Independent Political Report has learned that a new national Libertarian group, the
Association of Libertarian State Parties
is in the process of being formed. It is our understanding that this group:
- will have as members only state parties, not individual people;
- will be FEC-filing;
- will have a minimum of central organization, but has already raised as commitments large sums of money;
- has enough Federal candidates on the ballot to satisfy FEC regulations for being recognized as a political party;
- will have membership joining and expulsion by majority vote of the other members;
- will allow a state party to belong also to the LNC-associated group;
- will very certainly not by using Roberts as its parliamentary rules of order;
- will have a quadrennial meeting in which member state chairs will decide who they will put on the ballot as their Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.
IPR is not yet at liberty to say which state parties are preparing to unite to form the ALSP.
An alternative path has been transmitted to us by a party who preferred to be anonymous. We are told that plans are under way to organize petition drives, separately in each state, in which party members would petition their Libertarian state committees to disaffiliate from the current national group.
We’re not sure whether or not this approach would be effective.
As an elected in Westwood 2x and a witness to McArdle rigging 3 elections in Los Angeles I am very happy to see this.
Bigotry enablers in the mises caucus are dealing with the consequences of their actions. These political cowards will find out the hard way, just ask the Larry Sharpe campaign who, after 200k raised, didn’t have one volunteer available to count the number of signatures they turned in. Now Larry wants to sue his way on the ballot when he was way short on the signature count? Hustling Ls for money to give to lawyers in a GO NOWHERE CASE? STOP DONATING TO UNCLE TOM UNTIL UNCLE TOM PULLS HIS HEAD OUT! Sorry Larry, time for you to smell the coffee. Bigotry IS repugnant! And silence by Larry, why?=$$$$
October 4th 630pm pst
NATIONWIDE LIBERTARIAN TOWNHALL Event. (zoom)
Candidates & open mic
Goto http://www.facebook.com/groups/LibertariansWin
My arguments for an early quadrenial meeting are
1. Elimination of place holder candidates to meet state petitioning laws. State parties can hold their conventions in time and not be held up waiting for a May national convention.
2. State conventions can run the National Candidate or run a favorite son/daughter/other.
3. It tests the State’s party chair who should know how their convention is going to vote. The joke in California has been why is the house speaker the house speaker? Answer because he gets the votes. If he didn’t get the votes he wouldn’t be the house speaker.
4. If held in early November and state conventions were held between November and Say early March our candidate would have 7 months to raise funds and campaign. They might get a lot of media time while the duopoly runs its primaries. State parties could have our signs up way before everyone else.
5. The LNC convention could be made pointless
6. It would eliminate dropout candidates from otter parties.
Aiden,
“But political parties function the inverse of federalism and have for decades. American politics is not bottom up, it’s top down and has been for a while. The lack of a fee from the states to national is irrelevant. Have you ever heard of a damn analogy? I’m not saying they’re the exact same thing but of similar structure.”
There’s an excellent blog called Frontloading HQ written by a political science professor that has for years covered the mechanics upon which the Democratic and Republican national parties operate primaries and delegates, but he also covers their rules discussions. One rule of heavy contention is which states get to hold primaries first. This is ironclad into rules as far as which ones go where. If you read his blog over a sustained period of time, when coming back to rules and why things are the way they are, he always falls back to the national parties have in practice very limited ways to force state parties to do things the state parties don’t want to do. So they can try using the stick to get what they want but the carrot works way better.
http://www.frontloadinghq.com/ – check his Twitter account too @FHQ for more frequent updates
“Ryan, this is not a contradiction, free staters are taking more and more control of the state republican party, but that doesnt mean that they have won every single election in the state.”
Then it’s not been “taken over by libertarians”.
Hey, I’m all for improving. So good on ya. Just calling a spade a spade.
“P.S. I’m done with this thread/ I’m just sick of having to over elaborate on everything.” – Aiden
That is your perfect right, of course, but it seems more than a bit condescending to me. The purpose of IPR is to stimulate debate and conversation. Frankly, that is what I saw.
Aiden:
Your position that “National owns the ‘brand’ and then by affiliating the state parties are granted a license to use the branding. ”
That position has no basis in fact, reality, or history.
The LNC is a mutual branding, mutual assistance, and mutual presidential nomination mechanism for state Libertarian Parties.
The state Libertarian Parties created and empower the LNC, not vice versa.
The LNC exercises what little authority it possesses on the sufferance of those state Libertarian Parties, not vice versa.
If one of those state Libertarian Parties chooses to exit the LNC mutual affiliation mechanism, neither the LNC itself nor any of the other state parties possess any authority whatsoever to either forbid that exit nor any rightful claim to the exiting party’s assets, including its name.
@Ryan I’m well aware of all of that…. But political parties function the inverse of federalism and have for decades. American politics is not bottom up, it’s top down and has been for a while. The lack of a fee from the states to national is irrelevant. Have you ever heard of a damn analogy? I’m not saying they’re the exact same thing but of similar structure.
What you’re doing here is projecting on how you want things to be but not how things actually are.
