The NC Way

2011-02-19T21:52:00.003-05:00

in memoriam the nc way

who the heck is Randy Parton anyway?

2007-08-04T12:33:00.000-05:00

This may well be the biggest local government boondoggle in recent NC history. The city of Roanoke Rapids has shelled out millions (at least $23 million) to build and support the Randy Parton Theater. What kinds of shows will be put on at this glorious new theater? Why, Randy Parton, of course. Plus other big events like.... well, none.

From the John Locke Foundation article linked above:

The city is planning for ticket sales and other theater revenues to raise enough funds to pay expenses, including Parton’s $1.5 million annual fee and the monthly debt service on the $21.5 million. If those funds are not enough, the city will have to use local sales or property taxes.

(in the South Park's Sheila Broflovski voice:) What what what?!

Who in their right mind thinks Randy Parton playing four nights a week will generate $23 million? I'm not so sure they could make that much money if Randy's sister Dolly was the nightly headliner.

The city fathers of Roanoke Rapids may have an answer, but they are keeping that a secret. The article notes that the financial statements for this taxpayer-funded project are considered confidential. They consider them to fall under the category of "trade secrets." Sorry, but anyone who think the finances of a taxpayer-funded project should be kept secret from the taxpayers should be run out of office immediately.

Parton's production company is supposedly responsible for making payments on the city's loan is well named. However it is unclear if they are on the hook for anything if their profits don't cover the city's costs. Since after all the agreement is confidential.

But we do have a very strong clue to these answers from the name of Parton's production company, Moonlight Bandit LLC. Although they are somewhat misnamed, as this robbery is taking place in broad daylight.

fits and starts

2007-08-04T12:30:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know nobody is reading this much, at least not yet. I promised myself I wouldn't promote this blog again until I had posted regularly for a week. So let's start the slate clean again today, shall we?

lobbying ourselves with tax money

2007-08-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

Our friends at Americans for Prosperity have a great article up on how groups like the NC League for Municipalities and the Partnership for North Carolina's Future conduct their lobbying activities with our money. These groups are mostly funded by membership fees collected from local and county governments, which are of course raised through taxes.

It makes me sick that we are forced to pay for lobbyists who only advocate positions which will raise taxes and reduce our freedom. These particular groups are focused now on preventing a state Constitutional amendment limiting eminent domain abuse from coming to a vote. It's just a baldfaced lie, pretending to be representing a group of taxpayers when they are really only representing the tax collectors.

But one of the beautiful things about the Old North State is that we have plenty of good folks like those at AFP who keep us informed about how our state and local governments operate.

no more blank bills

2007-07-23T05:00:00.000-05:00

The North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research has taken on the inherently corrupt practice in the General Assembly of filing "blank bills." The post-Black era has put us in the mood for reform, and these folks have picked an excellent target.

Here's how it works. The deadline to file a bill for consideration in the General Assembly is relatively early in the session. But you are allowed to file a bill with just a title, so you can fill in the actual legislation later. The idea was first floated to allow for local bills where the details were still being worked out. But it quickly became abused to the point where blank bills ended up becoming quite substantial pieces of legislation snuck in at the end of the session without any time for review by legislators, much less the public. That's how video poker got banned in a bill allegedly about education, to name just one example.

The linked article gives an example:

Senate Bill 54, "Public Laws."

"A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT TO AMEND THE PUBLIC LAWS OF NORTH CAROLINA. The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts: SECTION 1. This act amends the public laws of North Carolina. SECTION 2. This act is effective when it becomes law."

Period. The end. Ridiculous.

Now the House banned blank bills this session, but the Senate still allows them. Maybe Mark Basnight will have to go to jail before this thoroughly anti-democratic practice finally comes to an end. If the people don't have the time and opportunity to tell their elected representatives what they think about any bill, then that bill should not be passed.

at least politics moves faster than sports

2007-07-23T04:43:00.000-05:00

One nice aspect of both politics and religion is that retribution is swift. Rev. Coy Privette, the sick bastard that inspired me to rebrand this blog, has already resigned all his posts in various Christian organizations. Of course everybody tries to put as nice a face on it as possible. Rev. Privette's statement to the NC Christian Action League is typical:

Because of the nature of the allegations, I believe it is in the best interest for me to resign so that the charges will not distract from the important work of the Christian Action League.

Uh, dude, I hate to break it to you, but the important work of the Christian Action League is hypocrisy. It's too late, you already got our full attention.

To their credit, the group has updated their front page frequently over the weekend to address the issue head on, including links to mainstream news articles. Usually when something like this happens, websites stop updating or disappear entirely. As much as I disagree with their goals, this is refreshingly honorable behavior.

RIP Tammy Faye

2007-07-23T04:07:00.001-05:00

The story of Tammy Faye tells us so much about corruption, redemption, the power of God and why Americans are such cool people.

Americans love redemption. Your life is not over if you commit some public scandal or even a horrible crime. You can survive and find new life if you are willing to accept the consequences of your actions and rebuild your life on an honest foundation. Very few people are willing to examine themselves with brutal frankness, and fewer still are willing to submit themselves with total spiritual openness to God and everybody. But Tammy Faye did just that and America embraced her for it.

When her life was ruined by the PTL scandal, it was right and good that she was the number one target of public mockery. She certainly earned it. And it was a whole lot of fun for all of us.

But then she got it. She did exactly what Jesus told us to do - love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. The entirety of proper Christian spiritual practice is contained in those eight words. That's the way she lived the rest of her life and by doing so gained a far more profound influence than she ever had.

I avoid reality tv as a rule, but I was hooked on the first season of The Surreal Life. Tammy Faye was such a compelling figure. Everybody loved her because she loved everybody. She could go into any crowd - gays, bikers, punk rockers, even the Chamber of Commerce - and immediately set them at ease with her, because she immediately accepted them for who they were.

Her ability to poke fun at herself without even the slightest trace of resentment spoke volumes about her repentance. She looked unflinchingly at her old corrupt self and laughed at her right along with us.

I will miss her. It sounds crazy now that I think about it this way, but my top priority in life is to be more like Tammy Faye. Loving, accepting, forgiving. By doing so, Tammy Faye was in turn loved, accepted and forgiven.

you are forced to pay for lobbying yourself for stuff you never wanted in the first place

2007-07-20T11:02:00.000-05:00

One common inherently corrupt practice of government is giving money to advocacy groups which they then use to lobby the same government for more laws. Today's example is the unfolding scandal of the taxpayer funded UNC-Charlotte study deliberately designed to skew the public debate on light rail in Charlotte.

According to the linked article...

UNCC Chancellor Phil Dubois, who has been public in his support for light rail, said Monday that critics should stop attacking the university's cooperation with the chamber.

"If they have a problem with the study, they should criticize the study -- as opposed to how it was generated," Dubois said. "There isn't an e-mail that suggests we tried to influence the outcome of the study."

Earth to Dubois: how the study was generated *is* a fundamental criticism of the study itself. Organizations that have a stake in the result are, to put it kindly, highly unlikely to produce unbiased results.

From the article, "(UNCC official Dennis) Rash wrote that those polled could be asked if they believe light rail plays an important role in economic development. Potential voters could then be told about new tax dollars generated from development along the light-rail line, and asked whether that would change their opinions."

This is known in the industry as a "push poll." Such polls are by their very nature anti-scientific and considered utterly disreputable by anyone with a brain. Considering that there is no way for a respondent to verify a one sentence claim made in such a context - and in this case, one can easily verify that it is a lie, or at best a deliberately incomplete truth - any opinion measured by such practices is purely manufactured.

Setting aside for a moment the inherent corruption of buying a desired result with taxpayer money to influence public policy, everyone involved in this study at UNCC still needs to be fired immediately. It is shameful that we are paying the salaries of college professors and administrators who are so eager to teach their students such bad science.

If that's not enough, the cynicism of Dubois is revealed in this quote from an email to Rash:

"Why not just have Edd announce it has an initiative of the Institute 'in the public interest.' We have an obligation to serve as a forum for the debate of important public issues, yada, yada, yada."

Yeah that's the ticket. Creating fake science to tell lies using taxpayer money is sooooo much better than all that boring honest public debate of the issues.

Jim Black will look good in orange

2007-07-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

What I just said below notwithstanding, new news on old scandals will give me the opportunity to say some things that have long been on my mind, such as my longstanding view expressed in this post's title.

Today's news on Jim Black shows how having power makes him believe that the law should be different for special citizens like himself. Here is a fellow who testified under oath that "I only have two drinks ever," and yet now he wants free treatment for alcoholism when he goes to jail. Apparently, the former House Speaker sees prison as an opportunity to go on welfare.

Earlier this week, Black asked that his sentence be delayed six weeks so he can have his choice of prison facilities. He still has no clue. Prison is supposed to be inconvenient, dumbass. They don't schedule an appointment, they just come to take you away. He obviously did not read the papers about Paris Hilton's most recent drunk driving escapades, including polls indicating over 90% of the population wanted her to serve her full sentence. That's because in this country we believe this crazy notion that the law should be the same for everybody. We're sick and tired of the rich and/or famous acting like the law should be kinder to them just because they are so damn special.

If anything, there should be extra time added to Jim Black's sentence for every clueless arrogant request he makes. A well connected guy like him is likely to be the inmate with the most cigarettes, so really he shouldn't worry too much about where he goes.

the evolving concept

2007-07-20T10:17:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of blogging out there about political corruption, a whole lot. Since I made no attempt to research it before shooting my mouth off yesterday, I have little idea how much my efforts here are duplicating what's already being done.

But I have noticed one thing about most similar blogging - it is very much a partisan game. You have Democrats attacking Republicans and Republicans calling out Democrats, but on these blogs you will find little to nothing about corruption within one's own party. While most good material comes from such sources, this fundamental hypocrisy undermines this valuable work.

Here is a prejudice of mine: anyone who thinks there is any practical difference between Democrats and Republicans is at best a complete idiot. I mean, really stooopid. Deliberately stooopid. Lying to everyone beginning with yourself brand of stooopid. To think that one of these sides is better than the other requires a complete and willful ignorance of the most obvious reality.

Being a Libertarian, I am gleefully exempt from that. Longtime readers of my work know that I am keenly interested in exposing corruption within my own party. I'm quite comfortable with my own record on this topic.

Going forward, that's my interest. I am picking up the story in progress. So I have little to say right now about Jim Black or Mike Nifong or Meg Scott Phipps, unless there's something new to discuss. Even David Almond is soooo last week to me.

I am very interested in hearing from anyone who has information about corruption by public officials in NC. Here are some ground rules describing what is and is not part of my still evolving concept:

* I am not interested in covering anything without proof. Newspaper reports count as "proof" in this sense, in that someone has the goods.

* I am *not* interested in representing political opinions with which I happen to disagree as corrupt.

* I *am* interested in discussing activities of public officials at any level of government which violate the law or officially adopted ethics.

* I *am* interested in legislative practices which are inherently corrupt, even if universally accepted as "legal," such as a House speaker's "pocket veto" or the US Senate's tradition of placing secret "holds" on bills.

Again, no promises, but my current plan is to update this blog after my morning news reading on days when this offers me something new to report.

Still gettin' the Christian Action at age 74

2007-07-19T17:25:00.000-05:00

As a born-again Christian myself, I waver between outrage and depression over those who use that label to force other people to live by their own twisted anti-Christian morality. Satan has definitely ensnared another such hypocrite, former State Representative, Cabarrus County Commissioner and President of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Rev. Coy Privette. Today the 74 year old Privette was charged with multiple counts of soliciting prostitution at least six times from 32-year-old Tiffany Denise Summers over the last year.

Thank God, criminals are generally very stupid people. If I am reading between the lines correctly, the way Rev. Privette was caught was he paid Ms. Summers twice by check, and then reported the checks as stolen. So not only did law enforcement have reason to find out what really happened with those checks, Rev. Privette crossed the one person in the world who he needed to keep his secret.

Like most public moralists, Rev. Privette apparently feels the world must be protected from his particular brand of evil. The group with a baldfaced Satanist lie for a name, the Christian Action League of NC, is on the warpath to keep you from drinking, gambling or even thinking about these things. Hot topics on their website include:

* railing against a law that would supposedly allow a non-profit to sell alcohol at fundraisers (having been raised Episcopalian, the notion of not having a cash bar at a charity fundraiser seems incomprehensible to me - unless it's an open bar);

* advocating laws against "fetal homicide" (which is just their way of getting a foot in the door of declaring fetuses to be legal persons so they can outlaw abortion);

* spouting nonsense about restricting advertising for the lottery (I hate the lottery too, and would root for a quick crash for any driver if they put it on the hood of their stock car, but jeez, what do you expect them to do?);

* more piling on Jim Black for his crimes while expressing confusion about how good Republican and very recently former Rep. David Almond could possibly have gotten into trouble (and since the media is avoiding the truth of this story like the plague, I thank God for bloggers like Left on 49 who are willing to publish the salacious details);

* and plenty of the bloviating over the usual hobgoblins of drunk driving, video poker and sex ed.

These people are the living representatives of Satan on Earth today. How they could twist the love and mercy offered to us by God and the redemption given to us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ into an unholy crusade to make sure only they are allowed to sin is beyond my imagination. I know, I know, this story is as old as recorded history, and yet I still just can't wrap my mind around how people can so deliberately miss the point.

Oh yeah, of course there is nothing up on their website decrying public officials who consort with prostitutes. So I guess that was OK all along.

And if it weren't embarrassing enough for Rev. Privette, wait until all his white Christian friends get a look at with whom he was consorting:

There just ain't no hiding place for sinners like Rev. Coy Privette. And before you give me any grief about that, I know I'm just as much a sinner as Rev. Privette or anyone else. But at least I know that the person that has to be protected from committing my particular sins is me, not everyone else.

Upcoming Radio Shows

2007-07-19T13:06:00.000-05:00

I'm also keeping up with my radio appearances. Lee Wrights and I make a great team, lighting up the phone lines with outraged callers is our specialty. Fortunately, the majority seem to get worked up with us instead of at us. ;)

Thursday August 9th at 4.30pm EST Libertared Space hosted by the ultracool Angela Keaton. It's on in Austin Texas and all around the globe thanks to the glorious internet.

The very next day, Friday August 10th from 3-6pm, Lee and I will be guest hosting again for Matt Mittan on WWNC in Asheville. It's "free-for-all Friday" and we intend to deliver!

I've also been phoning in about once a month for an hour on the Jerry Hughes show on the Accent Radio Network with 22 affiliates across the country and half a dozen internets feeds. Jerry is a true patriot and a student of history so it is always a joy sharing time with him and his listeners.

Off to see the new Harry Potter movie with my sweetie. Be back this evening to talk about what is really on my mind today. Like that hypocrite slimebag Coy Privette, prostitute loving County Commissioner and public moralist.

Recent articles

2007-07-19T12:44:00.000-05:00

I have published some at Liberty For All since the beginning of the year. I got a bee in my bonnet about the Ron Paul Nut Cult and wrote Ron Paul, what have you done for me lately? a few weeks back. It was a festival of illiteracy. I wrote it in a deliberately provocative style and very few people got it. I discovered the existence of the Ron Paul Nut Cult brigade, always looking to smite anyone who says anything that is less than worshipful about the candidate they have accepted as their personal savior. Read the comments all the way through, not only are they just so sad they will take you on a emotional rollercoaster, you can also learn a lot about what it takes to really tick me off.

Later I thought better of it and wrote the exact same column from a totally positive point of view and called it What can I do for Ron Paul?. Of course, the one person who offered substantive comment praised me for my change of heart. *sigh*

Early in the year I wrote Some thoughts about the Mission Statement which is very much Libertarian party business. So it's there in case you care what I think the Libertarian Party ought to be.

Someone else really twisted my ponytail with an offhand comment on a mailing list, and of course I am being an idiot by vastly increasing the chances he will find it by mentioning it here, but I am that kind of idiot that cares more about what I wrote than what people might think about it. The most annoying kind of bigotry for me at least is all those uptight white guys who are always on the lookout for racism and sexism, when in fact the non-white-guys are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, and have a much better sense of humor too.

I'm with my homeboy Toby Keith, "hate me if you want to/love me if you can." I care a lot about giving love and respect to my fellow humans, but I'm long past caring if I annoy you.

back in the saddle?

2007-07-19T12:36:00.000-05:00

OK, so I am just an awful blogger. Thank my darling wife Pam, since I always have somebody to talk to who actually understands what I'm saying (most of the time), so I don't need this to get stuff off my chest.

And I'm making no promises now either. I know better than that. But I am thinking about a new concept for the NC Way.

One thing I just love about the Old North State is how much we do about corruption. Everybody hates it, sure, but we are sending a public official to jail about once a month these days in these here parts. God bless those citizens who won't sit back and just complain to their spouses when they spot corruption.

So if I do anything regularly with the NC Way in the near future, that's what I'll want to be writing about.

i'm still here

2007-01-16T03:28:00.000-05:00

Just a note to keep the blog open and declare my continuing existence. Something is coming soon. I can feel it.

Irwin Schiff at Ft. Dix

2006-08-19T13:47:00.000-05:00

Last time I spoke with my friend at FCI Ft Dix Don Meinshousen he told me he has a new neighbor there, Irwin Schiff. Don is concerned about Irwin's health, and rightly so - at his age and with his sentence, odds are Irwin will die in federal prison.

Irwin's mailing address is:

Irwin Schiff
Inmate# 08537-014
Box 2000 FCI Ft Dix
Ft Dix NJ 08640

Why we'll (probably) never have a celebrity run for President

2006-07-23T20:28:00.000-05:00

I'll eventually meander to my point. First there's the whole real life example that got me to thinking, plus I can't resist a detour through why I like term limits, and then I'll close with some necessary swearing just to prove how hip and culturally relevant I am.

There's an interesting debate going on at Hammer of Truth about the viability of the announced Presidential campaign of Doug Stanhope. They tell me Stanhope is a celebrity, although I haven't really heard of him. The kind of guy that you tell me where I've seen him and I say, oh yeah I think I know who you mean. I look at his face on his website and no bells ring. To test my cultural relevance, I checked the Billboard Hot 100 and would recognize three of the artists of the top five songs if I saw them on the street - better than I predicted - so maybe I am an average pop culture consumer.

Stanhope's announcement rubbed me a number of wrong ways. Yes I have officially achieved the state of old fuddy duddy - swearing in public communications offends me. It works for Enimem, but I doubt Mr. Mathers would consider running for President. If you can't get through a paragraph without getting bleeped, I don't want you representing my party.

Going out of your way to insult Jesus also is the mark of the loser. Now, you don't have to be a Christian to be a good public servant. I take great pride in recruiting not one but three Pagan priests to run for office here in NC. Not to mention the large number of openly atheist Libertarians I helped put on the ballot. It's everybody's country, not just for us Christians. But consider that fully 7/8ths of the voters self-identify as Christians. Then consider just how intensely stooopid it is for a candidate to insult them. I realized later that even more offensive to me than insulting my God is the implication that voters who "buy Jesus" are dumb. Anybody who is so arrogant as to openly say voters are dumb is automatically disqualified from serving in public office in my book.

But my problem really isn't with Stanhope. After all, he is a comedian just trying to do his job, even if I didn't laugh at this particular joke. And he did succeed in his secondary goal - I now know who he is. Doug is probably a great guy and I'm glad he is on our side. If your first myspace friend is Dave Attell, you are almost certainly my kind of people.

No, my problem is with otherwise intelligent people getting all excited about this campaign and trying to convince me that Stanhope's E-list celebrity status will somehow help the Libertarian Party. Some even invoke the name of Kinky Friedman to prove their point. Now that's just hype gone crazy. Kinky isn't just already a celebrity in Texas, he's a national icon. You might as well compare Stanhope's celebrity to William Henry Harrison's. It's just as relevant.

Now of course there is an obvious counterexample, Stanhope's friend and supporter Penn Jillette. Penn would be a fantastic candidate for us. He's 100 times more famous, already gets paid to articulate common sense stands on today's issues and can get through a speech without swearing. But he'll never run for President. If you don't believe me, there's an episode of Babylon 5 where he explains his position on the question in great detail.

The question reminds me of my old friend and boss Howie Rich, when Howie convinced me to change my position on term limits. Until then I took the purely theoretical Libertarian view that no citizens should be arbitrarily barred from public office, not even incumbents. But Howie pointed out that with career politicians the seniority system takes control of the legislative hierarchy. What incentive is there for someone who has earned success on their own merits in some other aspect of life to go into politics, where they have to toil away on the back bench for years and years just to get anywhere no matter how good they are? And you wonder how we ended up with a President who managed to lose money on both an oil company and a baseball team?

Later personal observation confirmed Howie's view for me. I found that it takes right about six years for the average NC state legislator to completely lose touch with anything that goes on outside their little building. Oh sure, some of them were that way before they went in and a blessed few manage to get through a whole career remembering who they serve. And now that some states have term limits, we can see that the program has delivered on its promises of the benefits of a citizen legislature. At least term limited legislators are much more likely to want to get out of town and back to their real lives, instead of just siting around indefinitely having fun spending other people's money because they have nothing better to do.

Of course we already have limited our President's terms. But the same principle explains why Penn Jillette will never run. Why the hell would he want to be POTUS when he already has a much better job? I know if I was a Vegas headliner I wouldn't be giving that up for nothin'.

Only one possible motive remains for any real celebrity to want to be our candidate. That person would have to be a zealot. Or put it nicely, someone who really believes in public service. Someone like Ralph Nader. Which gets us to another long held theory of mine - anyone who truly wants to be President is almost certainly too mentally unstable to be trusted with that much power. But that's a conundrum I am willing to live with if the candidate is credible enough.

We thought Harry Browne's bit of celebrity would help us. We found out he wasn't nearly famous enough. Aaron Russo is as famous or more than Doug Stanhope, but that wasn't enough to overcome our justifiable fear of putting a wild man at the top of our ticket.

Now, Doug Stanhope might be the perfect candidate for another long time pipedream of mine: the Fuck You! Party. "Want to send the politicians a message they can't ignore? Vote Fuck You!" If there's any chance to get the nonvoting half of the country back in the voting booths this is it, I'm telling you. I've done enough research to know there are absolutely no prohibitions against obscene party names in any state or federal laws regarding advertising or printing ballots, so you'd have 'em over a barrel if it ended up in court. One of those fun things I'll do when I win the lottery.

I'd be thrilled if we could get a real Libertarian with real celebrity and at least a modicum of gravitas to run for President. But I ain't holding my breath. In the next two years I expect to work for the best candidate available, whomever that might be.

Disclaimer: I am currently the Treasurer of the George Phillies campaign.

"Kill this bill quickly I am tired of these bastards just screwing with us"

2006-07-20T23:20:00.000-05:00

OK, so I am quoting my good friend and colleague Eric Smith, but he speaks for me when it comes to H88, the now lying sack of manure "Electoral Fairness Act."

The big story the media is missing is the *new* imposition of filing fees in this bill. That negative vastly outweighs the marginal benefit of the reduction in the retention requirement. That's hardly any help to any parties that can't get on the ballot in the first place. I hope the bill is just killed quickly and quietly in conference.

The positioning on this bill is a great example of just little legislators think of serving the people or doing the right thing. The positive Republican amendment failed on a straight party line vote, all Democrats against it except for Ellie Kinnaird. Four years ago, it was Republicans killing our bills while Democrats all rallied around them. That's because back then they were all freaked out about Libertarians getting on the ballot. Now they all know that after us, the Greens are next. Stupid Republicans. Stupid Democrats.

Sen. Dan Clodfelter's remarks to us are most telling. Now I don't want to tick Dan off because he is a truly decent guy who supported our bill. But he would never support the amendments we needed because in his estimation the bill would die in the House if they set it right. And I see that he didn't vote for the Berger amendment on the floor. So I guess that political expediency carries more coin than voting for what you believe is right in Raleigh.

And that's very sad, that even a decent fellow like Dan is so afraid to vote differently from his party. It just goes to show how powerful the influences are in that building, taking legislators away from serving the people and towards serving their party or other special interests.

Thank God for Ellie Kinnaird. If someone can get through years in that environment and still vote her conscience every time, then hope remains.

N.C. Senate leaves fairness out of Electoral Fairness Act

2006-07-20T23:12:00.000-05:00

A press release from the NC Open Elections Coalition

House Bill 88 goes back to House with no improvements in signature requirements for third parties and independent candidates

RALEIGH: House Bill 88, the Electoral Fairness Act, passed the N.C. Senate today in a form that does nothing to improve citizen access to the state's ballots.

Despite two attempts to amend the bill back to reasonable signature requirements, House Bill 88 returns to the N.C. House with the state's current requirement for petition signatures intact. That requirement is equal to 2 percent of the votes cast in the last governor's race, or 69,734 signatures.

"Once again, the legislature leaves North Carolina with arguably the most burdensome ballot access restrictions in the nation," said Brian Irving, a Libertarian. "In terms of democratic access to the ballot, North Carolina and Alabama rank at the very bottom."

In its current form, the bill does lower the vote threshold to stay on the ballot from 10 percent to 2 percent of the vote cast for governor or president, a positive change if it holds up in conference in the House, but not the change the N.C. Open Elections Coalition was looking for.

"What good does it do us?" said Irving. "We can't stay on the ballot if we can't get on the ballot in the first place."

The bill also adds filing fees for third-party and independent candidates.

Improvements rejected by leadership

The Democratic leadership of the Senate once again voted down an amendment that would have lowered the signatures required to get on the ballot (to 1/2 percent of the votes cast for governor, or 17,434). The amendment was introduced by Minority Leader Phil Berger and championed by Deputy Minority Leader Tom Apodaca, Republican Andrew Brock and Republican Eddie Goodall, as well as by Democrat Ellie Kinnaird.

The vote on the amendment split on party lines (21-25), with Senator Kinnaird being the only Democrat to support opening the ballot. The bill itself passed unanimously.

"We owe the Republicans thanks," said Hart Matthews, Director of the North Carolina Green Party. "They may have been playing for the chance to split the liberal vote, but they could have chosen instead to support higher signature limits to keep all third parties off the ballot. They deserve thanks for speaking eloquently in support of democratic reforms and for supporting a lower vote threshold that would make it easier for Libertarians and others to stay on the ballot."

"On the other hand," said Matthews, "Democratic Senators Doug Berger and David Weinstein made completely nonsensical arguments about volunteer workers at polling places and the 'balkanization' of the Senate. The 48 states that have easier ballot access than we do don't have problems with legislative 'balkanization.' "

Democratic Senator Daniel Clodfelter, though he said he agreed with the Berger amendment, argued that the bill would die entirely in the House if it were to go back with lower signature limits and so urged the Senate to reject the amendment.

Electoral Fairness Act may go to conference, lawsuit active

The Senate leadership doubts it can get a vote of concurrence in the House, so the bill may end up in conference committee.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party of North Carolina and the North Carolina Green Party have brought suit against the state Board of Elections, alleging that the ballot access requirements are a breach of the state's constitutional guarantee of free elections.

Ballot Access op-ed in News & Observer

2006-07-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

That hard workin' Hart Matthews is still at it:

The Raleigh News & Observer is running our ballot access opinion piece smack in the middle of the page above the fold today.

Now we have a chance to get lots of letters published on the subject! If you have a minute, send letters in support of reducing ballot access signature limits to forum@newsobserver.com. The letter limit is 200 words. There's lots of information in the piece and more on our website.

One important point that I couldn't fit into the opinion piece: Third parties cannot even run candidates for local partisan office (board of commissioners, e.g.) without collecting 69,734 verified signatures. Many legislators think House Bill 88 would only apply to state offices. They don't know we can't even run for county commission.

Thanks, folks!

Sean and Lee on the radio

2006-07-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

Well, when it rains it pours around these parts. But that is my way apparently - nothing for a week or more then three posts at once. I'm working on a couple more stories too which are almost ripe enough to pluck and publish. Until Liberty For All overcomes our current technical difficulties this will be the place for pretty much everything I or some other of our authors have to say. I expect that LFA will be back at full speed soon in a format more in keeping with the speed of today's internet.

Anyway, just got the word from Matt Mittan that he needs us to guest host for him on Thursday, August 3rd, in the Matt Cave on WWNC, 570 AM in Asheville. Maybe also on Friday the 4th too. Looking forward to it!

Electoral Fairness Act still alive

2006-07-12T13:44:00.000-05:00

An update from Hart Matthews:

I spoke with the chairmain of the Senate Judiciary I committee this morning (Sen. Daniel Clodfelter), and he tells me that House Bill 88 is not dead. He does not think it will go anywhere, but it's still on his list of things to get done, probably early next week.

The bill is still in "committee substitute" form, which means it still sets the signature limit at 2% (69,734 verified signatures). I have conferred with the Libertarians, and they agree this is unacceptable. The chairman is not willing to reduce the level to 0.5% (17,434 verified signatures) because he feels the bill won't pass committee like that. BUT, the Republican majority leader is still committed to amending the bill if it appears in committee.

