Lots of people seem to disagree with that.
Olsen thinks you need to wait to see who the candidate will be. That lets us know whether we will negotiate from a position of strength.
Sarwark says the bylaws approach would be another qualification to get our nomination. In contrast, the LNC approach would just give the delegates more information and let them pick who they want.
McLendon fears such a contract could scare away the good candidates.
Wiener says we should reach out to the presidential campaigns when writing up a contract so that it will be acceptable by those candidates.
Vohra likes negotiating from a position of strength, but he doesn’t want to scare off a possible candidate like Judge Andrew Napalitano.
Hayes says we should stop being bridesmaids and act like the bride: seek commitment.
Starr read the draft bylaws proposal to the LNC.
Ludlow asks what the penalty for breaching the contract would be. Sarwark says it would be a liquidated damages clause.
McLendon says this would introduce a fatal flaw into the Libertarian Party and scare away celebrity presidential candidates. He left the Republican Party for the Libertarian Party because he wants to help it succeed, but this would doom the party.
Craig asked if this is a problem that needs solving. Starr says YES, we have had huge problems in the past with presidential candidates dragging their feet signing a contract or having a bad contract that doesn’t actually give the data.
Sarwark says there have been real problems with presidential campaign contracts in the past. We should do something, but be careful to find a good balance solving only those problems… if we make the contract too burdensome we will scare away too many candidates.
This agenda item is over with no action.
Here is the clause
(b) Campaign Strategy. The Campaign Committee shall hire as its Campaign Manager to oversee its Campaign strategy during the entire course of the Campaign. The Candidates and Campaign Committee shall work closely with to develop and establish a coherent, principled and politically viable Campaign strategy that is designed to promote not only the Campaign, but also the growth and influence of the LP. In developing and pursuing the Campaign strategy, the Candidates and Campaign Committee shall consult with and give serious consideration to the opinions of the LNC.
There appear to be some words missing from the first sentence. The 2004 contract suggests what they were.
In 2004, the LNC forced the candidate to use a specific campaign manager. Quoting the contract
(b) Campaign Strategy. The Campaign Committee shall hire Fred Collins as its Campaign Manager to oversee its Campaign strategy during the entire course of the Campaign. The Candidates and Campaign Committee shall work closely with Fred Collins to develop and establish a coherent, principled and politically viable Campaign strategy that is designed to promote not only the Campaign, but also the growth and influence of the LP. In developing and pursuing the Campaign strategy, the Candidates and Campaign Committee shall consult with and give serious consideration to the opinions of the LNC.
The LNC has someone advocating for celebrity candidates.
I’d suggest contacting Brett Bittner. He’s been the champion of that logo.
Does anybody have a larger version of the eagle torch logo? The only one I can find is the very small version in that picture showing 8 or 9 finalists.
Why wait for the end to get the list?
http://freevirginia.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-maximize-lp-presidential-campaign.html (excerpt):
The draft contracts are remarkably unfortunate, in pinning the candidate to a campaign manager. Mind you, if I ran, I would view sending the LNC names on a daily basis, subject to opt-out by the donor and contact, as the right policy.
Discussing contract with presidential campaign
Next on the agenda is Mattson’s motion to amend the policy manual regarding electronic meetings.
http://www.lp.org/files/20150718_LNC_Meeting_Motion_Mattson_Amend_PM_Electronic_Meeting.pdf
They are all looking around for the language.
At this point the LNC stands at ease to consider 2 competing motions to fix the policy manual problem Hagan pointed out.
Johnson moves to add the torch eagle into the list of graphic symbols (still leaving the statue of liberty there too) and change the heading to graphic symbols. It passes without objection.
The meeting is back in session and is now talking about the logo.
The options are:
* torch eagle
* current logo (yellow / blue statue of liberty)
* old logo (one color blue statue of liberty)
Moulton pointed out a version of the current logo with the statue of liberty not in her shadow was produced in 2007. Sarwark then mentioned that the annual report “went rogue” and used this logo on the cover. He passed around a copy.
Poll with 374 responses:
58% torch eagle logo
33% current logo
9% old logo
Redpath showed a coin with a statue of liberty image on it that represents what he wanted to see in a logo — with the statue not in its shadow. He passed around an image of the coin.
Tomasso asks if we can re-open the logo selection because none of the finalists seem good. He seemed to think there was merit to the Redpath proposal. Sarwark ruled that out of order.
Sarwark says the coin image is not trademarkable because the U.S. government already uses it — so anyone can use it.
Katz wonders whether the slogan “Minimum government, maximum freedom.” was attached to that one design (not sure which one). He pointed out there is a motion that had been postponed until this meeting and is now on the floor: adopting the torch eagle.
