The Sunday Live Blog of the LNC Quarterly Meeting. Please see the comments for updates.
LNC Quarterly Meeting 7/31/2022

The Sunday Live Blog of the LNC Quarterly Meeting. Please see the comments for updates.
The Sunday Live Blog of the LNC Quarterly Meeting. Please see the comments for updates.
This discussion of whether the meeting would be planned around Ms. McCardles pregnancy due date was fascinating. Plus the fact she is moving to Texas and probably will have baby there. Where doctors probably more scared of losing a fetus and being prosecuted than losing the mother and just being sympathized with. State laws vs abortion and anything that might possibly be it, and all that.
Adjourned
Thanks given to the outgoing Executive Director.
Debating date of next meeting.
Question called.
Amendment passes. Motion passes. Chair will draft a letter.
Ford claims that since NM is an affiliate they must do what we say because we are the leaders of the party.
Hagopian: We should tell LPNM what their bylaws are and what their officers are.
Much disagreement.
They are arguing about New Mexico. The question is whether they should vote on a motion today or postpone it. An alternative is to disaffiliate the affiliate.
The motion is “Motion recognizing valid LPNM Constitution and Bylaws” meaning the LNC should recognize a specific set of New Mexico Bylaws as valid.
Motion to postpone the motion failed. Debate as to whether the other choice is disaffiliation. The meeting consists of a conversation with Caryn Ann Harlos answering every remark that disagrees with her.
They have returned. They will elect people to committees by electronic vote. Viewers might wonder whether Harlos or McArdle is Chair, given that questions are asked to the chair and answered by Harlos. There is a motion to elect by plurality. Motion passes unanimously.
If I follow, BitCoin offered the LNC the chance to be an affiliate, but that would be illegal, so the LNC passed the opportunity to the Florida affiliate.
George reported: “Amend the bylaws. Say that LNC does not care what LNC members do, not as part of their duties.”
Including promoting political violence vs the state, I wonder?
George reported: “Move to approve person as new Communications Director. Passes 14-0” Reed Cooley. Christian Fundie obsessed with evil liberals trying to destroy Christianity. Evidently never read Ayn Rand.
Are they doing this today? Will see if it’s back on youtube at 5:05 pm
On revised agenda for today: Motion recognizing valid LPNM Constitution and Bylaws (Ecklund/Harlos)
At quarter of five, they are still in executive session.
Harlos moves for executive session to discuss, I think, the volunteers for the LNC committees. Tuniewicz spoke of reservations on closed discussion. McArdle and Harlos wanted closed discussion so that negative issues of candidates could be discussed frankly. Committee is split on the question. Vote was 9-2 for executive session. They are in executive session.
They are back in order in open session. They are preparing to fill committees. Chair started to list committees needing to be filled, starting with the ballot access committee. There are two LNC spots. Volunteers Smith, Harlos, Bowen(?) (Hard to hear), Hagopian.
Affiliate support committee: Harlos moves to amend its composition. The amendment would replace the Libertarian State Leadership alliance members with LNC Regional Representatives and Alternates. Rationale — LSLA seems to be less than active. Motion passes 13-0-1. Volunteers: Gabbard, Robbey, Ford (on the committee on a different basis, would switch seats)
Candidate Support (not sure who volunteered)
Audit Committee (one LNC member, two non-LNC members, chosen by the LNC) (not sure who volunteered)
Speaker, Mr. Lashar, candidate for Governor in Maryland. Former Republican.
Move to approve person as new Communications Director. Passes 14-0
Move (Smith) to suspend the rules to amend the agenda to schedule a special meeting on the Idaho issue. Motion passed. There are two groups claiming to be the Idaho affiliate. It is proposed to hold a special meeting on the issue. Motion passes 14-0-0.
Conflict resolution discussion, in executive session. I think. There is a claim that there is a legal issue. Motion passes. Now in Executive session.
Meeting seems to be disorderly, and now transmission has ended.
They are suspending the rules to do something.
No sign that the meeting has resumed.
Motion passes 12-1-1.
Another Harlos motion, hard to hear. Someone speaking. Harlos defends her position last term on New Hampshire.
Motion passes 14-0-1
Harlos is turning the debate into a discussion, in violation of Roberts.
Amend the bylaws. Say that LNC does not care what LNC members do, not as part of their duties.
Several speakers in support. Inaudible comments. Objection: Use of force or fraud should be a disqualifying character for membership. Argument as to whether or not use of force is gross malfeasance.
Motion passes.
Effort is to define what ’cause’ is for removing an officer.
Of course, a future LNC can change the rule if needed.
Motion passes 14-0.
Harlos: Amend bylaws to make it harder to remove an officer or at-large member.