SO, we still have some time to try to convert key Senators who might vote with the Republicans for an amended version. Here are the people we're contacting:

- On the Senate Judiciary I committee (especially Boseman):
Sen. Julia Boseman, (919) 715-2525, Juliab@ncleg.net
Sen. Janet Cowell, (919) 715-6400, Janetc@ncleg.net
Sen. R.C. Soles Jr., (919) 733-5963, Rcsoles@ncleg.net

- Other potential swing Senators (especially Bland & Dalton):
Sen. Bob Atwater, (919) 715-3036, Boba@ncleg.net
Sen. Pete Bland, (919) 733-6275, peteb@ncleg.net
Sen. Walter Dalton, (919) 715-3038, Walterd@ncleg.net
Sen. John Snow, (919) 733-5875, Johnsn@ncleg.net

I'll post an update as soon as the bill is scheduled in committee.

FEC Expands Regulation of Internet Campaign Activities

2006-07-12T13:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Bill Hall of Warner Norcross & Judd LLP for this excellent bit of info:

FEC Expands Regulation of Internet Campaign Activities

In response to the successful court challenge in Shays v. FEC, the Federal Election Commission ("FEC") recently modified its regulations regarding Internet communications. These changes affect the political activities of national, state, district and local political party organizations, as well as candidate committees and individuals. They have increased the burden of regulation on some activities, while creating clear loopholes to engage in other activities.

To understand these recent changes in this very complex area of the law, you must first understand some of the terminology used in these regulations - the concepts of "Contribution," "Expenditure," "Federal Funds," "Federal Election Activity," "Federal-Related Activity," "Nonfederal Funds," and "Public Communication." I urge you to skip to the end of this bulletin and review the short definitions for these terms before you read the rest of this bulletin, if you are not already comfortable you understand these terms.

Paid Website Advertising Now Qualifies as a Public Communication

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA") defines certain communications as a Public Communication. A Public Communication that promotes, supports, attacks or opposes a federal candidate qualifies as Federal Election Activity, and must be paid for entirely with Federal Funds. Prior to the Shays decision, the FEC had interpreted BCRA to exclude all forms of Internet communication from the definition of a Public Communication. The FEC's recently amended regulations now classify all Internet communications placed for a fee on another person's website as a Public Communication. The FEC's decision to qualify certain paid Internet communications as a Public Communication is important to you because if a state or local party pays to produce a banner, pop-up ad or other advertisement that would qualify as Federal Election Activity and pays to post this on another person's website, then the costs of the production and publication must be paid for entirely with Federal Funds.

Unpaid Internet Communications Do Not Qualify as a Public Communication

In making its decision the FEC distinguished between paid and unpaid Internet communications. Unpaid communications include uncompensated blogs and emails, and messages posted on a person's or committee's own website. Unpaid Internet communications do not qualify as a Public Communication. This means that a political party organization can treat the cost of maintaining its own website and purchasing Internet emailing services as administrative expenses, and pay their costs from a mixture of Federal Funds and Nonfederal Funds, even though they may be used to support federal candidates.

Exceptions Created to the Definitions of "Contribution" and "Expenditure" for Internet Activities by Individuals

The FEC has created exceptions to the definitions of Contribution and Expenditure for Internet activities volunteered by individuals or groups of individuals. These exceptions apply to uncompensated Internet activities undertaken in coordination with a candidate or political committee, as well as independent activity. The exceptions apply to the following activities: sending or forwarding emails, providing hyperlinks, engaging in campaign-related blogging, creating and maintaining an election-related Web site, paying a nominal fee for use of a Web site or, any other form of communication over the Internet. These exceptions are important because they clarify that the work product of volunteers engaging in Internet activities does not contribute toward the FEC filing thresholds for a political party organization. In other words these volunteer, but valuable, activities will not be added to the Contributions and Expenditures a political organization receives, for purposes of calculating whether the organization must file with the FEC.

What This Means for You

What does this means for your political party organization's operations?

First, it means you must take care to fund more of your operations only with Federal Funds. Specifically, if you do any paid Internet advertising in connection with a federal election, you may have to pay all, instead of only part, of that cost with Federal Funds. Whether or not your political party organization has met the thresholds requiring it to file with and regularly report to the FEC as a political committee, you are legally required to ensure that it only uses Federal Funds to pay the costs of Federal-Related Activity required to be paid with Federal Funds. You are required to keep records demonstrating that you have complied with the requirements of federal campaign finance law in raising those funds. Theoretically, the FEC may ask to review your records and fine or imprison you if you have not complied with the law. Effectively, this means that you must upgrade the scope of your record-keeping, so you can demonstrate you used Federal Funds when required to do so.

Second, you must invest more time and energy raising Federal Funds, to meet your increased requirements for Federal Funds. Generally speaking, the contribution limits, reporting requirements (if your committee files reports with the FEC) and prohibitions against accepting certain contributions (e.g., corporate contributions) are much stricter for Federal Funds than for Levin Funds and/or Nonfederal Funds. Now, even more than in the past, you must wrestle with those requirements.

Third, the amended regulations give you the opportunity to expand your political organization's Federal-Related Activity over the Internet. You can host the web pages of your federal candidates on your website, and mass email your lists of contacts and supporters, without increasing the Federal Funds that must be devoted to your operations. You can provide the planning and content to mobilize volunteers to actively support Libertarian Party® federal candidates via their Internet activities. Those supporters who have websites can post ads, hyperlinks and content, so long as they are not paid to do so. Other supporters can mass email their contacts and blog in support of federal candidates. All of these activities are now clearly exempted from FEC regulation.

Some Important Definitions

• "Contributions" are monetary or in kind donations for the purpose of influencing any federal election for federal office.

• "Expenditures" are monetary or in kind purchases, payments, loans, deposits, contracts or gifts for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office.

• "Federal Election Activity" means certain activities, other than direct contributions to a candidate for federal office, in connection with a federal election or for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office. Federal Election Activity includes activities such as voter registration within 120 days prior to a federal election, and voter identification activity, generic (e.g., "Vote Libertarian") communications, and get-out-the-vote activity in connection with a federal election, the cost of which must be allocated between Federal Funds and Levin Funds. Federal Election Activity also includes activities such as Public Communications supporting or opposing federal candidates, and the services of committee employees spending more than 25% of their compensated time in connection with Federal-Related Activity, the cost of which must be paid entirely from Federal Funds.

• "Federal Funds," sometimes called "Hard Money," means funds raised and spent in accordance with the contribution limits and prohibitions and solicitation requirements of federal campaign finance laws.

• "Federal-Related Activity" includes both Federal Election Activity, and more traditional activities intended to influence a federal election, such as contributions to federal candidates or expenditures supporting or opposing federal candidates.

• "Nonfederal Funds" means funds raised and spent in accordance with the contribution limits and prohibitions and solicitation requirements of state, and not federal, campaign finance laws. For example, this would include funds raised, spent and reported under state campaign finance laws for the purpose of influencing any election for state office or a state ballot initiative. It would also include funds raised and spent for indirect political purposes that are not required to be reported under state campaign finance laws. The hallmark of Nonfederal Funds is that they are not raised and spent for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office.

• "Public Communication" means a communication by means of any broadcast, cable or satellite communication, newspaper, magazine or outdoor advertising facility, mass mailing or telephone bank to the general public, or any other form of general public political advertising. It includes a banner, pop-up or other advertisement placed for a fee on another person's website.

*

In a followup email, Bill also noted, "It's a little more complicated than summarized in my bulletin. For example, I never discussed disclaimers. If a private e-mail engages in direct advocacy (e.g., "Vote for Michael Badnarik") to more than 500 recipients, then it must contain a disclaimer as to who sent it, their website or address, and whether or not it was authorized by the candidate. At the same time, it is not a 'contribution' or 'expenditure' that might give rise to an FEC filing responsibility."

*

Bill Hall is a partner with Warner Norcross & Judd LLP specializing in Federal Election Commission, ballot access and campaign finance law matters. He has served as General Counsel to the Libertarian National Committee for more than 15 years, and has represented many state and local political party, candidate and political action committees. Bill has consulted on numerous briefs in support of ballot access and campaign finance litigation before many state and federal courts and the United States Supreme Court, and represented clients in seeking advisory opinions and commenting on proposed rulemakings before the Federal Election Commission. Bill is listed in Who's Who in American Politics and Who's Who in American Law. Bill may be reached at 616.752.2143.

This message is provided to advise you of recent federal campaign finance law developments. Because each situation is different, this information is intended for general information purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice on any specific facts and circumstances.

Warner Norcross & Judd LLP is a full service law firm with four offices in Michigan. Our attorneys are experienced in every aspect of election law. They handle all types of election issues, including federal and state campaign finance compliance and regulatory counseling, ballot access litigation support, proceedings before the Federal Election Commission, criminal proceedings for campaign finance law violations, and the formation and organization of political committees. Our attorneys are routinely involved in the incorporation of political committees, counseling them on campaign finance and federal tax compliance issues, and supporting them in the "business" of politics, with timely advice on employment, insurance, technology, trademark, leasing and contract issues.

Electoral Fairness Act hearing, part two of three?

2006-07-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a message from Hart Matthews of the NC Green Party and NC Open Elections Coalition:

*

That's right, folks. The Electoral Fairness Act will be in front of the Senate Judiciary I Committee AGAIN tomorrow (Friday 7/7/06) at 10 a.m., room 1027 of the Legislative Building.

There was no committee vote on House Bill 88 today, not even a discussion. Judiciary I chairman Dan Clodfelter was concerned about the threat of an amendment by Minority Leader Phil Berger, an amendment to get the bill back down to the 1/2% signature limit. Sen. Berger yesterday declared his intention to offer such an amendment, and Sen. Clodfelter feels that means death for the bill.

Sen. Clodfelter was taken aback when I told him we'd rather the bill die than pass without that amendment. The Senate committee substitute has put the vote threshold to stay on the ballot back to 2% (good!), but it keeps the signature level at 2% (very bad!). This bill would also move the deadline up a month and add a filing fee. Sen. Clodfelter feels he can fix the deadline discrepancy, but the House opposes removing the filing fee.

After the Judiciary committee meeting, I had an extended conversation with Sen. Clodfelter and Rep. Deborah Ross. They clearly care about passing this bill so they can set some signature limits for independent candidates. Apparently, they're getting major resistance from the Democratic leadership, and the general policy is not to bring something to the floor until all the disagreements have been ironed out. So, Clodfelter is more inclined not to bring the bill to committee at all.

Although Rep. Ross energetically encouraged us to take what we could get, I stood by our position and encouraged them to bring the bill to the committee.

If you're inclined to write a Senator tonight, write Sen. Dan Clodfelter (danielc@ncleg.net). Thank him for all his effort on this bill and ask him to bring the bill to committee for a vote, regardless of the danger an amendment might pose. OR, write Sen. Phil Berger (philbe@ncleg.net) to reinforce our support for an amendment bringing the signature requirement to 1/2% of the votes cast in the last
gubernatorial race.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

corrections

2006-07-06T21:15:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jim Lark and Marianne Volpe for catching errors in the LNC reports below which I missed.

Patrick Dixon was elected as an at large representative, not as regional rep. Wes Benedict is the Region 3 Representative.

Marianne caught a typo in her report: Bill Redpath left the meeting at 11.47am, not 12.47pm.

LNC Meeting Report, Portland, July 3, 2006

2006-07-06T08:28:00.000-05:00

Golly, I just might have a successor - or several. Marianne Volpe wrote up this report of the LNC meeting immediately following the convention in Portland. Thanks Marianne!

*

LNC Meeting July 3, 2006

The meeting was called to order by Bill Redpath, Chairman, at 9:30 a.m. He asked members to introduce themselves. After introductions the meeting began with a public comment period. Redpath thanked the Oregon LP for hosting the convention. LPO Chairman Adam Mayer and Executive Director LPO Richard Burke walked in to a round of applause (coincidentally).

Allen Hacker of California commended Terry Quick (ENTCO) for this convention and suggested the LNC start the cycle of convention preparation immediately. Hacker raised a second issue, membership, and said that he was working with Sandra Kallender and Elizabeth Brierly on a service to find members, a private market solution. He had a brochure on this service that he made available to the LNC.

Adam Mayer thanked the LNC for the opportunity to host the convention and invited attendees to a lunch that afternoon. Dave Hollist presented his contact information. Richard Burke said he is the Region 2 Alternate to the LNC.

The next item was the Credentials Report. Secretary Bob Sullentrup described the new regions, and there was a discussion of several regions where paperwork was missing. Jim Lark said that his region may have a problem because they did not have a signature from the WVA state chair regarding joining the region. There was a brief discussion of the "orphan" states of Hawaii, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Rhode Island. Lark said that he was uneasy about adding WVA to the region because there was no response from the state chair there, though the delegates in caucus on Saturday voted to add WVA.

Dan Karlan, At-Large Representative, said regarding Maine he had not been able to contact Mark Cenci. Karlan said that he had heard recently that the Maine LP was not functioning. Redpath said he had similar information. George Phillies of Massachusetts was recognized to speak, and Phillies said that he had a message from Cenci that Cenci would dissolve the Maine LP so that a new organization could be created later but Phillies didn’t know if this had been done.

Someone said he had talked to someone in Hawaii but had no communication that they wanted to be part of the region.

After a paperwork check, Redpath said that we had around $100,000 in liabilities, with a considerable amount of deferred revenue. This author did not catch the number of deferred revenue. Redpath said that net surplus year to date was $37,000.

Geoff Neale, Treasurer, said that Redpath was more familiar with the present financials than he was. Neale asked for the tentative agenda. Redpath said the tentative agenda was: a report of potential conflicts of interest, setting and approving agenda, Chair’s report, Treasurer’s report, Secretary’s report, and Counsel Bill Hall’s explanation of executive session. Hall said that he usually talks about what executive session is and attorney client privilege, but will not need to go into executive session at this meeting.

Redpath said he wanted to discuss the party program, a report on Campus organizing with Lark, future conventions, and a short report on current Ballot Access. He also wanted to discuss fundraising, perhaps a major donor plan, executive committee formation, address possible subcommittees, the status of projects including Jeremy Keil’s Marketing/Branding survey, then set future meetings.

Aaron Starr of California asked about time for each item; he noted that the LNC had only 2 hours for the meeting. Redpath said that he thought the reports would be brief, but time limits could be set. After discussion the additional agenda items included the Policy Manual, with Carver Governance and discussion of the party program postponed to the next meeting. The motion to adopt the agenda passed, with a limit of 10 minutes for each item.

After a report on potential conflicts, Redpath gave a short Chair’s report. He thanked everyone and congratulated them for being elected to this body. He asked if there were any questions. Starr said he wanted a motion to thank the past body and Chair. A resolution commending the participation of the last LNC and Chair was passed.

Treasurer’s Report – Neale.
Neale said that the Treasurer’s primary role is oversight, so he doesn’t have anything yet to report. He said he would spend some months examining the books. Starr asked that deferred revenues be looked at and referenced life memberships that may be undervalued.

Secretary’s Report – Sullentrup. He had nothing to report.

Staff Report – Shane Cory.
Redpath said that most people were interested in numbers from this convention. This author may have misheard these numbers, but it sounded like $27,000 was raised on site, and $31, 000 was the total bill for the hotel, with $7,000 to be paid for Audio/visual work. Redpath asked if we knew at this time how much we owe all vendors? Cory said negotiations are ongoing. Neale asked what was the room block for the hotel, and the answer was 1400 room nights. Neale asked how many were sold and what is the penalty? Cory said we didn’t make 1400, but we would be able to pay the hotel, considering a matter of offsets from trade show vendors. Neale asked what was the purpose for the banquet funds raised? Cory said to offset convention losses.

Redpath asked Cory would he be able to supply more information and did Cory have all the LNC members’ email addresses? Cory responded that he would have more information on the convention soon and he had the email addresses. Cory said he would send the previous staff report on the convention to the LNC members. Emily Salvette said that she wanted to commend the staff for their work on the convention.

Redpath said that he foresees a major donor program as important and will work with Cory on this.

Starr said that the primary purpose of a non-profit is to raise money. Starr commits to giving an additional $5K to the party this term, or raising the amount. M Carling said he will do the same, and a couple of observers made the same commitment.

Redpath asked about media generated for the convention. Cory said CSPAN covered the banquet last night and there was local press coverage. Communications Director Stephen Gordon said that Reason magazine also covered the convention.

At this point Region Representative Tony Ryan said he had to leave to catch a plane and his alternate took his place. At this time this author does not know the name of the woman.

Bill Hall – Counsel.
Hall addressed the LNC and described his firm and background. He explained the purpose of executive session and how emails to and from him to LNC members could be labeled "privileged and confidential" and had to be treated as such. He said that when the LNC is in executive session LNC members are making a commitment to the rest of the members that what is discussed will not be divulged to non-LNC members. If you cannot promise to keep a matter confidential, he said, you should leave the room.

Policy Manual
Carling asked for and got a motion to create a three person committee to divide the Policy Manual into three parts. After discussion about why this is necessary (the manual is very large and needs to be rewritten), the motion passed. The three sections would be standing rules for staff, LNC standing rules, and special rules. The three committee members are Jim Lark, M Carling and one other person, name unclear.

Neale said he had changes to make to the policy manual on pages 5, 26 and 27. The first was to delete the procedure for roll call votes, since the delegates changed this in the bylaws during the convention. The motion passed without objection. On page 26, financial procedures, Neale moved to delete paragraph E. Neale said we passed a bylaw to require that financial books will be kept in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP). This motion passed without objection. Finally, Neale moved to delete paragraph F. He explained that GAAP requires that you capitalize assets; our National office only has old computer equipment. The motion passed. Neale moved to delete paragraph G because it tells you what NOT to do, but GAAP already defines how to handle unsegregated funds. Paragraph G was deleted without objection.

Branding Report – Jeremy Keil.
Keil talked about funds raised for this project. He explained that the project was to create a "brand" for the LP. A powerpoint presentation by the associate working with Keil followed.

The strategy to be followed is to find the pro-Libertarian hot points for individuals and groups; next to get them to see we share their sentiments and that Libertarians are the only ones that will help them on that issue, then to gradually introduce them to other Libertarian issues.

Keil said that Libertarians were more likely to be internet/cable users. Time ran out for this item and Redpath suggested that anyone interested could speak to Keil’s associate after the meeting.

Campus Organizing Report – Lark.
Redpath asked if he had something to speak about; Lark said members had his report and there would be a new campus website at the end of July. Sullentrup asked if Lark had paid $5,000 for this project, and Lark said he had contributed that amount.

Future Conventions.
A discussion of the ENTCO contract and Terry Quick’s possible continued work for the LP ensued. The contract with ENTCO did not end with this convention, but could be terminated by either party for any reason with a 30 day notice.

Starr asked if there were further obligations by Quick to the committee. Cory said there was still a lot of work to do; Quick said he’s been paid through this month and will give reports, but he wanted to know if he would begin work on the next convention. Redpath asked if we are obligated for more payments to Quick and Cory said we have two more payments to Quick. Cory said there are no further obligations. Neale said that he had a mild objection because this discussion is related to the present convention, not the future convention. Neale said that he did not want to talk about future work with someone when the LNC had not decided the site of the next convention.

Neale moved closing out work on this convention and handling the next convention on a bid basis. Starr said that he thought Quick’s role was to recommend sites. Pat Dixon seconded Neale’s motion for discussion. Neale asked if the present ENTCO contract specifies locating the next site. Neale believes that it was for this one convention and objected to a never-ending contract.

Neale asked to withdraw motion, but there was objection to withdrawal. Discussion continued, with Quick speaking about the difficulty in arranging a convention. He explained that hotel contracts were normally negotiated several years in advance and better rates for hotel rooms could have been gotten with more advance planning.

Neale moved for an additional 15 minutes on this item, since the LNC was discussing what should have been in the convention report, but the LNC needs to talk about future conventions. Starr said there would not be enough time for everything else on agenda.

The LNC moved to the creation of the Executive Committee at this point. After a discussion on the best size of the Executive Committee, a motion was passed to make it an 8 person committee. The members selected for the Executive Committee automatically include the four officers, Redpath, Vice Chairman Chuck Moulton, Treasurer Neale, and Secretary Sullentrup. Salvette nominated Admiral Michael Colley; Moulton nominated Hardy Mascia; Lark nominated Starr; Neale nominated Pat Dixon but Dixon declined; Salvette nominated Lark. After a motion to close nominations the slate was elected by acclamation.

Future Meetings
There was a discussion about the need for one or two more meetings before the end of the year. Neale suggested two meetings because of the need for time to prepare the budget and work with staff before the budget meeting. After discussion of the best dates, the next LNC meeting was scheduled for August 19 and 20, location to be decided, and November 11 and 12 in the Washington DC area.

At this point Quick said the LNC could pick a state and date and let ENTCO find the best deals for the next convention. Neale said that this was not appropriate for this meeting. Redpath said that he had to leave now to catch his plane; Neale said that we agreed to come back to the discussion of future conventions at this point.

Neale said the most important issue was the next site, and he asked Quick to repeat what he told Neale that morning about where the next site should be. Quick explained that the next site should already have been picked and should have been advertised and marketed at this convention. He suggested that Texas would be a very good site and ENTCO could get a report within 30 days of the best city and hotels. John La Baume pointed out that for a presidential year it’s easier to get more press at a convention in the District of Columbia because reporters don’t have to travel.

At 12:47 p.m. Redpath left and Vice Chairman Moulton chaired the meeting. Discussion of future convention locations continued. Starr said that there was no reason to have a convention as late as we do, and that we could have a convention in 2007 to give our Presidential candidate time to campaign. After a discussion on the time constraint involved with a convention to be held in 2007, Neale moved that a convention committee be populated now to plan the next convention.

Starr moved to grant to ENTCO authority to solicit bids for cities and dates Quick deems appropriate, working with the Chairman, to be reported within 30 days. Neale asked how much ENTCO’s charge would be to do this. Quick repeated that there was not much time to make this decision. This author did not hear whether the cost of this activity would be included in payments already made or to be made to Quick.

Sullentrup reread the motion and the motion passed.

Salvette said she wanted to see more sites considered than DC and Texas, such as Chicago and Colorado. Starr asked if someone could get ENTCO our previous convention sites. Neale said that Texas has been trying to get a convention for years, while Denver has hosted it twice. Neale said the Austin party is extremely strong and Texas is either the second or third largest LP affiliate now, though Texas has not hosted the convention in a very long time.

Lark thanked Quick for his work and asked how many states could he look at and come back with a report to the LNC. Quick said he could look at three potential states and DC. (He may have said three states including DC, but this author thinks he said three plus DC.) Nancy Neale said she’d work with Quick on this report.

There was a motion to adjourn by someone. Moulton ruled the ayes have it, but Neale called for division. There were 3 in favor, and 5 against, so the meeting continued.

Moulton quickly went through the remainder of the agenda. Since Redpath had left the Ballot Access report was skipped. The next item was a discussion of fundraising, and at this point Neale had to leave.

Lark then said Quick should look at a 4 day convention. There was a motion to suspend the rules to discuss this. Before leaving Neale said we should demand a 4 day convention in 2008 to allow more time for more business and to appeal to more delegates; a 2 day convention was too short.

Sullentrup moved to have a 3 day convention. Neale said that one factor in the low attendance at this convention was it was so short. He said that the history of the party have been to have 4 day conventions, since this lowers the cost for attendees for airfare.

Discussion continued on 3 versus 4 day conventions. Starr suggested amending the motion to say "at least 3 days." Without objection the motion requiring a convention of at least 3 days was passed.

By this time it was about 12:15 p.m. and this author had to leave the meeting.

Electoral Fairness Act hearing, part one of two?

2006-07-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

Barbara Howe attended the hearing today on H88, the Electoral Fairness Act, in the NC Senate Judiciary 1 committee. Here is her report, and thanks Barbara!

*

This note is in response to several posted regarding HB 88.

The bill was heard in JI today. Basically, Senator Clodfelter presented an amended version of the House bill (that abomination that passed in the wee small hours of the session last year). Clodfelter's version restored the original retention requirement back to two percent of the vote for gov or pres and removed the change in the date for filing the petitions back to June.

Unfortunately, what Clodfelter's bill didn't do is restore the reduction of signature requirement to one half of one percent.

I learned that Clodfelter wasn't going to amend the signature requirement as I walked in the LB about fifteen minutes before the committee was scheduled to meet. Hart Matthews had heard this from Clodfelter. I went to Senator Phil Berger and asked him if he would offer an amendment to restore the half percent. He agreed to do it, but explained he might have to leave the committee meeting before the bill came up.

This did indeed happen. He left. Clodfelter called the bill. :-(

Senator Clodfelter did let Hart and me speak briefly and we implored the committee to restore the petitioning reduction.

Then, they decided to hold the vote tomorrow.

I did get a chance to see Senator Berger after the committee meeting and he did say that tomorrow he would offer the amendment.

Sean's announcement (ed. note: one I forwarded from the committee secretary) says the meeting is at 10:00. Clodfelter said they would meet at 9:00 (but perhaps he was speaking before he checked with others). I'll be there a little before 9:00, just in case the meeting is actually at 9:00. If not, I'll wander the halls until committee time. Really, it's my favorite thing to do. Not....

Rep. Deb Ross came over after the committee adjourned and told us that if the signature reduction is restored, she is sure the House will not concur and then the bill will probably die. Frankly, if we don't get the signature reduction, and we do get filing fees, I think the bill probably should die. She seems to think the reduction of the retention from ten to two percent ought to be enough for us.

Politics sure is ugly.

LNC regional reps

2006-07-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

LNC Secretary Bob Sullentrup has released the list of new regions and regional reps, to go with the list of officers and at large reps previously published. Thanks to Lee Wrights for forwarding this to me.

Region 1 (Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, (maybe) North Dakota, Nebraska)
Tony Ryan (SD)
alternate: Julia Fox (WI), Scott Kohlhaus (second alt) (AK)

Region 2 (California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho)
M Carling (CA), Aaron Starr (CA)
alternates: Richard Burke , Scott Lieberman (CA)

Region 3 (Utah, New Mexico, Arkansas, Nevada, Louisiana, Arizona, Texas)
Patrick Dixon (TX)
alternate: Nancy Neale (TX)

Region 4 (Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi)
Mark Bodenhausen (AL)
alternate: Stewart Flood (SC)

Region 5 (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana)
Emily Salvette (MI)
alternate: Rebecca Sink-Burris (IN)

Region 6 (Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, (maybe) DC)
James W. Lark, III (VA)
alternate: Steve Damerell (VA)

Region 7 (New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont Connecticut, New Hampshire)
Hardy Machia (VT)
alternate: Eric Sundwall (NY)

Orphaned affiliates include: WV, Hawaii, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island.

[back to Sean:] I am still trying to figure out how the heck NC got left off considering we had agreed to form our region before the convention. I'll publish details on that whole mess when it is a bit clearer, but I can say I'm really sorry now I wasn't in Portland to keep my seat on the bylaws committee and push for reforming this broken system. So many states without representation is simply not tolerable.

Setting that aside, it looks like a good bunch of folks. Let's hope they do well.

Electoral Fairness is finally getting a hearing!

2006-07-02T23:12:00.000-05:00

This message is sent by Sean Haugh on behalf of the NC Open Elections Coalition. Thanks to Hart Matthews of the NC Green Party for much of the information below. If you wish to receive email from me containing news of interest to North Carolina Libertarians, just send me a note to seanhaugh@mindspring.com and let me know, thanks.

The Electoral Fairness Act (H88) is on the agenda of the NC Senate’s Judiciary 1 Committee on Wednesday, July 5th at 1pm. The meeting will be in room 1027 of the Legislative Building, the main General Assembly building on Jones St. in Raleigh.

The Electoral Fairness Act (EFA) originally was designed to significantly reduce both the signature and retention requirements to get and stay on the ballot in North Carolina. Currently NC is the third hardest state in the country to get on the ballot (according to Ballot Access News). EFA would bring us closer to the national average. The Libertarian Party already has gathered enough signatures to meet the proposed new requirements.

However EFA was amended in the middle of the night to eliminate all the positive gains of the bill while retaining a new filing fee and other barriers. So now the EFA would actually make things worse for the Libertarian Party and other third parties!

Please contact the members of the Judiciary 1 Committee (J1), especially if you are a constituent of one of these Senators. Tell them that H88, the Electoral Fairness Act, needs to be returned to the version passed by the committees in the House (version 3). Please be aware that the majority of these Senators are actually quite sympathetic to our bill and electoral fairness in general, so we need to simply show them how important the issue is and encourage them to work hard so that the right version of the EFA is put on Governor Easley’s desk before the close of this legislative session.

You can read up on the legislative history and provisions of the Electoral Fairness Act here.

And here’s a link to the list of J1 Senators.

We also need more signatures on our online petition! We had a wave of new signatures last week when Common Cause and Democracy NC put out email appeals for us. Thanks to those groups for coming on board! Ask your friends to sign it too!

Thanks for all your help!

national convention updates

2006-07-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

The Libertarian National Convention is being covered on some other blogs. George Phillies has been kind enough to email me some updtaes from the convention floor in Portland which can supplement their reports. I really hate that I'm not there.