Wiener presents the torch eagle motion. He says we’ve wasted too much time on this matter and shouldn’t let it draw out indefinitely. The statue of liberty can still be used in our literature, it just wouldn’t be our logo.
Sarwark clarifies we are adopting the graphic. The word type and words associated with the graphic would be at the discretion of staff.
Hagan points out there is language in our policy manual that allows only the statue of liberty. He suggests a substitute motion amending that provision. Sarwark says that’s not in order… first adopt the new logo, then amend the policy manual afterward if that passes.
Olsen asks how much it would cost to redo all our literature, etc. Kraus and Wes says we would use up all the old literature, slowly phasing it out.
Ludlow says 99designs is a very bad way to get a new logo. He thinks we should use a very different process. Sarwark says the torch eagle wasn’t from 99designs… it was a master’s thesis from a design student. Ludlow still says this is such an important decision that we should hire a professional designer / brander / marketer.
Bittner says he got the torch eagle logo from Will Taylor, the design student, and was blown away by the 100 pages of incredible work put into it. Bittner looked at all the 197 submissions, has a marketing background, and solicited a lot of feedback. The torch eagle was the only submission that went beyond simple artwork.
Tomasso says the torch eagle is an okay logo, but he wasn’t blown away by it and neither were the members — 58% is not a large enough mandate. He also wonders when the re-branding will take effect. What is the timetable? Sarwark plans to re-brand in November after the election, so as not to interfere with campaigns. Tomasso would be fine with either the torch eagle or a re-done current logo (remove the shadow and the year).
Redpath quoted Tina Turner and said he doesn’t want to fight anymore.
Mattson isn’t influenced much by the poll and isn’t in love with any of the designs.
McLendon is warming up to the bird on a stick. He wonders if we can make it red.
Martin Moulton (the top voter getter in DC and perhaps a distant relative of mine?) says he has an extensive marketing background and likes the torch eagle a lot.
Sarwark says the logo would cost about $5,000. We wouldn’t need that until November, so our cash crunch wouldn’t stop us.
Vohra says the point of a logo is to make us look professional and not embarrass us… it doesn’t have to do everything about highlighting our brand. He points out we want to speak to the people not Libertarians yet, not just us.
Wiener suggests Wes could fundraise with t-shirts and sweatshirts with the new logo to pay for the $5,000.
Adopt the torch eagle:
Hagan – Y
Olsen – N
Craig – Y
Bittner – Y
Tomasso – A
Wiener – Y
Lark – N
Redpath – Y
McLendon – Y
Ludlo – A
Goldstein – N
Reimers – N
Johnson – N
Marsh – Y
Vohra – Y
Mattson – N
Sarwark – Y
It passes by a roll call vote of 9-6-2.
9 y 6 n carries … bird shishkebab it is
Question about whether we have the 5k it will take to purchase the bird on a stick. No, but Sarwark is confident it can be fundraised.
Torch eagle.
Martin Moulton (LPDC candidate) comments he loves this logo (which?) …
Mattson: torch symbol being used by a lot of Republican and conservative groups.
Riemers says none of the surviving three logos are good.
Redpath says he doesn’t want to keep fighting about it. Not wild about it but will go with the torch.
Others mentioned that statue of liberty is used by eevryone from tax preparers to gas stations etc.
Question of when to rebrand; Sarwark says after November 2015 election.
Wiener says go ahead and decide already.
Discussion of reopening the process to new submissions
Opposite of my preference order
Logo survey results to date http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2015/003305.html
Back from break. logo is next.
10 min break. Region 8 report discussion veered into discussion of how to handle anti-electoral politics libertarianism, particularly in regards to NH.
It’s time for region reports.
These were all submitted as written reports beforehand, so this portion of the meeting is a big waste of time.
Olsen is repeating a few things from his report. A brochure and bumper sticker is sent to each new registered Libertarian. Then all of them are called on the phone. Out of 100 phone calls usually $50-$100 are raised.
Wes says states that follow his fundraising advice are successful. Most states don’t follow the basics… you need to send a snail mail to the right people, which is more than just the people in the dump. The states that are raising less than $10,000 should be listening to the states that raise more than $10,000.
In my opinion it’s a big problem that Olsen is region 1. He always talks for a long time, then other regional reps follow his lead. If Lark spoke first and said “I submitted a written report. Any questions?” and Olsen went last, I think everyone would be brief like Lark.
Marsh gave his report. He deferred to at-large Craig, who said Georgia’s Facebook page is very active… the largest LP state Facebook page and 5x more active than the Georgia Republican Facebook page.
