George Phillies at GoldUSAGroup.com:
August 2015
Volume 8 Number 3
I wrote the last issue “Your Editor expects that issues will in the future be less frequent.”
It seems that I didn’t quite get that one right. There has been much interesting news in the last month. Perhaps I should start predicting “the stock market did not rise 50% this month”.
In particular:
Rand Paul Tries to Raid Our Donors
Oregon Again to the Judicial Committee
Nevada Finances
John$on Finances
LNC Finances are Challenging
Free Range Kids
State Fundraising
LSLA EMail List Participation
More on the LNC: Libertarian Renaissance
Wesley Clark
The Paul campaign has according to multiple witnesses tried to raid our donors. Given the very limited budget of Libertarian Party activities, and the stupendous cost of Republican Party consultants, either someone has a really bad concept of arithmetic or someone is really desperate.
We also have several financial reports. A prominent Nevada libertarian has forwarded for your consideration a financial report from the Nevada Libertarian Party. We have the latest update on the massive debts of the Johnson 2012 campaign. The Libertarian National Committee is not doing very well financially, but there seems to be very little sign of concern on the part of Libertarian National Committee. At first the July meeting agenda was very light weight, and did not discuss the topic. Indeed, when LNC Regional Alternate Josh Katz suggested that the LNC should at least tell its donors that the LNC had not endorsed the Paul campaign, and had not urged members to donate to Randal Paul’s campaign, he did not get much of a response.
I’m also going to begin republishing Libertarian Renaissance, which you can get on Kindle for $0.99.
Paul Campaign Tries To Raid Our Donors
The Paul Presidential campaign has tried to raid the libertarian donor pool. The opening of this as reported in several places was the comment of a State Chair that “I just had a phone call from a University …… student. He was asking me to help the Rand Paul campaign, by providing contact information for Libertarian Party ….. members who are college students.” The State Chair declined. Another state chair reported that he had “…got a call from their deputy campaign manager…” asking for help in that state. The prompt counter was that Paul is “anti-gay, anti-choice, supports a massive increase in defense spending, opposes the legalization of marijuana, and wants to use the tax code to pick winners and losers in the market”.
I circulated to many of my Facebook groups the following modest warning
Republican Fraud Alert! (and please share this message)
But first, be a real libertarian! Support your Real Libertarian County, State, and National parties.
Across the country, Libertarian State Chairs are receiving calls from people claiming to be Rand Paul staffers, asking for their state party membership and mailing lists. To give credit where it is due, their requests were denied.
Across the country, Libertarians say they are receiving phone calls from people claiming to be Rand Paul volunteers, claiming that the LNC has endorsed Rand Paul (flat out lie), that it has urged Libertarian Party people to vote for Rand Paul (flat out lie), and that it has urged Libertarians to donate to Rand Paul (flat out lie). The donation addresses I am advised appear to be legitimate.
Please share this message.
Quoting http://www.independentpolitica…
From Joe Enroughty, a Libertarian activist and LPVA 3rd District Vice-Chair in Richmond, VA:
The Rand Paul campaign appears to be so desperate that they have people calling and stating that he has been endorsed by The Libertarian Party. I received a call tonight from a Rand Paul campaign worker named “Cynthia.” I told Cynthia that I was a member of the LP and that I was most likely planning to vote for the LP Presidential Candidate. But at no time was I planning to vote for a Republican, especially one named Rand Paul. She then told me that the LP had issued a statement asking all of its members to vote for Rand in state primaries where they were able to do so. She also told me that the Paul campaign had been given LP donor lists by the LP to use for his campaign. She wanted me to make a donation either over the phone or online at Rand’s web site.
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Oregon Again to the Judicial Committee
Once again the Oregon issue has surfaced. This time, the Reeves faction, which the moment is not the recognized affiliate of the national party, has filed a document with the LNC Judicial Committee saying that they are the legitimate affiliate and should be recognized as such. They claim that they are appealing a decision of the LNC, namely the decision of the LNC to obey the currently applicable ruling of the Judicial Committee. They note that the LNC decision transfers LNC resources to the Wagner group, who they claim is not the legitimate Libertarian Party of Oregon.
Part of their claim is based on the assertion that under the prior ruling the state gets to choose who the affiliate is. This claim appears to be based on a misreading of the last judicial Committee decision. They then go on to claim that, in a list of other states, if the rule were followed then that we would have no affiliate state because the state does not recognize any party in the state. One of the states they make this claim about is Massachusetts, for which the claim is totally and completely false. We are recognized by the state here. In fact if you go to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s election web pages you can find Libertarian, my name as contact, and my telephone number, because we really are recognized by the Commonwealth as what the rest of the world calls a “minor party”. The error arises because the Reeves faction is using Ballotpedia as a source. I corresponded with Ballotpedia. Ballotpedia claims we are not recognized by the state, using a particular term of art, which Ballotpedia refuses to define. I confess I conclude that Ballotpedia is not a reliable source.
The Reeves group report goes on at great length about their claim that they are the legitimate Libertarian Party Of Oregon. Fortunately, Independent Political Report has posted the entire appeal so that I do not have to transmit it to you. Instead, I can simply give you a link http://www.independentpolitica…
The solutions requested by the Reeves group are:
REMEDIES
We ask the national Judicial Committee for the following remedies:
1. To recognize that the national Judicial Committee decisions of 2011 were contrary to
libertarian principles and exceeded their authority and are therefore null and void.
2. To recognize that the bylaws adopted by the members of the Libertarian Party of Oregon
on March 9, 2013 are the governing documents of the Libertarian Party of Oregon.
3. To recognize that the governing documents purportedly adopted by Mr. Wagner and his
supporters at the March 31, 2011 meeting of the Libertarian Party of Oregon State
Committee were not lawfully adopted and that their subsequent actions purportedly
undertaken under the authority of those governing documents are null and void.
4. To recognize that Messrs. Epstein, Reeves, Burke, and Burnett are the legitimate officers
of the Libertarian Party of Oregon.
5. To order the officers of the national Libertarian Party to:
a. Write to the Secretary of State of Oregon with a respectful demand that she
recognize Ian Epstein as the sole legitimate chair of the Libertarian Party of
Oregon.
b. Update any mailing lists, websites, and any online or other information distributed
internally or publicly by the LNC to include Epstein and Reeves and their
successors as state officers and not Hedbor and Wagner and their successors.
c. Share membership data with Epstein and Reeves and their successors and not
Hedbor and Wagner and their Successors.
d. Write to FaceBook, MeetUp, the domain registrar of “lporegon.org”, and any
other relevant Internet companies that Epstein, Reeves, Burke, and Burnett are the
legitimate officers of the Libertarian Party of Oregon.