LNC election results:

Chair
Bill Redpath 182
Ernie Hancock 66
George Phillies 26

Vice Chair
Round 1
Chuck Moulton 117
M Carling 96
Tony Ryan 71
NOTA 3

Round 2
Moulton 169
Carling 105

Secretary Bob Sullentrup ran unopposed

Treasurer
Geoff Neale 191
Mark Nelson 77
NOTA 12

AT LARGE
Admiral Michael Colley 251
Angela Keaton 231
Patrick Dixon 212
Jeremy Keil 175
Dan Karlan 149
Above were elected

Also ran: Deryl Martin, Morey Strauss, M Carling

On the second vote, almost all platform planks that had been removed stayed removed. The Drug War and Firearms planks were restored.

Content of the following old planks was retained, though sometimes moved: (I transcribed a list being read aloud)

1.2 Crime
1.3 Victimless Crimes
1.12 The Right to Property
Space (not sure what this means - Sean)
1.17 Conscription and the Military
1.18 Immigration
1.20 Women's Rights and Abortion
3.5 Consumer Protection
1.22 Sexual Rights
2.5 Governement Debt
2.6 Monopolies (now with parts from 2.7 [Subsidies], 2.9 [Public Utilities], 3.13 [Postal Service])
1.16 The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
1.4 The War on Drugs
1.11 Freedom of Religion
1.10 Freedom of Communication

I believe there is a revised immigration plank.

Some Bylaws changes rolled through. The Bylaws committee concluded that zero dues violated the bylaws all over the place, and proposed a fix. The passed change created the new category Sustaining Member, someone who has paid $25 or more in the past year, as a replacement for member 'whose dues are current'. So dues not called dues are restored.

Access to the Judicial Committee was not changed. A proposal to delete the pledge or replace it with something much like the libertarian objective definition of the Liberty for Massachusetts bylaws did not pass.

[back to Sean:] Personally I'm not as concerned about the Platform being gutted. We have an opportunity to set it right next convention. I guess I'd better get to writing. ;-) It is quite amusing to me that the abortion plank survived the purge, considering how it was always the one targeted for removal in past conventions.

Same with the attempts to modify or remove the membership certification (aka the pledge). After carefully listening to reform attempts, I am more convinced than ever that the pledge needs to be abolished entirely. Such big changes don't often sail through on the first attempt. We have two years to sell it to whomever shows up next time.

The only real concern I have with the changes is that around 300 or fewer people were present to make them. But considering I was one of the LNC members who voted to have the convention in Portland, I won't complain about the location.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Bill Redpath can do as Chair. I'm excited about his issues, especially national taking responsibility again for ballot access and hiring a new political director. I wish him and the rest of the new LNC every success.

Sean on the internet radio

2006-06-30T09:51:00.000-05:00

Later today I'll be the guest of Melinda Pillsbury-Foster on her show The Spiritual Politician on bbsradio.com at 7pm Eastern time (4pm Pacific). Just click on "How to Listen" in the left frame.

update tour

2006-06-20T09:10:00.000-05:00

I updated all my beautiful links, something long overdue.

Added links for the NC Open Elections Coalition and our petition, and removed the links to the LP Bylaws Committee work since the convention is close at hand.

New links to the two campaigns for which I serve as Treasurer, George Phillies and Mike Munger.

More news and tools for you, starting with my dear friend Lee Wrights and the ISIL Choice Channel. Plus lots of neat new totally cool stuff coming from our national party, the Libertarian Leadership School, LPedia a collaborative history of the LP, and the brilliantly outsourced LP Stuff.

I also rewarded the Libertarian Reform Caucus for actually starting to make some sense. Top example: Carl Milsted's spot on The Late Great Libertarian Bait and Switch, something I wish all LP members would take to heart.

Gotta give some love to the Matt Cave. Not only does Matt Mittan have me and Lee on his show frequently, it's a great daily site for freedom-oriented news affecting NC.

My definition of NC Libertarian blogs is as loose as possible, including people who have moved away but still one of us, like Seth Anthony, and folks in NC who have been nice to us (and to freedom!) even though they aren't Libertarians, like Matt Hill.

A couple of new interesting blogs outside NC, including another effort from Cato Institute and some righteous rants from Melinda Pillsbury-Foster.

I also removed one link because the author is a flaming jerk who will never be spoken of again here, and Harry Browne's because, well, he died. There just ain't no justice in this life.

One little quirk, blogs are in order of the main author's last name, with the exception of Hammer of Truth and Third Party Watch because they totally rock.

Happy reading!

Press Conference and Public Forum for NC Ballot Access

2006-06-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

A press release from Brian Irving. I will be there!

Political parties, electoral reform groups unite to Free the Ballot in North Carolina

A diverse group of political parties and nonprofit organizations is asking the North Carolina General Assembly to establish fair requirements for independent and third-party candidates who wish to run for partisan office in the state.

The coalition, which includes Libertarians, Greens and members of the Constitution Party, calls North Carolina's ballot access restrictions prohibitive and supports the passage of the Electoral Fairness Act of 2005 (House Bill 88) in its original form.

"We may have different political views, but we all believe North Carolina would have a healthier system if it allowed more people to participate in elections," said Hart Matthews, director of the NC Green Party.

Respected nonprofit organizations from the across the state, including Common Cause North Carolina, Democracy North Carolina and North Carolina Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG), join these third parties in asking the legislature to open North Carolina's elections to its citizens.

Press Conference:
Announcing the formation of the NC Open Elections Coalition and answering questions about the state's ballot access laws.
9am, Tuesday, June 27
Senate Press Room
NC General Assembly Legislative Building, Jones St., Raleigh

Public Forum:
"Left Out and Kept Out"
A discussion of North Carolina's restrictive ballot access laws
7pm, Monday, June 26
Founder's Hall
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh
3313 Wade Avenue, Raleigh

North Carolina has the third most restrictive ballot access requirements for political parties in the nation. These barriers prevent any third party from successfully maintaining a consistent presence in the political arena.

The Electoral Fairness Act of 2005 (House Bill 88) in its original form would have reduced by three-fourths the signatures required for a third party to be certified in North Carolina. Currently, a third party must raise more than 69,000 signatures.

Because one-third of petition signatures cannot be verified, a third party must raise roughly 105,000 signatures, or one signature for every 73 residents of the state, to be assured of getting onto North Carolina's ballot. No third party has ever met that requirement without the use of professional petitioners.

As it was introduced, House Bill 88 would reduce that requirement to one-half of one percent, or roughly 17,000 verified signatures, an improvement that would still leave North Carolina in the top-20 most restrictive states.

House Bill 88 passed out of two House committees by unanimous vote last year. On the last day of the session, at 2:30 a.m., Rep. Phil Haire (D-Sylva) introduced an amendment that restored the signature requirements to their current level. The bill passed the House in that form.

Because the deadline for submitting signatures has been moved forward four months, House Bill 88 in its current form would make third party ballot access even more difficult.

But getting onto the ballot in North Carolina is not the hardest part. A third party that achieves ballot access must still poll 10 percent in the gubernatorial or presidential race to stay on the ballot. That has happened only once in the last century, which means that in all likelihood a third party must start over every four years.

The Electoral Fairness Act would have reduced the vote threshold from 10 percent to 2 percent, but that improvement was also torpedoed by Rep. Haire's early morning amendment.

The NC Open Elections Coalition asks the NC General Assembly to restore House Bill 88 to its original form and pass it without further amendment.

"People vote when they feel they can make a difference," said Matthews. "In a state where less than half of eligible adults vote, we should be doing everything we can to increase the choices on the ballot."

"These ballot barriers limit voter choice, result in many candidates running unopposed and suppress voter turnout," said Brian Irving of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina. "It's time to restore free, fair and open elections to North Carolina."

House Bill 88 currently resides in the NC Senate Judiciary I Committee.

For more facts and resources on ballot access requirements, visit the NC Open Elections Coalition.

Lockdown!

2006-06-19T14:15:00.000-05:00

Here's the latest for LFA by Don Meinshausen. Don is currently imprisoned at FCI Ft.Dix, as he puts it, "for his unorthodox interpretation of the First Amendment and the doctrine of free enterprise (or as the state says it, conspiracy to distribute hemp and MDMA)." Don would love to hear any feedback you have for him. You can send him a letter to: Don Meinshausen, Inmate #08496-050, FCI Ft Dix Box 1000, Ft Dix NJ 08640. Contributions to Don's commissary fund can be sent to: Lockbox, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Don Meinshausen, Inmate Register Number 08496-050, PO Box 474701, Des Moines IA 50947-0001. (They only accept money orders and money grams.) Don expects to be released in 2008.

*

We have been under a state of siege for awhile. You could say we have been sent to our rooms for being naughty. They don’t tell us why these things happen, they just happen.

As near as I can figure out the new warden issued a new set of rules that were a little more obnoxious than the usual petty bullshit. They cut evening visiting hours, limited how many sets of underwear people can have and more of the usual “necessary rules for the order of the prison.” Now some people, including some of the black inmates, said the warden was compensating for being black, short and maybe even gay. I don’t know if this is true. Ask Condoleezza Rice.

The inmates replied with the mildest protest imaginable. They did not go to meals. I did not protest. I did not even know about it even though I work in the dining hall. Despite my reputation I prefer to let the grassroots move first and then offer my services. I also pick my issues very carefully and this issue although close to home was not enough to move on. People far wiser than myself and more practiced in working against the system said to hang back and wait to be asked to participate.

So for a week we have been more or less confined to our building. No recreation, work, gym, library or even chapel. Two or three hundred guys were packed up and sent to SHU or even to prisons unknown where it will be practically impossible to contact them again.

The CO’s had a lot of overtime. We had a lot of spare time. Time passes. Nothing to really be concerned about. Terror alert yellow. Bullshit alert orange. Tyranny alert red.

The only reason to pay attention to stories like this is to find the ominous parallels in everyday life. Things get tight, get a little looser but never as free as before, then get even tighter again. No explanations are offered, or real ones anyway. Those who complain are sent off, punished or ignored. Still it is important to understand what is happening, expand contacts and to know when, how and where to react against the unknown force which does not even know itself.

The searches of our belongings (shakedowns) and of our persons (patdowns) that accompany the lockdown are over, at least for now. The only thing left of the experience is the feeling of being “down,” as in hunkered down awaiting the next attack on our liberty, possessions and persons. They want you to expect, not protect against, the next violation. The justice system with its prisons is to educate the American public as well as aspiring immigrants about the real nature of the state: to punish those who act against it.

Here one does not hear such bromides as “it’s a free country.” No talk about how the system knows better than you or has your interests at heart. There is no rehabilitation here even for those who need it. There is also no efficiency, honesty or kindness either. It is the same on the outside as well. It’s just more open here.

How to elect an LNC

2006-06-17T13:02:00.000-05:00

Here's my latest for LFA:

Since I’m not going to be able to go to Portland, I haven’t invested much thought into who should be elected to the next Libertarian National Committee (LNC). But after serving on that body for two years and covering it as a reporter for two more, I have put quite a lot of thought into what kind of people we should entrust with that responsibility.

We elect people to the LNC for every reason except the right ones. We pick them because we like them or, worse still, because they have a good record as an activist. Those are useful skills to be sure, but they are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to making the kinds of decisions which face a board of directors.

First we need to be clear about what the LNC does. Or more to the point, what it doesn’t do. The LNC is the board of directors of a business: LNC, Inc. Their job is to administer the party so it can survive and grow financially. They do not do the political work of the party. They create and maintain the structure which allows the rest of us to do that and call it “the Libertarian Party.”

Being a good board member requires a rather disparate skill set, and few of those skills are apparent on the surface. The most essential skill is a well developed sense of fiduciary responsibility. This is generally something you aren’t born with but have to learn through experience.

If a candidate for LNC has a record of success in business or administration already, that’s a good sign. (The closest I think I’ll come to endorsing anybody this time around is to point out that having earned a title such as “Admiral” is a great example of this principle.) If the candidate simply has some good sounding ideas that surely will make the party grow like topsy, you should probably look at them a little more skeptically.

Have they ever served on another board of directors, and if so how successful is that organization? Have they ever run a business themselves or had a major managerial responsibility for one? Or have they ever managed a campaign or a state party that actually raised and spent a lot of money to good effect?

There are two basic sales messages, hope and fear. People who sell themselves with a fear message do not possess the quality of fiduciary responsibility we need right now. Let’s face it, while it is nice not to be on the verge of bankruptcy for an extended period of time the LNC has been running pretty flat lately. We’ve been subsisting on about $1.5 million a year for too long. We have to grow significantly if this party has any hope of really changing public policy.

Someone who tells you that we need to protect what little we have is dooming us to oblivion. We need risk-takers, people who understand that we must be bold to start raising the kind of money that makes us competitive with the Democrats and Republicans. That’s why a record of fiduciary responsibility is so valuable. If a person has taken the big money risks required in running a business and been successful, that’s the kind of person we need now on the LNC.

The fear message is also a big fat negative when applied to our party’s ideology. In order to grow this party, we need to make newcomers from other parties feel welcome. We need to expand our tent so more people can feel comfortable calling themselves Libertarians, not be so closely guarding our purity that we drive people away when they show some curiosity.

This is not done so much with issues, but is more of a cultural perspective. Be wary of big ideas from LNC candidates, especially if they involve politics. Politics is not the LNC’s job. They hire staff for that. A couple big warning signs are if a candidate for LNC is pushing strong ideas about what political stands the party should take or what staff should be doing with their time. Instead look for signs that a candidate understands how to hire good people and cultivate good activists who can be trusted to stake out solid Libertarian political ground. They need the LNC’s support, not its management.

One virtue that serves anyone well in pretty much any context is playing nice with others. Here the candidate’s record of activism is worth examining. Is their activism more of the lone wolf variety, or have they put together campaigns and coalitions which attract happy volunteers? Do they listen to others and sometimes even admit that they made a mistake? Are they quick to move beyond criticism or do they make it clear that smashing their critics is an essential part of their activism? How patient are they when explaining what they do to others? Can they cite examples where they delegated important tasks and then let the new person do them without micromanaging?

Pretty much every candidate for LNC is going to be touting their record of activism because that’s pretty much all we’ve got to show for ourselves. Good activists can definitely become good board members. It’s just that there’s no cause and effect here. It’s equally true that great activists can become truly horrible board members, and it happens to us far far too often.

Just because someone does one thing well does not mean they will do everything well, and few have all it takes to be a good board member. The record of activism itself means nothing when it comes time to sit at the LNC table and exercise some fiduciary responsibility. But how one conducts their activism can answer a lot of questions about whether the candidate is suited for this particular work.

Yes I know that all elections are a popularity contest. The fact that getting along well with others is an essential political skill is equally undeniable. But in this context, the candidate is not your friend. There are a lot of people I love very dearly and I would support them in just about anything they wanted to do, but dear Lord I would never give them a vote for public or private office. If you’re really worried that you might hurt somebody’s feelings if you vote for their opponent, that’s probably a strong signal that you shouldn’t vote for them. When deciding who deserves your vote, the further you can put your personal likings for the various candidates out of your mind the more likely your vote will be wisely cast.

Anyone who runs for any position of responsibility has to ask themselves one question – do they want to rule or to serve? People who are running for the LNC must above all prove they understand that this party is run by its members, not by the LNC. You aren’t choosing a friend, a colleague, a ruler or a manager. You are electing your servants.

I hate it that I’ll be missing the convention. I’m sure everyone who does attend will have a great time. Choose wisely for all of us.

NC Open Elections Coalition

2006-06-07T07:52:00.000-05:00

From my dear friend and colleague Brian Irving:

Dear Friends of Liberty,

Did you know that North Carolina has arguably the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation. That third parties, after collecting roughly 100,000 signatures to get on the ballot, routinely lose their ballot access each election cycle? Perhaps you do know that North Carolina ranks in the bottom fifteen states in terms of voter turnout?

This November, more than half of all state legislative races will have only one candidate. Opening the ballot to independents and third parties is one way North Carolina could increase ballot choice, citizen interest and voter turnout. (An independent redistricting committee, same-day voter registration and legislative ethics reform are other important steps to bolster citizen participation.)

The Electoral Fairness Act of 2005 (House Bill 88) was initially designed to reduce the burden on third parties and independent candidates. It would have reduced the signatures required for ballot access by three-fourths and the votes needed to remain on the ballot by four-fifths. House Bill 88 passed two House committees unanimously last year, but it was amended early in the morning on the last day of the legislative session and passed in a form that would make getting on the ballot even more difficult for third parties.

Visit this page to sign a petition asking the NC General Assembly to pass House Bill 88 in its original form.

At 69,734 verified signatures, North Carolina's ballot access requirement for political parties is the third most restrictive in the nation. A federal court recently overturned North Carolina's signature requirement for independent candidates, which stood at roughly 100,000, the second highest in the country.

A great majority of states require 10,000 or fewer signatures for independent candidates to get on the statewide ballot. Many states require 10,000 or fewer signatures for political parties as well, and nine states require 5,000 or fewer signatures for both independents and parties.

As it was amended at the end of the long session, the Electoral Fairness Act would preserve the state's current signature requirement for third parties (69,734 verified signatures) and move the signature deadline forward four months, effectively making ballot access even more difficult.

We can do something about North Carolina's restrictive elections process. Ask your state legislators to improve voter participation in North Carolina. Ask them to restore House Bill 88 to its original form!

Click here to sign the petition today!

Thanks,
Brian Irving
NC Open Elections Coalition

* * * * *

Free the Ballot!

North Carolina Ballot Access Facts:

- North Carolina has the third most restrictive signature requirements for political parties in the nation (69,734 verified signatures) and, until the state's individual requirement was overturned in federal court, the second most restrictive for independent candidates.

- More than two-thirds of U.S. states require 10,000 or fewer signatures for independent ballot access.

- Twenty-one states, including South Carolina and Maryland, require 10,000 or fewer signatures for political parties.

- Nine states require 5,000 or fewer signatures for both parties and independents.

- Because roughly one-third of all signatures cannot be validated, a political party in North Carolina must raise more than 104,601 signatures to be sure of getting ballot access. That's one signature for every 73 people in the state.

- Our tax money pays county board-of-elections officials to verify every one of those petition signatures.

- No third party has ever met the North Carolina signature requirement without the use of professional petitioners.

- After each four-year election cycle, if a third party does not receive ten percent of the vote for governor or president, the party is de-certified and has to start all over again.

- The Libertarian Party of North Carolina has been certified eight times, often spending nine months and $100,000 on the effort, only to start again after the gubernatorial election.

Join the NC Open Elections Coalition in demanding free, fair and open elections in North Carolina! Sign the petition now!

A new direction for the LP?

2006-05-28T16:17:00.000-05:00

In my recent phase of quiet contemplation, one notion I've latched on to is that we have to be bold to have any chance to succeed. The conservative approach, just trying to maintain what few resources we have right now, that's the path to oblivion, sooner rather than later.

My friend and publisher George Phillies keeps asking me if the LNC shows any concern over their limited fundraising of the last few years, and all I can say is "no, not really." To their credit annual funding has been stable between $1-2 million for the last three years. Times have been tight but no disaster looms either. But that's just not good enough. Grow or die is the law of nature.

Looking back several years now on leaders like Perry Willis, Steve Dasbach and Ron Crickenberger, the criticisms of each remain but you know, they did stuff. They were bold. They had visions and they weren't afraid to shoot for the moon in their pursuit of their goals. And the party not only grew by leaps and bounds through their efforts, we are still reaping benefits from their leadership even today. Their positive examples still resonate through our party's culture.

Things seem to go in cycles with us and maybe we are on the verge of reviving that spirit. We got a bit of a false start with Joe Seehsuen. Joe got it when he said the measure of political power in DC is actually moving public policy, and it was a real shame that he left out of frustration with a micromanaging and timid LNC. But as with those who came before him, I'll bet even his critics still wish we could keep the good stuff he did for us going.

I've always been a fan of Shane Cory. He's more practically minded and thus less spectacular than Seehusen, but a capable adminstrator who can carry out the vision of a Libertarian Party as a player in DC politics. He's a teambuilder and an organizer who is quietly putting the pieces together for our future success.

And now comes the news of Stephen Gordon being hired as our new Communications Director. I have long been a *huge* fan of Steve precisely because he dreams big and then busts his butt to make them real. If you want the LP to start taking a stand for everybody to see, Gordon is your man.

This is an extremely exciting development for the LP. Not only do I expect Gordon to be wildly successful, it speaks well of the party that they want to hire him. I am assuming that the main people with decision making influence here were Cory, Michael Dixon and Michael Colley, although there may be others involved. This move shows us that the party as a whole is ready to be bold again.

Next I would love to see the hiring of a Political Director who has a similar vision and record of action. If you give some money to the LP now that just might bring us closer to that next step.

Are you ready for the Arockalypse?

2006-05-23T00:11:00.000-05:00

The greatest thing ever has finally happened. Finnish glam metal band Lordi has won Eurovision the highest score ever recorded in that contest. Eurovision is the annual contest previously famous for foisting Abba and Celine Dion on an unsuspecting world.

There has been nothing like this on the music scene since GWAR. They simply have to be seen to be believed. Check 'em out on YouTube.

All I can say is you better be prepared for the Day of Rockening, because it is already here.

p.s. I accidentally posted this on the wrong blog, but I think I'll leave it. Everybody must come to understand the power and might that is Lordi.

The new proposed LP Program

2006-05-22T11:49:00.000-05:00

It has been an honor to work with Bruce Dovner of the California LP on a new Program. Regular readers may recall that I was named two meetings ago to the Program Committee, along with Bruce and regional rep Dena Bruedigam. This was a bit of a surprise to me considering I was on record calling for the elimination of the Program. But I figured, if I'm going to ask for that change in the Bylaws in Portland, at least the delegates should see what a Program could be so they could make a more informed decision.

The truth is that Bruce did all the work. My job is simply to bless his product, and I do so without reservation. The final draft has been submitted to the LNC for approval. You can view it in Rich text format(rtf) or as an MS Word file(doc). If you like it (or not) contact your LNC members and let them know. The goal is to have it approved in time for distribution to the delegates in Portland.

My conception of the Program is that it should offer some level of detail about what Libertarians could do immediately if elected to Congress. This presupposes that we would have to form coalitions and work with Democrats and Republicans to get its provisions passed into law. The focus then is heavy on transitional measures, with little to no posturing about the end goals which belong in the Platform.

I have always said that I would enthusiastically support any measure which moves us towards Liberty, no matter how great or small a step. There are some items in Bruce's proposal with which I could quibble, but would still support because I do not wish to make the perfect the enemy of the good. And Bruce's work is very good indeed.

Thank you Bruce for this offering. I am hoping the LNC approves this Program without amendment quickly.

Who is running for LNC?

2006-05-22T11:42:00.000-05:00

With about a month to go to the convention, the list of announced candidates for the national committee is pretty light. I know of four candidates for Chair. Michael Dixon is running for reelection, being challenged by Ernest Hancock, George Phillies and Bill Redpath. There's a rumor that M Carling is running for Vice Chair. Treasurer Mark Nelson told me at the last LNC meeting that he will stand for another term to see through the issues regarding our relationship with the FEC. And yesterday I received an email from Michael Colley that while he cannot attend the convention he would consent to being reelected to his at large seat.

Who else is running? Will we only find out at the convention? If you are running or know of anyone else who is, please leave a comment or drop me a line. Thanks!

The new LP Life of Sean

2006-05-12T11:36:00.000-05:00

I haven’t been writing much lately because I’ve been keeping busy with other things. After leaving my position as Executive Director of the LPNC, I’ve been examining and sorting through my life. Sorting is good – you figure out what is truly valuable.

But I ain’t been doing nothing. It’s funny, since my “retirement” in some ways I’ve been even busier with Libertarian stuff than usual. The difference is I’ve only been doing the things I want to do.

Since mid-April, I have:

* appeared on a panel for Leadership Durham, a local politician school,

* participated in Springfest at East Chapel Hill HS, speaking with three classes full of students,

* appeared twice on Matt Mittan’s show on WWNC in Asheville,

* spoken at the Georgia LP state convention,

* spoken at a luncheon following the NC Green Party’s convention,

* attended the hearing of the state’s motion to dismiss our lawsuit,

* lobbied state senators about our ballot access bill now that the short session has begun,

* attended the LPNC convention, where I mostly played nice and was elected to the LPNC Judicial Committee,

* taken on the role of Treasurer for two campaigns, Phillies 2008 and Mike Munger for NC Governor (both sites still works in progress),

* continued my work on the national LP Bylaws and Program Committees (although to be honest Bruce Dovner is doing all of the work on the latter),

* and kept up with the weekly meetings of the Durham County LP, including being reelected as Chair.

The common thread in most of these items is that they are about getting out of the house, away from the computer and spreading the good word to others. As I mentioned in my “retirement” section of my last LNC Meeting Report, I feel I have spent way too much time on internal party workings and it has been getting me down. Nothing like taking the show on the road. Whether it’s high school students, our Green allies or anybody else, I’ve been having lots more fun and success lately talking to folks outside the LPNC in ways other than email.

Does this mean I'll be posting more regularly again? No promises. I may be having too much fun.

Sean on the radio today

2006-05-09T10:10:00.000-05:00

I just got a call from Matt Mittan up in Asheville who wants an interview by phone today about our ballot access lawsuit. Should be on somewhere in the middle of his 3-6pm show on WWNC. You can listen to the stream here.

Victory in Court!

2006-05-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

Dear friends in Liberty,

On Friday we won an important victory in the lawsuit brought by the Libertarian Party of NC against our state’s extreme ballot access barriers. Judge Orlando Hudson has signed the order denying the state’s motion to dismiss our lawsuit. This is excellent news!

Now we move on to the real heart of our case. All of the preliminary motions are out of the way and we can have our case heard in NC Superior Court.

This means the state will have to explain to the judge precisely why they have set the ballot access barriers so high in North Carolina. It also means we get the opportunity to present all of our evidence in court and put the arguments of both sides into the official judicial record.

Our attorney, Michael Crowell, has briefed us on the next step. We will need to discuss with the NC Attorney General’s office how much is needed in the way of discovery and set a schedule of future hearings. Our goal is to get a Superior Court ruling in time for the elections coming up this November. Fortunately, the good will we have developed over the years with the State Board of Elections and the Attorney General’s office is now paying off, and they are fairly cooperative in setting these schedules to meet our needs.

Although the victory is procedural, its importance cannot be underestimated. According to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News, no one has won a ruling below the state Supreme Court level in any similar ballot access lawsuit since 1982. Today’s victory means we get to argue our case on our terms and gives us the momentum going to the next level.

But our lawsuit is unlike any similar suit that has been brought before. Our challenge to the state is not just that their ballot access restrictions are unfair. We are alleging that these restrictions are part of an entire scheme of election law which favors Democrats and Republicans over anyone who does not want to be part of those two parties. Many have fought against ballot access laws before and lost, but we are the first to try to show that these oppressive laws are part of a broader scheme to prevent the equal participation of all voters in our elections.

This strategy has allowed the NC Green Party to join our lawsuit, and leaves the doors open for other parties, independent voters and even non-voters to join with us. The Greens have jumped in with both feet. They have enlisted the support of the ACLU to represent them.

ACLU involvement is our lawsuit is a huge asset for us. The Greens’ lawyer, Hoppy Elliott, works very well with Mr. Crowell and together they made a very powerful and effective presentation for us at last week’s hearing.

Although the ACLU works for free, our lawyer does not. Right now he is owed over $5,500, and the next phase of trial will be the most expensive. He is giving us a discounted rate and happily working away even while we are behind on the bill. We made the decision to hire the most experienced election law attorney in the state and he is doing an excellent job of representing our interests.

Please take a moment right now to go to the website of Freedom Ballot Access to make your best possible donation. We take credit cards and PayPal at the site, and also provide you with an address if you’d prefer to mail a check.

Why Freedom Ballot Access? It is organized as a federal “527” organization, which frees us from all of the limits placed on other political groups in their fundraising. You can give an unlimited amount and your donation does not have to be publicly reported. While we are engaged in many ballot access struggles on a nonpartisan basis, all donations from North Carolina will go towards paying for this lawsuit. Our nonpartisan status also allows us to solicit donations from anyone, not only Libertarians, and protects your donations from any other political concerns.

If you have any questions about the lawsuit or Freedom Ballot Access, feel free to reply to this message or call me at 919-286-0152.

Today we have won an important victory! Now we need to take it to the next level. Please make your best possible donation now at to help ensure that all future elections in NC shall truly be free. Thank you.

yours in liberty –
Sean Haugh
Treasurer, Freedom Ballot Access

LNC Meeting Report, March 11-12, 2006, Charlotte NC

2006-04-08T18:41:00.000-05:00

I apologize for taking a month to write this up. I’ve been taking some time away from most all things Libertarian and enjoying it immensely. It was wonderful to host the LNC in my home state for the last full meeting of the term.

Table of contents:

1) Finances and Budget
2) Staff
3) Membership
4) FEC
5) Convention
6) Ballot Access
7) Strategic Plan
8) Affiliate Services Agreement
9) Miscellaneous
10) Retirement

*

1) Finances and Budget

The Treasurer’s Report began with the statement, “2005 – We Survived!” That was a bit disconcerting. The financial reports reveal that the party is on a relatively stable footing but at a very low level. The summary balance sheet shows donations of $1,487,896.34 in 2005 and expenses of $1,447,582.09, so we made slightly over $40,000 on the year. The balance sheet as of 12/31/05 listed assets and liabilities balancing at $23,623.99, easily the lowest figure I have seen in four years. The numbers for January 2006 balanced at $48,413.98, which is an improvement but still very low.