Feldman has a motion about Kentucky. Currently petition signers can’t sign more than one petition in a given election cycle, which is blatantly unconstitutional. If the LNC pays the filing fee of a lawsuit joining with the Constitution Party as a plaintiff, an attorney will represent us pro bono. A motion to spend $100 for a filing fee and join the lawsuit as a plaintiff passed without objection.
Wiener says California elected a new chair Ted Brown and California’s executive committee is meeting today.
Lark says he submitted a written report. He is willing to entertain any questions.
I (Chuck Moulton) talked a bit about his impressions attending the Pennsylvania state convention.
I stepped out of the room a few minutes to talk to Bob Johnston about Pennsylvania.
Tomasso talked a bit about New Hampshire’s lawsuit. He says he thinks there will be a decision before the election. If you’re going to go to court about a petition drive, meticulous records are very helpful (turn ins, costs, problems encountered). Tomasso and Katz attended PorcFest. He observed the libertarian movement is growing, but many libertarians are becoming less political.
There is now a 10 minute recess.
Chuck are you still liveblogging this? I have been letting my attention wonder quite a bit.
Let me know if you need a break and I will try to pay closer attention.
Arkansas ACLU is pretty swamped. I know a couple of their staff members and have been in their office, and have talked to them on the phoneand email a good bit as well as a few times in person. Arkansas LP is in touch with them and they know each other personally, and have worked on some things together in the past.
Region 7 report is also mostly verbal since Ludlow is brand new as region rep.
Chuck, Nick and Doug… Andy Jacobs would be good for organizing PA along the lines you all have been discussing. His family lies there and his brother and father have also worked as petition contractors, especially his brother. He also had the Ron Paul primary petition contract in 2008 and 2012 and had libertarian petitioners all over the state working on that who could have been converted to LP petitioning and were in place and ready to go. Andy talked about petition stacking with local candidates before, during and after the 2012 mess there. Andy also tried to sound a warning about what was going on in PA but was ignored. Andy does a lot of LP outreach when he petitions and could help get the party better organized while working there.
I would be up for doing the same sort of thing in a state or several, although I have some difficulties due to not having a car or drivers license. I am more than willing to work with local people if and when they want to come out with me in any state. How about if we integrate this with our college intern program? It could be a good summer job for a lot of college students, but they need training, and I can help with that. Plus if we find professors to sign off on it they could get class credit as well.
Region 6 report is verbal, Riemers is new on the committee. Reports ND party is doing a lot better.
Region 1 Report
Region 2 Report
Region 3 Report
Region 4 Report CA
Region 4 Report NM & NV
Region 5 Report
Region 6 Report NOT YET AVAILABLE
Region 7 Report LA
Region 8 Report
Regional reports are next.
There is a vacancy on the ballot access committee. Redpath nominates Gary Johnson for the vacancy. He was elected to fill the vacancy without objection.
Goldstein says the ballot access budget calls for a whole lot of money… how are we going to raise that money? Redpath admits there are a few very tough states like Pennsylvania and Illinois, but those are the 5th and 6th largest states and we need to get them.
Wiener says we may have to prioritize. In the last cycle we started out with a surplus the year before the presidential election. This cycle we’ll be starting out with a deficit.
Olsen says we should prioritize states based on how screwy their ballot access is. He thinks it is better to get 4 other states on instead of Pennsylvania.
Craig says instead of ballot access we should pay someone to be executive director of Pennsylvania (& New Jersey) to fundraise and get signatures so an infrastructure gets built rather than throwing away money on signatures.
Hagan is wondering why New Hampshire costs $5/signature when others cost much less. Tomasso says it is because petitioning can’t start until after the presidential nomination and the state drive will already be done by then so there will be very little volunteer support. Redpath points out that hotels are also expensive there around that time.
Vohra thinks if we stop petitioning in Pennsylvania we’d be sending a message to Republicans that if they fight us we just roll over and play dead… that would lead them to be even harsher on ballot access fights.
Feldman wants us to get us away from the idea of buying ballot access. He says libertarians have great ballot access because our message is best, not because we have the most money… if it were just about money the socialists would be on the ballot everywhere. Redpath says Feldman is dead wrong: the socialists have no money and that’s why they’re not on the ballot.
Chuck Moulton suggests candidate recruitment is the key to ballot access in Pennsylvania.
McLendon says that paid petitioners is the model that works.
Redpath points out Pennsylvania failed to get on the ballot by volunteers for governor in 2014. He agrees candidate recruitment is important.
Craig reemphasizes that we should get more from our money by leaving infrastructure in place after we’re done (e.g., an executive director).
Riemers says paying money to petitioners discourages volunteer petitioning. Send a teacher to teach petitioning, not just paid petitioners.