A number of people were advised that they were “potential defendants”. None of them have yet been informed that they are actual defendants. However, Judicial Committee Chair M Carling has claimed that their period for making responses has lapsed. I transmitted to the Judicial Committee an analysis showing that the wrong appeal approach was being used and that for the Judicial Committee to accept the appeal they needed a petition signed by party members.
The Judicial Committee is preparing to meet in person to deal with this, meaning that the LNC is going to be sent a bill for a hotel meeting, apparently in Indianapolis.
The Judicial Committee did not vote to accept the appeal. The Judicial Committee Chair simply decided to accept it. The level of bias shown by the Judicial Committee Chair is shown by the following exchange between Chair M Carling (red) and Judicial Committee member Rob Power, as forwarded to us by a totally reliable source:
From: M Carling
Date: Mon, Aug 3, 2015 at 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: Indianapolis? Late Responses?
To: Rob Power
Cc: Rebecca Sink-Burris, Dianna Visek, “Rob Latham, “arwolf, Steve Linnabary
2015, at 8:23 , Rob Power wrote:
I don’t believe these folks even have standing to be bringing this to us, so I’ll once again say that I am strongly opposed to wasting time and money on this meeting. Even if it were free and did not cost me a weekend, taking this appeal under consideration at all is a very dangerous precedent to set.
If we hear this appeal, I expect Sam Sloan to hold his own little convention in New York, send a letter to Nick Sarwark saying, “Am I the new LP of New York chair?” with Sarwark replying, “No, you’re still not,” and Sloan coming to us with a “Constructive Disaffiliation /Revocation” appeal. This is an extremely dangerous precedent to set. We should refuse to hear this. Period.
Carling: You have well highlighted one of the reasons why the previous ruling is such a bad precedent. Wes Wagner, not Tim Reeves, is analogous to Sam Sloan holding his own little convention. The Reeves faction has operated and continues to operate with continuity of membership and continuity of bylaws. The Wager faction of five people “adopted” wholly new bylaws to disenfranchise the pledge-signing members. They didn’t even try to claim it was a convention (per your analogy to Sam Sloan). Wagner’s coup took place in a rump meeting of the State Committee after one of Wagner’s friends started a violent scuffle to eject Wagner’s opponents from the meeting. Sam Sloan calling a convention without any authority to do so would have every bit as much legitimacy (zero) as Wagner’s attempt to adopt new bylaws.
The disenfranchisement of the pledge-signing members is worth mentioning not only because it is anathema, but because it was the central objective. For nearly a decade, Wagner tried at convention after convention to amend the Oregon bylaws to eliminate the non-initiation of force pledge as a membership requirement. At convention after convention, Wagner failed to win the required 2/3 vote. Finally, in 2011, using the difficulty of obtaining quorum (due to a bylaw amendment that Wagner pushed through) as an excuse, he “adopted” bylaws eliminating the pledge-signing members without even the pretense of a convention.
We are fortunate that Sam Sloan and others have not yet used the previous JC ruling as a precedent to do exactly what you fear. It’s nice that so far the NY Secretary of State has refused to recognize Sam Sloan as LPNY Chair. There is no guarantee that will continue to be the case in the future. In some states, there have been Secretaries of State so hostile to the LP that they have done things every bit as illegal as recognizing a rogue claimant to be Chair, such as Sam Sloan or Wes Wagner.
Power:Nick Sarwark is not the LNC, so I don’t think this falls under our purview as a “suspension of affiliate parties (Article 6, Section 6)” or even a “voiding of National Committee decisions”, but in case you do consider it to be so, I want to remind everyone of this option:
Failure of the Judicial Committee to rule within 30 days shall constitute an affirmation of the National Committee’s revocation of affiliate party status except when the last day of the 30 day period falls within 90 days prior to a Regular Convention, in which case the Judicial Committee’s non-action shall result in reinstatement of affiliate party status.
Carling: If you had quoted the whole section, it would have been clear that we have 30 days after our meeting to issue our decision.
Power: Do nothing, and this goes away. Status quo. And we don’t set the dangerous precedent for all the Sam Sloans, Tom Stevenses, etc. to exploit in their own attempts at affiliate takeovers.
Carling: Do nothing and we keep “the dangerous precedent for all the Sam Sloans, Tom Stevenses, etc. to exploit in their own attempts at affiliate takeovers” that we have now.
Power: I’m letting you know that I will cast my ballot by mail if you decide to make me fly to attend the meeting. I’m willing and able to fly for reasonable appeals to JC, but this is not a valid appeal (and moreover considering it sets a dangerous precedent), so I refuse to burn a weekend on it. You may have your four, but I still have my mailed ballot option.
Carling: Whether you attend the JC meeting or not, I hope that you will take the time to become familiar with the facts of the case before casting a vote.
On Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 3:16 PM, M Carling wrote:
It seems that there might perhaps be four of us who think that we should meet in person. In the still hypothetical possibility that turns out to be the case, is Indianapolis the least inconvenient place to meet? Alternative suggestions?
I agree with Rob Latham that scheduling this as far into the future as possible is desirable for the three of us who would fly rather than drive. Is the last weekend of August impossible for anyone?
I note that the time specified by our Rules of Appellate Procedure to file responses has closed. I also note that our Bylaws allow “evidence” to be presented at our meeting. If I receive any late responses, I will leave it to the committee what to do with them. I won’t read late responses, if any, unless and until the committee decides that we’ll all read them.
M
The point has been made several members of the Judicial Committee are involved in the case in other ways and should have recused themselves. For example, the Judicial Committee Chair was at one point very heavily involved in the Reeves faction efforts to be recognized as the affiliate. Independent observers not connected with this newspaper opine that the Reeves faction supporters have a majority on the Judicial Committee and therefore this time they will prevail.
At the point that our Oregon affiliate is sent on its way, they are likely to respond with a vigorous defense directed at the LNC.
Nevada Finances
There’ve been a barrage of criticisms of the LNC and its staff from the Nevada state party officers in particular Brett Pojunis and Jason Weinman. There is also local crtiicism the other way. We have received from a highly-placed member of the Nevada party a copy of their finances for the year 2014, in the form of the Report of the Treasurer of the Libertarian Party of Nevada for the period January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014.
The balance on January 1, 2014 was $3819.82.
The receipts for 2014 included $3275 from individuals and $35 of refunds and rebates, so that their total receipts were $3310.
Disbursements included:
merchant processing fees: $1025.28.
Bank fees: $64.96.
Bank overdraft fees: $560.
Telephone: $392.37.
Meet up.com: $126.
Data from Aristotle: $1140.65.
Business card and poster printing: $720.48.
Convention speaker honorarium: $503.50.
Convention audio/video and podium: $510.88.
HootSuite social media tool: $107.88.
Big L solutions: $770.
Food, beverage, entertainment, and gas: $1221.49.
Other: $57.13.
Total disbursements: $7200.62.
Cash on hand on December 31, 2014: -$70.80
debts owed by the Libertarian party of Nevada on December 31, 2014: $51.30.