P.S. I’m done with this thread/ I’m just sick of having to over elaborate on everything.
Ryan, this is not a contradiction, free staters are taking more and more control of the state republican party, but that doesnt mean that they have won every single election in the state. Please understand that these are not republicans who all of a sudden become principled when the dems are in power, many are straight up anarcho-capitalists, and have been philosophically anarcho-libertarian for a long time. This is by far the most effective libertarian movement that has ever existed, and because of that they are NOT lonely in the state house.
Richard, I believe we are both on the same side of this argument, i dont want to have to involve myself with the republicans, i do however want to push the ideals of freedom and liberty by whatever means necessary, so i did in 2008 and 2012 because i wanted to vote for Ron Paul. The state reps dont have a magic wand to change every law overnight, it is a long arduous process and ballot access is one of MANY very important issues that need to be addressed. If you want to see just some of the things accomplished THIS YEAR, give this article a quick read.
https://libertyblock.com/free-staters-liberty-reps-scoring-wins-in-nh-house/
“The republican party of new hampshire has been taken over by libertarians.”
“The state senate has 24 seats and zero Liberty members and the governor is a statist republican.”
Contradiction.
The last 6 years have caused me to give up hope on the Republican Party ever being anything small government libertarian on a guiding philosophy. Republicans only believe in small government when they’re in the opposition. Once they take power, they’re all for maximizing government’s power and do not believe in any limits on executive power. There’s a few good fighters sure but they’ll never take majority caucus control, not to mention a lot of politicians talk a big game but when they’re in the legislature they go silent in the name of go along to get along. Being principled is to be lonely without friends to help pass your pet legislation and can cause you to lose a primary.
Chadd, it is an essential element of liberty that people vote for the party they prefer to vote for, and people be free to run for office. It doesn’t matter whether some people believe the Libertarian Party should just disband and support the NH Republican Party. Republicans in the legislature who sincerely believe in liberty ought to support voting rights freedom. It is big government at its worst to try to push the voters into voting for only major parties. The founding fathers would be horrified at NH ballot access laws.
Richard Winger,
The New Hampshire state house has over 400 seats, 40 seats are taken by libertarian/voluntaryists, the state senate has 24 seats and zero Liberty members (for now) and the governor is a statist republican. There is more work to be done for sure, you could point to many things that need to be changed, and ballot access in other states has never led to widespread voting for libertarian candidates. Ron Paul, Justin Amash, and Gary Johnson, the most successful libertarians, had all of their success running in the republican party, it sucks, but that is the reality. The republican party of new hampshire has been taken over by libertarians, and despite still being in the minority are making significant strides toward freedom, there are too many victories there to count. It is the ONLY place in the country where libertarians are even in the game, despite ballot access for the LP.
“I’m aware the state parties are independent. My logic here is that more the state parties act as a franchise…. National owns the “brand” and then by affiliating the state parties are granted a license to use the branding.”
That’s reversing federalism on its head 180 degrees by acting like the national party is the center that allows the state parties to exist versus the state parties as a collective form the national party. (To analogize, the United States of America just came into being and then one day chose to divide up its land into 13 states.) Also, for national owning the brand and granting a license, when you own a franchise in the private sector, you pay a fee for the right to use the franchise which I’m not aware exists.
It’s not surprising, most Americans don’t understand federalism to start with and then we wonder how many people get “decentralization” all wrong.
How about if the new org nominates a candidate late in the year proceeding the election and then each state convention decides if that person should be their candidate.
@Thomas L. Knapp…. I’m aware the state parties are independent. My logic here is that more the state parties act as a franchise…. National owns the “brand” and then by affiliating the state parties are granted a license to use the branding. I think LPNM is trying to get around this in part by not using the torch graphic in their new logo, but that might not be the main issue there, it might be the wordmark.
The Mises caucus is technically safe because their name is distinct enough that it fails the 75% similar test. State parties are different because the rest of the phrase in their name is a description of their locale not an alternative or expanded name.
https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search/likelihood-confusion
If the New Hampshire Free State Project has 40 legislators, why does New Hampshire have some of the worst ballot access laws in the nation? It is one of only three states that has registration by party that won’t let people register into an unqualified party. Its petition for party status, 3%, is so difficult it has only been used twice in history, 2000 and 2012. It is the only state that requires the presidential nominee of an unqualified party to file a declaration of candidacy months in advance of the petition deadline. Its definition of a qualified party, 4% for Governor or US Senator, is one of the most difficult in the nation; the only worse ones are Alabama, Georgia for full status, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington. We have had many bills to improve things but they always lose in the legislature.
This is much ado over a political movement that cant even win a single state or national office, the only libertarian movement that has ever had any significant impact is the free state project. If you cant move, support by visiting and donating to the movement. Free staters hold roughly 40 seats in the state legislature and caucus with large contingent of liberty leaning republicans to ACTUALLY GET THINGS DONE. LP is a waste of time and money for anything other than socializing with like minded individuals. Great job engaging in power struggle over a politcal movement that controls a handfull of school board and town council seats nationally.