Sarwark wants states to present a ballot access plan to get ballot access money from national, state executive committee members should be willing to commit signatures or dollars to the petition drive, and the state should provide a petition coordinator. Illinois and Pennsylvania haven’t done that in the past. State volunteer commitment should be a floor the next time around… if a state says it will contribute 800 volunteer signatures, then the next cycle they should contribute more than 800 signatures.
Doug’s idea sounds a lot like what I have been pushing with no success for years.
And there is no motion to start SD right now, so it does not add up in my mind. We shall see.
Wants to pay more for OK, which makes sense given that it is not starting when we were thinking when we optimistically projected that it could be done for 2.00 and no expenses, but I’m not sure where the money could come from. Talking about getting SD done before the cold weather but how? As it is, with the current schedule, Oklahoma will bump up against all the state initiatives in the fall and probably drag into winter itself as a result. So unless SD is authorized right now, before Oklahoma, I don’t understand how it is going to be feasible to not do it in the winter.
Redpath nominates GJTX to replace Jay Estrada on ballot access committee. Approved without objection.
ustream is working; ballot access report
Redpath is presenting the ballot access committee report. It’s all in writing.
Libertarian.caster appears to have gone off the air.
Caster is down
10 min break
The platform committee report is next. Alicia Mattson is the interim chair. Mattson says 4 states have appointed platform reps, 11 states have not.
Carling speaks for the bylaws committee. M Carling was elected chair. Joshua Katz was elected secretary. Several proposals have been presented. Several bylaws committee members will work on language tomorrow.
Johnson reports for the credentials committee. Emily Salvette is the interim chair. She has been sending emails welcoming new committee members, but not much else has been happening.
Roll call vote on the first Mattson motion:
Hagan – Y
Olsen – Y
Craig – N
Feldman – N
Tomasso – Y
Wiener – Y
Lark – A
Redpath – A
McLendon – Y
Ludlo – A
Goldstein – Y
Reimers – N
Johnson – N
Marsh – A
Vohra – N
Mattson – Y
Sarwark – N
Mattson says the vote was 8-5. By my count it is 7-6-4. She just recounted… she had Vohra’s vote wrong. She asks some abstentions if they will vote yes so the motion would pass. There were crickets.
The motion fails by a vote of 7-6-4.
Hagan wants to bring part of the motion back as an email ballot. Lark says even though the motion failed, these problems need to be addressed at some point.
Mattson wants to extend for 5 minutes to give a research project to the EPCC. The vote to extend fails by a vote of 7-7 (takes 2/3 to extend time).
Lark says the Employment Policy and Compensation Committee (EPCC) submitted a report in writing and he is willing to take questions. There are none.
The EPCC pointed out several problems in its report. Mattson is making several policy manual amendments to address those problems.
I didn’t catch the whole motion, but it seems to give more veto authority to the EPCC. Sarwark opposes the motion.
I’m not paying as close attention to this discussion as the previous stuff, as it seems relatively irrelevant to me.
The Awards Committee submitted a report in writing and was willing to take questions. There were no questions.
Next is the convention committee. A vacancy on the committee needs to be filled. Helms Briscoe has been engaged for site selection of the 2018 convention. Bette Rose Ryan has a rough draft of the 2016 convention budget.
Mattson is talking about different ways to organize the convention. The LNC could run the convention or a host committee can run the convention. Kraus points out we can have a convention fund with limits of $100,000/year (100k/year for convention fund, 100k/year for building fund, 32k/year for general fund). M Carling talks about a separate convention committee not controlled by the LNC, which could accept corporate donations.
Goldstein points out vendors have already been farmed out to the LSLA. Mattson says that has been the case every year since BCRA. Mattson says we have also elected to do the convention in house, as we already have a contract with the hotel.
Mattson says it is possible that a hotel could offer meeting planner points, which can only be vested in individuals. That hasn’t happened recently. If it does and we can’t negotiate away the meeting planner points for some other benefit, who should get the meeting planner points and should that person be forced to use them for the LP. Kraus has gotten some meeting planner points for LNC meetings, but it only has gotten him a free breakfast or a room upgrade, which benefits the LP because otherwise it would have had to pay for that. Carling thinks for a LP national convention there would probably be about $1,000 of meeting planner points awarded.
Tomasso wonders when we will begin selling national convention tickets. Mattson says Bette Rose Ryan suggests late August.
Starr says in 2008 the LNC still had costs from the national convention (travel for staff, signs, awards, etc.), but the outside contractor got all the revenue, so the LP lost money.
Craig thinks the people on the convention committee should be getting the freebees, since they are doing the work.
Riemers suggests making the upgrades door prizes.