Motion passes 14-0-0
Harlos: Motion to reduce the power of the Executive Committee.
Meeting back in order. Chair says she got additional information on the change to CiviCRM and is happy.
Harlos moved to delete material from the policy manual. There seemed to be general support.
Meeting approaching coming to order again.
Material on Idaho was sent to the LNC public list by Joshua Smith.
Question called. 13-1 Motion passes.
Vote on the main motion: Nanna: Prioritize migration from Raiser’s Edge and not renew Raiser’s Edge unless migration is inadequate.
Vote 9-2-2 Motion passes. Motion for recess passes.
Debate point: It is a fine thing to finish a project. Finish what we started.
Nationbuilder: You pay for hosting, etc. Tried Salesforce. Hosting $70,000 and hundreds of thousands to migrate, plus separate licenses for each state…not satisfactory.
Q will migration cost more or less than the next year of Raiser’s Edge.
A. Less
If we migrated to something else what would it cost? What would the cost for all the people around the country to change again?
Nationbuilder: The test was unsatisfactory.
Moved to extend time by 15 minutes. Passes 8-4.
Q Are we formally adopting CiviCRM or can we reconsider later.
Motion to post pone, 3 Yes 10 No 1 Abstain.
Moellman: If you want to be ready at the end of the year, you need to start now.
Secretary moves the question.
Answer: CiviCRM is operational.
Chair is concerned that CiviCRM will keep needing more money.
A: If state wants a feature we can do fundraising in the state, and we get the feature too.
Discussing a motion to postpone. Chair: How much more money will it cost to bring CiviCRM up to speed?
If we go beyond December, we must pay Raisers Edge for a full year.
Harlos wants to postpone, also Chair and Treasurer are unhappy which is bad. Moves to postpone to next meeting.
IT open source development can be done in part with volunteers.
However I hear it said that the staff is enthusiastic about making the change.
Apparently the IT is enthusiastic to advance and the fundraising team has doubts.
CiviCRM is also used by states, local groups, and candidates.
Assuming I heard things correctly, Raiser’s Edge was $60,000 a year and CiviCRM is $100,00 a year, including staff time.
Bilyeu Q: How much does CiviCRM cost?
Total $100,000
Proposal to look at Microsoft Dynamic.
Someone inaudible.
Harlos is concerned that we are hiring a new Executive Director, and wants to wait for that.
Treasurer opposes change to CiviCRM. We might lose money.
Some dispute as to what Raiser’s Edge costs. What about staff time?
Raiser’s Edge $32K for licensing. $30,000 in staff time for manual data entry.
Motion to migrate to CiviCRM by the end of the year and not renew Raiser’s Edge unless migration is incomplete.
Inaudible comment.
CiviCRM lets us do good targeted fundraising.
Treasurer: If we migrate we save $60,000/year. Will that cost us $90,000/year in fundraising?
Appears to be a complaint that Raiser’s Edge updates are slow.
Treasurer notes options. The choices are Raiser’s Edge migration, 30+10 migration. Add features. Can any of these be outsourceable?
Answer see do outsource some things. Raiser’s Edge Migration mostly has to be done internally. +10 needs staff addition. No state pounding on the door to join.
Treasurer: When we add states, what are the outcomes. Q: Should we hold Raiser’s Edge migration until after 2024?
Answer: Migrate now saves a lot of money. We are mostly there. Unintelligible comments follow.
Someone is speaking remotely. Incomprehensible.
Issues with institutional knowledge being unstable.
Q Tuniewicz. Are we losing things be dropping Raiser’s Edge?
A: There appears to be a transition effort. The transition is a bit complicated.
GP: Raiser’s Edge is a fundraising tool. I had professional advice on this. It’s appropriate for a much larger operation than we have.
Meeting called to order.
Public Comment: There is a feud in Idaho. A representative of the Mises side read a letter asking the LNC to intervene against the non-Mises side.
Affiliate Support Committee. There are members appointed by the libertarian state leadership alliance, which is inactive. Harlos moves to amend the agenda to change the Affiliate Support Committee to replace the LSLA members with LNC members so that things take off. Harlos notes that the LSLA was once very active but no longer is active.
IT Affiliate Support.Issues: A video report. Web sites, data retention, and appearance are issues. The IT committee recommended using CiviCRM. It took a while to get off the ground. 30 states on board. There is LNC-owned hardware in Texas supporting it. Wants to consolidate all data — one data bucket — in one place. This would include all state data. The IT Committee advocates state parties should focus on county parties.
One proposal is to migrate completely off of Raiser’s Edge, saving the LNC $57,000 a year. This did not happen because of pushback by a former staff member. There are alternatives. Important feature of new changes — open source software. Choices at what to implement first?