The accounts receivable as of January 2006 appear to be well under control, totaling only $7,317.86. This included $2,800 owed by the Advocates for Self-Government. Region 5E Representative Jim Lark, who also serves on the board of the Advocates, took care of whatever balance remained at the meeting.

Accounts payable as of 1/31/06 however rose to $151,258.80. Beyond continued UMP payments to the states, the most significant expense was $31,175 owed to our FEC consultant Paula Edwards, which at the time was between 1-30 days past due.

Chief of Staff Shane Cory reported that staff has been consumed with raising enough money to keep the doors open. He cautioned that this year’s Annual Report may not perform as well as in the past due to a lack of a membership card. Cory stated that they are taking a break from other direct mail and will aggressively resume that program in June.

At a conference call held on 12/31/05, the LNC approved the budget for 2006. Not including any line items for the convention or special projects, the budget projects income of $1,154,000 and expenses of $1,086,544, for a profit of $67,446. Nelson continues to express deep concerns about the profitability of the upcoming national convention in Portland and prepared the budget cushion with this in mind. He reported that there were no major changes to internal accounting in 2005 and that staff continues to reduce overhead to positive effect.

Treasurer Mark Nelson concluded his report with a pitch for our members to become monthly pledgers now that we are operating under a zero dues model. “The sustaining support of pledgers,” he wrote, “is essential to our success to advance your political agenda.”

In his report, Chief of Staff Shane Cory stated that monthly pledge income for January was $27,262, which is the highest it’s been since March 2005. He stated his next goal as getting this figure back to over $30,000 a month, which we enjoyed before we installed our new database software. From the perspective of his report, our finances have reached their low point and are now expected to rebound. “Barring a catastrophic event that affects national giving,” Cory wrote, “we should be able to significantly pay down our A/P [accounts payable] and possibly develop a cash reserve this year.”

At the end of the meeting, Nelson distributed a report showing the donor history of all LNC members. I decline to share its contents out of respect for the financial privacy of our donors. If you really want to know who gives money to the party, the FEC requires us to make that publicly available through their reports. However, by taking this position I do not wish to dismiss Nelson’s point, which is that members of any board of directors have a duty to the fundraising as well as the administrative needs of the organization. I simply prefer to privately appeal to the conscience of each LNC member to acknowledge and carry out this responsibility.

*

2) Staff

At large Representative Michael Colley, Chair of the Employment Policy and Compensation Committee (EPCC), reported that the search for an Executive Director (ED) had been suspended due to lack of funds to pay one. Colley had great praise for our staff for their hard work without an ED. Region 2 Representative M Carling (California) made a motion of appreciation for our staff during this time, which passed unanimously by voice vote.

Colley reported that the move to the 2nd floor of the Watergate has been completed. Since we began the move, the management company changed and the new landlord has been difficult to work with. However we were able to work out the new issues at little extra cost. The electrical upgrades we required for the new space was the only significant new cost. Cory noted that the move went smoothly thanks mostly to the work of Director of Operations Robert Kraus. A housewarming event will be held at some future date.

After an executive session, Nelson moved that the Chair negotiate a contract with Shane Cory to become ED, with the Executive Committee setting the parameters. Carling moved for a vote by ballot, considering that this is a personnel matter. This was seconded by At large Representative Mark Rutherford, but failed on a voice vote.

A roll call was requested, which passed 13-0 and went as follows:

YES to offering Cory a contract as ED: Colley, Region 6 Alternate Tim Hagan (Nevada), Region 1W Representative Ed Hoch (Alaska), Region 1E Representative Dan Karlan (New Jersey), Lark, Region 2 Alternate Scott Lieberman (California), Nelson, At large Representative Bill Redpath, Rutherford, At large Representative BetteRose Ryan, Region 5W Alternate Tony Ryan, Secretary Bob Sullentrup and Vice Chair Lee Wrights.

NO: none.

Not Voting: Chair Michael Dixon.
Not Present: At large Representative Rick McGinnis, Region 3 (Dena Bruedigam), Region 4 (Michael Gilson de Lemos).

Carling left the room for the vote, apparently simply out of protest that the vote was conducted openly and not to show any lack of support for Cory.

Note that the motion only called for a contract to be negotiated. For Cory to actually become ED, the contract needs to be acceptable to both sides and approved by the Executive Committee, if not the full LNC.

My personal take is that this is an excellent hire. Cory has been essentially doing the job and showing leadership in the office since Joe Seehusen left months ago. At one time I myself was interested in applying for the position, but decided against it because I feel Cory would do a better job than I could. I am glad to see him get the title befitting the work he has already been doing, and I hope we can keep him.

The recreation of the position of Political Director was discussed. This has not been filled since Ron Crickenberger left it. Cory reported that a job description for the position has been created, and strongly advocated for the need for someone on staff who can take responsibility for candidate support and the recent staff initiatives of the Libertarian Leadership School and the Voter ID database. However applications for the job will not be solicited until there is money available to pay for it.

Chris Thorman has taken the position of Development Coordinator. Sam New, Director of Communications, will be leaving in May to attend graduate school, and a search is already underway for his replacement.

At the meeting, LP News Editor Daniel Cloud announced that he will be leaving that position after the convention.

*

3) Membership

Cory reported that beyond the reduction of membership renewal solicitations to one letter only, the transition to the zero dues model has consisted simply of a change in terminology. If dues are reinstituted at some later date, this will allow for a smooth transition back to the membership model.

Lark asked how many members we currently have under the new definition, which is simply those who have signed the certification of the non-initiation of force with a known current address. Cory replied that the number was approximately 98,000, with the process of confirming contact information through the National Change of Address (NCOA) program still in progress. He also noted that this figure does not include subscribers or non-member donors.

Nelson moved that the staff and Sullentrup provide a state by state membership count under the new definition, including a projected convention delegate count, as of 12/31/05, to be completed by 4/1/06. Sullentrup requested that this report be based on the numbers as of 2/28/06, which was accepted as a friendly amendment. However several LNC members objected, as only the year end date provides a direct comparison to past numbers, so the amendment was withdrawn. The original motion passed unanimously by voice vote.

Cory said that the staff focus is now on finding new donors who give more than $25 a year. That number is increasing, but it is too early to tell if the elimination of dues is hurting us financially. He claimed that we have survived the hardest part of the transition and should be fine by the end of April, when payments to half the state parties under the Unified Membership Program (UMP) are completed.

*

4) FEC

The cost for our Federal Election Commission (FEC) consultant Paul Edwards has greatly exceeded the possible fines we have avoided by using her services. Nelson reported however that she has provided us with changes to our filing procedures which will make future filings much easier and more accurate, thus avoiding much of the fear of future punitive action from the FEC.

Following the executive session, Region 5W Alternate Tony Ryan (South Dakota) moved that Cory and Nelson create a manual for FEC policy and procedures and for internal financial recording. This passed by a unanimous voice vote.

*

5) Convention

Dixon reported that preregistration has been slower than in the past, which could be due to a lack of big name speakers announced so far. Since that time, Bob Barr and Michael Badnarik have been named as speakers. Exhibitor space has been selling strongly though, thanks to our meeting planner Terry Quick.

Dixon noted he has received some complaints from prospective vendors claiming they have been shut out. This is part of Quick’s job, and Dixon gave his impression that this is actually not the case. Dixon also said he has received some complaints about the limited time allotted for platform and bylaws business.

One area for which responsibility is still not fully defined is marketing the convention. There has been no mailing for it yet. Cory said staff is sending a letter with convention information in response to a checkbox included in the reply card of the Annual Report and also to those who request them online. Moulton suggested a mailing only to past convention delegates. Cory responded that this had been considered but there is no money available to cover the cost. Carling suggested a floor fee be charged to all convention delegates.

Thanks to negotiations by Quick, our room block guarantee has been reduced from 1370 room nights to 920, and we only need to fill 75% of that to avoid any extra charges for meeting space. This number was reduced because this year’s convention is a day shorter than usual.

Nelson moved that staff issue a report on convention registrations, revenues and expenses by the 10th of each month. This passed by a unanimous voice vote.

*

6) Ballot Access

Redpath reported that the Ballot Access fund is now positive by just under $2000. While that means the LNC may start spending money again on ballot access, it is such a small amount of money that it will hardly have any effect.

Redpath also reported on the ballot access status in several states:

New Mexico: We fell short on signatures due to a purge of the voter rolls which took place after we began petitioning. However we do have the opportunity to gather more signatures to make up the difference. We are also trying to challenge the validity check on those already processed. More paid signatures may be needed to complete this drive.

North Dakota: Scott Kohlhaas is conducting an independent effort there and is still recruiting paid petitioners.

North Carolina: The job is too huge for the LNC to have an effective role, with about 67,000 signatures still needed. Redpath said he wants to send out an email fundraiser for this drive. LPNC Chair Phil Jacobson was in attendance to pitch for funding for North Carolina, noting that the recent direct mail piece for ballot access mentioned NC’s needs as part of the solicitation.

Ohio: Redpath said there was a lack of communication with the Ohio party regarding their need for 10,000 signatures by 5/1/06 to place the gubernatorial candidate on the ballot. As of his report, only 2,000 signatures had been collected for that petition.

Pennsylvania: Region 5E Alternate Chuck Moulton reported that due to a quirk in state law, we would need 100,000 signatures to get on the ballot there in 2006.

In response to the continued debate between Nelson and Redpath regarding the status and conduct of the Ballot Access project, Carling moved the formation of a committee to determine the rights and responsibilities of a project manager, with a report due by 5/1/06. This was approved. Named to the committee were Nelson, Redpath and BetteRose Ryan.

*

7) Strategic Plan (SPT)

Karlan moved to eliminate Strategy 21 ("Track the performance of core and critical activities in the national party and implement a plan to remediate performance shortfalls."), and incorporate that language into Strategy 4 (“Track the performance of core and critical activities in state and local Libertarian Party organizations; encourage and support these organizations in creating and executing plans to improve performance.”). He argued this makes sense since the two seemed somewhat redundant. The motion passed 8-3 by a show of hands. Carling and Wrights abstained.

Karlan then moved to add language to the Policy Manual calling for an annual review of the SPT. Carling objected, recalling that a motion to affirm SPT failed at the previous convention, indicating that the plan failed to have support of the membership. (This is a view with which I strongly agree.) Dixon ruled that SPT is valid because it is part of the board itself and not the convention or the party as a whole. (This interpretation seems odd to me considering that much is devoted in SPT to the roles played by state, local and campus affiliates.)

Nelson moved to change the vote requirement in Karlan’s motion to amend SPT from 2/3rds to 3/5ths and to delete the details of how changes would be approved and recorded. The amendment passed by a non-unanimous voice vote.

Carling then moved an addition to Karlan’s motion that a Strategy can be deleted by the LNC a 1/3rd vote. This amendment passed by a show of hands 7-5. The amended motion then passed 7-4 by a show of hands.

Later in the meeting, an actual if brief SPT review took place. Karlan pointed out the success of Strategy 3 (“Redevelop the Libertarian Party Platform, presenting both direction and destination, with an eye toward electoral success without compromising core beliefs.”). This is the one bright spot of all the 20 strategies.

Some noted that SPT is far too diffuse and suffers from a lack of prioritization. Lark, who served on the SPT committee, said many of the strategies were included for political reasons to reach out to various constituencies within the party. He offered that the purpose of the LNC is to set strategy and stick to those items within the control of the board.

BetteRose Ryan suggested that SPT and our strategy in general need to have greater connection to our mission of changing public policy towards liberty by electing Libertarians to office. Nelson and Wrights both touted the value of concrete metrics and questioned the value of any items without a way to accurately measure their success.

*

8) Affiliate Services Agreement

Now that UMP is ending, there is a rise of initiative coming up from the state parties to establish a formal affiliate services agreement. This was one of the strategies coming out of SPT, but until recently the states saw little incentive in pursuing it.

The main point the LNC wants in such an agreement is that the party’s Presidential candidate will be placed on the ballot. Karlan pointed out that the LNC recently added a provision to the Policy Manual that state parties also have policies against harassment and discrimination. The need for strong anti-takeover provisions in state bylaws was noted. This would have to be designed and sold as of benefit to the states to be successfully included in any such agreement.

Nelson, who attended the recent State Chairs conference in Phoenix, said that from the view of the states database issues are primary, although many of these have been resolved. The main concern is that states have quick access to national inquiries. Dixon noted that national also desires quick access to inquiries generated by the states, and that some privacy concerns must be addressed in any data sharing agreement. Many at the state level want a greater level of detail in this information, particularly donor history. This is a sensitive issue from the national perspective, raising not only privacy concerns but also fears of competition for fundraising.

Other major issues reported to be of concern to the states are FEC compliance, web connectivity, branding, activist and candidate training, and continued tracking and reporting of best practices and core and critical activities.

Carling stated that the points covered by any affiliate services agreement need to be limited to reduce controversy. A straw poll was conducted by show of hands to gauge the importance of each proposed point from the LNC perspective. The promise to list the Presidential nominee on the ballot received 10 votes. Anti-takeover provisions registered nine votes. Tied at eight were database and branding issues. Tied at seven were FEC compliance, tracking of core and critical activities, training, and privacy of data. Web issues received zero support. Member expulsion policies were not considered because it is considered an issue for the Bylaws Committee, while the anti-harassment policy was not included because the LNC had already put that in the Policy Manual.

*

9) Miscellaneous

Program: The draft of the new Program, written by Bruce Dovner, was well received. The LNC requested a final draft by 4/30/06 so that it may be considered for approval before the convention.

Audit: Only one bid was submitted for an independent audit, although six firms were asked to bid on the project. That bid was not accepted.

Libertarian National Congressional Committee (LNCC): Carling reported that all paperwork to establish the LNCC has been completed and it is now open for business with $1,600 in the bank. The group is dedicated to identifying state legislative races which we can win and is looking for campaigns to support in 2006. Carling currently serves as the Chair of the LNCC, and listed the other officers. Colley serves as Vice Chair, Lark as Secretary, and Redpath as Treasurer. They will be meeting and electing new officers at the Portland convention.

It is my personal opinion that the value of this organization cannot be overstated. Electing Libertarians to office is our particular mission. We have long needed a counterpart to similar committees run by our competition. I wish it every success and encourage all our donors to support it.

Database: Cory reported that the demand for state parties to manually make their own corrections to our database has been so low that it is more cost effective to have staff make the changes themselves. This is in part to the cost of the Raiser’s Edge module required to support direct state party access. Webforms for state database coordinators to submit updates are being created and maintained. The regular use of NCOA has greatly reduced errors and the need for manual updates.

Other actions: Moulton had prepared two motions. The first would add language to the Policy Manual dictating that the agenda for LNC meetings be posted on the website at least seven days in advance of the meeting. The second mandates that the minutes of all LNC meetings and conference calls be given to staff for posting on the website within 14 days of approval. Both passed by non-unanimous voice votes.

Karlan moved to replace language in the Policy Manual mandating that any special agreement between national and any state party require LNC approval. This was part of the section pertaining to membership which was deleted when the zero dues model was passed. This motion passed unanimously by voice vote.

A resolution was proposed to express our sadness over the passing of Harry Browne and to offer condolences to his wife Pamela and their family. This passed unanimously by voice vote.

*

10) Retirement

This will be my last LNC Meeting Report. I am discontinuing the practice for a few of reasons.

One is the cost. While it is true that this service could not be possible if not for donations made by many generous party members, these donations covered about half the expenses. I am currently seeking a new job which would give me more disposable income, but there is no assurance that I will be free to take the time to drive to each meeting in the future. I deliberately did not solicit donations for this meeting because I suspected I would reach this decision. However, any donations in gratitude for past services would be warmly accepted. ;-)

A larger reason is that I am rethinking how I personally want to be involved with the party. I feel I have been focused far too much on the internal workings of the party and am no longer where the real action is. The true work of the party does not take place in boardrooms. It happens on the campaign trail, in the halls of legislatures, in court rooms, at outreach events, on the internet – in short, anywhere that voters and opinion makers are gathered. After some time away from most everything political, I am looking to expend my efforts in places where I feel I can most affect public policy. I’m sure I’ll be writing about this more in the near future.

I’ve been filing these reports for four years now, two while serving on the LNC and two as a reporter. To some degree I feel I have taken my turn. It was a great pleasure to see the excellent report on the State Chairs’ Conference written by my good friend and colleague George Phillies. It lifts my spirit to know that if this is indeed a valuable service to our members, then others will rise up to fill any void I might create.

This has been a wonderful experience and I leave it with no regrets. The greatest joy by far of these trips has been driving all over the country with our Vice Chair, my editor and dear friend Lee Wrights. I very strongly recommend that everyone drive across this beautiful country at least once in a lifetime. We have shared the most awesome vistas that can be offered from America’s highways in most every state and the bonds of deep friendship that only such an experience can give us. We have seen the power and glory of Creation from many perspectives and praised God together for truly being the greatest artist. We have received the kindness of so many wonderful people along the way, friends and strangers alike, and met so many great folks who make this party real at the grassroots. The ending of this phase in my life only means I’ll have to create more excuses to continue these travels with him. I don’t know if I could have done this with anyone else.

While this experience has sharpened several of my concerns and criticisms about how we run our party, I have also seen just how hard people work to make this keep this dream of a strong Libertarian Party alive and growing. The members of the LNC take on these responsibilities at great personal expense of both time and money, their only compensation being the joy of service. Peoples’ voting records may be criticized but from what I have seen their dedication to our cause is beyond question. Our staff is compensated, but by no means at the level they have merited. Only people who are equally dedicated to the cause of Liberty could joyfully put up with the special, and especially aggravating, requirements of political party work.

It has been an honor to rub shoulders with these excellent individuals at least once a quarter, and an even greater one to know that my work has been of value to our members. I look forward to what future opportunities are awaiting me to help restore our Liberty.

To all those who have supported this project with donations, kind words, or just buying me a beer at the bar, I thank you all.

Bylaws Proposal: Allow expulsion of party members

2006-02-12T23:23:00.000-05:00

Again, thanks to Dan Karlan:

Several affiliates have expulsion provisions, but even if a person is expelled by one of those affiliates from membership in the affiliate, he is still a member of the National Party. This proposal would dictate that National (LNC and staff) would honor the affiliate’s decision and remove such a member from the National Party rolls, too.

Bylaws Proposal: Provide for automatic removal of officers and at-large members for non-attendance

2006-02-06T17:59:00.000-05:00

More thanks to Dan Karlan. Feel free to join the discussion of these proposals at the LP Bylaws Message Board.

While the LNC has the authority to remove officers and at-large members, this is an extremely severe action, and the LNC usually has much critical business to attend to. But an officer or at-large member who has been absent for a significant number of LNC meetings imposes a severe burden on the remaining members, who take their commitment seriously. This proposal would ease the difficulty for the LNC for this one reason, consistent non-attendance over the course of, perhaps 3 meetings: nearly one full year of LNC meetings.

[Sean's note:] We put this into our bylaws in NC about 10 years ago and this policy has worked great for us.

LSLA Conference Report part 2

2006-02-05T02:02:00.000-05:00

Again thanks to Special Correspondent George Phillies:

The Sunday event was focused on national-state relations. I was the only person there from Massachusetts (indeed, the only other New Englanders were Hardy Machia and Bonnie Scott of Vermont) so I stayed to listen.

The opening theme from the LNC was that there are presently no state-national agreements. We were reminded from the podium that 'in 2000 a state affiliate refused to put our Presidential candidate on the ballot' suggesting the need for an affiliate agreement.

Now, some people do believe that at some point one should stop bringing up history of people no longer active in the party. However, when that history is being used to guide current policy, it is of current significance. Basing policy on wrong history is not a good idea. Those of you who want the read the full details may consult my book Funding Liberty.

To make a long story short the official version of history as presented from the podium was exactly backward. In 2000, the LNC's Arizona affiliate was happy to put our candidate on the ballot. However, in 2000 our affiliate had no ballot access. There was a Libertarian group in Arizona with ballot access. They had previously been our affiliate, but the LNC had revoked their affiliation. The National Convention seated the delegates of our affiliate. The people with ballot access did send delegates to NatCon, but the Convention refused to seat them as the Arizona delegation.

The people in Arizona who did not run Harry Browne for President were not our affiliate, and claims to the contrary are untrue. You could read details in the LNC minutes on the LNC web site, but that web site has stopped carrying the old LNC minutes.

Procedure was debated. A brainstorming session was held listing things that might be desired in an agreement. Committees were formed to discuss the agreement in general, and the database issues in particular.

The LSLA elected officers for next year. Jeremy Keil was re-elected as secretary. Aaron Starr was nominated for chair. He managed to persuade Pat Dixon, the LPTX chair, to run for re-election. Dixon was re-elected by acclamation.

Several people referred to our 51 affiliates. I suggested that several affiliates did not appear to be there, based on the experiences of the Russo and later Badnarik campaign.

I had a prolonged discussion with several LNC members about membership numbers for the past two years, showing constant numbers from 12/03 to 12/04, and a 30% fall in 2005. They opined that the 12/2004 number was incorrect, and that the real number for 12/2004 was well under the 22,000 I quoted from the party web pages. I asked if it was not the case that the 12/2004 number that they questioned had been used to calculate some salary bonuses. They did not deny that I was correct.

I had a fairly long conversation with a Badnarik staffer who questioned my article in Liberty for All questioning Badnarik's claim to be an orthodox libertarian. Discussion focused almost entirely on the question of whether or not there is a legal requirement to have a driver's license to drive a car, the other side maintaining that there were good reasons to believe that such a requirement does not exist. I maintained that this belief is silly, and does not have anything to do with being a libertarian. My other criticisms of Badnarik were not discussed at length.

I call all readers attentions to the potentially worthwhile Local Membership Program proposal on the dues question, namely that states would identify members and forward them to national, paying national $10 per year for every member. State representation at NatCon would be determined by the average membership over the past two years. This proposal comes from the LP of Nevada and its thoughtful chair Brendan Trainor. You would all find it worthwhile to examine closely.

I was initially put off by two aspects of their flier, but one of these is an infelicity of phrase, and the other they agree is a side issue. The poor phrasing is that they initially represented the possible NatCon dispute as lying between the "Zero Dues" faction and the "UMP" faction. They then quote reasons to reject UMP and reasons to reject Zero Dues. In fact, I heard no support whatsoever for the UMP dues-sharing program at the State Chairs convention. I found reasons for opposing UMP 'topdown' 'unlibertarian on its face' to be very similar to those raised when UMP was created most of a decade ago.

"Dues" and "UMP" are entirely independent questions. You can have or reject either without having the other. The real dispute is between the Dues and No Dues factions, and LMP really speaks to the Dues/No Dues dispute. After some discussion, I think I got their key supporters to see why I was proposing this point, though it is hard for some people to envision a UMP program if there are no national dues.

The side issue that they raised is the notion that in states with voter registration by party, you must Register Libertarian to be counted as a member. I gather they received considerable negative reaction to this minor aspect of their proposal. The side issue that they did not raise is that the states actually cannot give the money to LNC, Inc for FEC reasons. This is not an important question——the money could also be given to a body allowed to receive it and doing libertarian educational efforts.

It was a good meeting. I'm sorry that Sean Haugh was unable to attend to give you a better and more detailed report.

Libertarian State Leadership Alliance (State Chairs) meeting, Phoenix AZ January 28-29 2006

2006-01-31T00:32:00.000-05:00

From Special Correspondant George Phillies

Pat Dixon opened the meeting by thanking everyone who was working for the LSLA. George Squyres organized the event. Gerhard Langguth made the web pages. Jeremy Keil handled the finances. Many others helped in a positive way.

Dixon Spoke of his experiences on the Lago Vista town council. The town council was presented with a resolution saying that 'in light of the Kelo decision, city councils should look hard at their charter languages'. The Texas Municipal League, an association of town councils, opposed the resolution because in Dixon's words 'we (the League) want to increase the power of government'. We need a Libertarian Municipal League. Dixon proposed, so that when you are elected to city council you have people you can asked for help.

Judge John Buttrick emphasized that he was not endorsing any candidate or political party. He asked 'do you want to serve?' Run for posts you would like if you win, so if you do win you will enhance the good name of the party. Are you legally qualified to run, with respect to age, residency, etc. He noted the case of an LP who encountered a candidate for attorney general who, for starters, did not live in the state. Do you have the time and money to serve? Can you advance to cause of liberty in a meaningful way if elected? Is this a job anyone should do?

After election, you have to do the job. People voted you dog catcher to catch dogs, unless you ran on the plank 'free the dogs'. Be ready to be handcuffed e.g. by the Constitution, town charter, etc. Be prepared to lose on issues. Signature issues: you may win on a few issues and not others. Identify yourself with a few of them.

Scott Stuart was first elected in 1998 to the Pima County Community College Board of Trustees. He opined that Community Colleges are the best run most popular institutions in government. He was able to do things to spur competition and ensure access for home schoolers. He said that if you get a good CEO the job is better. He noted that he has voted for modest tax increases.

David Owens is a town supervisor for Landenberg PA (Town of London-Britton). He discussed making deals, e.g., voting to buy a new pickup truck in exchange for allowing the use of private building inspectors. The town had a land trust that could spend $345000 a year to buy open space. He took the land trust money and focused on improving the land it had already bought so that it would build and maintain parks. This removed the teeth from the land trust. He noted that the town had been presented by Federal bureaucrats with a septic tank law, with threats that the town would be fined if it did not pass it. He rewrote the law, taking out the Federal enforcement language.

Concern was expressed that successful elections were a Republican plot to destroy our party. Electing activists can cut the heart out of a local group. They have no time to do activism. Dixon said that his election had been a real boost to the Texas LP. He noted that in the last Presidential election his precinct had the highest fraction of Libertarian votes. Given the choice, it is good to elect people.

The general recommendation for people elected to boards: Read Minutes. Read Agenda. Take matters seriously. Have replacement ready for your activism post.

Steve Gordon presented his new campaign school. His important theme was that most aspects of campaigning do not care which political party you support. These are the aspects of campaigning that most Libertarian campaigns ignore, e.g. get out the vote. The course will have reading from standard texts, and guests, e.g., Joe Trippi, who ran the Dean campaign web site. The assignments will ramp up over the length of the course.

This will be an online course. The core of online is that there is no time at which everyone has to be there. We focus on running Presidential campaigns because the data is there on how things work in practice. The lessons are the same well down the chain. We will have feedback on the course and will do better next time. Classes will start 1/31, run by people who have run campaigns. The online course will resemble real college classes with real quizzes to drive involvement. Your time commitment will run 4-14 hours per week. A $50 per course rate was noted.

I attended the "State Executive Director" meeting. Wes Benedict described coming on board and trying to contact the 70 county chairs. He failed. Many of the email addresses were dead. Many of the phone numbers were so dead they no longer had 'this number has been changed'. The State had an 800 number. It had not been checked in two years. Only the last six months of messages were saved. Many were reporters trying to get information, so the messages were time sensitive and had expired. The state set a candidate recruitment goal. For lack of anything else to do, they went with the "Success 99" recruitment plan. They recruited 200 candidates to run for office.

Brad Klopfenstein(Indiana) noted that UMP is going away. The Indiana solution was a monthly pledge program. Asking for a monthly check fails. Monthly card charges work. Indiana has 151 supporters giving an average of $50 a month. These programs are imperfect and need a year to start. Other state efforts include a media data base, and a contact list. He went to the state house and worked the press corps. Lesson: it is useful to have someone active in the state capitol. If you only have three candidates, people do not know that you exist. We ran 170 candidates, almost all in partisan races. People noticed. He also made a transition to a new Executive Director, which worked very well. Transition time is essential.

Burke (Oregon) proposed that if you delegate details to staff you eliminate turf battles. He spoke up for the Carver model of board governance. Under this plan, the Board cannot tell people what to do. The Executive Director is party leader, and does what the board votes.

Several EDs discussed salary models. One has a $900 base, and gets 30% of everything raised over $2500. Another received $20,000 and 20% of everything raised after that. If there is not enough money, the ED is not paid. A problem is that the State Board then abandons all responsibility. Staff can usefully handle data base, fundraising, and book keeping. You can start with a part time ED until you have more money.

The notion of having a contractor who would service several states who cannot afford an ED was noted. Doug Klippel remarked that Florida had had an ED, and matters had been unsatisfactory. A difficulty was the lack of goals.

It was proposed that under the Carver model the ED could solve many problems by providing the Board with a list of goals to adopt. An alternative would be a best practices committee for EDs.

It was suggested that the point of an ED had to be a force multiplier, not someone whose purpose it was to perpetuate himself. EDs and buildings can consume an organization's resources so that the organization does little other than to pay for having an ED and building.

Another advantage of the ED is that people hate confrontation. Pay enhances accountability. I suggested that a number of issues arose because there was no Inspector General, no Nagging Uncle whose task it was to determine if matters that you thought were happening were actually happening.