Goldstein says at the 2014 convention he gave the upgrades to volunteers and was required to post a notice of that to convention delegates.
Ed Marsh was the only person nominated to the convention committee vacancy (he ran for it originally and didn’t receive as many votes as the winners). He was appointed by acclimation.
Ed Marsh takes over for Estrada on convention committee
They are discussing how there can be sponsors for a National Convention. They still need to speak to Marc Montoni, who keeps explaining what needs to be done to take advantage of corporate sponsors.
At this point Goldstein delivered an oral report from the IT Committee. The IT committee met 4 or 5 times electronically. They distributed a request for proposals (RFP) to send to vendors about a new website. But NationBuilder provides website development, so the IT Committee may just go with them.
Johnson wants the IT Committee to go ahead with the RFP rather than just using NationBuilder. The maintenance costs for a website are often more important than the upfront costs.
Olsen points out he has a NationalBuilder website. Content is more important than style. See Drudge Report and LewRockwell.com.
Wiener wanted national to piggyback onto Texas. Sarwark and Goldstein say we can’t do that.
Wes likes the idea of NationBuilder. National has had database issues for decades. The state that talked to Olsen about it (Iowa?) had to fire its executive director for not raising enough money and couldn’t get a clear picture of its finances. Wes thinks it would be a good idea to have a smaller test sooner… e.g., have Andy Burns use it with the 5 states he targets. Wes tested putting Raiser’s Edge on the cloud and had Hinkle test it from California. That plan got torpedoed when it was required that Brett Pojunis negotiates the contract with BlackBaud.
Feldman trained for a few weeks on NationBuilder and is using it for his campaign (because he couldn’t find a volunteer willing to learn it). His website runs on NationBuilder and his database has 80,000 data points. Whenever someone likes a Facebook post you can send emails targeted to particular issues based on that like.
Craig says $300/month would be cost prohibitive for most states.
Tomasso says everything the LNC has been discussing is already in the RFP the IT Committee put together. He suggests the LNC shouldn’t get too into the weeds on technical details. The goal is to have a new website ready to launch by January 2016.
Goldstein says a NationBuilder enterprise license by the national LP would cover all state affiliates. Migrating the data from Raiser’s Edge to NationBuilder shouldn’t be too hard, but recreating all the custom reports that Raiser’s Edge currently generates in NationBuilder will take some time.
Olsen would be excited with even 5 states as a test case (though he suggested 10).
Reimers says North Dakota will try out NationBuilder and report back on its experiences to the IT Committee. North Dakota has a very small membership list.
Currently using NationBuilder: North Carolina, Kansas, Nevada.
That concludes the IT Committee report.
Next is the Affiliate Support Committee report. The affiliate support committee meets at the same time as the LSLA executive committee (30 minutes for one, then 30 minutes for the other).
M Carling says Bill Hall created a BCRA manual for state affiliates and county affiliates (one big binder of 100 pages) for each. LPHQ has only been distributing the 8 page executive summary of Hall’s manual to affiliates — it doesn’t even have the full version and wasn’t aware of it. Carling was tasked with updating the BCRA manual. He wanted to clarify whether he should update the 8 page summary or the 100 page manual. It is unlikely people will actually read the 100 page version, so Carling will create something longer than 8 pages, but less than 100 pages.
Craig likes that the national Facebook page has been sending traffic to state Facebook pages by sharing things. He brags Georgia recently passed Indiana and Virginia as the biggest state Facebook page. As the main advertiser of the Virginia page, I (Chuck Moulton) am quite upset by that. Unfortunately I’ve been off Facebook for several months. I’ll have to talk to some Virginia people about trying harder.
Florida went for Civi CRM.
Goal is to hve a new website for 2016.
The MA tech people looked nationbuilder, but concluded it was not worth it relative to our needs. It was a good system, but they came at a price.
Olsen moves that the chair direct staff to consult with NationBuilder and negotiate for 10 small or medium sized state affiliates with a proposal to be presented at the November LNC meeting. Vohra seconds.
Goldstein says the IT committee has been investigating this for a while. NationBuilder also does websites and fundraising. Texas pays $1,000/month for an enterprise license. Goldstein thinks that national should investigate an enterprise license rather than what Olsen is suggesting. There is a dedicated IT support guy allocated to an enterprise license. Tomasso agrees that the IT committee already has done all of the legwork on this. The IT committee will have a dedicated webinar with NationBuilder in early August.
Tomasso moves a substitute motion (paraphrase) that the IT committee will investigate NationBuilder and bring back a recommendation to the LNC at or before November.