And of year balance: -$122.10
There was also a report of the Treasurer for the period January 1, 2015 to April 30, 2015.
The balance on January 1, 2015 was $70.80 in the hole.
Receipts for the period included $395.57 in refunds and rebates and $1580 of contributions from individuals for a total of $1975.57.
There were also disbursements.
Merchant processing fees were $381.18.
Bank fees came to $59.
Bank overdraft fees came to $210.
The charge for telephone was zero.
The meet up.com charges were $89.94.
The HootSuite social media tool came to $107.88.
The Joom donation software came to $24.99.
Total disbursements were therefore $936.46.
Cash on hand on April 30, 2015 was $968.31. However, all debts owed by the Libertarian party of Nevada had been paid off, and therefore the current debts came to zero.
Their end of period Balance was therefore $968.31.
Readers will note that in Nevada merchant processing fees are remarkably high relative to some other states, and therefore the poor Libertarian Party of Nevada must labor under the burden of 20 or 30% merchant processing fees rather than the 3 or 6% seen in many other parts of the United States. On the bright side, to judge from their bank fees the Libertarian Party of Nevada has generously made a significant contribution to avoiding bankruptcy among the banks of Nevada. Nevada readers may reasonably send questions on these reports to their illustrious Treasurer, Tim Hagan, who is also the national party treasurer.
John$on Campaign Debts
In early July, the Johnson 2012 campaign changed campaign treasurers. The new treasurer is Joseph Lilly. According to their most recent filings, their current debt is
$1,395093.
That debt includes $151,000 to Bellatrix, PC, for primary retainer and wind down; more than $30,000 to Daines Goodwin campaign accounting services of various sorts, $9404.41 to EH2 consulting for fundraising, more than $26,700 to the Law Offices of Douglas C Herbert for legal fees, and very close to $30,000 to ThoughtLab of Salt Lake City for web hosting and related Web services. The remainder of the debt, more than $1.1 million, is owed to Political Advisors for all manners of campaign efforts, including most recently $28,000 for staff wind down hours and
$46,296 in fundraising commissions.
Based on these reports, claims that the campaign has no remaining debts, or that the debt is only owed to the campaign manager and not anyone else, are transparently entirely spurious.
We are hearing claims that some of this money was actually spent on political activity of some sort rather than being spent on staff salaries. We are also hearing claims that the expenses were inflated or at least vigorously argued in order to extract more campaign cost-sharing money from the Federal government. These filings are made under penalty of perjury and must reasonably be deemed to be reasonably honest and accurate up to the legitimate limitations of honest human error. We’ve heard no rational explanation of why someone running a political campaign would assert they spent money on staff salaries rather than spending it, for example, on advertising billboards. I mean, why would anyone do that?
Thoughts from Joshua Katz
It occurs to me that we in the LP are, perpetually, engaged in a very
strange enterprise. We are seeking to figure out what works in
campaigns, elections, and political messaging in general. I say this is
a strange enterprise because we are not the founders of the idea of a
political party. There have been many parties, and many, many
campaigns, some successful, some not. Why are we trying to invent the
idea of a successful campaign as if what we were doing was original?
I think the history of successful campaigns largely supports the idea of
basing a campaign on desired results, the “what’s in it for me,” but not
fully. The issue is “personality.” I put that in quotes because I mean
something broader. Telling people what they want to hear is not
enough. This is true in sales in general – if you sell a hammer, and I
sell a hammer, and the products and prices are similar, the deciding
factor for consumers is whether or not they like the salesman. It’s
more true, I think, in politics. People know that anyone can get up and
say that they’ll get what they want for them. It only works if they
believe you’re capable of delivering. That’s where they consider
experience, credibility, and yes – character and values. If a voter
believes there’s only one way to get affordable healthcare, and they
know you don’t want to do things that way, they’re just not going to
believe you when you talk about affordable healthcare. On the other
hand, if they believe there’s only one way to get affordable healthcare,
and don’t believe in doing that, they’ll reject you as soon as you say
it. It is easier to dissuade someone from supporting you then to
persuade.
Successful campaigns have talked about what results they want to
produce, but also inspired people with the personality of the
candidate. Sometimes, successful campaigners have actually told people
what they don’t want to hear, such as JFK’s “ask not” – but they do this
in a very limited way. On the other hand, there is a graveyard full of
candidates who messaged precisely with desired end results, and failed
because their opponents could out-leverage them (Goldwater) or because
people just didn’t believe or like them.
So, a focus on end-results is necessary to a successful campaign in the
way that being able to stand being around each other is necessary to a
successful marriage.
What about a party? It is necessary that a party talk about what it
will give people.. It is also necessary that the
party have and present an attractive image. I’d suggest that an
appropriate image for the LP is “the party of grown-ups.” We should
push our ideas, but with a sense of modesty and, above all, display the
rationality that is absent in the remainder of the top 3. We have a
party that has chosen for its image that of a cowboy, and another that
has chosen a mix of an executive and a professor. If we try to imitate
either of those, we’ll look pale. The cowboy party also has acquired
for itself the image of being incapable of governing, and is being
forced to go further down that path by a bomb-throwing candidate in its
primary. People are coming to believe that the Republicans are simply
incapable of running a functional government and more interested in
burning things down. Therefore, what’s grown up is the idea that
serious people are Democrats. We need to avoid bomb-thrower rhetoric
and display a calm approach to governance – one that contrasts with the
Democrats by not claiming to be smarter than everyone else in the room,
and being married to the inspiring worldview we have – that of a free
world – rather than to specific policy-wonky solutions.
We must also remember that our target audience isn’t libertarians and
don’t all share the personality quirks we have. People look at our
hand-outs and decide in 3 seconds if its attractive or not. They don’t
pick apart every word and think about where it fits in the left-right
spectrum, what impact it has on polarization – they don’t over-analyze
the ways we do. This is part of why how something appeals to
libertarians is not helpful for predicting how it appeals to the larger
public. We simply cannot focus our energy on creating an image, and the
accompanying literature and materials, that appeal to libertarians. We
must appeal to the voter at large. We are, after all, here to make our
party more popular and elect candidates to public office, not to serve
libertarians by giving them things they find attractive. The image I am
suggesting may not be the most appealing to all libertarians, but it is
one, I think, that can appeal to those whose votes we want.
We have the solutions, and we have the ideas people want. The extent to
which we do not succeed electorally is the extent to which we fail to
sell them. Let us create a common image, one which inspires the
approach of as many of our candidates as we can convince, one which each
state affiliate can modify to suit their needs, yet unified in a single
theme. The Party of Grown-Ups can sell. Let’s go sell it, and make
ourselves free in the process.
