The Libertarian Party of Colorado announced Saturday that it will schedule a new state convention in the coming weeks after declaring its most recent gathering illegitimate, citing a failure to meet notice requirements under both party bylaws and state election law. The party further alleges that the event which did take place over the weekend was taken over by a “rogue group” of members.
State party members were originally scheduled to meet at the Phillips County Event Center in Holyoke this past Saturday for the party’s annual convention. The event had already been rescheduled once before, having originally been planned for May 31 at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg. The party never publicly explained why it chose to reschedule the initial May date.
According to a statement by LPCO posted to social media later that day, the event had been improperly noticed. The party failed to publish a required notice of the event in newspapers with statewide circulation, which it stated had to be done 15 days before the convention. Despite that, video shared by the party online shows that some members still attempted to engage in party business.
As a result, the party deemed the event that did take place “illegitimate” and stated that the procedural error voided all business conducted there. It maintained that it had attempted to inform members of the cancellation through multiple emails as soon as it learned of the failure to properly notice. It also accused the group of members who attempted to engage in business of overtaking the event, specifically naming two members of the national party leadership as directly involved.
“This issue was addressed in multiple emails sent to party members once the failure to properly notify was discovered, leading up to the cancellation date,” the statement reads. “Chairwoman Hannah Goodman attempted to close the convention and void the improperly noticed event, but National Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos and National Judiciary Committee member Marc Montoni, acting as Convention Chair pro tem, led the effort to overtake and conduct this fraudulent convention, which is unlikely to hold up in a court of law.”
Goodman later echoed the party’s claims in a post to her personal X account, stating that the involvement of Harlos, who has since resigned from her position as national secretary, violated both party bylaws and state election law. She added that a new, properly noticed convention would be announced soon and that she intends to invite Libertarian National Committee Chair Steven Nekhaila to attend.
“We will be calling a convention here in the next week,” Goodman wrote. “We will be hitting all the notice requirements and it will go off without a hitch. Members should be assured this third time is the charm.”
X: When you want to get rid of about any sort of outside regulatory system, I think you live by the lawsuit and die by the lawsuit. I think this is called petar-hoisting. As for “microminiparties” of the left, the Greens outdrew the Libertarians in last year’s presidential vote.
Why Bother, not in this case. There is a definite violation of a fundamental principle of parliamentary law which voids any action taken at the convention (see RONR 12th 23:6 d) and 45:56. There is also a violation of absentee rights by not sending out the newspaper notice. That may trigger a violation of 23:6 e). Finally, there may be a violation of the Minor Party Law, which is an applicable procedural rule of law 23:6 c).
A violation of any singular clause would void any claimed action. 3 certainly will.
Another possibility might be that they are rolling the dice in Colorado courts siding with them if those courts are controlled by Democrats who see the Goodman thing as an ally of Republicans. Or maybe they properly noticed somewhere that the Goodman people did not know about. Who knows. Yet unanswered is if they elected their own purported officers, bylaws etc.
Harlos and Montoni usually have their ducks in a row. I don’t think they would waste time on something not properly noticed. Whether it was properly noticed and whether that matters is not objective, it will be decided by courts, etc.
George Whitfield, since, objectively, any action taken in Holyoke would be invalid, the best thing to do is to go to the one that the LPCO will call with proper notice. Note that the LPCO did indicate that it was their error, put out notification of the error as soon as possible, and is trying to schedule a convention with proper notice.
So, let me guess – the event, whether it was properly noticed or not – which at this point has not been established, and the legal debate over which will likely keep both internal and external (government) judicial processes busy with multiple levels of appeals, derivative and multilevel derivative lawsuits, logarithmically tangential countersuits, absurdly byzantine emanating tentacles of successor events and various other actions leading to get more and more of the same for years or perhaps decades – created new officers, bylaws, etc (or didn’t, depending on whether you believe it was properly noticed or not).
If I’m right , there are now two groups claiming to be the libertarian party of Colorado, just like Arizona and Oregon in past decades, Michigan more recently, and a growing number of states libertarian parties more and more frequently in more and more States, alongside more and more completely other minor parties (liberal, capitalist, voluntaryist, etc, etc) seeking to ultimately steer government policy into what at least seems like the general same direction from an outside perspective.
They may not actually be doing anything at all to lessen the burden of excessive government on anyone, or ever seriously threatening to do so, much less to be a better use of prospective donor or volunteer time or money towards that goal than any of the countless different types of organizations and efforts towards such goals – but at least they are unparalleled at creating lawsuits and drama among each other, even when compared with such superstars thereof as the Ayn Rand copyrighted brand cultists, the various Socialist and Marxist cult microminiparties, the various emanations of Ross Perot’s presidential campaigns, and other such litigious, splintering factions throughout the history of organizations, movements, factions and splinters throughout human history, or at least as far back as the people’s front of Judea, had that been history rather than parody.
At this rate, self proclaimed libertarian parties at various levels might soon enough nearly singlehandedly provide livable incomes for the multitudes of legions of excess law school graduates currently trying and failing to put those degrees to use in elevating their economic station, in turn creating greater demand for very expensive sheepskins proclaiming their bearers to be doctors-in-law or something (sorry, my Latin sucks even harder than my English).
As the burden of ever more laws, regulations, bureaucrats, lawsuits and red tape increasingly sinks the American and global economies, less and less other gainful employment of any other kind will remain for anyone at all, particularly as more and more jobs become automated. But, at least until lawyering, adjudication of lawsuits, and every associated form of employment is also automated, libertarian parties can thus save the economy – by suing each other to kingdom come and far, far beyond.
They certainly aren’t succeeding at counteracting the giant sucking sound of ever growing red tape choking the economy until it can’t breathe, but at least they can do it by unlocking the checkbooks of cheapskate libertarian donor’s and the passions of lazy libertarian volunteers in the service of the one true cause they really feel strongly enough about to really get off their behinds and go all out for – hatred of each other!
At least, that’s as close to anyone ever pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps as we’ll ever get. Try to do pull yourself up that way literally and see what I mean. It’s a genius plan and has to work, because nothing else has been working, so it just has to. That’s just how things always work out in the real world. Right?
Some people may say save the lawsuits and the drama for your mama, but if it wasn’t for lawsuits against each other and internal drama, what would libertarian parties do that would even be worth paying any attention to at all? Look at their track and tell me, are we free yet? Getting there? Headed in the right direction? The wheels are turning, but are we stuck in mud? Headed off a cliff? How can we even tell?
Since the Libertarian Party was founded in Colorado one would think that they would have figured this kind of thing out by now. They appear to have a challenging time.