There was an extended presentation on charitable fundraising. It was a slide presentation; I expect that the slides will soon be available. A few lessons:

Things to do: Acknowledge gifts. Recognize donors. Honor intent of donors. Invest prudently. Show that your spending was efficient and effective.

Reasonable costs run 10-25% of funds raised. Direct mail acquisition may run 15%. The exception is the special event, which is extremely inefficient, and in which costs may be 50-65%.

A good fundraising letter is three pages or less, with 1 page 'where we were 20 years ago', another 'where we are today', and a third 'where we want to go'. The best source for new gifts is old givers. You should go out and speak to your donors, and learn why they give.

Myths to avoid: We can't afford fundraising. We can't get big gifts. We do not have the experience or the staff. We communicate our needs through our publications. We need a staff attorney. Special events are a good way to raise money. People who would give do not need to be asked.

Most donors start small. When you lose a donor, you are losing a friend of the organization. Go out and ask for money. You may get yes, no, or maybe. Say THANK YOU! with a phone call or written note. Learn interpersonal skills. The Dale Carnegie book is actually a good start.

A group of Libertarians has assembled a real celebrity endorsement from Penn Jillette, a noted stage magician. The endorsement has been filed and needs editing. It will have 30 and 60 second segments suitable for candidates to use as outtakes. $5000 is needed for editing the film, which has already been recorded. Money sent the National party to pay for this, the check marked "Penn and Teller", will be completely segregated from other accounts and spent on this project.

Darla Maloney has a project related to the Kelo decision. She is looking for soil samples from the 50 states. About a half cup, enough to fill a sandwich bag, would be good. These can be sent to Darla Maloney, 190 Pinedale Drive, St. Charles Missouri 63301.

Four persons have announced their intent to run for National Chair, namely Bill Redpath, Ernie Hancock, Mike Dixon, and George Phillies.

Redpath had a trifold at the event.

Phillies had a 1-page flier, noting that over 2005 membership fell from 22000 to 15500, a 30% drop, while income raised has fallen from nearly 3 million in 1999 and the better part of 2 million in 1993 to one and a quarter million or so in the current year. He asked if perhaps we should try change.

The Draft Ruwart "Run, Mary, Run" group had a flier urging people to ask Mary Ruwart to run for our 2008 Presidential nomination.

Bylaws Proposal: Allow LNC removal of Regional Representative to LNC

2006-01-29T13:59:00.000-05:00

Again thanks to Dan Karlan:

Bowing to current legal niceties, the LNC recently adopted a policy on sexual harassment and other objectionable behavior by LNC members towards other LNC members and towards staff. Enforcement of that policy, to protect the LP from potentially catastrophic lawsuits, requires that the LNC be capable of applying the ultimate penalty – removal from the LNC of the offending member. But the Bylaws protect Regional Representatives – fully half the LNC – and declare that they can only be removed by action of the corresponding affiliates. This proposal would confer on the LNC the ability to apply the penalty of removal to all LNC members, including Regional Representatives.

Note well: the proposal would still allow the corresponding affiliates to remove their Regional Representative, as now (Article 10, paragraph 7).

Standards of Party Governance

2006-01-28T19:08:00.000-05:00

(This will be my next article for Liberty for All.)

We hold government to very high standards when it comes to openness and transparency, and rightly so. We have open meetings laws, sunshine laws, freedom of information laws, ethics laws and many other provisions demanding public disclosure of government documents and actions. Long have we known that transparency is the first step to prevent government from sliding into tyranny.

We must hold ourselves to at least those standards in governing our own party affairs.

Some counter that since a party is a private organization, we are not bound by these standards. After all, the reason why we must keep all these extra checks on government is because it is involuntary. Since you can’t choose not to be a part of it, people need these extra protections. But a party is a voluntary organization. People can come and go as they please and choose their own level of participation. No one can be forced by the decision of a private organization, so the theory goes, thus we can allow ourselves much greater latitude in how we manage our own affairs.

Now if we were talking about, say, a bridge club, I might agree with this. It’s not much effort to join or start up a new bridge club if you don’t like how yours is run, and bridge clubs rarely if ever try to influence public policy.

But a party is not just a social club. By its very nature a political party possesses both public and private characteristics.

The whole reason why we have a political party is to elect people to public office, people who must be held to the highest standards of ethics. So it behooves us to uphold these ethics in all of our affairs. Not only is it good practice, we need to show voters that we can be trusted. If we have failed to uphold these standards while conducting our own business, people have no reason to believe that we will suddenly start to behave properly when conducting theirs.

Let’s say for example that a Libertarian who serves on a state executive committee is also running for his local city council. On the party committee, that person has no problem making smoky back room deals or meeting privately with a majority of his committee to determine how to vote on official business. Now, if this happened while that fellow served on a city council, he would either scream bloody murder if he was not part of the smoky back room, or be removed from office and maybe even go to jail if he was. But since he engaged in this behavior while serving on the board of a private organization, we have every reason to believe that he would act this way if he won his election.

It is pure hypocrisy to hold yourself to lower standards when asking the people to give you higher responsibility. In order to show the people you are worthy of their trust, you have to have a history of upholding that trust in your daily life. The only way you can do that is to point to your record in the conduct of your private business.

This is doubly true for a third party. We have an extra burden to show the voters that we are different from the Democrats and Republicans. We have learned that simply having superior ideas alone doesn’t inspire voters to break habit and try something new. We also have to prove to them that we will govern differently, that we will restore honesty and ethics to politics.

That’s what voters are really looking for. They are sick of the corruption of Democrats and Republicans far more than they are tired of those parties’ policies. They don’t want politics as usual. When a candidate can show evidence of their own integrity, that person has an edge at the polls. If all we can say is that we are a different flavor of the same old politics, we have forfeited any possible competitive edge we might have over our opponents.

Lower standards of openness and ethics in our party business are an open invitation to duplicity and corruption. Indeed, the argument that a party as a private organization is not beholden to the high standards of public bodies is almost always advanced by people who are trying to justify their own unethical behavior as party officials. To claim that lower standards are acceptable is to allow us to behave just like the Democrats and Republicans.

Citing the voluntary nature of private organizations as a defense for lower standards is an incredible insult to the party membership. It’s basically the “love it or leave it” argument. That is, if you don’t like how I am running your party, you can just go screw.

The Libertarian Party in particular is a grassroots organization. It is owned not by a board of directors but by the membership. Even when it is not seeking access to government power, any grassroots organization must be totally open and transparent in its governance to maintain member ownership.

An elected position in the Libertarian Party is just as much a position of trust as one in government. If we can’t be trusted to uphold the highest standards of openness and transparency in running our own party, we certainly cannot claim we are able to do so when asking the voters to let us run their government.

Working Together

2006-01-22T13:50:00.000-05:00

(The slightly cryptic nature of these entries is because they are posts from the LPNC discussion list. For some editorial reason that I don't fully understand myself, I choose to reprint them as is. If you want background, ask questions in the comments or check out the list archive. And remember, this is my home so any comments just to tell me what flavor of jerk I am will be deleted.)

Elise keeping coming back to an excellent point, which is that we should all be able to work together regardless of anything else that is going on. Thanks to the professionalism and good will of all involved, this is happening.

For a few examples, I'm working to make the transition of my duties and LPNC property in my possession as smooth and complete as possible. I see no reason to add any extra difficulty to the process, and Phil has brought the same attitude to this task. Phil has asked me to stay on with the lawsuit for LPNC, which I will gladly do, with the attitude that all of us named plaintiffs are all in this together and so will show each other nothing but full cooperation. And Lee has already reported similarly about his working relationship with Phil.

To his credit, Phil has done an excellent job of keeping communications open and forthright since he became Chair. I've known Phil for 10 years now and love him a lot on a personal level. One of the nice things about dealing with him is that I can say exactly what I think without too much emotional drama attached.

Yes I have a lot to say about the current state of the party and strongly dissent from its current direction. I feel a compelling duty to the party that does not let me keep silent about it. One of the main reasons why I took so long to join the current debate is to get a more objective grip on my perceptions. (I'm a big fan of sleeping on things, as many nights as necessary.) This helps me state my view in as positive and constructive way as possible. Yes, I am angry, disappointed, hurt. So I won't be perfect here, but I'm trying and very much appreciate that effort when displayed by others.

It is possible to love someone and still think they are doing wrong, even to the point of being angry with them. In my circle of close friends, people who are afraid to tell me when they think I am in the wrong don't last too long. It's because they really do love me and they know that doing right is what's best for me. Following the golden rule, this is how I treat others.

It is possible to acknowledge the good that people do while still addressing the negatives. Everyone involved here has done a lot for the party and obviously honestly believes that whatever they are doing is best for it. I hope that understanding is never lost by any of us.

It is possible to acknowledge that all of us are good at some things and not others. Particularly, being a good member of a board of directors requires quite a number of refined skills. There's no shame in this, but generally everyone is happier, especially yourself, when you stick with your strengths and let others handle the rest.

I'm not looking to drive anyone away. I'm trying to let go of the desire to throw stones at anyone or avenge past offenses, as difficult as that is. To me this is simply about doing what is right. It's about maintaining our honor as we get deeper into the dirty business of politics. I believe it is possible for us to resolve our differences with the result of a more positive working relationship for all.

I remain dedicated to the cause of Liberty and to the Libertarian Party as a vehicle to help get us there. I'm not too worried about no longer being Executive Director of the LPNC. There's still plenty of productive party work to keep me busy and loving it.

Power and Titles

2006-01-21T19:58:00.000-05:00

Almost two weeks ago I asked our Executive Committee to recommit itself to ballot access as our overwhelming priority. A few members of the committee replied immediately that no, I am the burning issue that the party must face today. I've been waiting for the noise to die down so I can offer a few observations without getting drowned out. While I have a lot to say in response, the intervening time has given me some perspective which I hope will be more positive than the current infighting.

One area of contention is the use of titles within LPNC. The execomm passed a motion:

"The use of any title by LPNC members, where this title is intended to represent a position or job within the organization at the state level, is disapproved unless the name, powers and duties of the title are specifically authorized by the Bylaws, by a State Convention, or by the Executive Committee."

Let me dispel immediately the notion that this motion had anything to do with me. Yes, as some have noticed, I was obviously the target of this motion. Yet it does not affect me in the slightest for two reasons. One is that the execomm passed exactly such a motion in April 2000, creating and defining the title of "Executive Director" and granting it to me. The other is that since I am quitting the job I no longer have any need to defend the title.

So the question of what this means to Sean Haugh is completely moot. But what it means to the membership is very much a live issue. This motion is a reversal of our longstanding policy on this issue.

Back in 2003 I wrote an article for LFA, The Power of the Title. That describes the opposite approach, one which helped make LPNC strong:

"I encourage you to create titles for yourselves. And if you don't have one handy, let me know and I'll give you one. A title is like a magic wand that somehow makes you special in the eyes of others. The more impressive the title, the more you are accepted without question. This egalitarian fool thinks it's silly, but hey, it works."

But I also included a caution:

"Your authority does not come from the words or letters you can put after your name. It comes from other people recognizing what you have done. Real leadership is something you earn, not something granted to you in a title."

Unfortunately most people are still seduced by the false authority of titles. Including our current execomm.

Libertarianism isn't just a set of positions on the issues. It is a whole different way of doing politics. Our way shows respect for the individual, and builds power and authority bottom up, rooted in individual action. The way of authority dismisses respect for the individual. As expressed in this motion, our execomm has said they own a monopoly on authority and power within the LPNC. Nothing you do means anything unless it has prior approval by the execomm.

This motion expresses the exact opposite of Libertarian leadership. True Libertarian leadership recognizes individual accomplishment and the real authority that comes as a result. We have organized specifically to oppose the current conception of leadership, that someone can hold authority over you simply because they possess a title, because we know this concept is at the root of totalitarianism. We're smart enough to realize that if we simply replace the names holding false authority over us with Libertarian names, we have done nothing to truly change politics. We not only have to gain influence over the issues, we must gain influence over how politics is conducted to produce any real change.

Our executive committee, by passing this motion, has sided with the totalitarian ethic we have sworn to destroy. They believe that your activism must be directed from the top, by them. By passing this motion, they have turned their backs on you, the activists that have made this party what it is today.

So, please, continue with your work and if you need a title to help it along, make one up. You don't need an execomm to express your own Libertarian authority and autonomy, nor can any motion by the execomm eliminate your true authority. If they squawk about it, ignore them. And show up at the state convention in May to replace this execomm with one that understands that Libertarianism is something more than simply a different flavor of totalitarian top-down politics.

New FEC Regulations Tighten Restrictions on State and Local Parties

2006-01-17T14:02:00.000-05:00

New FEC Regulations Tighten Restrictions on State and Local Parties
By Bill Hall
Warner Norcross & Judd LLP
January 2006

In enacting regulations implementing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA"), the Federal Election Commission ("FEC") carved out a number of de minimus exemptions from the requirements of BCRA to make it easier for political party committees that engage in very little activity in connection with federal elections to comply with BCRA. In the past, this benefited many state, district and local Libertarian Party® political organizations. However, in Shays v. FEC, Congressman Christopher Shays and others successfully challenged the validity of many of these regulations in court. The FEC is now in the process of enacting new regulations repealing these exemptions, as required by the court. Within the past couple of months, the FEC has enacted two new repealing regulations that directly impact the operations of state, district and local political party organizations, including your organization.

To understand these recent changes in this very complex area of the law, you must first understand some of the terminology used in these new regulations - the concepts of "Federal Election Activity," "Federal-Related Activity," "Federal Funds," "Levin Funds" and "Nonfederal Funds." I urge you to skip to the end of this bulletin and review the short definitions for these terms before you read the rest of this bulletin, if you are not already comfortable you understand these terms.

Repeal of Exemption for Employees Who Spend 25% or Less of Their Time on Federal-Related Activity

BCRA required that the compensation of committee employees spending more than 25% of their time on Federal-Related Activity be paid entirely from Federal Funds. When the FEC enacted a regulation implementing this law, it addressed committee employees spending 25% or less of their compensated time on Federal-Related Activity, by expressly providing that their compensation could be paid entirely from Nonfederal Funds. The Shays Court invalidated this exemption.

The FEC has now enacted a new regulation, effective January 19, 2006, which requires that the compensation of committee employees spending 25% or less of their compensated time on Federal-Related Activity be paid from a mixture of Federal Funds and Nonfederal Funds. If the employee spends no compensated time on Federal-Related Activities, then you may pay all the employee's compensation with Nonfederal Funds. Otherwise, you must pay that employee's compensation from the same ratio of Federal Funds and Nonfederal Funds as you are required to pay your organization's other administrative costs, i.e., on the "Fixed Percentage Allocation Method" (see chart below).

FIXED PERCENTAGE ALLOCATION METHOD
Presidential /Senate Candidates on Ballot in your State Federal Funds Share
Year in which President but no Senate on ballot, or previous year 28% federal
Year in which both President and Senate on ballot, or previous year 36% federal
Year in which Senate but no President on ballot, or previous year 21% federal
Year in which neither President nor Senate on ballot, or previous year 15% federal

Repeal of $5,000 Exemption for Disbursement of Levin Funds

While BCRA required that some Federal Election Activity be funded entirely from Federal Funds, it permitted other Federal Election Activity to be funded from a mixture of Federal Funds and Levin Funds, as described below in "Some Important Definitions." The allocation ratio is the same ratio as for other committee administrative costs, as set forth in the accompanying chart. When the FEC enacted a regulation implementing this law, it included a de minimus exemption to this rule, permitting the first $5,000 of Federal Election Activity to be paid entirely from Nonfederal Funds. The Shays Court invalidated this exemption.

The FEC has now enacted a new regulation, which took effect December 19, 2005, and requires that your political organization fund all Federal Election Activity from a mixture of Federal Funds and Levin Funds, using the same allocation ratio.

What This Means for You

What does this means for your political party organization's operations?

First, it means you must take care to fund more of your operations only with Federal Funds. Whether or not your political party organization has met the thresholds requiring it to file with and regularly report to the FEC as a political committee, you are legally required to ensure that it only uses Federal Funds to pay the costs of Federal-Related Activity required to be paid with Federal Funds. You are required to keep records demonstrating that you have complied with the requirements of federal campaign finance law in raising those funds. Theoretically, the FEC may ask to review your records and fine or imprison you if you have not complied with the law. Effectively, this means that you must upgrade the scope of your record-keeping, so you can demonstrate you used Federal Funds when required to do so.

Second, you must invest more time and energy raising Federal Funds, to meet your increased requirements for Federal Funds. Generally speaking, the contribution limits, reporting requirements (if your committee files reports with the FEC) and prohibitions against accepting certain contributions (e.g., corporate contributions) are much stricter for Federal Funds than for Levin Funds and/or Nonfederal Funds. Now, even more than in the past, you must wrestle with those requirements.

Some Important Definitions

"Federal Election Activity" means certain activities, other than direct contributions to a candidate for federal office, in connection with a federal election or for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office. Federal Election Activity includes activities such as voter registration within 120 days prior to a federal election, and voter identification activity, generic (e.g., "Vote Libertarian") campaign activity, and get-out-the-vote activity in connection with a federal election, the cost of which must be paid entirely in Federal Funds, or allocated between Federal Funds and Levin Funds. For example, contacting voters and asking them to vote or placing generic "Vote Libertarian" yard signs in an election that has both federal and state candidates on the ballot is Federal Election Activity, even though your purpose in doing so is to boost the vote totals of your state and local candidates. Federal Election Activity also includes activities such as many communications supporting or opposing federal candidates, and the services of committee employees spending more than 25% of their compensated time in connection with Federal-Related Activity, the cost of which must be paid entirely from Federal Funds.

"Federal-Related Activity" includes both Federal Election Activity, and more traditional activities intended to influence a federal election, such as contributions to federal candidates or expenditures supporting or opposing federal candidates.

"Federal Funds," sometimes called "Hard Money," means funds raised and spent in accordance with the contribution limits and prohibitions and solicitation requirements of federal campaign finance laws.

"Levin Funds" are a hybrid type of funds that are raised in accordance with state campaign finance laws, but may be used in lieu of Federal Funds for the funding of certain Federal Election Activity, as noted above. They are neither Nonfederal Funds nor Federal Funds. Different contribution limits apply to them than those that would otherwise apply under state law.

"Nonfederal Funds," sometimes called "Soft Money," means funds raised and spent in accordance with the contribution limits and prohibitions and solicitation requirements of state, and not federal, campaign finance laws. For example, this would include funds raised, spent and reported under state campaign finance laws for the purpose of influencing any election for state office or a state ballot initiative. It would also include funds raised and spent for indirect political purposes that are not required to be reported under state campaign finance laws. The hallmark of Nonfederal Funds is that they are not raised and spent for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office.

*

For more information on your political party organization's obligation to use Federal Funds for its Federal-Related Activities, see Bill Hall's article in the April 2005 Libertarian Party® News "Complying With BCRA and FEC Regulations on Federal Fundraising." For some thoughts on limiting the liability of your political organization's leaders, see Bill Hall's article in the December 2004 Libertarian Party® News "Incorporating Your State Political Committee."

This message is provided to advise you of recent federal campaign finance law developments. Because each situation is different, this information is intended for general information purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice on any specific facts and circumstances.

Official Notice of Termination

2006-01-15T13:15:00.000-05:00

January 14, 2006

From: Sean Haugh
To: Libertarian Party of NC
Re: Notice of Termination

Under the terms of the contract between myself and the Libertarian Party of NC (LPNC), this letter serves as 30 days notice of my intent to terminate the agreement. Under its terms, this notice is deemed official three days after it is sent via US mail. Therefore the date of termination shall be February 16, 2006. I shall continue to perform the services detailed in that agreement up until that date.

Between now and February 16, 2006, I will gather together a comprehensive list of all LPNC property in my possession and transfer such property to Executive Committee members designated by the committee. I will also be happy to train anyone designated by the committee in the administrative services I perform, and otherwise assist in a smooth transition of all such duties.

I do intend to continue whatever services I provide as a volunteer (not covered by the contract) beyond the termination date, and otherwise intend to remain an active member of the LPNC. It has been a great honor to serve the party in this capacity, and I continue to wish the party every success.

yours in liberty –
Sean Haugh

An Open Letter to the LPNC Executive Committee

2006-01-08T14:03:00.000-05:00

Here I speak as a member of the party, not with any other title:

Folks, I have been keeping up with everything on this execomm list, and it has gotten to be beyond ridiculous. We are so engaged in hairsplitting and backbiting that we have completely forgotten the whole reason why we are here.

The members of this party in our last convention knew the ballot access challenges that were facing us and elected you to help us meet them. What have you done to meet the responsibility they entrusted to you? In the last three months, we have seen close to zero activity or interest in doing what it takes to get back on the ballot. We have received maybe 10 signatures since October.

And yet our agenda for our next meeting is clogged with motions to define terms or further the divisions plaguing this committee. None of them are healing, none of them advance the mission of the Libertarian Party, and none of them have anything to do with regaining ballot access. It's all just rearranging deck chairs on a rapidly sinking Titanic.

The mission of the Libertarian Party is to change public policy in a libertarian direction by electing Libertarians to public office. If you disagree with that statement, then maybe your efforts are better used elsewhere. That's not a criticism, just a plain fact. There's no shame in working for Liberty the best way you know how. But there is great shame in this committee's deliberately ignoring the mission of this party.

At our next meeting, you a very simple and very stark choice. You can continue on this unproductive path, or you can focus the committee on meeting our ballot access challenges. You can choose either bloodbath or progress. There is no more in between or shades of meaning. Either you are committed to the mission of the party or you aren't. Which will you choose?

If you disagree with the notion that our *only* goal right now is ballot access, then you need to explain to the membership why you think something else is more important.

I strongly urge this committee to reject consideration of ALL motions presented so far, even those I helped put on the table. I ask everyone who has offered a motion that is not directly germane to our mission to please withdraw them. I would make an exception for the budget or any other work that was explicitly charged to a subcommittee before our last meeting, simply out of fairness to those who were charged with these tasks.

I challenge you to change your current unproductive and divisive course of action and recommit this committee to the real work of the Libertarian Party of NC. Here I am not taking any one individual to task, because the entire committee has utterly failed in this regard so far. But I will offer an individual challenge.

We have a week before our next meeting. What can you do in the next week to tangibly further our mission? Not plans, not ideas, not redefinitions, but tangible help delivered right now. Will you be able to report at that meeting anything that you have done to actually help us get back on the ballot?

Don't tell me about other things you have done for Liberty. I know what you've done and it's wonderful. You will get nothing but gratitude from me for that. That's not the point.

Don't tell me that you are one of the few people left here who actually performs the task you were elected to do. Again, I know what you've done and you will get nothing but thanks from me for it. That's not the point either.

You were elected to get this party back on the ballot. Will you choose to acknowledge that responsibility? The membership deserves to know your answer.

Bylaws Proposal: Drop weakest finisher after every ballot

2006-01-07T01:32:00.000-05:00

Still serializing the work of Dan Karlan:

The Bylaws specify (Rule 9, paragraph 2) that if there is no winner after the first ballot in the polling for the Presidential and Vice-Presidential contest, the vote is repeated; it is only after the second ballot that the weakest finisher is dropped. However, at nearly every Nominating Convention at which there has not been a winner on the first ballot, a motion to suspend the rules – to allow dropping of the last-place finisher immediately, rather than delaying that until after the second ballot – has been entertained and adopted. This proposal would formally remove that delay, and bow to the consistent suspension of the Rules.

Libertarian Integrity for Sale, Cheap!

2006-01-07T01:24:00.000-05:00

This article is going into this weekend's edition of Liberty For All:

My friends, we have arrived. Libertarians are so much a part of the political mainstream that we can be vital partners in even the most mundane political scandals. The fall of respected Libertarian thinkers Doug Bandow and Peter Ferrera in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal offers some important lessons for all of us.

Business Week started the ball rolling in mid-December by reporting that Bandow had been fired by CATO Institute, where he was a senior fellow, and the Copley News Service who syndicated his columns in hundreds of newspapers. In the wake of this news, the Future of Freedom Foundation also decided to server its ties with Bandow.

Bandow and Ferrera admitted to taking up to $2,000 a piece from Abramoff over 12 years to write columns favoring the business interests of Abramoff and his clients on various Indian reservations and in the North Marianas Islands. This is all coming out now that Abramoff is on trial for fraud.

The sin is not that Bandow and Ferrera wrote these columns. They didn’t have to lie in their coverage of these issues or say anything they did not actually believe to write them. The only mistake they made is that they did not disclose the payments in exchange for the articles.

Such disclosure could have been easily made. One simple sentence per article would have made all the difference between continuing as influential and respected intellectuals or seeing their distinguished reputations suddenly extinguished.

Ferrera for his part didn’t see the problem. “I do that all the time,” said Ferrera. “I’ve done it in the past and I’ll do it in the future.” His boss at the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), Tom Giovanetti, tended to agree. Taking the “everybody’s doing it” defense, he first said that critics of this policy are applying “a naive purity standard” to the op-ed business.

Since the Business Week article, IPI has issued a flurry of press releases trying to prove that they get it. It’s a highly amusing dance, considering that at the same time they are also facing hard questions about another op-ed payola scandal involving columns by their new analysts Susan Finston and Merrill Matthews supporting increased patent protections for the drug companies that employed them as lobbyists weeks earlier.

It’s a slippery slope, one I personally live on. I write articles in this space covering the Libertarian Party and its national committee (LNC), and I receive financial support from many people, including members of the LNC, so I can travel to their meetings and other events. There is a very thin yet very bright fine line between right and wrong here. I have announced from the beginning and made no secret of my support. By these rules of ethics, I’m barely on the right side of the line but enough to be considered perfectly ethical. Ferrera and Bandow kept their support secret, which puts them just barely on the wrong side of this line, and has given everyone cause to distrust them completely.

Ferrera explains, “It’s a matter of general support. These are my views, and if you want to support them that’s good.” That’s exactly how I feel too.

And as free market advocates, isn’t it all right and good that we sell our skills if we find willing buyers? It’s not a problem, in and of itself, when Finston and Matthews publish the same articles one day wearing a lobbyist label and the next as policy analysts. After all, their families have to eat and for all we know maybe they sincerely felt they could do more to honestly influence public policy in their new positions.

Yet there are limits to the free market, there are certain things that cannot be sold and retain their value. If writers show themselves to be without integrity, then their wordsmithing skills have no more meaning. If public policy institutes simply become a convenient way for lobbyists to give their views an aura of journalistic integrity, then all of their work becomes suspect.

Bandow admits his views changed once he was no longer influenced by Abramoff’s payola. Lately he has come to a more natural Libertarian perspective, that the Indian tribes he once promoted are really just another “well-funded special interest seeking political favors.” So while he was claiming to represent the Libertarian ideals of Cato when he wrote those articles, he was really representing the lobbying arm of Big Government.

Franklin Foer, writing for the New Republic all the way back on May 9, 2005, puts it very well. “There is, indeed,” Foer wrote, “a libertarian case to be made for the (North Marianas Islands’) exemption from federal regulation, although it’s hard to imagine such a case attracting so many fervent believers.” Foer points out the one-sided dishonesty of opinion that is purchased under the table. None of these Libertarian authors ever bothered to mention that exemption from federal regulation for the North Marianas includes the freedom of Chinese companies to import what amounts to slave labor to US territory, nor how keeping government off the backs of the Choctaws protects their insanely socialist government that keeps their leaders rich and their people poor.

An essential aspect of the free press is that it be independent. I’ve written extensively before that this independence should not be confused with objectivity. We can’t reasonably expect any writer or journalist to be completely without bias. But we can reasonably expect that every writer is speaking honestly. We choose to trust various pundits and organizations because we find their views consonant with our own. But if we later find that their views are controlled by the government or those seeking its favors, how can we trust anything they say again, whether we agree with it or not?

By creating false news stories and manufacturing false opinion, the government and those who wish to control it subvert the role the media is supposed to play in safeguarding our freedom. The most vital check we have against totalitarianism is an informed populace. Bandow and Ferrera have played a small yet significant role in selling out the people to government control.

This scandal runs much deeper than just a few articles or some special favors for a particular special interest. Abramoff has promised to tell all as part of his plea bargain, which has the President and dozens members of Congress scrambling to rid themselves of any donations that may be linked to him and his front groups. This comes on the heels of similar revelations of payola deals between our government and the Iraqi press to plant pro-US stories there.

This may be a coincidence, but I was curious to find the last article Bandow had published while he still retained his good name. It appeared in the Japan Times on December 15th, the day before the Business Week story. The article, “Iraq has been and will be a U.S. problem,” states the plain yet little mentioned fact that the other nations of the world have little interest in helping us clean up the mess in Iraq that we made all on our own and despite their warnings against our actions at the time.

Bandow takes a rather wistful approach to the subject. He says, “No nation is lurking around the corner to bail out the U.S. as the U.S. has so often bailed out other nations.” By making his point he means to divert our attention from the growing pressure on President Bush to articulate an exit strategy. “There are many reasons to favor an expeditious U.S. withdrawal from Iraq,” Bandow writes, “ but set aside that debate.”