LNC Finances Are Challenging
The next LNC meeting will be in Orlando in November. The LNC is perhaps doing at party petition drive in Oklahoma. To advance, the LNC needs to raise $60,000. Of this $30,000 in matching funds came from a single donor, and various efforts are being made to raise the rest, but at this point they are about $6000 short. Either they do raise all of the money or nothing will happen.
The LNC continues to be under financial strain. According to the Treasurer, income for the first half years was $128,000 below expectations. Other financial activities also have not met expectations, but the net result for the half-year is that instead of running a surplus of $46,000 we’ve had a deficit of $49,000. As Alicia Mattson has stressed – see last issue – in 2012 we entered the presidential election year with a $300,000 cash on hand situation. This time, we apparently expect to enter the presidential election year with a zero dollar cash on hand situation.
I memorialized the State Chairs about LNC finances. I wrote: “We have received yet another monthly financial report from the LNC. I realize that a few of you do not understand why it might be interesting or important for state chairs to be aware financial situation of our national party. If you are one of those people, I understand your issues, and you have my sympathies. For the rest of us, the situation is not very positive, but is perhaps improving for a change.
“Note that these numbers are from the actual LNC report, which uses GAAP standards, and not from the FEC report, which uses a cash flow basis standard. We shall skip over the minor detail that there is apparently an obscure entry in the GAAP standards saying that if you report to someone other than the IRS, you are required by GAAP to use that someone’s standards and not the IRS’s standards, so that your financial statements can immediately be compared with reconciled against your filings with the other group, without your needing to do any fancy calculations. The implication of that minor detail is that our filings may not be GAAP-compliant.
“Throughout this discussion, I am simply truncating dollar amounts. Having said that, for the month of June the total income was $85,009. The total expense was $100,315. The deficit, then, was $15,306. As a result of that and other transactions, the total in the checking and savings accounts fell from $41,566 to $20,798, a decrease of more than $20,700. The LNC has a rule that the cash on hand, the reserve rule, should never fall below $50,000, but the cash on hand has clearly done so, even though we have some other assets whose value increased from $8,903 to $10,342. In addition, there are $41,965 of current liabilities, a slight decrease from last month where there were $44,469, and an amount owed, mostly on the mortgage, is $506,604.
“The LNC is spending money significantly faster than it is taking it in, a situation that has been true for all of the last quarter, in that the deficits for April and May were $20,587 and $11,524, respectively. Note that for July the LNC has hired more staff members.
“We can also compare these transactions with the budget. The budget called for $645,650 of revenue the first half of the year, of which 517,263 actually appeared. That number includes successful fundraising by the board of $33,400, a maximum donation, an event which cannot be assumed to repeat with great frequency. On the bright side, the cost of raising the money was only $111,779, not the budgeted $143,032, for saving of $31,253. One might have proposed that in order to raise money you need to spend money, so that if you cut how much money you are spending on fundraising by close to a quarter, you should not be surprised if less money comes in than you were hoping. The counterpoint to that claim is the years immediately after the 2000 presidential election, when many fundraising letters lost money and did not cover their own expenses.
“The budget also called for spending money, namely $456,358, of which we actually spent only $407,949, so that we spent $48,409 less than we planned. That difference is related to the cash flow. The budget called for surplus of $46,258, but we actually ended up almost the same distance the other way, in that the deficit for the first half of the year was $48,724. I believe it is in this context that national Secretary Alicia Mattson appeared to have noted that we were putting aside absolutely no money for next year for presidential ballot access. That is a substantial change from many recent presidential elections, in which in the odd year preceding the presidential election the LNC would put away some large amount for the ballot access expenses expected the next year.
“Readers may recall an earlier estimate that next year we would need to spend a half a million dollars for ballot access for our presidential candidate in all 50 states and DC. On current fundraising rates, it is inobvious where this money is supposed to come from. I will also note that my state party did try a first very gentle electronic fundraising effort for presidential ballot access, and found that response was negligible. We will try again.
“Where were income totals particularly weak? For the last two months, direct mail donor renewals have brought in $12,660, while online efforts brought in $10,277 and telephone fundraising has brought in $8497. These are the numbers identified as donor renewal, not the numbers identified as general fundraising. Prospecting for new member donors has brought in another $3100. Comparing with the total for the first half of the year, direct mail fundraising for the last two months, a third of the half year, has brought in less than 1/6 of the total raised so far for the year. Telephone fundraising for the last two months brought in barely more than a quarter of the fundraising planned for the full year. You can readily make a case that fundraising for the building is cannibalizing regular donations, namely in the month that $11,240 was brought in for the building (that’s the largest total for the half year) general fundraising fell from $70,000 or $80,000 down to $57,600.
“Over the course of the first half of the year there has been a gradual decline in income. Total income from direct mail fundraising fell from $71,000 in the first two months of the year down to $27,000 total for the most recent two months. Online contributions fell from $29,000 down to $21,000. Telephone-based income over the same period increased from $6700 to $15,900 for two-month periods. It is difficult to extract from all these numbers a substantial description of how the money is being spent, so I will not attempt to do so.”
To give credit where credit is due, we may be grateful that Robert Kraus took time out of his very busy schedule to send me a short note observing the June had a series of one-time expenses without which the LNC would’ve had a modest budget surplus for the month, namely
“Financial Finances remain VERY tight. The EOM report for Jun-15 (in your binders) shows that at end of the month we had an actual reserve of only $1,515 vs. target of $50,460. HOWEVER in June we had a number of one time expenses including the HVAC repair above, $12.700 (to date) for the audit, $2,246 to the Watergate for 2014 share of real estate taxes, $4,421 to City of Alexandria for ½ yearly real estate taxes and $5,000 for the FEC Lawsuit.
So for June that’s $24,367 in one time expenses. If it wasn’t for that we would have had a surplus of $5,008 (real estate taxes for the building are pro-rated on a monthly basis). The point being yes finances are very tight but as you pointed out – expenses remain under budget and under control.”
We are led to understand that fundraising in July has improved significantly, thanks in particular to efforts by our National Chair.
The LNC Ballot Access Report for its July meeting had the peculiar feature that Massachusetts was singled out for the observation that if Massachusetts had “political party status we would not have to petition at all”. On one hand, the claim is incorrect. I won’t belabor the point by going over Massachusetts’ interesting ballot access laws one more time. On the other hand, the same statement true could equally have been made about several other states in New England such as Connecticut and New Hampshire, but the statement was only made about Massachusetts. Requests from Massachusetts to the Regional Representative and Alternate asking why Massachusetts was singled out in this way did not elicit a response from the people who wrote the Ballot Access Report. The regional report for Massachusetts reported that response to our presidential ballot access fundraising email was “low”. The report is written here in Massachusetts actually said “negligible”, to be precise under $100.
The LNC did once again choose a new logo for the national party. The “Torch Eagle” looks somewhat like a candle flame, and somewhat like an eagle. You will doubtless be seeing it in the use soon enough.