Olsen wants a hardcore proposal we can vote on in November — a proposal from NationBuilder that with dollar figures that we can accept and turn on immediately if it passes. Tomasso changed his motion to do that.
Hayes points out some states receive substantial ballot access support from national, whereas other states receive nothing. The states that don’t benefit from ballot access should be the ones that get database help (if limited to 10 states).
Feldman is a certified NationBuilder expert, which he disclosed in case that was a conflict of interest. He is also, of course, a presidential candidate.
The motion as amended passed without objection.
Before 2004 national used to alert states when they were dropping fundraising letters so states could make sure a state letter didn’t arrive the same day. That doesn’t happen anymore — staff unilaterally decided to stop doing that. I tried to address the problem in 2004/2005, but no one else on the LNC cared.
Olsen is pitching Nation Builder. Put the data in the cloud so everyone at all levels can access the list and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every few years when someone leaves or there is a computer crash.
Integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Written in Ruby on Rails.
There are tech support guys who will answer the phone. States don’t need to have a tech guru.
You can coordinate fundraising letters so national and state don’t send letters the same time. You can import other lists (like who has donated what to candidates), which lets you have reasonable ask amounts for fundraising (e.g., $5,000 for someone who donated $5,000 to a candidate, $25 for someone who hasn’t donated much ever).
2 LP state affiliates are already using Nation Builder; 3 others are considering it. North Carolina has been using Nation Builder for $144/month. 3 counties use it for $50/month each. Annual cost to the LNC for 10 states with 3 county affiliates per state would be $30,000.
Back in session.
Olsen giving nationbuilder presentation.
Kraus (operations director) says he currently spends 15% of his time on accounting, but would have to spend 65% of his time on accounting with a statement of functional expenses, which is says is what we did back in 2004/2005 and was hard to present in a report because you had to lay lots of pages out side by side to make a really wide chart.
Starr (audit committee chair) muttered that Kraus was being dramatic. Kraus says Starr’s report was 35 pages in 2006 whereas Hagan’s report is much shorter and summarizes only the important info. Starr seemed offended and said “I’m sorry, that is just false.” Wes (executive director) says he will have Kraus do whatever the LNC wants… give him direction.
Mattson says it is important to take into consideration the burden placed on staff, but thinks there is a gross exaggeration of the amount of time this will take from Kraus (15% to 65%).
Starr points out lots of other non-profits handle this fine: it’s not rocket science. Kraus says he handles about 50 invoices a week. Starr said it would be easy for him to handle that many transactions on his off-time. He doesn’t appreciate the drama.
Olsen says it is important that we collect data correctly, then we can report it any way we want.
Wiener appreciates that this may be an additional burden on staff, but thinks we need more functional detail than we have now. That will help us respond to criticisms that we are spending too much on staff / administration / overhead. We can show that the money is going toward affiliate support / candidates / etc. because that is what staff is doing.
Craig wonders whether changes will help us elect more candidates and move the party forward. He runs a manufacturing company and worries if he gets too bogged down in the accounting details he spends less time manufacturing.
Vohra says the category information we’re getting right now is approximate anyway. Dividing into finer categories will make it even more approximate… an even more elaborate fiction. Any board member can look at all the transactions if he/she wants to (under DC law). Olsen says you can only get 100% of the detail if they collect it. Mattson says you would need to have a current version of Quickbooks to look at the transactions… that is expensive, so it’s not practical.
Goldstein asks that the IT report be taken up during the working lunch.
Lunch is here. The meeting will resume in 15 minutes (12:30 eastern).
Audit discussion started while ballots were tallied.
9-7-7 vote on aprc (approval)
While the votes are being tallied, the LNC is hearing an audit committee report from Aaron Starr. The auditor from the firm who is in charge of our audit is Shaffer (not sure about the spelling). The auditors are done their field work. The audit committee asked a couple dozen questions.
Goldstein asked whether the policies passed in response to the last audit are being followed. Starr said mostly. There are a few exceptions that he will be discussing with the auditors and the audit committee will be recommending a few additional policies due to things that were discovered in the current audit.
Starr is talking about a statement of functional expenses.
APRC vote:
Mattson – 9
Bittner – 7
Craig – 7
So Mattson has been added to the APRC.
Vohra asked how many transactions there will be per category.
9, 7, 7, with one abstention.
Mattson gets APRC
Lark wants to clarify the extent to which the general counsel will help state affiliates. Sarwark clarifies that state affiliates can call national HQ and
Someone asked if all the candidates have sufficient law licenses. They do.
Goldstein asked if Oliver Hall’s representing Ralph Nader would be a conflict. Redpath says he doesn’t think so. Gary Sinawski represented many other politicians — Redpath noticed this when he attended the memorial service.