It’s hard to understand this view from any Libertarian perspective. But it will all make sense if it turns out this article was connected to our government’s efforts to plant favorable stories about the war at home and abroad.

Foer’s article indicates that there are still more shoes to drop in this affair. He also names highly respected Libertarian author Clint Bolick as a recipient of Abramoff’s largesse, and traces most of this activity back to Abramoff’s relationship with anti-tax crusader Grover Nordquist and his Americans for Tax Reform. It is curious that this story sat for six months in the New Republic before producing consequences. It’s only a matter of time before the mainstream media picks up on the rest of Foer’s revelations.

We knew this would happen. Indeed, in a sense we hoped it would. We are big enough now to be bought off, to be offered the temptations of corruption.

This is the point where we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing here? Is it enough that our opinions now matter to the establishment? That we can play a role in changing little bits of public policy here and there for the better?

Or do we still believe that government itself must fundamentally change to restore Liberty to the people?

For myself, it is not enough to convince government to have the right policies controlling gambling or pharmaceuticals. We need to take that power away from government entirely. If we let them keep control of every aspect of commerce, the right policy is but a short lived phenomenon. If control of commerce is returned to the people, we can all enjoy the blessings of liberty for generations.

It is true that if the Libertarian Party is to become truly competitive, we would do well to examine the examples of the Democrats and Republicans and take from them the tactics that have made them so successful. However we have trouble sometimes determining which of their methods truly further our goals.

The test can be found in the simple rules of honor. We can and should raise a lot of money and employ many standard electioneering tactics to create a loud public policy voice and make Libertarian candidates competitive. All these things can be done without having to lie, cheat or steal. But if we stoop to the deception and corruption of our opponents, we quickly become no better than they are even if we still profess Libertarian beliefs.

One of the few selling points we have as Libertarians is our integrity. We are the lone voice of reason and common sense in a world of deception. As the liberals like to say, we are the only ones left with the guts to speak truth to power. People like that about us. Why else would people come over to our side when we not only don’t have the power to grant government favors, we expressly want to dismantle the entire system of special interest politics. We don’t offer temptation, only freedom.

Or at least that’s what we would like to think. If we suffer through enough examples such as Bandow’s, then we will lose our claim to this integrity. People will come to see Libertarianism as just another corrupt special interest group jockeying for a place at the government trough.

And if more of us choose temptation as Bandow did, would people be wrong in believing this? Foer says it all too well, “Abramoff has... exposed the corruptibility of true believers.”

As of this writing, Ferrera remains gainfully employed by ISI, and Bandow has been recently hired by Citizen Outreach run by Chuck Muth. They may still be able to get paid well for publishing their opinions, but for myself, I will never be able to take those opinions too seriously again. The fact that at least two, and maybe more, people who have done so much to promote Liberty have been ruined over giving in to just a few thousand dollars worth of temptation fills my heart with great sadness and leaves me with a deep concern for the future of our movement.

This week's LP Chat: Branding with Jeremy Keil

2006-01-05T02:20:00.000-05:00

From the Mothership:

This Thursday, we'll have LNC Representative Jeremy Keil as a guest speaker for our online chat. The topic will be LP Branding Strategy which Mr. Keil has been spearheading. I've included the chat details and login procedures below.

Additionally, if you missed last week's chat with LNC Rep. Mark Rutherford, a transcript is available by clicking here.

Chat Details:
Date: Thursday, January 5th
Time: 3:00 p.m. EST
Location: www.lp.org/chat
Speaker: Jeremy Keil, LNC Region 5 Representative

Chat Thursday with Mark Rutherford

2005-12-28T20:26:00.000-05:00

From Shane Cory on the Mothership:

I hope you enjoyed the Christmas holiday and have great plans for your New Year's celebration. Despite the holiday week, LPHQ has been buzzing with activity.

Last week's chat with LNC Chair Michael Dixon was a success with more than 70 supporters logging in to pose questions. For a transcript of the chat, click here.

This week, we'll have LNC At-Large Representative Mark Rutherford as our guest. I've included the chat details and login procedures below.

Date: Thursday, December 29th
Time: 1:00 p.m. EST
Location: www.lp.org/chat
Speaker: Mark Rutherford, LNC Representative and Chair of the Indiana LP

To login, simply access the url above and choose to either register a username or login as a guest.

To register (which will reserve your username for future chats), simply click on the "register" tab at the top of the page.

To login as a guest, click the "guest" box and add in your username (note that your username will only be reserved for that session).

Once you have logged in, click on the main chat room to enter.

The chat software requires a recent version of Macromedia Flash (click here to download) and Java must be enabled within your web client.

The chat room will be open to the first 100 visitors so be sure to enter the room a few minutes early to reserve your spot. If you miss the chat, don't worry, we plan to post a transcript shortly afterwards.

[back to Sean:] Tip of the hat to Tim West for that Mothership quip. And be sure to check out Mark's blog, which is one of a kind although I sure wish it wasn't.

Bylaws Proposal: Change delegate apportionment method to be same as Electoral College

2005-12-28T15:18:00.000-05:00

Again, thanks to Dan Karlan:

This proposal would eliminate the 1000-delegate membership dependency and the 400-delegate Presidential vote dependency, and would instead defer to the decennial census for the allocation of delegate numbers to individual affiliates.

[back to Sean:] There are several alternatives to this proposal floating around the committee. I personally prefer setting this at 2x the electoral college, to allow for a maximum of 1070 delegates. It's clear that the current Bylaws which allow for 1400 delegates restricts our choice in convention sites - although the LNC did not let that slow them down when they chose Portland, which can accommodate at most 650 delegates. I'd like to strike a balance between managability and inclusiveness. Others like a smaller delegate pool so that the position will actually start to become competitive.

Let us know what you think here or at the Bylaws Discussion message board.

Bylaws Proposal: Require financials presented to Convention be independently audited

2005-12-27T14:15:00.000-05:00

Again, thanks to Dan Karlan:

This proposal would mandate that the financial report presented to the Convention delegates would have been audited by an agency outside the LNC, perhaps a commercial accounting firm. The delegates would by this requirement have considerable confidence in the numbers so provided.

You can discuss this or any other of our ideas, or suggest your own, at the LP Bylaws Discussion Board.

Bylaws Proposal: Allow for alternate Presidential nominating method (two flavors)

2005-12-26T00:08:00.000-05:00

This was written by Dan Karlan:

The Bylaws specify (Rule 9, paragraph 4) that any candidate for President and Vice-President who submits to the Secretary the signatures of 30 delegates is entitled to formal nomination time in front of the Convention. There is no specification for a form or procedure that must be followed to acquire those signatures or deliver them to the Secretary. At the most recent Nominating Convention, the Secretary received sheets of paper of varied form and content, on which the many signatures were so distributed that it was impossible for the Secretary to vouch for the validity and non-duplication of names. (Important disclaimer: nothing in the previous sentence should be construed as indicating the Secretary doubted the validity of the signatures.) Under prodding of the Secretary, several of us (including members of the Credentials Committee, who might have to implement at least part of one proposed mechanism) have come up with a process that will make the submission of the minimum 30 unique signatures much more susceptible to validation. However, we want to make sure that the mechanism that is adopted is permitted in the Bylaws, beyond challenge.

A variation of this proposal would add a ‘binding’ provision, in which the delegates who offer their signatures for this purpose would at the same time, and by this action, promise to vote for the candidate to whom they offer their signatures, on the first ballot.

Chat with Michael Dixon Thursday

2005-12-20T11:43:00.000-05:00

From the Libertarian Party:

Dear Friends,

On Thursday we will be starting a series of online chats with members of the Libertarian National Committee.

Our first chat will be with LNC Chair Michael Dixon to discuss our plans for ‘06 and beyond. Below is detailed information which includes login procedures:

Date: Thursday, December 22nd
Time: 2:30 pm EST
Location: www.lp.org/chat
Speaker: Michael Dixon, LNC Chair

To login, simply access the URL above and choose to either register a username or login as a guest.

To register (which will reserve your username for future chats), simply click on the “register” tab at the top of the page.

To login as a guest, click the “guest” box and add in your username (note that your username will only be reserved for that session).

Once you have logged in, click on the main chat room to enter.

The chat software requires a recent version of Macromedia Flash (click here to download) and Java must be enabled within your web client.

The chat room will be open to the first 100 visitors so be sure to enter the room a few minutes early to reserve your spot. If you miss the chat, don’t worry, we plan to post a transcript shortly afterwards.

Next week, we plan to have LNC Secretary Bob Sullentrup followed by Regional Representatives Michael Gilson and Trevor Sutherland. A complete schedule will be posted later this week.

We look forward to hearing from you on Thursday. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@lp.org or by calling 1-800-Elect-Us.

Best Regards,
Shane Cory
Chief of Staff, Libertarian National Committee

LP Bylaws Discussion Board Now Open

2005-12-15T12:25:00.000-05:00

Hey, when it rains it pours. One more bit of news for today. The brand spanking new LP Bylaws Committee Disscussion Board is now open for business. Thanks to Shane Cory for setting it up and to Dan Karlan for posting about half of the active proposals up there already.

We need as much feedback from the membership as possible to make sure we bring our best material to Portland. We have a lot of ideas to change about how we conduct our own affairs, and I am quite fond of most of them. The LNC's vote to abolish dues also throws a big fat hot potato right into our laps. So if you are interested in how the Libertarian Party does business, please come check it out. Once you register, you can give us your ideas on our proposals and also suggest your own.

Another correction

2005-12-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

LNC Counsel Bill Hall writes to say:

"To my knowledge, there are currently two formal proceedings in process before the LNC regarding claimed FEC reporting violations. One of them (concerning the late filing of an FEC report) I am handling. The FEC administrative officer reviewing the matter has suggested that the FEC levy a $2,800 fine (NOT $28,000) in that matter. We, of course, objected. This is the number I have been reporting for some time in my (non-privileged) reports to the LNC."

Sorry for the confusion. And by the way, aren't we lucky to have this guy as our lawyer? I have worked with Bill in a variety of capacities, from the legal stuff to the Bylaws Committee to just conversing with him at conventions. Beyond giving us a high quality product for a very generous price, he is happy to help the party any way he can, and is simply a warm, loving human being. Count me as a huge fan of Bill Hall, and extremely grateful that we have him on our side.

LP Chat

2005-12-15T12:07:00.000-05:00

This is from LP Chief of Staff Shane Cory:

Wanna Chat?

We are testing our new chat center and want to invite a few of you into chat for the afternoon to try out the software.

Currently, we are planning to host a regular chat with LNC or staff members. Please click on the link below and enter the main chat room and let us know what you think.

Best,
Shane Cory

P.S. You'll need a current version of Flash.

[back to Sean:] You'll also need to register. Besides the general chat room, there's special ones for the LNC, staff, the state chairs, and our pledgers. If a schedule appears for the weekly chats with LNC members I'll post the notice. I'm glad to see us using whatever means available to open up communications with and among the membership.

New Links

2005-12-15T11:42:00.000-05:00

Lots to catch up on today. Sorry to be so spotty in posting. Suing the state keeps one occupied.

I've updated the right hand column, removing some dead or moribund links and adding a few. My definition of "libertarian," at least when it comes to NC blogs, has become pretty darn loose. If you are from NC (past or present), willing to be seen in public with us and I think you are cool, I'll put your blog up there once I find it.

Pushing this envelope is Matt Hill, a UNC-Greensboro student who supported the Free Speech protest there last month. Matt's blog is almost entirely about gay issues. OK, so he's a liberal, but he likes us and I like him, so he's in.

Two more of our stalwarts have been blogging regularly now, Eric Smith and Phillip Rhodes. Actually I just found Phillip's blog when looking up the link on Allison Jaynes' for the Free Speech protest. Both are sterling gentlemen with whom I'd gladly share this foxhole. OK, so I don't want to be in a foxhole to begin with, but if I have to be here their company makes it all the more worthwhile.

Three heavy hitters of the Libertarian movement have blogs or something resembling them now. Harry Browne is publishing semi-regularly, but he is so cool that he could post once a quarter and I'll still check back every day hoping for something new. CATO Institute has started its own blog for the uberintellectual public policy set. And it's long past time I added a link to the Libertarian Party blog.

Locally, due to car trouble and some really nasty weather up in the mountains, I hate that I am missing today's rally at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Asheville demanding the resignation of NC House Speaker Jim Black. Black is the kind of guy that almost never does anything directly but gets others to do his dirty work for him while leaving his name out of it. Several of his henchmen are now in hot water, taking away his human shields and plausible deniability. Several websites have popped up calling for his resignation. The first and still the best is Jim Black Must Go. Plenty of good detail there if you are looking for a reason to fire the guy.

2006 Convention Heads Up

2005-12-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

It's not too early to start planning for Portland. This is a message from LNC Secretary Bob Sullentrup to the State Chairs' list:

The 2006 Convention is more than a half year away, but the July 1-2 Convention in Portland, OR will be upon us soon. This is a quick note to remind state chairs what lies ahead.

Deadlines for State Chairs include:

February 28 (large states name Credentials and Platform Committee members)
June 1 (your delegation named and submitted to HQ, first pass), and
July 2 (LNC region formation)

1. Delegation Chair’s Manual and Your Delegation’s Size

For a complete account of what lies ahead, go to http://www.lp.org/organization.shtml and have a look at the Delegation Chair’s Manual and the Convention FAQ. These are documents first produced in 2004, and are now updated for 2006.

Since your state’s delegate allocation depends in part on membership numbers as of December 31, 2005, I will provide an update to the Delegation Chair’s Manual in January to reflect the final membership numbers an resulting delegate allocations.

The component of your delegation’s size that depends upon the 2004 Badnarik vote is already in place. It turns out certain states lost a total of 69 delegates relative to the 2000 Browne vote while others gained a total of 71 delegates.

2. Credentials Committee

In Baltimore at the November 12-13 LNC meeting, the following five individuals were named to the Credentials Committee:

Emily Salvette (MI)
Dena Bruedigam (OH)
Gary Johnson (TX)
Jack Tanner (FL)
Michael Houze (IN)

Alternate: Ronda Birr

The five states with the largest memberships on December 31, 2005 get to appoint another five members. As of October 31, 2005, those five largest states were: California (2737), Texas (1065), Florida (960), Georgia (698) and Pennsylvania (672). Michigan was in sixth place with 641.

California has named Kevin Takenaga to the Credentials Committee and Florida has named Vicki Kirkland. Both appointments are subject to their states’ membership totals remaining in the top five on 12-31.

Meanwhile, Texas, Georgia and Pennsylvania should be lining up prospective nominees to the Credentials Committee, as should Michigan or any other state that thinks it can overtake Pennsylvania by the end of this month. The deadline for the top five states to name their Credentials Committee appointments is February 28.

Please notify interim chair Emily Salvette, Salvette@ameritech.net, and me of your nominations.

3. Platform Committee

In Baltimore at the November 12-13 LNC meeting, the following 10 individuals were named to the Platform Committee:

Lorenzo Gaztanaga (MD)
George Squyres (AZ)
David Aitken (CO)
Robert Murphy (OK)
Trevor Southerland (GA)
David Owens (PA)
Adam Mayer (OR)
Tim West (WV)
Donny Ferguson (VA)
Lee Wrights (NC)

Alternates Include:
1st Alternate: Chuck Williams
2nd Alternate: Jim Duensing
3rd Alternate: Greg Clark
4th Alternate: Beatrice Jones
5th Alternate: Bill Van Allen, Jr.

The 10 states with the largest memberships on December 31, 2005 get to appoint another 10 members. As of October 31, 2005, those ten largest states were: California (2737), Texas (1065), Florida (960), Georgia (698), Pennsylvania (672), Michigan (641), Ohio (617), Virginia (596), New York (581), and Illinois (558). Washington was in 11th place with 533.

California has named Brian Holtz to the Platform Committee and Florida has named Bill Van Allen. Both appointments are subject to their states’ membership totals remaining in the top 10 on 12-31.

Meanwhile, the other states named above should be lining up prospective nominees to the Platform Committee, as should Washington or any other state that thinks it can overtake Illinois by the end of this month. The deadline for the top 10 states to name their Platform Committee appointments is February 28.

Please notify interim chair George Squyres, gsquyres@gotsky.com, and me with your nominations.

4. LNC Region Formation

The state (and affiliate – we have not forgotten you, D.C.) membership totals are also needed to form LNC regions for 2006-2008. Any group of states whose combined membership accounts for 10% or more of the total is entitled to one LNC rep for each 10% they encompass.

The region formation period extends from April 2 through July 2. Notify me of regions that are formed. Please use the form provided in the Delegation Chair’s manual.

Once again, I will NOT include members registered with Canadian, Puerto Rican, military or other addresses that are not assigned to any affiliate in the membership total. The Bylaws award one LNC rep for each 10% or more of total membership, allowing at least for the possibility of a 10-member region encompassing all affiliates. That would not be possible if the total membership denominator for this calculation included foreign addresses, since that would leave the region’s membership percentage at around 99.7% rather than 100%.

In 2004 and well after the convention and region formation deadline, an anonymous ‘LibertyForMe@yahoo.com’ saw fit to challenge the denominator of the calculation with the apparent purpose of removing an LNC rep. Region 1’s total had barely surpassed 20%. Changing the denominator would have made the region’s total fail to reach 20%.

At its August 2004 meeting in Cleveland, the LNC deferred the matter to the Bylaws Committee for its deliberation and recommendation. Meanwhile, the LNC endorsed the Convention’s action to seat two representatives from Region 1 as final and unchangeable and without regard to its correctness.

Thanks for your attention, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of my friends again in Portland. I’m no longer MO chair, so I won’t be seeing you in Phoenix at the end of January. If someone sees fit to produce a conference write-up, please forward it to me and I’ll include it in the 2006 Convention CD.

[back to Sean:] Ain't Sully the most diligent Secretary we have ever had? I think so.

Bylaws Proposal - Provide alternate pathways to appealing to the Judicial Committee

2005-12-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

Again by our faithful Committee Secretary Dan Karlan:

The requirement that 5% of the membership must agree to bring a matter before the Judicial Committee has all but guaranteed that the Judicial Committee has never been called into action. In recognition of that apparent irrelevance, we first considered a proposal to eliminate the Judicial Committee. That proposal simply didn’t fly, but the notion of making it easier to bring a matter before the Judicial Committee had clear, immediate, and substantial support. We are considering providing three alternate routes to bringing a matter before the Judicial Committee:

1. 5% of the delegates to the most recent Convention.
2. 10% of the State Chairs
3. 20% of the current LNC

Corrections, Clarifications and Confidentiality

2005-12-03T01:15:00.000-05:00

So many people followed up on my last LNC Meeting Report that there’s enough material for a whole ‘nother article.

First, a correction. I reported that North Carolina had not yet received its Unified Membership payment (UMP) in October. That was incorrect. I checked and we had actually received it before I wrote that article. I humbly apologize, especially to headquarters staff, for the error. They have enough troubles these days without false reports of not meeting obligations.

It turns out some other items of fact are also in question. For a few examples, I reported last time that according to Treasurer Mark Nelson a forgotten check for $8,000 was discovered in a desk drawer of a former employee. I’ve since heard the check was in the amount of $4,925. Nelson also had reported that a significant number of materials had to be trashed because they bore our former Executive Director Joe Seehusen’s signature, and since then I’ve been told they were made outdated by the abolition of membership dues.

The LNC almost passed a motion (it failed 7-7-2) by Region 2 Representative Aaron Starr (California) that we pay undisputed past due accounts payable before paying UMP, citing that our printer has still not been paid for the annual report from the beginning of 2005. However I have since been told that this invoice was indeed in dispute. I have not been told why the LNC was apparently unaware of this fact.

There are other examples of variations between different sets of factual reports, even more picayune than the first two I cited. On the surface it may not seem a big deal whether a check is reported to be for one amount or another. But the inability for everyone to agree on the most insignificant facts leads to a very significant problem. The LNC cannot make sound decisions if they don’t have accurate information.

I am not blaming or accusing anyone. Indeed, there is no evidence whatsoever of anyone involved trying to falsify anything, and ample evidence that they are all decent people just trying to do right. This dynamic has been going on for years, long predating all current personnel. Before Nelson, former Treasurers Mark Tuniewicz and Deryl Martin complained of their inability to receive all the information they needed from staff. We’ve been through two Executive Directors and a full turnover of headquarters staff, and yet staff still complains of the LNC’s troubles in requesting what information they need.

That the problems stay constant while the people involved keep changing indicates this is a systems problem, not a personnel problem. I remain somewhat mystified as to why this continues. While serving on the LNC last term, we paid a lot of attention to streamlining the reporting we wanted from staff and took great pains to keep these reports as simple and germane as possible. It just doesn’t seem like it would have to be so difficult.

The theme continues with some clarity on the improvements in running monthly pledge credit cards. It turns out there was a user error with test batches. If a card number was in an existing test batch, it wouldn’t be included in the real batch. This was going on for months and was uncovered while training new people to run these batches. The test batches were deleted, and presto! Another dramatic improvement in this system.

Yes, this is another level of detail that hardly amounts to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of the Liberty movement. But again, it is a sign of a deeper issue with how we run this party. Every time a high level employee leaves, we discover problems like this.

The reasons for this are becoming a little clearer. We are always going into a crisis mode whenever a director level employee leaves. Instead of simply filling the position again, we distribute the duties to other staff who were not hired to do them and may or may not have any qualifications or experience with them. These are good resourceful people for the most part, eager to help any way they can and excited about learning while doing. But expecting them to keep operating in this crisis mode doesn’t work for anybody.

Not only does it lead to these basic errors that are always in need of fixing, it’s grossly unfair to our staff. Being in constant crisis leads to lack of morale. Being pulled apart in several competing directions generally contributes to job dissatisfaction. Being criticized for trying your best at some job you never asked for is never any fun.

We could solve a lot of these endemic annoyances if we hire qualified people for well defined positions and then just let them concentrate on doing their jobs. That way we can keep good people longer, instead of always replacing people whose dedication has finally been overwhelmed by their frustration.

On the confidentiality issue, I heard from Region 5E Alternate Chuck Moulton (Pennsylvania) who wanted to make sure his concerns about the confidentiality of reports raised at the last meeting were clear. He has always been an advocate of openness and wasn’t arguing in favor of excessive confidentiality, and I trust that was clear in my report.

The problem is that without constant reminder of the very narrow grounds of what should be confidential, it seems to be human nature to blur the lines and want to keep information closer than is often necessary or required. The poorly defined desire to keep information close leads to sloppiness in both directions. Moulton cited a database report he passed along, just meaning to keep his constituency informed, that he later was told was confidential even though it wasn’t marked as such. At the same time, the LNC seems quite freaked out over the speed at which the Treasurer’s Report, a completely nonconfidential document, made it into the blogosphere.

Being directly involved in the process, I won’t pretend to be objective here. My gut reaction is that folks should just get used to living in this glorious Internet Age when all information is immediately available. That Treasurer’s Report was sent by several LNC members to several different people, including myself, and I in turn forwarded it to others. That anyone finds anything wrong with this is rather strange to me.

But in thinking about it, I can understand why the members of the LNC might place some value on wanting to have the time to digest complicated financial information before having to answer questions or make decisions based on it. Some members also expressed concern that the process becomes a game of telephone where important pieces of information become lost or garbled with each transmission.

One of the main reasons why I took this job is to make sure accurate information is available to people who want it. Our members deserve to know everything they want to know about how their party is being run, but that’s not the only benefit. Placing the facts are on record also puts an end to speculation. It used to be that people could offer conjecture as fact and it would take a life of its own without the truth to counter it. I’d like to think that my LNC Meeting Reports have gone a long way to make sure that everybody knows what they are talking about.

After two years of this gig, this problem is starting to crop up again. It’s hard to report the facts when different authoritative sources disagree on them. And now some LNC members say they feel inhibited from committing anything to print because of how quickly and chaotically that information might get out.

Some people think blogging has changed the nature of reporting. The truth is the opposite. Blogging has returned journalism to its roots, before misplaced notions of objectivity were foisted upon it. Good reporters always have an interest in their subjects and make their biases a part of the story. Yes, sometimes it is messy, but overall more facts and more perspectives on them help people acquire the true picture.

Free flowing correct information is what makes this process work. When the flow of correct information is restricted in any way, we quickly return to the environment where speculation is just as powerful as truth, where unjust criticisms cannot be easily dispelled. But with all of the facts easily available to anyone, we can replace mistrust with confidence in any organization.

Bylaws Proposal - Make the Treasurer job description conform to reality

2005-12-02T21:36:00.000-05:00

This was written by Dan Karlan:

The definition of Treasurer currently in the Bylaws does not take into account that a paid staff might be employed to do much of the routine accounting functions. We propose something along the following lines:

"The Treasurer is responsible for oversight of all financial functions, including, but not limited to receipts, disbursements, internal and external reporting. The Treasurer shall report to the LNC and the Convention regarding the financial situation of the Party."

[Sean adds:]

The current language reads:

"The Treasurer shall receive, expend and account for the funds of the Party under the supervision and direction of the Chair and the National Committee. The Treasurer shall make an annual financial report to the National Committee and shall perform all duties required of the office by applicable federal and state law."

LNC Meeting Report, November 11-12, 2005, Linthicum MD

2005-11-19T23:37:00.000-05:00

I always love traveling to Baltimore, one of my very favorite cities. This meeting was very well attended by party members from Maryland and beyond, to the point where several more chairs had be brought in to seat all the observers. Lorenzo and Susan Gaztenaga hosted a most excellent Maryland LP hospitality suite throughout the weekend, and it was wonderful to see them again as well as many old and new friends.

The news is all so dire as what is reported below. This report completely neglects three exciting new staff initiatives the Libertarian Leadership School, development of a voter identification database and a new website designed for candidate recruitment and support. These merit deeper treatment and more enthusiastic promotion than can be provided in this report. I hope to have a separate article covering these excellent developments in LFA next issue.

LNC Meeting Report - Budget and Finances

2005-11-19T23:31:00.000-05:00

The rumors of dire financial straits at national were pretty much confirmed at this meeting, although staff and the newly created LNC Finance Committee have offered some hopeful signs for the future. On top of this, the LNC Executive Committee completely ignored its responsibility to have a 2006 budget prepared in advance of this meeting.

Treasurer Mark Nelson reported that he has not even seen September financial statements, and distributed what he had just received for October. That report shows we had about $14,000 in the bank available to pay bills as of 10/31/05, with over $90,000 in bills due. Chair Michael Dixon said that the stoppage of reports was due to staff turnover, and it took a great deal of effort to get the reporting system restarted.

Nelson ascribed some of the shortfall to our struggle to change operations in response to staff turnover and the LNC’s decision to set dues at zero. For example, there was some significant cost to replacing materials that bore the name of our recently departed Executive Director Joe Seehusen. One change Nelson is pushing for is to institute a purchase order system, which is still in negotiation with staff. Purchase orders would allow us to better know about obligations for which we have not yet been invoiced. Nelson reported that debts that have not shown up yet in the reports currently total at least another $10,000.

Another large potential cost on the horizon is potential fines by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) stemming from our many problems with filing accurate campaign finance reports over the last two years. We are currently engaged in the Alternative Dispute Resolution program of the FEC, which allows for negotiation and working out problems in a more informal setting instead of simply facing a quasi-judicial hearing resulting in penalties. Nelson estimated this may result in fines between $20,000-50,000, and that long term compliance issues are still ongoing. In his report, LNC Counsel Bill Hall suggested the likely amount could be as much as $28,000 yet held out some small hope that fines might be avoided.

Nelson renewed several concerns of his which have been constant throughout his tenure. For example, he cited how some revenue lines have always been improperly posted. Dixon explained that contributions which combined a membership with an extra donation are still not split properly to account for the cost of servicing the membership. Nelson cited further examples where both staff and the LNC have failed to follow our own policies and standards. The most famous of this is our historic inability to maintain reserves as demanded by our policy manual.

Region 2 Representative Aaron Starr (California) moved that no Unified Membership payments (UMP) be made while there exist undisputed accounts payable over 30 days past due. For example, apparently our printer has still not been paid for the annual report which went out at the beginning of the year. While little was said about it, I can tell you that the UMP check we were expecting in mid-October in North Carolina has yet to arrive and nothing has been said about when we should expect it.

Vice Chair Lee Wrights spoke against the motion, saying that our UMP obligations are equal to those made to our vendors. At Large Representative Bill Redpath offered that such a firm rule may not fit a fluid situation, although Starr countered that the effect of his motion would cease as soon as we had the money to get caught up on our current obligations. Region 2 Representative M Carling (California) said it may be illegal for us to pay the states before our vendors, but did not elaborate.

At Large Representative Michael Colley noted that one payday he was in the office two employees did not receive their paychecks, choosing to defer them until money was available. This he said was an untenable situation, adding that some states are moving on in the wake of zero dues and the abolition of UMP, and all states should do so. Region 6 Representative George Squyres (Arizona) added that our first financial obligation must be to our staff. Nelson reported that he instructed staff to hold vendor payments until we can cover UMP and payroll.

By a show of hands, Starr’s motion failed 7-7-2.