The LNC has had circulated to it a proposed draft contract between the LNC and the next Presidential candidate. Several aspects of the contract are ones that no candidate in his right mind should sign. For example, the contract requires that the candidate hire a campaign manager whose name is fixed in the contract, as it was with the Badnarik campaign, to determine campaign strategy. No, the campaign organization is under the control of the candidate, including the candidate’s privilege of fixing the campaign strategy and firing the campaign manager.
The contract requires that the campaign share “their “media” lists, i.e., their most current lists of media contacts and the mailing and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of those persons.” Now, I have no idea what anyone else did, but my 2008 campign bought the right to use a press contact list…with 15,000 names on it…but there were licensing restrictions on its use, restrictions that were totally not consistent with the LNC contract.
Then there was “The Candidates and Campaign Committee shall direct all inquiries from interested voters, media representatives and others, to telephone numbers, mailing and e-mail addresses and persons designated by the LNC.” No, the LNC should not get to have all inquiries to the campaign forwarded to them before the campaign gets them. Nor should the LNC choose the campaign’s email addresses for the campaign.
Interesting issue outreach point: Free Range Kids. These are children who were allowed to walk the length of their block by themselves without having two parents escorting them. The attack of mentally ill government employees has reached the point that these children need to be given legal protection so that their parents can let them walk to the vacant field at the end of the block to play soccer without being nabbed by the government authorities. Indeed there is now a website freeRangekids.com.
State Fundraising: My state party had a fund drive, raising money for the presidential campaign. It was a pure email drive so we tried to keep the letter very short. The following letter is included so you can see one style of email fundraising letters; I am not asking that you send my state Association money.
Greetings from Massachusetts Libertarians!
We’re the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts, state affiliate of
our national Libertarian Party. You may not be familiar with us, so our
question and answer page is attached.
We’re writing you about 2016 Presidential Ballot access. The question
is simple: Will our Presidential candidate be on the ballot?
For ballot access, we need 15,000 signatures. Some of them can be
collected by volunteers. To be sure that we get our Presidential
candidate on the ballot, we need to hire professional petitioners.
Hiring costs money. We’re asking for your donation so we have that money.
If you act now, we have a free gift. If you donate at least $15,
and aren’t currently a Libertarian Association of Massachusetts member,
we’ll give you a year’s electronic membership for free! You’ll get all
our exciting publications via email for the next year.
To donate, go to http://lpmass.org/donate/ and click on “Federal”. Or
mail a check, payable “Libertarian”, to POB 1154, Worcester MA 01613.
The new Federal donation limit is $10,000. Please give generously.
I promise you: This is an electronic fund drive. There are no costs. The
money you give will all be spent on Presidential ballot access. If any
money is left when petitioning is complete, we’ll spend it on getting
out the 2016 vote.
Yours for Liberty,
George Phillies
State Chair, Libertarian Association of Massachusetts
P.S. We are using the national party email list for this effort. If you
would like to have your email address removed from their mailing list,
just send me a message and I will ask them to make the deletion.
P.P.S. The following boiler plate is dictated by Federal Law:
Donations are not tax deductible. Donors must be American citizens or
permanent residents. Paid for by the Libertarian Association of
Massachusetts Federal PAC (lpmass.org) and not authorized by any
candidate or candidate’s committee. Your money may be spent in
connection with a Federal Election. Federal law requires us to make our
best efforts to determine the name, address, occupation, and employer of
each donor of $200 or more. ”
That was our fundraising letter.
News note: The Libertarian State Leadership Alliance voted 9-0 to restrict participation on its email list to:
1. The current Chair of each LP State Affiliate including the District of Columbia;
2. All members of the Executive Committee of LSLA;
3. The current Chair of the LNC Affiliate Support Committee (ASC); and
4. The LNC Operations Manager for administrative purposes.
More on the LNC–Libertarian Renaissance
We now come back to the Libertarian National Committee. With its finances and membership plummeting, the Agenda for the most recent meeting at first included nothing about membership or financial challenges. Indeed, at first there was some suggestion that the meeting could be held to a single day. When the Paul Campaign tried to raid its finances, the LNC did not respond. This lack of response is not good.
I return to my book Libertarian Renaissance, starting at the end of Chapter 1, noting the challenges our party faces. You can read Liberarian Renaissance for 99 cents at https://www.smashwords.com/boo… in formats including epub mobi pdf rtf lrf pdb txt html.
Taking up late in Chapter 1, the earlier parts having described what was happening going into the 2012 convention:
Returning to our metaphor, our good ship Liberty is foundering by the bow, the engine room is on fire, and the ship’s officers are fighting about who should sit at the Captain’s Table for dinner.
Stockholder revolt? That’s the cure our party needs: A membership revolt against a decade of mismanagement that has almost destroyed our national party.
That, fellow Libertarians, is why we need a new slate of candidates to run for National Committee and replace the people who are currently there.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
Business plans sensibly start with a serious look at the situation. Where are we? What do we do well? What’s stopping us from succeeding? Where do we have opportunities? What is threatening us? The answers appear as bullet-pointed lists.
SWOT Analysis
LNC Inc. suffers from an extensive series of long-term weaknesses. These have now combined into a threat to its continued existence. If these weaknesses are not corrected soon, the National Party will cease to function in a meaningful way. On the other hand, there are enormous opportunities awaiting an active, effective party.
Strengths
First consider the places where we are doing well.
● Great loyalty of our party faithful in face of adversity and defeat.
● Name recognition. People know now our name ‘libertarian’ and what it means.
● State affiliates. We are the only third party truly active in most states.
● Ballot access. We actually know how to get on the ballot across the country.
● Money. Close to a million a year in income, with a large contact list; could be effective if used well.
● Core beliefs. A solid core of libertarian beliefs, most supported by almost every libertarian.
Weaknesses
● Negative momentum-the National Party is going backwards.
● Weak leadership. A National Committee not focused on substance. Purges and witch hunts.
● Activists leaving party.
● Poor financial management. Too much money going to things that do not do politics, communicate our message, or add value proportionate to cost.
● Weak staff development and supervision. No Executive Director for a year during 2008-2010. An LNC press release absurdly attacking Libertarian author and candidate for our Presidential nomination Mary Ruwart.
● Lack of vision: Where should we go? What could we be?
● Dilution/diminution of core libertarian message. Core positions tossed aside in name of expediency.
● Faux libertarians leaving the impression that we are social reactionaries.
● Lack of affiliate support.
● Management by inertia. No priority setting.
● No focus on younger potential members. Potential libertarians being lost to campaign for liberty, tea parties, and similar groups.
● Parliamentary Paralysis-Obsession with Robert’s Rules of Order to the point of fetishism.
Opportunities
● Opposition Republican Party handing itself over to people who most Americans realize are idiots.
● Opposition Democratic Party copying key Republican positions.