Aiden,
Back in the early 2000s, the LNC filed a fraudulent trademark claim on the name “Libertarian Party.”
However, they’ve never defended the claim, presumably because it wouldn’t last a hot minute in court. There were “Libertarian Parties” using that name well before the LNC existed, and if the LNC disappeared tomorrow their continuous uses of the name would go on uninterrupted. Political parties are organized/regulated (including their names) at the state level.
The LNC is an entirely optional cooperation mechanism between state parties, not an independent entity that exercises any kind of ownership over those parties or their assets (including but not limited to names).
More and more — and not just since the GOP takeover — the LNC has made a habit of playing dress-up with Mommy’s and Daddy’s clothes and pretending to be the adults in charge. Now they’ve managed to get dog shit on Daddy’s golf shoes and smear it all over Mommy’s best dress, and the spanking has begun.
If the LNC would like to start enforcing its trademark, it can start with the “Libertarian Party Mises Caucus.”
Curious to know how trademark issues are going to go down with this?… Is “libertarian” too broad a term for a court to deem it protectable?
I wonder how the LNC would react to this. Throw a fit about it, probably, and try to force states to pick one or the other and say they can’t be part of both.
Sounds like this would basically be its own, separate national political party picking its own, separate presidential ticket, and would include states like NM (and maybe others? Keystone, etc.?) that aren’t LNC affiliates.
Either way, structuring it as an association of state parties rather than a national membership org sounds like a good improvement.
In other words, it’s a sour grapes whining group that’s garbage and a waste of time.
I hear their first national convention will be on a rowboat on the Crimea River.
We now understand from some of our sources that a decision on point 8 has been postponed, though the original intent had typically been interpreted to mean that the state chairs could be bound by whatever rules the state party decided.
“That depends on how it’s done.
Right now, state parties choose national convention delegates who are unbound (per LNC bylaws, which forbid “unit rule” voting) and vote for whomever they want for the nominations. So the “democratic” element is at best only very vaguely representative.
Under this organization’s system, it’s entirely possible that the state chairs could be bound in some way to vote for nominees democratically selected by their state convention, their state’s primary, a mail ballot of all their state members, etc. Which would make the process more, not less, “democratic.” ”
I agree. But as for information given, this is all incredibly presumptive.
“State chairs alone will decide? No delegates? That doesn’t sound very democratic.”
That depends on how it’s done.
Right now, state parties choose national convention delegates who are unbound (per LNC bylaws, which forbid “unit rule” voting) and vote for whomever they want for the nominations. So the “democratic” element is at best only very vaguely representative.
Under this organization’s system, it’s entirely possible that the state chairs could be bound in some way to vote for nominees democratically selected by their state convention, their state’s primary, a mail ballot of all their state members, etc. Which would make the process more, not less, “democratic.”
I can’t support #8. I trust my state party chair, but even he I doubt thinks he should control all of my state’s input into who the national presidential candidate should be. Frankly the group would be better off not mentioning presidential candidate selection at all. How can a member per #6 be members of both the LNC and ALSP if the two groups pick separate presidential candidates?
All for getting rid of Roberts and replacing with either Mason’s Manual or Jefferson’s Manual. Mason’s Manual is used by 70 of the 99 state legislatures and Jefferson’s Manual is used by the U.S. House and at least the Republican National Convention. Not sure about the Democrats’ convention or each of their national committees.
will have a quadrennial meeting in which member state chairs will decide who they will put on the ballot as their Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.
State chairs alone will decide? No delegates? That doesn’t sound very democratic.
For my Editorial position on this, see https://thirdpartywatch.com/2022/08/28/editorial-political-war-to-the-knife/
The timing was such that I had just typed the penultimate paragraph when I was contacted by a supporter of the ALSP, leading to the above article.
Yes, as a newspaper editor on Roberts. You have to officially vote to come back out of executive session to do ANY official action, even if the only action is to officially adjourn the meeting.
In addition, it is our understanding as noted by Angela McArdle in her missive that a New Mexico group with 15 national party signatures as required by the LPUS bylaws has filed a petition to be recognized as the LNC affiliate.
It is our understanding that the LPNM disaffiliation statement was received by the LNC ExComm while they were still meeting in Executive Session, and that at the end they failed to return from Executive Session, as is allegedly required by Roberts.
LNC Responds to LPNM Disaffiliation
Notice of LNC Meeting Thursday Sep 1st 8:30pm pacific and ExCom Mtg
https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/g/lnc-business/c/ghsaB_0rCyk
A message from LNC National Chair Angela McArdle:
First, my apologies at needing another online meeting so soon, with our previously noticed meeting still set for September 11th. Unfortunately, we have some urgent housekeeping to attend to:
I am calling this meeting to address two time sensitive issues with the Libertarian Party of New Mexico. As you are aware, LPNM leadership has alleged disaffiliation from the national party. A few members and two parliamentarians have indicated that they do not believe LPNM leadership has the authority to do so without taking a vote from the entire membership (presumably at convention), not just the executive committee or the central committee. We need to review the arguments from both sides and sort it out.
Message continues at length.