Wiener asked what sort of contract it would be. At will? Sarwark said there would be an annual contract. Any termination should require a transition period because there could be litigation in process.
Mattson wants to make a motion to hire Oliver Hall as the LP’s general counsel. Sarwark suggests that the contract starts September or October, to give us a few months without that $3500 expense.
Tomasso asked about the legal offense fund and whether we would be litigating more frequently. Sarwark thinks we’ll be litigating a bit more because the Republicans are coming after us more in ballot access fights, but we’re not yet at the point where we will be attacking.
Olsen asks that approval voting be used to select the counsel. Sarwark suggests that Mattson makes her motion, then Olsen proposes an amendment to the motion. That’s what they’re doing.
I didn’t catch the exact motion text, but the basic idea is to select Oliver Hall. Wiener opposes approval voting. The approval voting substitute fails by a vote of 2-11.
Hagan wants to amend the motion from “approximately September” to “no sooner than September 1”. Lark wants to amend the motion to be “on October 1”.
Recently Sarwark has been asking Bill Hall to do us a favor when litigation work is needed (since the LP general counsel Gary Sinawski passed away).
The Hagan amendment passes by a vote of 8-7 (the chair abstained). So the motion is (paraphrasing) to select Oliver Hall as our general counsel with the contract to begin no sooner than September 1.
Hagan – Y
Olsen – N
Craig – Y
Feldman – Y
Tomasso – A
Wiener – Y
Lark – Y
Redpath – Y
McLendon – Y
Ludlo – Y
Goldstein – N
Reimers – Y
Johnson – Y
Marsh – Y
Vohra – Y
Mattson – Y
Sarwark – A
The motion passes by a roll call vote of 13-2-2.
I did my best recording that vote, but it got very fast at the end. I didn’t have the list of names typed out and I don’t know some of the newer committee members. Please correct me if I have made any mistakes.
The next item on the agenda is selection of a LNC member to fill the vacancy on the Advertising and Publications Review Committee.
The following people have been nominated:
* Alicia Mattson
* Doug Craig
* Brett Bittner
Voting will be conducted by written ballot with approval voting.
Mattson, Doug Craig, Bret Bittner nominated
APRC currently Gary Johnson
Joshua Katz
Arvin Vohra
Dan Wiener
APRC vacancy// due to Estrada resigning
Oliver Hall, but not at least untl October.
http://libertarian.caster.fm/ is the better signal. They are now discussing a new choice of attorney, as the LNCs prior attorney tragically passed away.
No, non-presidential.
Slightly OT: does the Arkansas requirement apply to the Presidential ticket, too?
If so, that should make what was already an open-and-shut case even easier. Such as there ever is an “easy” ballot access lawsuit.
The Information Technology (IT) Committee has circulated a written report. Consistently the IT committee has been the only committee / position that hasn’t submitted an electronic version of its report. Personally I find that ridiculously ironic.
The meeting is back in session. Next on the general is selection of a general counsel.
Candidates:
* Oliver Hall
* Alicia Dearn
* Gary Donoyan
* Tom Baker
Oliver Hall is local to DC and familiar with ballot access issues. He is also counsel for Ralph Nader.
Alicia Dearn lives in St. Louis and is involved with Gary Johnson / the Our America Initiative. She litigated for ballot access in the 2012 Gary Johnson campaign extensively (e.g., Ohio). Her OAI connection may be a conflict of interest (waivable, but the LNC is unlikely to waive such a conflict).
Gary Donoyan lives in New York and is highly recommended by former NY chair Mark Axinn.
Tom Baker lives in Michigan. He is a libertarian, but no one on the committee knew him well. The fee structure was hourly. All other proposals had a monthly retainer agreement.
Olsen asked what litigation we have currently pending. Sarwark responded we have a debate lawsuit and Kentucky ballot access. In the future Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arkansas ballot access will be problematic. The Arkansas presidential deadline was moved up to November 2015, which is far before we nominate a candidate.
Hmm now it started working. Audio MUCH better. BTW the upstream link went down.
Did you hit the arrow to start it?
George — I am having a lot of trouble hearing too
Paulie I cannot get libertarian caster to work 🙁
http://libertarian.caster.fm/ has better audio most of the time
Not yet
I’m listening but will let Chuck lead n this since he is there. Let me know if you need to take a break Chuck.
Thanks for the good work on the report. I tried listening on the feed and had trouble hearing over the background noise. Those with younger ears will doubtless have less difficulty. Also the Channel 2 may work better. Did we pass through the Regional reports?
Meeting is coming back to order
The staff report was extended for 5 minutes.