● Opposition – Both Parties trying to turn our Constitutional Republic into an authoritarian national security state.
● Americans are absolutely furious. Far right has lapsed into low level insurgency with assassinations (Tiller, Jade Helm), violence (Texas IRS office attack, Congressional district office attacks), and incivility (Tea parties). Occupy and Restore the Fourth movements. Trump. Sanders.
● Majority of Americans now tending independent in their political allegiance.
● Heavy polling support for a new third party.
● Young people who support our social freedom stands. Overwhelming support among young people for marijuana legalization, gay marriage, abortion rights, and an end to foreign wars.
● Public support for libertarian stands-no bailouts, ending Asian wars, obeying the Bill of Rights-with the other two parties in opposition.
Threats
● Plummeting party income.
● Falling membership.
● Member disinterest and cynicism.
● Decreasing credibility-some fundraising appeals lost money.
● Continually diminishing activity.
● Emerging competition.
● Party being confused with Republican crackpots.
● Political infighting at the destroy the opposition level. LNC attacks on our Oregon affiliate until stopped by litigation and the LNC Judicial Committee. [GP: The undead have risen.]
● Treading water-the National Committee response to the above is to keep repeating the same activities on a smaller and smaller scale.
Libertarian sympathetic magic. The National Committee believes that because the opposing national parties have party office buildings in Washington, D.C., that buying a building (OK, 2% of a building) will turn us into a national party.
Summary
Despite enormous mismanagement, our strengths are many. We may not yet be the majority party, but we are far stronger than any of the other third parties.
Our opportunities are enormous. They have never been better.
The threats we face are existential. If they are not overcome, our party will effectively cease to exist.
We have a long list of weaknesses. Until we overcome them, our strengths will be neutralized, our opportunities will lie fallow, and the threats we face will continue to mount.
Our Response
Those are the problems our Party faces. They’re very serious.
But we’re not dead. Not quite yet.
Let’s turn to a solution-The Libertarian Renaissance for Libertarian Revival
*****
In other news, former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark called for the creation of internment camps on the World War II style for what he termed “disloyal Americans”. Unfortunately, he did not volunteer himself to be among the immediate internees. That seems a bit hypocritical of him.
You’re no slouch yourself 🙂
Very well said @ 12:02 am, as well.
I’ll lay heavy odds on the not side.
That is a very well-written email from Mr. Sarwark.
I will be reporting on whether Carling chooses to do the right thing or not.
Very nicely written, Nick. You are articulate when words fail me.
Wow… just wow…
The notion that RONR’s provision to amend or rescind something previously adopted negates our bylaw requirement for subject matter jurisdiction in judicial committee matters is frankly ridiculous.
This is sort of like the discussion in another thread about the dangers inherent in entrusting Donald Trump with nuclear first strike capabilities. Trump gets offended, he launches ICBMs, the target retaliates, and we get sunburnt until we all look like John Boehner. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? August in Nagasaki, 1945.
Many delegates seem to think a JC position is a shiny prize to award longtime activists, rather than a tool that can be very dangerous in some hands. This is why we can’t have nice things.
I care about the Libertarian Party. It’s also a dear hobby of mine. Luckily I’ll have chess to fall back on after the JC violates the bylaws and pisses off the Oregon affiliate enough that they go on offense, bankrupt the national party, and all the children in the circular firing squad blame each other for the mess they caused.
At this point I’m just a spectator watching a car crash in slow motion.
* munches on popcorn *
Gotta agree with Nick there. Good points, well stated.
http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business_hq.lp.org/2015/003380.html
He said that because he knew it was going to happen and he would be behind it because he thinks we are stupid enough to buy that BS.
A classic Greek tragedy. Everything is happening very slowly, inevitably, with no way to prevent disaster.
I am amused to note that at the last NatCon, after he was elected, he remarked to me that he hoped his term would go by with absolutely no appeals to the judicial Committee.
It would be great if some people would email Carling with a request to recuse himself. His email address is [email protected]
I laughed out loud when I read M’s comment about decorum. This, coming from a man who told me those weren’t really people in Palestine, who were killed by Israel.
Scoundrals need to enforce rules of decorum the most. 😉
Correspondence between JC members forwarded anonymously:
Would those 3 lawyers like to go officially on the record stating they are making a formal opinion on the matter, or is this a hand waving appeal to authority not really issued like I usually see from Burke and M and that whole sad lot?
I did receive a response from M, to his credit, but I wrote back with a question and he hasn’t responded to yet.
I also was told that at least one other person has emailed him today with a request to recuse himself.
I see that we are having lawyers rather than Parliamentarians quoted.
I can post it if needed.
M replied:
1. The three lawyers on the Judicial Committee are of the unanimous opinion that I do not have a conflict of interest in the case of Ian Epstein vs. the Libertarian National Committee, either in the legal sense or in the RONR sense.
2. In the hypothetical case that a member of the Judicial Committee would have a conflict of interest, there is no requirement in our Bylaws, in the Judicial Committee’s Rules of Appellate Procedure, or in Robert’s Rules of Order which would require a member of the Judicial Committee to recuse herself.
3. There seems to be no precedent in the history of the LP of a member of the Judicial Committee ever recusing herself.
Despite the foregoing, I will take your request under advisement.
Regards,
M Carling
I’ll keep you all posted. I will be writing an article about this in the next couple of days, although I might need another writer here to post it.
I’ve just sent the following email to M Carling:
It would be helpful if other people email him with the same request. His email address is [email protected]
Steve Linnabary, Rob Power and Rob Latham would probably be the ones to ask, and perhaps M himself if you and him are on speaking terms.
Given the way I predict they will rule, it won’t be the last.
Yes, but if he’s been formally asked and refused, I believe that’s worthy of an article here.
Does anyone know of M has been asked to recuse himself, over the obvious conflict-of-interest?
They are preparing to meet:
Formal Notice of Meeting
The Judicial Committee will meet Saturday, August 15, 1:00pm PDT, 2:00pm MDT, 3:00pm CDT, 4:00pm EDT to consider the case of Ian Epstein vs. the Libertarian National Committee and to consider rescinding or amending something previously adopted in the related case of Wes Wagner vs. the Libertarian National Committee.
Call-in details to be provided.
This appears to to be the first time the LNC has been named as a defendant rather than as a potential defendant.
Good question. I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter, because he won’t.
Has anyone formally asked M to recuse himself?
If what is being appealed is their removal, they can argue that it was improper, and therefore are still members and thus still on JC, refuse to recuse themselves and rule that their removal was improper.
No less absurd than the current case or its handling by the committee chair who is at the same time a litigant in the case.
Agreed.
That problem seems to have been averted, as they seem to have at least scrapped the idea of an in person meeting.
The problem here is that they are in charge of deciding what they do and don’t have the right to decide on and they have decided they do.
