The live blog will launch tomorrow evening close to 8:30 PM eastern time.
The meeting is in the process of assembling.
There is a software incompatibility between my two browsers, so this evening liveblog is not working. I will try something else.
Computer crashed twice.
Discussion was missed.
McArdle — some people want to discuss parliamentary procedure, others want to react to ‘gut feelings’.
Harlos claims that the last two LPNM conventions were invalid and that the LPNM governing body did not have authority to disaffiliate. Claims that only the convention can disaffiliate the LPNM. She goes on at some length claimng that the membership is the party.
Richard Brown agrees with Harlos that summer convention was invalid because there was not proper notice. Then claims that the new bylaws are invalid.
McArdle: If the new bylaws are invalid, can the disaffilatiopn be valid. Brown: I don’t think so.
Harlos: We could disaffiliate them.
Voice: Could the members call their own convention and reject disaffiliation? Harlos:Membership does not have that power.
New Mexico has members, a central committee, and an executive committee, however titled.
Q: Hagopian: There was a JC in both old and ‘new’ bylaws. Has anyone appealed a decision to the JC?
Rivera: No, not sure what we can do.
CAH: members cannot appeal to the JC, which is made up from the JC members
Voice: we should support procedure and due process.
Hagopian: We need to be careful about labelling people who differ as being emotional. Old and New NM bylaws may not be good, but do not let an NM member overturn the NM Executive Committee decision.
Voice: “Ballot Access’ is non-negotiable.
Q: Nanna: We asked can the members hold their own convention or appeal to the JC? No and no. At what point would the members have the ability to change things?
A: Martin: There is a convention scheduled for March. we be able to use our numbers to overturn this.
Harlos: Talks about fiduciary duty of NM board to the membership. Claims NM board went rogue. Members would sue the board to have a court to order a special convention. Perhaps the LNC could join or make such a suit.
Tuniewicz: connection issues.
Harlos: Move to go to Executive session for LNC and Oliver Hall. No objection.
They talked for well over an hour, emerged from executive session and
Harlos: The Committee of the Whole rises and report to the LNC the recommendation that we take no action tonight and consider further over the next few weeks.
In the end, the LNC went into Executive session for most of the meeting, and emerged to agree that they would talk about things before the September 11 meeting. There is no information yet on what they discussed.
With respect to the Association of Libertarian State Parties, I still have no information as to which states may be joining.
Some other thoughts.
* If the New Mexico delegation had voted against the Mises caucus candidates (as seems likely), then tossing out their votes would not change the results.
* A new national convention would be impractical. The LNC won’t call one. Some state LPs might attend a 2023 do-over convention, but the LNC wouldn’t recognize its results. It would then go to court. And would still be in court after the 2024 convention, whose results would make the court case moot.
Thomas L. Knapp: If, as Harlos asserts, the last two LPNM conventions were invalid, it follows that LPNM’s delegation to the 2022 Libertarian National Convention was likewise invalid
True.
and therefore all results of that convention on which the LPNM delegation voted (including but not limited to the election results for officers and at-large members of the LNC) must be thrown out
Yes. If possible. If you can determine who or what they voted for.
and a new national convention held.
No, that does not logically follow.
When courts analyze faulty elections, they’ll consider if removing the errors would likely have changed the result. Even if yes, they will then consider if tossing out the old election results is too drastic a remedy. Sometimes, you have to live with erroneous results.
If right now, the Supreme Court determined that Trump did indeed win the election (assuming they had that power), they would likely not install Trump, nor remove all of Biden’s court appointments, nor invalidate all the laws Congress had since passed, nor require everyone to give back all monies they’d received from the federal government under Biden’s signature. That would be too drastic a remedy.
In their letter to the LNC, LPNM already pointed out that two can play that game and mentioned why there are already good reasons to questions the legitimacy of the last national convention, at least as good as the LNC’s claimed reasons for rejecting the validity of New Mexico’s conventions.
This whole idea that the LNC has some right to be the supreme court of state bylaws and *has* to be able to say which document is the current state bylaws is belied by the fact that the LNC does not even have, and has no ability to compel states to provide, a copy of every state’s current bylaws. Caryn Ann has tried to throw that together but for some states she only has very old out of date copies, and for some states she doesn’t have any at all. Somehow the LNC manages to operate with those state parties as affiliates without any problem.
If, as Harlos asserts, the last two LPNM conventions were invalid, it follows that LPNM’s delegation to the 2022 Libertarian National Convention was likewise invalid, and therefore all results of that convention on which the LPNM delegation voted (including but not limited to the election results for officers and at-large members of the LNC) must be thrown out and a new national convention held.
Does she really want to go THERE?
Harlos’s ideas about that NM members could sue the state central committee under some general theory of “fiduciary duty” for non-profits and then the court will order LPNM to call a special convention is Trump-level delusional gibberish. She has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about.
They’ve also boxed themselves in with the idea that the LNC gets to decide LPNM’s old bylaws are still valid, but as Hagopian pointed out, it doesn’t even make any difference. The old LPNM bylaws also provided no way to overturn the decision to a JC or for members to call a special convention to undo it.
They also can’t simultaneously insist LPNM still really is the affiliate and then sue them for trademark infringement. lol
They are flailing about, impotent and with no real ability to force NM to do what they say, and they can’t even articulate any coherent legal theories without contradicting their own positions.
The only notable thing I’ve heard so far is the secretary pointing out that bylaws can’t stop a board from going rogue.
Curiously, she wasn’t seem to have understood that the board in question here is the LNC. Stalking someone who broke up with you is just as creepy at the organizational level as at the personal level.