Someone (I did not catch who) suggested we change the policy manual provision requiring that an extra $60k of the mortgage be paid down in off years (like 2015) because we are very tight on cash. He will perfect a motion during the recess to submit later in the meeting.
Some members complained about the $50 sprinkler alarm monthly fee and the bugler alarm monthly fee. In my opinion they are being penny wise and pound foolish. I wonder what they will say if these things are canceled, then there are tens of thousands of dollars of damages if the building is floored or robbed.
Another 5 minute extension failed to get a 2/3 vote.
We are now in recess.
10 min recess then general counsel search
Wes tried some new renewal letter designs that didn’t perform well, so he’s going back to the old letters. He points out many people may be receiving a letter, then renewing online, so the revenues may not be properly matched with expenses.
The annual report had disappointing results. Tomasso thought the tone of the annual report was more negative than usual and didn’t include some of our successes of the last year.
Vohra wondered whether Wes repeated the things that worked well before (the black t-shirts, the “Just one question” email, etc.). He did try them again, but results weren’t as good.
Wiener asks about one time expenses we are anticipating in the next few months because of our tight budget. Kraus highlighted the Blackbaud expense in November, a new water heater expense in the next few weeks, etc. The property tax expense from the Watergate is because we paid the an anticipated amount but it turns out after a normal yearly audit that we underpaid.
Mattson asked about the sprinkler system alarm. Kraud clarified that it is an upfront cost + monthly monitoring cost as an insurance to avoid a sprikler system running all weekend and flooding the building.
Aaron Starr is addressing the LNC explaining the difference between restricted funds (restrictions by the donor) and designated funds (restrictions by the organization).
The helping state affiliates part will be targeted to 5 states which ask for help.
The donor who funded the new Andy Burns staff position wanted very specific tasks handled by this staff member and had specific metrics for success. Wes read those to the LNC. A lot of it was about helping state affiliates be more successful.
One of the new staff members (Lauren) has submitted an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal.
See other introductions here:
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2015/003282.html
As Wes explained on LNC list:
I’m at the meeting now.
The staff report is starting. Wes is speaking. Fundraising and membership are down. Wes thinks the fundraising last year was extraordinary (e.g., black t-shirts). The chair did targetted fundraising to add 2 staff members.
Sarwark spent 20-30 hours fundraising (phone and in person at Freedom Fest). Redpath made about 15 fundraising phone calls. Wes called 15 state chairs telling them their membership had expired.
Wes is introducing the 2 new staff members.
Running personal total is actually $37,500.
Last year had some unusual events like the T shirt promotion that did well which we have not been able to replicate. Nick raised at least about 20k from major donors – estimates it took maybe 20 hours on the phone. Wes is asking LNC members to help make fundraising calls. Wes is optimistic that fundraising will recover.
Nick Sarwark and Bill Redpath have been doing project fundraising calls – not on the financial reports yet
I need to eat some breakfast so Chuck or whoever else please take over as soon as practical
Tried some experiments with fundraising letters that did not work out
Staff report is next http://www.lp.org/files/20150718_LNC_Meeting_Staff_Report.pdf
Secretary’s report http://www.lp.org/files/20150718_LNC_Meeting_Secretary_Report.pdf
Amended motion passes without objection
Substitute passes
Mattson substitute strikes the part about reducing fundraisining costs
Discussing Hagan motion to adjust budget http://www.lp.org/files/20150718_LNC_Meeting_Motion_Hagan_Amend_Budget_BA_FR_BR.pdf
The LP bog entry shows Region 3 as not yet available, but it has since been posted: http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/attachments/20150718/53fe92a1/attachment-0001.docx
http://www.lp.org/files/20150718_LNC_Meeting_Financial_Report.pdf
http://www.lp.org/files/20150718_LNC_Meeting_Chairs_Report.pdf
http://www.lp.org/blogs/staff/lnc-meeting-july-18-19-2015-in-alexandria-va
That was chair’s report, moving to treasurer’s report
Raised about 5k at freedom fest
Nick fundraised directly for hiring the new staff
LNC is plaintiff in one current lawsuit and one lawsuit that is about to be filed (supposedly later this month) about the debate.
Doug if you catch this your title with OAI is state director
Conflict of interest minutia
Question as to whether discussion of declining membership and finances should be in executive session. Sounds like the answer is no. Rearranging agenda now.
“Public comments” were from LNC members
Alternates are all there except Ron Windler and Sean O’Toole
Meeting is starting
I’ll try to cover it til Chuck gets there as long as the broadcast is working.
http://libertarian.caster.fm/ is up and running
I will be attending the LNC meeting and I’ll try to liveblog it. However, I anticipate I will arrive about an hour after it begins (in spite of waking up at 4 am).