It seems like there’s got to be something the LNC can do to at least get out of paying the bills for a question that can be discussed over the Internet or through email. To my understanding and verified by what George has posted above, this JC doesn’t have the right to simply decide they’re going to revisit a JC decision from several years ago.
I realize I’m not as fancy a person as the people on the national jc, but I AM on both the jc for the LP of CA and for Los Angeles County. Our responsibilities and abilities are very clearly spelled out.
Well, no, if they are removed they get to appeal to the current Judicial Committee, which will not include them.
Alternatively, perhaps the Judicial Committee will impeach and remove its chair and appoint a new one. Also seems unlikely.
Even if the LNC were to send such a letter, the JC is a higher authority than the LNC, so they can ignore it.
Good suggestion, but if the answer is no and the JC majority (or just the chair) wants to proceed anyway, what can they do other than resign from JC?
Seems incredibly unlikely to actually happen, especially before the decision is rendered. And if it did I will guess that the action would be appealed to the JC, which would then void it, with all of the removed party members refusing to recuse themselves.
I quote the National LP Bylaws, in 9
2. The subject matter jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee is limited to consideration of only those matters expressly identified as follows:
a. suspension of affiliate parties (Article 6, Section 6),
b. suspension of officers (Article 7, Section 7),
c. suspension of National Committee members-at-large (Article 8, Section 5),
d. voiding of National Committee decisions (Article 8, Section 12),
e. challenges to platform planks (Rule 5, Section 7),
f. challenges to Resolutions (Rule 6, Section 2), and
g. suspension of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates (Article 15
, Section 5).
“Expressedly” is unambiguous, and over-rides the Roberts thing. The only things the Judicial Committee can hear are listed in the above:
Also, there are only a few mechanisms for appealing to the Judicial Committee
(1) The suspended member-at-large may challenge the suspension by an appeal in writing to the Judicial Committee within seven days of receipt of notice of suspension.
(2) The suspended officer may challenge the suspension by an appeal in writing to the Judicial Committee within seven days of receipt of notice of suspension.
(3) 12. Upon appeal by ten percent of the delegates credentialed at the most recent Regular Convention or one percent of the Party sustaining members the Judicial Committee shall consider the question of whether or not a decision of the National Committee contravenes specified sections of the Bylaws. If the decision is vetoed by the Judicial Committee, it shall be declared null and void. ”
(4) The affiliate party may challenge the revocation of its status by written appeal to the Judicial Committee within 30 days of receipt of notice of such revocation.
In order (1) This is not a member-at-large suspension.
(2) This is not an officer-at-large suspension.
(3) The people writing the Judicial Committee are not 10% of the delegates or 1% of the sustaining members.
Therefore, the appeal is not valid under (1), (2), or (3).
Furthermore, (4) is limited to “the affiliate party”. Right now per decision of the Judicial Committee we have an affiliate party in Oregon, and it is the party of Mr Wagner. Unless the Judicial Committee overturns its own decision (which it cannot), it can only accept an appeal of disaffiliation from the Wagner group, which somehow seems unlikely to happen at the moment.
Also, the appeal must be made within 30 days, and we are beyond 30 days, for most values of 30.
The LNC might consider having their attorney review matters and send an appropriate letter to Judicial Committee members.
Judicial Committee members might inquire whether they have Officers and Directors coverage.
Fortunately, there is a solution “The Judicial Committee shall be composed of seven Party members elected at each Regular Convention…” As Mister Carling claimed to me in 2008, in front of witnesses, the LNC has the power to expel members. The LNC can thus according to him make the problem go away by expelling a few Judicial Committee members from the Party, and allowing the remaining members to appoint their replacements.
———- Forwarded message ———-, Rebecca Sink-Burris , AR Wolf , Rob Latham , Rob Power , “[email protected]”
From: M Carling
Date: Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: Our Meeting will be Virtual
To: steven r Linnabary
Rob Power wrote:
> First, I don’t believe any of that Wagner-ending-the-pledge backstory was in any of the evidence submitted to us by the deadline, nor was it in the original appeal, so I’m not sure if/how we’re supposed to consider that.
>
> But thank you for clarifying that this appeal really is only about the previous JC’s decision and not about Nick Sarwark’s correspondence with the appellant being equivalent to an LNC vote to suspend/disaffiliate.
>
> I’m not interested in discussing here the previous JC’s decision, because our bylaws do not empower us to hear appeals of previous JC decisions. If that’s the only matter at hand, we should decline to hear this appeal on a purely procedural basis. Our bylaws don’t allow it. Appeals of LNC suspension votes come to us (and within a very short 30-day timeframe of any such vote, in fact), so without such an LNC vote in the past 30 days, we would be violating the bylaws just by having a hearing on this, much less by deciding one way or the other.
In an organization which has adopted RONR or any other English-language parliamentary authority, every committee has (with one exception not applicable here) the power to amend or rescind something previously adopted. There is no time limit.
M
BUT!!! The Massachusetts Libertarian Party is free to work to fix the problem of primary ballot access, and it doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing that. We would have lots of allies. The United Independent Party has the same problem and it has a wealthy, politically-savvy founder, Evan Falchuk. The United Independent Party is a ballot-qualified party and it has every motivation to work on the problem also. Republicans also suffer from the problem. Out of the 9 US House districts in Massachusetts, only 3 of them had Republicans on the ballot in November! The Massachusetts policy could easily be attacked in a media campaign.. Massachusetts is the only state outside the south in which typically voters only have one candidate on the ballot for legislature in November. It would be an easy sell to get support for an initiative to fix this problem. Massachusetts has the nation’s easiest initiative process. We ourselves got huge improvements in ballot access laws in 1990 with an initiative. David Hudson of the Mass. LP was the hero of that fight, which cut the number of signatures for general election ballot access down to one-fourth of what it had been.
3%, otherwise correct.
Correct. For the other offices it is actually harder to get on as a smaller major party than as an independdent or unqualified party/designation because the pool of eligible signers is reduced and the petition period is in tougher weather.
But in Mass Ds and Rs do too, and they can’t get signatures from people enrolled with other parties, plus the petition period is in colder weather. For a smaller major party it’s even harder under those rules since the pool of eligible petition signers to qualify for the primary/nomination is smaller, even if they are the only candidate who wants to run.
“paulie Post author
August 11, 2015 at 10:25 am
Except for presidential.”
If the LP were to get at least 2% of the vote for a state wide office, or get a certain number of people to register to vote under the Libertarian Party banner, then the LP of Massachusetts would have major party status. This would give the LP Presidential ticket automatic ballot access without having to gather petition signatures, but all other offices in Massachusetts would still have to gather petition signatures to get on the ballot, as even the Democrats and Republicans have to gather petition signatures to get candidates on the ballot, other than candidates for President.
Since the LP of Massachusetts does not currently have major party status, it will be necessary to do a petition drive there to get the 2016 LP Presidential ticket on the ballot.