Acting LP Chief of Staff Shane Cory reported that we brought in over $124,000 in October, a sharp increase due to a number of factors. One major change is the segmenting of our fundraising letters. Instead of our former practice of sending all our fundraising letters to everybody on our list, we are finally taking advantage of our new database software to identify more likely donors to each appeal and send it only to them. This has greatly reduced the cost of each letter, allowing to send more frequent mailings which have a much lower threshold to reach profitability. He said the focus has shifted from chasing former donors to generating new ones, which yields superior results. We have also hired a new direct mail consultant, who has more experience and offers us a lower rate.

The Advertising and Publications Review Committee (APRC) has been involved in review of fundraising letters although that technically falls outside their purview. Nelson, a member of the APRC, had raised concerns about what he termed several misstatements of fact in the zero dues letter, which he ascribed to a lack of institutional knowledge resulting from staff turnover. Nelson and Cory attempted to hold that letter after Nelson expressed his concerns, but it had already gone out. Wrights, Chair of the APRC, stressed that the only role of that committee is to ensure that our materials conform with our platform, and it is not to be seen as an editorial board. Region 5E Representative Jim Lark (Virginia), the third member of the APRC, drew out Cory’s response so the LNC would be fully informed of these issues.

Starr asked about the how the chain of command is currently maintained. Cory replied that he speaks to Nelson daily to clear expenses and keep him informed, while Dixon noted elsewhere that he speaks to staff at least once a week. Cory spoke of the need for the LNC to resolve remaining communication issues with the Treasurer, and said he was quite open to greater communication from individual LNC members.

Cory also spoke of discovering and correcting a new level of errors in the pledge program which has cut the credit card failure rate in half. Personally I am disturbed by the constant pattern of always uncovering major flaws in our operations whenever a director-level employee leaves, most recently our development coordinator Jessica Wilson. The fact that Wilson remains very highly regarded, and rightly so considering how she instituted many corrections and improvements to our procedures after previous employees departed, lends credence to the view that this pattern is due to far more to flaws in our systems more than in our personnel. One obvious factor is our habit of promoting or shifting employees into responsibilities for which they were not originally hired and have no prior experience. These folks may well be resourceful and eager to help, yet this practice forces them to develop solutions on the fly with limited or no training, as well as ensuring a loss of institutional knowledge when we experience staff turnover.

Dixon cited At Large Representative Mark Rutherford’s work with major donor development in his role as Chair of the new Finance Committee. Nelson cautioned not to get too excited about the increase in major donor revenue in October as it is not necessarily repeatable, citing that one of these donations (for $8,000) resulted from a check written a year ago that was found while cleaning out a desk drawer in the office. While major donor income, at least at our current level, will yield disparate results from month to month, I still find it a very hopeful sign that Rutherford, his committee and staff are laying the groundwork for soliciting large donations on an ongoing basis.

Nelson distributed a rough draft budget, which was based on adjustments he made to an initial document developed by staff. Our policies state that the Executive Committee (EC), composed of the four officers of the party and four other LNC members, is to develop and distribute the proposed budget well in advance of the November meeting so it may be amended and approved by the LNC. No reason was given for the EC’s failure to do this work.

The budget is still about $96,000 short of balancing, with projected revenues of $1,090,760 and expenses of $1,187,377 for the next calendar year. This is significantly below the expectations of running a $1.7 million enterprise as reflected in the two most recent budgets. Nelson said there was no consideration yet in the draft budget for the project line items such as the convention, ballot access, branding or training. (The budget separates activities between program items, which are paid from the general fund, and project items which are supposed to be segregated and self-funding.) He renewed his concerns over the difficulty of the convention breaking even, and how we are unprepared if it results in a serious shortfall. He also pointed out that outsourcing LP News would add more significant costs for which there is no room in the budget.

The discussion of the budget was reserved for the last major agenda item on Sunday. Some adjustments were suggested or approved at the table. Nelson said training was being moved from program to project status, since in theory it is supposed to be self-funding. Squyres asked for a separate program line item for affiliate support and development. This was agreed to, but no information was offered to determine how much to fund it. Starr suggested separating outreach between those activities designed to generate donors and those meant purely for marketing.

The budget now goes to EC to do the work they were supposed to complete before the end of October. Once they have refined the draft budget, it will be submitted to the LNC for a week of email debate and amendment and returned to the EC for approval, all to conclude before 12/31/05.

Wrights closed the meeting by saying how ridiculous it is to be voting to do what we should have already done. He noted that he has been sitting on the board for four years now and is still waiting for us to get the budget process done right.

LNC Meeting Report - Executive Director Search and Staffing Issues

2005-11-19T23:30:00.000-05:00

Colley, as Chair of the Employment and Personnel Compensation Committee (EPCC), reported that eight applications have been received for the open position of Executive Director (ED). He said in them he has still not seen the right person for this job. He has ceased employing a professional search service because our current financial position makes it difficult to pay them, not to mention paying a new ED.

Our current staff is smaller, but according to Dixon operating more efficiently. Cory is serving as Acting Chief of Staff until a new ED is named. Under our policies, technically Dixon is also serving as ED. Dixon said that we are being very well served by having Colley on site throughout most of the fall. Nelson said he has spent more time on office matters including some responsibilities which normally belong to the ED. Nelson strongly urged the committee to hire a new ED as soon as possible, claiming that the position more than pays for itself and provides essential leadership. Colley showed sympathy for Nelson’s view but said it is true only when we identify the right person for the job.

Colley offered a new quarterly ED bonus structure. He said that some metrics have changed, such as membership numbers, while others are hard to measure or difficult to attribute directly to staff activity, such as the number of election victories or amount of media coverage.

Colley suggested a new formula. The ED bonus would be a maximum of $6,000 per quarter, which would be two parts staff management (containing costs and turnover, response to tasks assigned by the LNC, reporting and conforming to the budget), two parts fundraising, one part representing the party in the DC area, and one part being a “team player” (support of the LNC and our affiliates, and partnership with the Chair).

No action was taken on this proposal. While the choice of metrics is more realistic, they still appear to contain many of the same subjective elements as the previous bonus structure.

Sam New has been shifted from Special Projects Coordinator to Director of Communications on an interim basis. Besides issuing press releases and fielding media inquiries, New has been active in cold calling media outlets to book interviews. Dixon said this resulted in him doing many more interviews than he had in any previous quarter. He related an amusing tale of an interview with the Washington Times, asking if support of gay marriage naturally led also to support of polygamy. Apparently the reporter had done extensive research into our position, including looking up the Arizona LP platform which directly addresses this issue.

Member Services Specialist Chris Thorman has been tasked with learning our database program and working with Robert Kraus to finish hammering out the bugs in it, which is meant to give him an opportunity to show if he can fulfill the duties of a renewed Development Director position. Kraus reported that negotiations with Blackbaud regarding servicing their database product continue apace, although more staff training will be needed to take advantage of some of the features still available to us.

Starr asked what the plan was for the next 90 days. Dixon replied the major tasks are implementation of affiliate and vendor agreements, finishing the transition to zero dues and convention planning.

Colley also reported on the move of the office upstairs to Suite 200 in the Watergate building, which has been stalled. Just before we were to complete the new lease agreement as reported last meeting, the building was sold to an owner who harbors the illusion that the Watergate is an A-list property. While is does have a delicious place in history and an excellent location, honestly it has never been a top quality structure in terms of maintenance and amenities. This has resulted in a reopening of our lease negotiations.

Meanwhile, we have determined that our space needs are a bit less than we had originally envisioned. Fortunately our prospective next door neighbor on the second floor wants to expand, which should result in a happy compromise. Our current lease ends on 12/31/05.

Colley was asked if there is a Plan B in case our negotiations with the new landlord fail. He replied that we are hoping to avoid moving away from the Watergate, especially considering the great value we receive from interns supplied by nearby George Washington University.

LNC Meeting Report - Outsourcing of LP News and Material Sales

2005-11-19T23:29:00.000-05:00

The LNC heard four presentations from vendors bidding on LP News or our material sales. All four were very well thought out, high quality proposals.

The sole bidder on our material sales was Webb Garlinghouse and his company National Electronic Type of Topeka KS. Garlinghouse has already reserved the domain lpstuff.com. He is a longtime party member and raised his children well, being the father of headquarters intern Pere Garlinghouse.

Garlinghouse has already done business with us as the printer of the “New Vision for America” brochure, which has been widely hailed as our spiffiest publication to date. He sees a great opportunity to move a whole lot more product than we have before, branching out into hats, t-shirts, pins and so on. He is comfortable with LNC oversight to ensure he doesn’t develop any products we would deem inappropriate. As part of the deal, he would purchase our existing stocks of brochures and other materials at cost, and if he couldn’t sell them within a year he would return them to the party at the same cost. He said he wants a five year commitment from the LNC and expects to show a profit within two years.

Garlinghouse said he was willing to work with state and local parties, such as offering them bulk discounts. However he did not have ready answers when asked if there would be any copyright or competition issues if affiliates sold their own products. These questions were quickly deflected pending an opinion from counsel. Given his prior history with the party, it seems he would be open to being as accommodating as federal campaign finance law would allow.

Three proposals were submitted to take over LP News. All were very different from each other. I was impressed by each and do not see them as mutually exclusive. I would love to see all three publications happen and would hope the market could support them all.

The first presentation was from Brandon Millett of Kidron Publishing of Washington DC and Jerusalem, Israel. This one promised to keep LP News pretty much as it is now, including retaining Daniel Cloud as editor. Millett said he wanted to use LP News to initiate as well as report on success. He also spoke of an aspiring Libertarian authors program sponsored by his company.

Besides publishing, Kidron also provides many campaign and public policy consulting services. Millett serves currently as the editor of The Verdict, the monthly house organ of Judicial Watch.

Millett’s financial analysis concluded that LP News costs $7.17 per annual subscription. This rate would be charged to LP new donors, with renewals to donors selling for $8.60. Non-donor subscriptions would be $18. To cover the cost of existing subscriptions, Millett quoted a price to the LP of about $67,000 and offered to spread that out over four payments.

Kevin Rollins of Woodbridge VA proposed a publication called “Libertarian Insider.” His vision is a libertarian trade journal targeted for “everyone who is involved in the production and marketing of liberty.” It would serve needs extending well beyond the party, covering both political and movement news, and providing ideological and practical support for activists.

Rollins is currently publisher of The Free Liberal, which does a great job of presenting left-libertarian and classical liberal perspectives. It appears that much of the staff of The Free Liberal would be available to help with this new project. The proposed format would be a 24 page tabloid with no color. He quoted a fee of $75,000 to transfer LP News operations to his group.

Todd McGreevey of Davenport IA proposed “Libertarian Life,” which would cover party news as well as cultural and social aspects of libertarianism. McGreevey’s current publication is River Cities Reader, the weekly entertainment tabloid in the Quad Cities area.

McGreevey said he’d like to see our publication become the “Utne Reader” of libertarianism. He brought some mock ups of full color pages, highlighting ballot access and a column on the “Barometer of Liberty.” He said he would be willing to offer state parties the chance of special inserts in the stitch and trim format. Although he wants the publication to help the party grow, for example by helping to recruit more qualified candidates, even more McGreevey showed interest in making our publication an outreach vehicle. McGreevey quoted a fee of $250,000 a year.

Shortly after the presentations, the LNC entered what must be their longest executive session ever, clocking in at over two and half hours and taking the whole rest of Saturday afternoon, to discuss the proposals in light of campaign finance law with Hall there to advise them and continue their ongoing discussion of how the heck we are going to straighten out our FEC reporting problems. The upside was it gave me the opportunity to hang out at the bar with Tim West of Liberty for Sale, whom I had been looking forward to meeting for some time.

Reconvening on Sunday, Squyres moved to outsource material sales to Garlinghouse, pending a contract reviewed and approved by Hall. Some concerns were raised in the debate. Starr wants us to avoid being locked into a long term agreement. Lark wants to ensure that we not restrict the ability of states to produce their own materials. Wrights wanted to see competitive bidding, saying we don’t know if we got a good price since we only saw one. The motion passed on a voice vote. Wrights abstained, while At Large Representative Rick McGinnis recused himself since he is in a similar business which has done business with the LP before.

Moving on to LP News, Redpath moved to keep LP News in house, but that was ruled out of order as you generally don’t make a motion to retain the status quo. Squyres then moved to outsource LP News to the Kidron group.

Redpath expressed his concern of losing ownership of LP News without a clearer financial picture. During the debate it became obvious that no one at the table expects LP News to turn a profit. Starr suggested we could well lose more money by outsourcing. Lark offered that another confounding factor is that we don’t appear to have a shared view of what our party’s publication is supposed to accomplish. Wrights said we are making a mistake by removing our revenue streams without replacing them, and we don’t have the money now to make this move.

Carling, who has become our resident expert on FEC regulations, said he sees only the most minuscule improvement in our position with the FEC by outsourcing, although it would make it possible again for our affiliates to purchase subscriptions in bulk or on behalf of members. Bear in mind that the entire motivation for outsourcing LP News is the prohibition on the party accepting corporate contributions, which severely restricts its ability to pursue advertising revenue. Carling said the advantages gained by outsourcing would not come close to justifying the $50,000-100,000 a year in additional losses.

The motion failed on a voice vote. Nelson then moved to replace LP News with a donor based in house publication. Starr objected to consideration of this motion, and that objection passed on a voice vote.

It is truly unfortunate that the LNC did not have the foresight to realize that without any money currently available for significant new obligations, it was premature at best to ask these bidders to take the time and expense of preparing their presentations. While LP News will continue, most likely in its current format with Cloud continuing as editor from his new home in South Carolina, I hope that the capital could be found to produce the publications envisioned by both Rollins and McGreevey.

LNC Meeting Report - Dues, no longer debated

2005-11-19T23:27:00.000-05:00

There were two proposals to revisit the dues debate, both brought by regional representatives on behalf of members. Region 1E Representative Dan Karlan (New Jersey) offered a motion submitted by the Massachusetts LP to set dues at $30, while Region 4 Alternate Trevor Southerland (Tennessee) put forward the plan of Jack Tanner of Florida to set dues at $0.0001 (one mil) along with a pledge to donate $100 to cover the fees for the first million members.

Squyres objected to consideration of both proposals, which very swiftly passed by a show of hands, 10-5 (two thirds required). Thus the LNC affirmed its will to have zero dues starting January 1, 2006.

At the beginning of the meeting, Dixon cited California and Indiana as positive examples of forward thinking in their response to zero dues, and asked both those state chairs to tell the committee their stories.

Starr explained that California had implemented pretty much what he had proposed to the LNC at the beginning of the year, $25 for a new state membership and $50 to renew. He said it is important to recognize that the transfer of our members’ relationships from national to state is not automatic, so attention to building new relationships is required to generate dues. Their goals are to convert 50% of national members to state membership and develop their own membership database program.

Rutherford spoke for Indiana. They are going the opposite direction, choosing not to charge dues in favor of other fundraising. They have contracted with a development specialist for their fundraising program. This change will require revisions of their bylaws. Rutherford cited one great advantage, relieving their county affiliates from the task of member recruitment.

Nelson pointed out at the end of the meeting that the Policy Manual obligated the LNC to provide membership cards to new members. With zero dues set to take place, this obligation would continue with no means of funding. Karlan moved to delete that section of the Policy Manual, which passed on a voice vote.

LNC Meeting Report - Convention

2005-11-19T23:26:00.000-05:00

The LNC received a presentation from Terry Quick, our convention consultant hired by Dixon. He has over 20 years experience running conventions of all sizes all over the world. Quick has already completed a site inspection, a working budget, a marketing analysis, draft vendor agreements and the business meeting arrangements. Our cost for Quick’s services will total $36,000 plus any expenses or outside labor. His office location in Seattle allows him easy access to the Portland convention site, helping to keep his expenses low.

Quick reported the work still left to be done includes the convention website, mailing and marketing, and setting prices. He says we need to have the pricing completed as soon as possible and get the convention mailing out in December or January.

Dixon distributed initial convention budget projections. The working agenda has committee meetings scheduled for Wednesday through Friday, June 28-30, with time for various constituent or community caucuses on Friday. The business meeting would be on Saturday and Sunday, July 1-2. The Torch Club event is tentatively scheduled for Monday breakfast, July 3, followed by the first meeting of the new LNC, with a goal to complete all business by noon.

Dixon also distributed a sheet of revenue projections. While these figures are not yet confirmed, this document projected the charge for a Gold package of $300 for early registration and $340 after the early bird deadline. Silver packages would sell for $250 or $285, and the cost for Bronze packages are estimated currently at $230 and $260.

They have also retained the Basic Delegate package instituted at the last convention at rates of $45 or $55. There would be a Speakers Only package of $115 or $135. A la carte tickets include a projected $175 price for the banquet, $60 for the opening reception and $45 for a breakfast event.

The package price projections are designed to allow us to break even on the convention. The document estimates total revenue from registrations at $117,790, based on 514 total packages sold.

The Convention Committee for some time has been Dixon and Lark. Chris Farris was also on this committee, his seat remaining vacant since his resignation from the party. Region 2 Alternate Richard Burke (Oregon) was selected to replace Farris. Burke had noted the difficulty of communicating with the convention organizers regarding the extensive volunteer help being organized by the local party, so his appointment should go very far in solving that problem.

Lark said he hopes to have a greater emphasis on training and workshops for activists, and far less emphasis on speakers. Burke reported that the Oregon LP was already planning their own track of breakout sessions. Dixon said currently they are planning on only two speaker slots, both to hold down costs and allow more time for business. Nelson pointed out in that case there may not be any financial sense to offer a speakers only convention package.

Convention expenses are currently being paid out of general funds, since nothing was budgeted for the convention in 2005. Originally the revenue was supposed to go into a separate bank account, and the general fund would be repaid once money started coming in. However at the meeting it was revealed that the cost for setting up this separate account was estimated to be $1,200, which was deemed too high an administrative expense.

Carling moved an authorization of $15,000 in convention expenses for 2005, which passed by a voice vote. Dixon promised to send the LNC a monthly report on convention finances.

Secretary Bob Sullentrup submitted extensive documentation of several delegate and affiliate convention resources. These include a Delegation Chair’s Manual, a Convention FAQ for delegates, and development of various software to assist the Credentials Committee, the amendment process and vote tabulation. The documents are meticulous in detail while being very clearly organized. They will be extremely useful in educating our delegates and managing the floor process, helping to create a more productive convention experience for all, especially Sullentrup. Dixon said he is extremely grateful knowing that our Secretary is on the case and that his extensive convention responsibilities will be discharged properly.

LNC Meeting Report - Platform and Credentials Committees

2005-11-19T23:23:00.000-05:00

The LNC appointed members of the Platform and Credentials Committees at this meeting. The Platform Committee has 20 members, one each from the top ten states in membership, and ten appointed by the LNC, including no less than five members from states other than the ten having the most members. The Credentials Committee is made up of five members chosen by the LNC and one each from the top five states in membership.

Each LNC member had ten votes each which they could use positively or negatively. The first round of Platform voting determined the first nine members with a four way tie for the tenth spot.

Lorenzo Gaztenaga (MD) 13 13-0
David Aiken (CO) 12 12-0
George Squyres (AZ) 12 14-2
Adam Mayer (OR) 11 11-0
Robert Murphy (OK) 11 11-0
Trevor Southerland (TN) 11 11-0
David Owens (PA) 11 13-2
Tim West (WV) 9 10-1
Donny Ferguson (VA) 8 8-0

Lee Wrights (NC) 7 7-0
Chuck Williams (SC) 7 7-0
Jim Duensing (NV) 7 7-0
Greg Clark (WA) 7 7-0

Bea Jones (SC) 3 7-4
Bill van Allen (FL) 1 1-0
Michael Gilson De Lemos (FL) -8 0-8

The runoff was won by Wrights. Wrights received 12 votes, to three for Williams, one for Duensing and none for Clark. The other three with seven votes were ranked as alternates based on the runoff results in the order above. Having received positive votes, Jones and van Allen were named at 4th and 5th alternates.

One positive result is the election of Tim West. Along with David Aiken, that means the Reform Caucus will be well represented. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s always better for a significant viewpoint within the party to have a voice at the table. While all of the folks who were elected will serve well I’m sure, it was sad to see committee veteran Greg Clark not make the first cut. Let’s hope Washington can get its numbers up so he can get one of the state based appointments and continue his distinguished service on this committee.

The Credentials vote was much more straightforward, yielding this result:

Emily Salvette (MI) 16
Dena Breudigam (OH) 15
Greg Johnson (TX) 14
Jack Tanner (FL) 13
Michael Houze (IN) 8
Ronda Birr (OH) 7

The top four vote getters are all long time committee veterans. Birr is Breudigam’s sister and was very helpful at the Atlanta convention. She was named as an alternate.

The LNC chooses interim Chairs for these committees. By tradition they grant that position to the highest vote getters, with the understanding that the committees will select their own Chairs once they start work. Both Gaztenaga and Salvette were present and deferred to Squyres and Johnson respectively, in recognition of their past leadership of these committees.

LNC Meeting Report - Program Committee

2005-11-19T23:15:00.000-05:00

Starr moved to remove all members of the Program Committee due to a lack of work product.

According to the Bylaws, the Program is to be comprised of a maximum of 10 issues which are currently receiving widespread national public attention, are readily identifiable by most individuals as matters which affect them personally and directly, and which are clearly identified as interim or transitional proposals which move us toward a libertarian society.

Region 4 Representative Michael Gilson De Lemos has been working on a Program for quite some time, which can be found here. While the work there is extensive, it concentrates on providing a toolkit for party growth and in no way resembles the Program as described above.

Starr’s motion passed by voice vote. Squyres nominated Sean Haugh (NC) to serve on the committee, Carling nominated Bruce Dovner (CA), and Region 3 Representative Dena Breudigam (Ohio) volunteered herself. These nominations were approved.

This will be an interesting challenge for me, as I am one of the people on the Bylaws Committee who suggests we abolish the Program entirely. (For the rationale behind this proposal you can find Geoff Neale’s view on my blog and my own in my article Why have rules if we don’t follow them?) However I was persuaded by a point made in the debate that we should at least give the convention delegates an opportunity to see what a Program can do so they can make a more informed decision about whether it’s worth keeping.

Dovner has faithfully submitted a Program for the California LP for several years. The current version can be found here. I am quite familiar with his work, which in my view is most excellent. With his presence on the committee I am sure we can deliver a high quality product to the LNC for approval prior to the convention.

LNC Meeting Report - Ballot Access

2005-11-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

Redpath reported that the latest fundraising letter is devoted to ballot access, with returns still coming in. This has reduced the ballot access fund balance to about negative $14,000, and he was hopeful that continuing response to the letter would bring the fund to a positive balance by the end of November.

Redpath gave thumbnail sketches of the status for several states for ballot access in 2006:

Arkansas: we currently have about 1000 signatures towards a goal of 10,000 to run a candidate for Governor. If that candidate receives 3% of the vote, we’ll have full ballot status there in 2008.

Illinois: we need 25,000 signatures there but the prospects for meeting this goal are bleak. A result of 5% in a statewide race would get us full ballot status in 2008. There is no report on whether any signatures have been collected yet in Illinois.

Maine: we need 4,000 signatures, but the state party there feels they have no ability to complete this themselves, and no candidate to run even if they did.

Massachusetts: Redpath is playing phone tag with that state party, but doubts the ability of running a statewide slate there.

Nebraska: we can run a full slate with 4,735 signatures.

New Hampshire: we need 3,000 signatures to run a candidate for Governor in 2006. Redpath is playing phone tag with them as well, but considers them to be on their own to accomplish this.

New York: we need 15,000 signatures to run a candidate for Governor. If we get 50,000 votes in that race we’ll have full ballot access there through 2010. Considering we have never reached this vote total in that race, the outlook for New York is not terribly positive.

North Carolina: we have collected about a third of the 69,734 signatures needed for full party access through 2008. Redpath considers this too daunting to tackle now.

North Dakota: we need 7,000 signatures, and 5% in any statewide office wins ballot access for 2008.

Redpath listed Arkansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska and North Dakota as the states from this list where he felt we could make the difference with some funding and support from the LNC. He is still gathering information to develop a clearer picture of how and where to proceed. He asked for approval for him to disburse funds for petitioning in 2006 if there are positive funds in the ballot access fund and with the approval of the Chair. Starr so moved, and it passed by a voice vote with Squyres as the only dissent. Squyres pointed out that this was exactly the attitude with which we entered the ballot access situation in 2004, which resulted in overspending the fund by more than $30,000 and much controversy.

LNC Meeting Report - Miscellaneous

2005-11-19T23:13:00.000-05:00

* Dixon was asked about the sensitivity training for the LNC mandated by the new policy against sexual harassment. He said he was striving to make this happen at the March 2006 meeting, and has identified a trainer.

* Region 5E Alternate Chuck Moulton (Pennsylvania) asked whether we would have a review of the Strategic Plan this term. Dixon responded that there was no motivation to do so until the LNC is more or less of the same view regarding the Plan.

* Region 5W Representative Jeremy Kiel (Wisconsin) reported on the status of the Branding project. They are undertaking what I believe is the project’s fourth marketing survey to help determine how we should begin. This one is an online survey of 1,000 voters to discover which of our messages reach the general public and how they resonate with them. Kiel is working with Mick McWilliams, who has extensive professional experience in market research. Being a party member, McWilliams is donating his time developing the survey and analyzing the results. His company still will be paid for the work of conducting the survey itself, at a cost of $16,000. This can be covered by money already raised for this project. Starr suggested that the survey identify not only popular issues, but also issues which will generate donations. A motion to approve the survey expenditure passed by voice vote.

* Carling resigned as the Chair of the Audit Committee, claiming that never received full financial statements from 2004, although Nelson has claimed that these were transmitted to the LNC in February. The LNC named Redpath to replace Carling on the committee.

* Carling reported that the groundwork establishing the Libertarian National Congressional Committee (LNCC) is very close to completion. Dixon and all the incorporators have signed off on the articles of incorporation. Seven of the eight incorporators have approved the LNCC bylaws. Moulton is setting up a website.

* Karlan reported that the minutes from the 2002 convention have finally been reconstructed, and in them he discovered a change in the Bylaws, which has been submitted to Sullentrup. He also identified a change in the Policy Manual from that time, amending the provision about how special agreements with any state party should be made available to all affiliates and require LNC approval. Starr pointed out that this would have been contained in a section which was repealed in its entirety by the zero dues resolution. Karlan replied that if this is the case, in his opinion this was in error. Carling asked Karlan to report at the next meeting where this policy change might go in the manual.

* Karlan reported on behalf of the Bylaws Committee. Geoff Neale has resigned as committee Chair in protest of the approval of zero dues by the LNC, which he feels is clearly in violation of our current Bylaws. Neale retains his seat on the committee. Karlan said he can provide leadership in his role as committee Secretary but we will need to select a new Chair when we convene in person in advance of the convention. Karlan, Cory and Haugh are working on setting up a dedicated message board for member education and input into the various Bylaws proposals. This should be up and running by the end of November. I am also serializing the various Bylaws proposals on my blog.

* Moulton raised questions about the confidentiality of reports. He cited how Nelson’s Treasurer’s Report almost immediately made its way onto various Libertarian blogs and expressed a concern that LNC members may be inhibited from full disclosure due to this phenomenon. Lark and Rutherford both added that they would like to see more attribution of sources and more complete reporting by these bloggers. Dixon replied that unless explicitly labeled confidential, all reports are public information and that we simply should accept that our many of our members not only are interested in this information but have every right to it. He did however express the desire that bloggers and reporters show some sensitivity to allowing the LNC the time and space to digest and consider the raw information contained in these reports. No action was taken.

* The next LNC meeting, scheduled for March 11-12, 2006, was originally planned for south Florida. Dixon reported that we are having trouble finding a hotel in that location at a reasonable price. He said that the second choice would be New Orleans, possibly giving us a media opportunity to show how we are supporting the rebuilding of that city. The third option would be Tucson. My money is on this last option, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part since my family lives there and I always love an opportunity to visit them.

*

This report is funded by your generous donations. I can only continue to provide them if you contribute. All donors to my meeting report fund receive my LNC reports and articles as they are submitted for publication. (You may also read these reports and more LNC news on my blog, The NC Way.) Please contact me at seanhaugh@mindspring.com or 919-286-0152 to find out how you can help. Also feel free to call or write if you have any follow up questions on this report.

Bylaws Proposal - Eliminate the LP Program

2005-11-18T23:32:00.000-05:00

The following was also written by Geoff Neale:

The Program is a document that the Bylaws requires be written by the LNC. This document shall be: "a maximum of 10 issues; which are currently receiving widespread, national public attention; are readily identifiable by most individuals as matters which affect them personally and directly; and offer interim or transitional proposals which move toward a libertarian society, which are clearly identified as interim or transitional proposals."

This sounds like a great idea. The problem is that the LNC has given little or no attention to this document in recent memory, because the purpose of the LNC is NOT to be a document creation committee, but to be the board of directors of the Libertarian Party.

Eliminating this Bylaw does not mean we cannot have such a document. It just means that we are not mandating the document in our Bylaws.

