Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation this week into three organizations he believes may be funding recent protests in Los Angeles, including the California branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
In a statement released Wednesday on his official Senate website, Hawley announced that letters had been sent to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and Unión del Barrio. He alleged that the organizations may have financed and materially supported recent protests in Los Angeles following the start of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations last week.
Hawley, writing the letter in his capacity as chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, cites “credible reporting” and accuses the organizations of “aiding and abetting criminal conduct.” It demands the groups cease any further involvement in organizing, funding, or promoting protest activity.
“While peaceful protest is a cornerstone of American democracy, these demonstrations have escalated into lawless mob actions,” Hawley wrote. “They have obstructed federal law enforcement, endangered public safety, and disrupted the rule of law. This lawlessness is unacceptable. It must end.”
The letter also requests that all three organizations preserve internal records dating back to November 5, 2024. Hawley’s office specifically seeks communications related to protest planning and funding; financial records connected to immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles or elsewhere; contracts; donor lists; travel documentation; and media strategies.
Hawley warns that failure to comply may result in “additional action” by the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, including “potential referral for criminal investigations.”
As of Friday, Independent Political Report has only seen a response from one of the three named organizations. In a statement cited by local media, Executive Director Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said the group would not be intimidated for standing with immigrant communities.
“Our mission is rooted in non-violent advocacy, community safety, and democratic values,” Salas said. “We will not be intimidated for standing with immigrant communities and documenting the inhumane manner that our community is being targeted with the assault by the raids, the unconstitutional and illegal arrests, detentions, and the assault on our first amendment rights.”
Thanks to reader RB for first notifying IPR about the letter.
Yes, most likely they did. In certain years, voters on the left flank of the Democrats are relatively happy with the Democrats, tend to vote for them more often on the margin despite their misgivings, and leftist minor parties tend to do less well in those years. That tends to go with less ballot access, less prominent candidates, and less funding for them, and consequently poorer results. Some disgruntled Democrats might choose instead to stay home or vote Republican in such years. Those different factors aren’t perfectly correlated, but tend to be clustered or somewhat correlated in a given cycle.
Other years are the opposite, left wing minor parties do relatively well, and right wing minor parties do relatively poorly vis a vis both left wing minor parties and against their own performance in other years.
This type of cluster analysis shows that the libertarians are predominantly a right wing minor party in the opinion of most voters who are on the margin of voting for them sometimes and not others, regardless of the view of many libertarian party activists and regular predictable libertarian voters that they are centrist, leftist, or outside the left right spectrum.
The fact is that few voters see it that way, and most view them primarily as a right wing protest vote regardless of what they themselves say or think. For the average voter who pays little attention to politics, the overwhelming mental picture of “libertarian” is either “far right” or maybe for some “right wing potheads”.
Those who have a more nuanced view are relatively few in number, and the libertarian party and their candidates don’t have the resources to change that, because most people’s mental picture of what “libertarian” means is primarily shaped by candidates/politicians of major parties – overwhelmingly Republican – who either call themselves libertarian, are frequently called libertarians by others, or both, as well as non-candidates – media personalities, talk show hosts and guests, celebrities, political groups that are not parties, authors, professors, etc. The combined cumulative long term picture that paints is overwhelmingly right wing, and the LP doesn’t have the money, active members, or public attention to substantially change that.
2024 was one of those years when leftist minor parties did relatively well compared to other years and to right wing minor parties, and right wing minor parties did relatively poorly.
That includes the libertarians. They did poorly because those marginally inclined to either vote for them or not were relatively happy with Trump on average, as opposed to other past Republican presidential candidates, including Trump himself in past years. This also played a big role in why they couldn’t attract higher quality candidates to seek their presidential nomination or unite more around their eventual nominee.
Furthermore, to the very limited extent that the public paid attention to who they actually nominated this time, the fact that they chose someone who was unappealing to the mostly right wing voters who are most likely to seriously consider voting for a libertarian in some years and not others also hurt them. So did his lack of resume and funding and his party’s disunity. All those things went together since other, better candidates decided against running, potential donors against donating or to donate less, etc. All for the same reasons, primarily stemming from the right being relatively happy with Trump last year.
Most of the same things can be said of the constitution party and it’s candidates last year.
Conversely, the left leaning voters were relatively unhappy with both Biden and Harris, as opposed to past D nominees in other years, so were more likely than in other years to defect – to Trump, to not voting, and to left wing minor parties. Thus, left wing minor parties did relatively well in candidate quality, media reach or attention, volunteers, donations, ballot access, etc. All these things tend to go together, albeit imperfectly.
Despite trying to get a piece of this leftist disgruntled vote last year, the libertarians failed. Mostly this is because most voters still see them as a right wing or far right minor party despite a left leaning nominee. The libertarians can’t overcome their economic positions, which make them unattractive to leftist voters, or the fact that many leftist voters don’t even know of their other, leftist positions on other issues, despite their efforts – but even if they do, the economic issues send them to a leftist party instead.
So, it was a relatively good year for e.g. PSL and a relatively bad year for libertarians and constitutionalists (other than those supporting Trump). This also extends to leftist minor parties that don’t run presidential candidates – they’re doing relatively well right now, as opposed to past years and as compared to right wing minor parties.
It all boils down to the same reasons.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation ran more ballot access drives than ever before last year. I wondered if they received more funding than ever before to do this.
LA had riots, not protests. Big difference.
Hawley is correct to find out who is funding these violent acts.
First they came for…