No, not any office at all. When the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts nominates any candidate for any partisan office, that person and his/her supporters must then do a petition to get on the November ballot, just as any independent candidate must do. There is no difference between the legal status of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party and the New York Libertarian Party. In both states the government keeps track of how many registrations we have, but otherwise we are not recognized. No New York Libertarian ever claims the New York Libertarian Party is a ballot-qualified party.
Except for presidential.
I wrote “as what the rest of the world calls a “minor party”. Libertarians do have ‘ballot access’ in the state and regularly run associated with “Libertarian” as their party name.
Is there any recourse for LP members to make it known we don’t want to foot the bill? Also, I don’t think the Judicial Committee has the right to overturn a previous JC ruling.
The state of Massachusetts does not recognize the Libertarian Party as a “minor party”. It recognizes the Libertarian Party as a “political designation”, which is a group that has asked election officials to keep track of how many registrants it has. The other political designations in Massachusetts are the America First, American Independent, American Term Limits, Conservative, Constitution, Interdependent Third, Natural Law, New Alliance, New World Council, Pirate, Pizza, Prohibition, Rainbow, Reform, Socialist, Timesizing, Twelve Visions, Veteran, We the People, Working Families, and World Citizens groups.
Thanks as always for the latest LfA, as usual an interesting read, and as you may expect I have plenty of both agreements and disagreements. This time I laid them out in some detail in the commen section of this month’s open thread starting at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/08/august-2015-open-thread/#comment-1215276 and spread out over a couple dozen comments.
Unfortunately at that time the only vesion of the newsletter I had available was a .pdf, which caused some issues with copy and paste, and due to keyboard issues I had a lot of typos. Not sure yet if I will get a chance to fix all that up and repost it here, but I hope anyone who is interested in the various subjects addressed in the newsletter takes a few mintes to go the open thread and read my replies there. Should you wish to respond to any of what I said there I would prefer you would do so in this thread if possible.
Liberty for America is in receipt of a missive, also addressed to Nick Sarwark and Rob Power, from past LPOR chair Wes Wagner. Wagner writes:
I write regarding things I have read in the publication Liberty for America that I believe require clarification due to their not having a basis in objective reality or simply being a gross misinterpretation of law/fact.
First off, the notice M Carling sent regarding judicial committee proceedings was ineffective because it did not note in it the required response period. I am certain he will make obtuse arguments regarding the fact that the rules of procedure were attached, but unfortunately those rules state that the notice itself must contain information regarding a response period. Having known the man as long as I have I can state that this was by design in order to ensure he would be afforded the opportunity to present a one-sided argument. Regardless, inadequate notice prevents actions taken at a meeting from being effective in most legal jurisdictions unless all participants waive their rights to notice. There are reasons why this is true involving equity and to prevent the type of skullduggery for which M and some of his associates are renowned.
I also take umbrage with his testimony that one of their faction members was assaulted. He in fact was and has been the perpetrator but over the course of 4 years they have continually modified the story. The truth of that matter is that Mr. Terry started the assault — there is video evidence of this and about 8 eye witnesses. He left the meeting because we were going to call the police to have him removed and in Oregon there are minimum jail sentences for assault/battery and no judicial discretion. The victim elected to not ruin David Terry’s life by pressing charges and given the number of witnesses and the video it would have been a slam dunk for the prosecution – but that mercy has only been repaid with more lies and attacks (of a non physical nature).
Their petition and complaint is also replete with fraud and misstatements of facts. Whereas the courts of Oregon have the right of subpoena and the threat of penalties and incarceration for perjury – the national judicial committee does not. This is therefor a superior venue for them to tell lies in. We are still waiting for final disposition of their appeal so we can sue all parties involved for wrongful initiation of civil proceedings and anticipate prevailing because of the fraud in their filings, they were caught destroying evidence after they filed their case, and the near countless acts of perjury. Our damages alleged are in excess of $1,000,000.00. One of their plaintiffs is of course destitue because he is sitting in jail waiting trial for murder. We don’t expect to collect from him of course, but it should give you a clue as to the character of M’s associates that one of them is in jail for murder and another engaged in assault even though he was not arrested and charged. Aaron Starr ha also appeared to have grown weary of funding their lawyers and left them out exposed. I am sure they would appreciate the financial help bringing the LNC into the litigation would give them because they would now have a new sugar daddy to pay for their defense (of course at the LNC’s risk). The LNC sure does have assets to lien and while that would be a economically fine prospect from our standpoint, it really does not do the libertarian mission any good. M of course is a plaintiff in this whole mess, lost his lawsuit, appears to be losing his appeal, and stands to be personally liable for damage from resulting awards of attorneys fees and subsequent litigation. He wants to use his position on the committee to put the LNC in harm’s way to try to save his own skin.
They also continue to withhold vital information from the committee, though it is of course available on my scribd account. The foremost of which is that the Oregon Secretary of State has already ruled any opinion by the national party over who the lawful agents of the LPO in Oregon are as ineffective and not due any consideration. That ruling was issued in letter form to multiple parties and therefor is protected under the administrative procedures act and can no longer be appealed. Issue and claim preclusion prevent any subsequent attempts to place them in custody of the LPO even if the LNC were to want to get involved and start a new claim since this matter has already been litigated and disposed of in Oregon.
Their best case outcome is that the ruling ends the Oregon affiliation, in which case the national party no longer has an affiliate with ballot access, but we still continue on under that scenario. The current Libertarian Party of Oregon will continue to exist, with ballot access and our membership, and someone will have to petition to create a new party affiliate to compete with us. That will likely cost in excess of $100,000 — and Mr. Burke will be there with his hand out to “help” — which then it will remarkably cost $300,000 as money goes “missing”. With the new motor-voter laws that new affiliate will likely lose minor party status after an election cycle for not having enough registered members and it will be gone.
I could argue at length all their lies, obfuscations, and attempts to commit fraud against people to induce them in their efforts to suppress libertarians in Oregon, but it would be pointless and in fact is a tactic sociopaths and crooks use all the time (tell so many lies that your adversary cannot focus on their primary mission and thus you can undo them).
In short though, the judicial committee has no authority even under its own rules to meet, and even if it did it could not render a decision that would have any impact within the borders of Oregon. The only thing that it could accomplish is to stick the LP with a bill for the meeting, a large bill for more litigation to attempt to press ineffectual claims, and the loss of more donors and membership from the resulting political fallout of supporting a republican-backed junta in one of the most successful affiliates.
The simplest and cleanest manner to dispose of the issue that will result in the least amount of embarrassment to the organization: refuse to recognize the meeting as valid, refuse to pay the bill – refuse to accept the convention of a kangaroo court that has not been properly called under the rules.
It is beyond silly.
-Wes Wagner
(Current LPO board member, past chair)