Bylaws Proposal - Eliminate Platform Retention Voting

2005-11-16T14:04:00.000-05:00

I'll be posting my LNC Meeting Report here over the next couple days, since I have to finish it by my Friday deadline for LFA. But now that I have your attention, I also want to start serializing the various proposals of the Bylaws Committee to get that discussion going. We welcome any feedback or suggestions for improvement, either in the comments or by private email to seanhaugh@mindspring.com. There's also a link to the right for the Bylaws Committee message archive where you can see all the deliberations. Within the next week or so we should also have a dedicated message board in place where party members can engage in conversation about our proposals or even suggest your own.

The rest of this post was written by Geoff Neale and appeared in the August LP News:

Proposal 1: Eliminate the Platform Retention Voting.

Check out our current Bylaws, and you will see that there is a very complicated process mandated for the review of every plank in our Platform. It is called the Platform Retention Vote. The intention of this process was to provide a simple mechanism for our members to vote up or down on every plank in the Platform. In principle, this sounds fine, but the mechanics are difficult. The Bylaws require electronic tabulation, a three hour voting window, and a secondary review of any planks to be deleted based upon this vote. The number of votes cast in each convention is a small portion of the total delegates, and the process is expensive because of the requirement to rent tabulation equipment and have machine readable forms printed. To this date, not one plank has been deleted through this process.

Additionally, the Bylaws still provide for the deletion of any plank on a simple majority vote.

In short, we feel that removing this procedure simplifies the Convention, reduces costs, and removes no powers from the delegates.

LPUS listserve revived

2005-11-02T17:56:00.000-05:00

This was received recently from George Phillies:

For many years, libertarians across America were faithfully served by email lists operated by Joe Dehn at dehnbase.com. They were places were all libertarians could discuss issues of interest to the national party and the national libertarian political movement. Joe has gained other interests; those groups have become inactive.

To revive this vital discussion on what our party should be doing, I am relaunching the group lpusmisc at yahoogroups dot com.

The group purpose is:

"LPUSMISC is a group for the discussion of the Libertarian Party and Libertarian Political activities. The focus is on putting Libertarian ideas into effect via successful, lawful political action: campaigns, referenda, litigation, petition, and similar means. Discussion of abortion, voting methods, and other disputatious topics that do not advance Libertarian political success is disallowed."

The group settings are:

* Membership requires approval
* Messages do not require approval
* All members can post messages
* Email attachments are permitted
* Members cannot hide email address
* Listed in directory

"Membership requires approval" is 'thank you, but we are not interested in your robots posting your sale of widgits in which we are likely not to be interested.'

To ask to join, go to yahoogroups and search for lpusmisc.

Remmeber, you can always set a yahoogroup mail setting to web only, meaning you will almost never get a mailing from the group, and will need to come to yahoogroups to read messages.

Liberty at Sea?

2005-10-27T16:54:00.000-05:00

Howdy! and sorry to be away so long. I'm sure I'll have some more updates soon on the LPNC lawsuit. The LNC news front has been very quiet this last month, except for the rumored challenge of the zero dues vote, which has been covered well in a couple recent posts at Liberty for Sale.

A couple readers have asked for my opinion of the upcoming California LP convention, aboard the Royal Carribean cruise ship Monarch of the Seas next February.

Yes, you heard me right, a cruise ship. Four days and three nights sailing between Los Angeles and Ensenada, Mexico. Prices range from $299 to $599.

Both readers expressed a concern about the convention registration essentially being mandatory, since the price of the cruise is inseparable from convention registration. This was a source of controversy at their last convention, when there was an attempt to charge a mandatory floor fee to participate. Obviously those who share that concern will have plenty to worry about here.

I was asked if this was a violation of the Bylaws, but as far as I can tell it is not. It may be a violation of California state law, but I wouldn't know about that. All I know is that we couldn't legally turn away a delegate here in NC, and that it has always been the practice of the national LP to allow delegates on without paying registration. There's probably a legal reason behind that too.

I also am curious if there are any legal problems holding a state convention outside US territory. But there again that is most likely covered in California state law, so that's just an aimless question for now. According to the LPC, a passport is not necessary, so having extra ID is probably not a concern.

People might expect me to take a harder line against this, but I must confess I am having trouble getting past my bias here. I just think having a convention on a cruise ship is really really cool. There was a bid once to hold the World Science Fiction Convention on a cruise ship. They might have even done it.

The price may seem like a chunk of change, but as I understand it this is a great price for a cruise. Considering how big California is, most delegates probably would have to stay in the convention hotel and buy meals for those three days. At California prices, that would easily exceed $100 a day, making the cruise a bargain by comparison.

It would be a hardship for those who are frugal by nature, of which we certainly have our share. I'm looking at the same thing, pinching my pennies so I can afford to attend the national convention in Portland next year. Fortunately at least California Libertarians have a few months to do the same.

I'm looking forward to the reports from that particular convention.

I Sued the State!

2005-09-22T15:19:00.000-05:00

Whooooo-hooooo! I sued the state of NC and I am going to kick their collective butts! Well, to be honest the entire Libertarian Party of NC is suing, but I made sure my name is on there first. Bartlett v Haugh, has a nice ring to it, doncha think?

You can read an AP newswire story here.

I think this feeling is even better than when I got to vote for myself for US Senate.

The lawsuit is so far-reaching that even I am still discovering all the consequences. Our attorney Michael Crowell and his staff have put together an argument brilliant and elegant in its simplicity, one that will shake NC election law to its core.

Basically what we have today is one set of laws with extra special rights for Democrats and Republicans and another set with ridciulous burdens and barriers for everybody else. If you look at the NC Consititution, espcially where it talks about how all elections shall be free, and again where it says all people get equal protection under the law, it's obvious that this cannot be tolerated.

What we have right now is a system run by and for the benefit of two political parties, while the truth is that political parties should only be instruments for the people to use to freely associate and maximize their own participation in our elections.

I'm just so excited!!! We're suing the state and we're going to win! We have the best lawyers in the state and a strong and simple argument that can only be denied by corruption and oppression.

I sued the state!!! Whoooo-hooooo !!!!!!!

Progress Report: Lawsuit Filed!

2005-09-22T15:16:00.000-05:00

Our lawsuit has been filed! Wednesday afternoon, the Libertarian Party of NC filed suit against the NC State Board of Elections and the local boards in Forsyth and Mecklenburg Counties. We anticipate our request for a temporary restraining order to prevent our candidates in Charlotte and Winston-Salem from being taken off the ballot will be heard in the next couple days.

Thank you for your help! On Sunday I asked you to contribute towards our legal fees and you responded with over $2600 in donations. It was far and away our most successful email request for funds ever. That allowed us to pay the first installment on the retainer for our attorneys. Thank you!

I’m excited about our lawsuit! Our argument is very simple. North Carolina has two sets of elections laws, one for Democrats and Republicans and another for everybody else. That cannot be allowed to continue under the NC Constitution. Our main goals are to eliminate the excessively high signature requirement to get on the ballot and the retention requirement to stay on it. But we are also asking the court to strike down all other laws which give Democrats and Republicans special privileges over other voters. Here are just a few examples:

* Only Democrats and Republicans are allowed to be appointed to the State and County Boards of Elections.

* Only Democrats and Republicans are allowed to select precinct officials at the polls.

* Only Democrats and Republicans are given a guarantee for public space for their conventions and other meetings.

* Only Democrats and Republicans are allowed to have their candidates listed at the top of the ballot.

This is not your typical ballot access lawsuit. For the first time, the entire basis of our election law will be under scrutiny. What we have now is a system that is run by and for the benefit of two political parties. What we need, and what is demanded under the NC Constitution, is a system where political parties only serve to help all voters participate fully in our elections.

While we were able to cover the down payment on our lawsuit costs, we estimate the entire project will cost anywhere between $40,000 and $80,000. Please help us carry this important lawsuit forward!

Meanwhile, we still have to petition in order to get the Libertarian Party back on the ballot for 2006. We can’t expect any legal relief in time for next year’s elections, so we must not ignore our petitioning efforts.

Fortunately there are many fantastic opportunities to gather lots of petition signatures right in front of us. One-stop voting for local primaries begins today and runs through October 8th. Primary elections are held on October 11th. If you are looking for registered voters to sign our petition, what better location is there than the polls themselves? Please check with your county board of elections to find out where one-stop voting is taking place in your county.

This is also Fair season, and Libertarians will be at them all. The next big event is the Dixie Classic Fair in Winston-Salem, which runs from September 30-October 9. We need many volunteers to staff our booth, gather petition signatures and tell the fairgoers about the Libertarian Party. Please contact Lee Wrights at carolinnus@aol.com to find out what shifts are available, or visit the Forsyth County LP website.

We’ll also be at the State Fair again in Raleigh, October 14-23. We need a minimum of two people, and preferably three or four for each shift. Not only is the State Fair far and away one of our best petitioning and outreach opportunities, it’s a whole lot of fun! Please contact LPNC Outreach Director Jim Pitts at outreach@lpnc.org to find out when you can help.

We also need volunteers for Durham’s Centerfest on the weekend of October 8-9. Please contact Sean Haugh at director@lpnc.org to find out what shifts are available for that fun event.

Besides fairs and elections, there are many other great opportunities to circulate the petition. Please visit our ballot access page to download the petition and learn the best locations and methods for petitioning.

Whether you can collect signatures or not, we also need to hire many paid petitioners to complete this task. North Carolina ballot access laws are so strict that we have to spend as much as $125,000 just to get the signatures needed to get back on the ballot. We have to complete this process by June 1, 2006, to get Libertarian candidates back on the ballot for 2006 and 2008.

Please make your best possible ballot access donation now here so we can continue to move forward. Thanks!

These are monumental tasks ahead of us, but we must complete them successfully to continue the fight for Liberty at the ballot box in North Carolina. Everything we accomplish is based on a $100 donation here or a handful of signatures there. Your individual contribution may not seem like much to you, but taken together we have already proven many times that Libertarians can amass the resources needed to win these fights. Now we need to do it again!

If you can donate over the website, please visit:

http://www.lpnc.org/contrib.html

If you have signatures to send in or prefer to write a check, please send them to our mailing address:

Libertarian Party of NC
1821 Hillandale Rd #1B-253
Durham NC 27705

Thank you!

To subscribe or unsubscribe to LPNC Announcements, please reply to this message or send email to director@lpnc.org.

Libertarians say: NC election laws unconstitutional

2005-09-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

NEWS RELEASE
Libertarian Party of North Carolina
1821 Hillandale Rd. #1B-253 Durham NC 27705
919.286.0152 www.lpnc.org
*********************************************************************

For more information:
Thomas Hill, chair - 704.455.9200
Sean Haugh - 919.286.0152

Libertarians say: NC election laws unconstitutional

DURHAM (Sept. 21) - North Carolina's election laws deny citizens their rights to free association, free elections, equal protection of the law and the ability to vote for candidates of their choice. They should be declared unconstitutional, the Libertarian Party of North Carolina asserted today in a lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court.

The party also requested an injunction to retain Libertarian candidates on the ballots in Charlotte and Winston-Salem and to prevent the county boards of elections from changing the registration of Libertarians to unaffiliated.

The legal action was prompted by an Aug. 22 decision of the state Board of Elections to decertify the Libertarian Party.

The complaint said that when taken as a whole, the statutory regulation of political parties denies Libertarians as well as unaffiliated voters the right to association and expression of their political philosophy. The statutes "impede the ability of political parties other than Democrats and Republicans to place candidates on the ballot and otherwise enjoy the benefits of state recognition."

"What we have now is one set of laws giving special rights to Democrats and Republicans and a different set of laws for third parties and unaffiliated voters," said Sean Haugh, the party's executive director, named as a plaintiff in the suit. "That cannot stand under the NC Constitution."

Several Libertarian candidates are listed as plaintiffs. They are Pamela Guignard and Rusty Sheridan, candidates for Charlotte mayor; Justin Cardone and David Gable, candidates for Charlotte City Council, and; Richard Norman and Thomas Leinbach, candidates for Winston-Salem City Council.

The final plaintiff is Jennifer Schulz, a registered Libertarian voter.

The suit not only challenges the requirements for petitioning to be recognized as a political party and the requisite that a party receive ten percent of the vote statewide to retain recognition, it also seeks to overturn other statutory restrictions on so-called third parties.

These restrictions include the disqualification of members of third parties from the state and county boards of election, the unfavorable placement of third party candidates on the ballot and the prohibition against a third party allowing registered voters of other parties to vote in its primary.

Libertarians also want to overturn statutes that allow state officials to change a voter's registration without their permission when their party is decertified and allow third parties the same use of public buildings granted to Democrats and Republicans.

The suit argues the "state scheme of statutory regulation of political parties" violates several provisions of the state constitution. Specifically it cites: Article I, Sections 1, 12 & 14 which protect the individual's right to freedom of expression and association and to due process;

- Article I, Section 10 which provides "All elections shall be free;"

- Article I, Section 19 which guarantees equal protection of the laws to all citizens;

- Article VI, Section 1 which says all eligible voters shall be entitled to vote in any election, and;

- Article VI, Section 6 which says every qualified voter is eligible for election to office unless otherwise disqualified by the constitution.

-30-

Libertarians are Suing the State

2005-09-18T20:27:00.000-05:00

To paraphrase Mark Twain, news of our demise is greatly exaggerated.

By now you’ve probably heard that the State Board of Elections voted to decertify the Libertarian Party as an officially recognized party in North Carolina. If you have not yet received a letter from your county’s Board of Elections telling you that we are no longer recognized, you will soon.

Don’t be discouraged! The Libertarian Party of NC is bigger now than it has ever been, and it is growing! The day the State Board of Elections decertified our party was the very same day we reached over 13,000 registered Libertarian voters in NC for the first time in our history.

How can this be? How can we lose our status as a political party when we are more numerous, more active and more influential than ever before?

The culprit is the General Assembly of North Carolina. According to Ballot Access News, our state has the third hardest ballot access restrictions in the country. They have set the bar so high because they don’t want you to have any choices on the ballot. It takes fewer signatures to get on the ballot in the whole country of Russia. There are dozens more political parties in Iraq. Something is wrong with this picture.

We will not go away. We will not let them slam the door in our face. We will fight! Libertarians are suing the state!

http://www.lpnc.org/contrib.html

The Libertarian Party has existed in North Carolina for over 25 years. We have been on the ballot on and off since 1978, and continuously since 1996. In that time we have run hundreds of candidates for every office, and elected Libertarians all across the state.

Unfortunately, the Democrats and Republicans in Raleigh want to keep the ballot to themselves. They want to deny your choices at the ballot so only they can have the power to run this state and your life. They can’t stand the notion that the people just might want to run their own lives.

Our case is very simple. North Carolina’s ballot access restrictions cannot be squared the NC Constitution, which says that all elections shall be free and that with very few restrictions every voter shall be eligible for election by the people to office.

Now that we have been denied our place on the ballot, we can easily prove that our elections are not free and that indeed many voters are deemed ineligible to seek public office. Three very similar cases have been fought and won since 1982 (in Alaska, Maryland and Michigan) and one is being fought right now in Oklahoma.

Most election law litigation has picked at the edges, asking courts to strike down one bad aspect of the law. We are taking a different approach. We will be asking the court to strike down all of North Carolina ballot access law and replace it with something that will give the voters truly free and fair elections. We are also going to ask the court to strike down any aspect of election law which gives Democrats and Republicans special voting rights and leaves all other voters out in the cold.

We are hiring a lawyer who has the very most experience with election law in this state. We have learned from our own experience and that of others who have sued their states that when it comes to legal help, you get what you pay for. We are prepared to raise the resources necessary to hire the very best representation.

We are not alone in this fight. The Green Party of NC also stands to gain if we are victorious and will become a strong partner in our suit. Many other partisan and nonpartisan political organizations and people from all across the political spectrum have also volunteered to help, including Common Cause, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters, the NC ACLU, NC Supreme Court candidate Rachel Hunter and Winston-Salem City Councilman Vernon Robinson.

More will join with us along the way. The Libertarian Party has raised a banner for giving the voters choices at the ballot, and people from all over the map are flocking to it. We are the leaders in this fight and everybody knows it. While we are fighting for our own survival, we are standing for something that will benefit all the people of North Carolina.

http://www.lpnc.org/contrib.html

Our goal is to file our lawsuit early this week. It will probably have already happened by the time you read this letter. We have to act fast for two reasons. We have to demand that our candidates in Charlotte and Winston-Salem who had already filed for city council be placed back on the ballot. We also have to demand that you retain your right to remain registered to vote as a Libertarian.

We need to raise $10,000 right now to pay our lawyer’s retainer. The estimated cost of the lawsuit could go as high as $80,000, depending on how many people have to be deposed or called to testify on our behalf and whether or not the state appeals when we defeat them in court. We’ll be asking for some immediate injunctive relief, but my best guess is that the entire case could take as long as two years.

We need your help to get this started! We have already raised a large part of the retainer, but we need your help to get over the top.

http://www.lpnc.org/contrib.html

If you have ever thought about giving the Libertarian Party $1000 or more, now would be the best time to do that. If you have given us $250 before, please think about sending $500 this time. If you have given $25 before, please consider sending us $50 now.

If you have never donated to the Libertarian Party of NC before, now is the best time to start! As I said above, we are proud of our record in how we have spent your money before because we understand it’s your money that you are giving to your party.

If you want free and fair elections in NC, now is the time to contribute! If you want to see Libertarians back on the ballot this year and every year, now is the time to contribute!

http://www.lpnc.org/contrib.html

Thank you for everything you have done to bring the Libertarian Party to the main stage of North Carolina politics. Together, I know we will eventually emerge victorious! The only way we can be defeated is if we quit!

To subscribe or unsubscribe to LPNC Announcements, please reply to this message or send email to director@lpnc.org.

New Issue at LFA

2005-09-18T19:37:00.000-05:00

We are fully back in the swing of things from our summer hiatus at Liberty For All. As you can see from today's other post I decided to reprint one of my old favorites, Do-ocracy. Hope you don't mind, but it seemed particularly timely again.

I've also updated the links to include the most wonderful Brad Blog, a new LPNC blog from our Press Secretary and all around good guy Brain Irving, and two bits of wonderful levity in the Freeway Blogger and get your war on.

I'll be putting up a special section for LPNC candidates next. Whoo-hooo! I love our candidates!

LNC Meeting Report: Miscellaneous and closing

2005-08-27T04:44:00.000-05:00

State Chair Manual: New distributed some copies of the first draft State Chair Manual. It is designed to welcome new state chairs and give them some tools they need. The manual so far includes a welcome letter, current versions of the national Bylaws and LNC Policy Manual, submission guidelines for material intended for LP News, and standard forms for items such as membership renewal. Several LNC members had suggestions for additional useful material. New also reported that the states’ new ability to update their own pages on the national website is working well.

New Vision brochure unavailable: Squyres expressed concern that the “New Vision for America” brochure is out of stock and that it would cost $12,000 we don’t have for a minimal reprint run. Cory said the original artwork for that brochure is lost and would need to be recreated, adding more to the cost. The price of the brochure may have to be increased to cover these costs whenever we can reprint them.

Bylaws Committee: With the promotion of alternate Fred Collins, there were no more alternates named to the Bylaws Committee. Lark suggested new alternates be ranked by their previous non-negative vote totals. Dixon pointed out here were several ties in the last vote, so it was determined that the LNC would have a written ballot with each member voting for one of the top four candidates remaining.

Christy Welty of Iowa emerged as the first alternate with four votes. The remaining three candidates tied at three votes each with one vote for NOTA. A random process was then employed to order the other three alternates. The result was Phil Schmidt of Oregon as second alternate, Donny Ferguson of Virginia third, and Tony Wall of Tennessee fourth.

Also during the meeting, a motion was made by Nelson to encourage the Bylaws Committee to develop a proposal to eliminate Article 6, calling for an LP Program, which passed by a voice vote.

Badnarik for Congress: Alan Hacker of California addressed the committee with his new title of Campaign Manager for Michael Badnarik for US Congress in 2006 in Texas’ 10th district. Hacker is moving to Austin for the campaign, an office has already been established, and money is already being donated via Badnarik’s website.

Dixon lauded this as a big step forward for the party, for one of our Congressional campaigns to hire a high profile campaign manager from out of state. It may indeed be unprecedented in the history of the party. Hacker struck me as definitely up to the task, and capable and dedicated servant of Liberty who will live up to Dixon’s lofty praise.

Platform: Squyres reported that the platform reformatting project continues on schedule in advance of the Portland convention. Shane Cory has established a message board where anyone can review and give feedback to the committee’s work on each plank. Squyres would like to see approval of most of the reformatted planks in one motion at the convention. Feedback from the membership is needed to determine which ones are uncontroversial enough to be included in such a motion. Squyres also expressed concern that the platform reform ideas of the Libertarian Reform Caucus, which seek to moderate our positions to only what can be accomplished in the next four year election cycle, may derail the reformatting project.

LNCC: Carling reported that the Libertarian National Congressional Committee (LNCC) has not yet filed its articles of incorporation because they were waiting for one last incorporator to sign them. It was revealed that this incorporator is Lark, who said he had requested changes which probably have been made, and anticipated he would be able to sign them very soon. Nelson made a motion to suspend the LNC’s endorsement of the LNCC, for fear of competition for limited fundraising, which died for lack of a second. I’d like to reiterate my opinion that the LNCC, if successful, represents another significant step in the growth of the party. It is another activity pursued by our competition which we have not engaged in to date, and will allow us to seek new national donors to directly support strong local campaigns.

Audit: Carling reported that no one had yet been hired for the 2004 independent audit. He claimed that they were still waiting for the final financial statements for last year. Nelson replied that these had been distributed at the LNC meeting in February, and agreed to resend them to Carling.

Convention: Dixon said he was in the process of hiring a professional event planner to manage the convention. Lark is working with the Oregon LP, and Nelson is gathering information from the most recent convention. The meeting planner Dixon is considering is based in Seattle and would handle processing registrations and payments, marketing and similar operations at a cost of $3000 a month. Nelson pointed out there is no budget line yet for the convention. Staff had been asked to bring one to this meeting, but with Seehusen’s resignation this was not completed. Dixon said he would take responsibility for preparing this for the next meeting.

SPT Review: There was no review of the Strategic Plan (SPT) as was suggested at the previous meeting. Even before the resignation of Seehusen and the vote to abolish dues, both of which contributing to a full two day agenda, this item pretty much died due to a lack of interest. It is doubtful the LNC will take up any SPT review during this term.

Future meetings: The next meeting of the LNC will be November 11-12, 2005, at the Embassy Suites in Baltimore, near BWI airport. The following meeting will be March 11-12, 2006, at a location in south Florida to be determined. The last LNC meeting of the term will take place in Portland immediately before the convention in late June. There is also scheduled a conference call of the Executive Committee for Wednesday, September 21st. Also of note, the annual State Chairs Conference is scheduled for Phoenix, January 28-29, 2006.

*

This report is funded by your generous donations. I can only continue to provide them if you contribute. All donors to my meeting report fund receive my LNC reports and articles as they are submitted for publication. Please contact me at seanhaugh@mindspring.com or 919-286-0152 to find out how you can help. Also feel free to call or write if you have any follow up questions on this report.

LNC Meeting Report: Finances and how we get them

2005-08-27T04:40:00.000-05:00

Nelson reported that our finances are considerably improved since Seehusen took office two years ago. He questioned the approach of chasing membership and then pounding them with direct mail once we have them in the door. He proposed that instead we put more emphasis on generating income from monthly pledges.

Pledge revenue per member is down from about $1.50 to $1.00. Direct mail revenue per member is also trending downward, and membership is down slightly in the last month. Nelson suggested that too many fundraising letters may be driving down the donation per member numbers and may be causing donor fatigue.

Nelson said we should look for a better rate of return instead of simply chasing gross profit. He followed that our database is underused and that one of its best features is its ability to target and focus fundraising. For example, it allows us to better target our letters only to those with a history of donations in response to direct mail and new people, while omitting mailings to our members who don’t respond to fundraising letters. We also need to take care to not alienate our core membership while broadening our donor base.

Cory cited the industry standard for direct mail as 13-17 pieces a year, or one every 3-4 weeks. Dixon reported that there was little response from members to recent mailings calling for groundswell actions such as petitions to various government figures, such as the death tax initiative. Lark emphasized the need for member feedback to select and drive such issues. Dixon said that recent innovations on the website gives us far more direct feedback from the membership than direct mail. Colley suggested that we value the high level networking practiced by Seehusen over lobbying. New is continuing our program to have a presence at meetings and conferences of fellow traveler organizations. Cory added later that we can keep the high level donors to our lobbying and public policy campaigns if they see results from their donations.

On Sunday, Moulton presented a motion to limit the direct mail coming from national and requested a roll call vote. After some discussion which mostly expressed concern about the proposal, the motion failed 2-12-1, as follows:

YES on limiting direct mail: Hagan, Moulton.

NO: Breudigam, Carling, Colley, Hoch, McGinnis, Nelson, Redpath, B Ryan, T Ryan, Southerland, Starr, and Sullentrup.

Abstaining: Wrights. Not Voting: Dixon.

Nelson speculated that one bad letter or another minor catastrophe might be enough to push us over the edge into more dire financial circumstances. We need to increase our cash on hand to be greater than our accounts payable. As of July 31st our accounts payable stood at $125,695. While this is $10,000 more than the figure at the end of June, Nelson noted that this still represents an improvement as the percentage of accounts payable past 30 days due had decreased from 60% to 43%. He warned that the 2006 convention is a potential financial land mine, saying we have not yet even completely recovered from the effects of the losses on the 2002 convention. Keeping convention costs under control and its funds strictly segregated are essential to its success.

Colley asked about cancelled pledges and how to turn that around. He asked Cory if there were plans to follow up regarding recently cancelled or uncharged pledges. Cory responded that there was no current plan to do so but that it could be done. In reply to a question from McGinnis, he did say that follow up thank you calls were being made to new pledgers.

After the vote to abolish membership dues, the LNC scheduled 20 minutes on Sunday to discuss new revenue streams to replace this dues money. This turned out to be a distracted and frustrating enterprise with few bright spots. This twice resulted in a successful motion to extend the discussion for another 20 minutes until something could actually be accomplished.

Starr began the discussion with a motion calling for the immediate cessation of any solicitations for new or renewed memberships. He said it would be wrong of us to continue soliciting annual memberships when dues paying memberships will only be available for another four months. It was pointed out that a contribution of $25 or more would still result in an annual subscription to LP News and other benefits currently received by dues paying members.

The discussion sadly devolved into the worst parody of bureaucracy with suggestions of how to compose and print a letter, using money and staff time they do not have, explaining everything to the last detail in place of the usual membership letters. The only issue they failed to debate was what color paper these letters should be printed upon.

Rutherford expressed his frustration by pointing out the purpose of this session was to focus on the big issue of generating revenue. Starr became more impassioned as he made his case, clearly portraying this as a moral issue, to the point where he earned a rebuke from Dixon. Frankly, while Starr did go a little over the top, he was absolutely right in my view – in this context, it is simply immoral to continue to sell a product that you know you are discontinuing.

Starr’s motion failed 5-11. A roll call was requested, which went as follows:

YES on ceasing membership solicitations: Carling, McGinnis, Redpath, Southerland and Starr.

NO: Breudigam, Colley, Hoch, Lark, Nelson, Rutherford, B Ryan, T Ryan, Squyres, Sullentrup and Wrights.

Tony Ryan moved that the Chair include a cover letter with membership renewal solicitations explaining the benefits of renewing, including LP News and increased delegate allocation for one’s state party at the national convention, and that a similar explanation be published via LP News and the State Chairs’ email list. This passed 10-5 on a show of hands.

Lark suggested we return to the status quo of $25 dues and allow the convention make any changes. He predicted that the LNC may have cause to reconsider their decision to abolish dues.

Rutherford suggested the LNC become more of a fundraising board, and also to establish a Finance Committee. The idea that LNC members become active in fundraising had also been advanced by Starr earlier in the meeting. Starr moved to create a Finance Committee with Rutherford as Chair.

Dixon spoke during the debate of the LNC’s transition over the years from a strong staff with a weak board to the opposite, a process which brings with it greater responsibilities to each board member.

The motion passed 11-5 on a roll call vote:

YES on Finance Committee: Breudigam, Hoch, Lark, McGinnis, Redpath, Rutherford, Southerland, Squyres, Starr, Sullentrup and Wrights.

NO: Carling, Colley, Nelson, B Ryan and T Ryan.

Nelson reported that the abolition of dues would be by itself a net financial gain for the LNC. The lost revenue from memberships would be more than offset by the end of UMP payments to the states and membership solicitations and renewals.

A conference call for the State Chairs was scheduled to explain the changes, which has since occurred. About 8-12 people participated in the call, including myself. My notes on that call can be found on my blog, The NC Way.

One critical bit of information raised by George Phillies that was barely discussed during the burying of his Ballot Access audit commissioned by Dixon is the discovery that there is no paper trail recording each transaction. This is how is was possible for many checks to be written for ballot access expenses which cannot now be documented. Phillies suggested in his report that there should be a file for each and every transaction, even if it is simply a handwritten receipt noting the check number and purpose. Our current method leaves the states responsible for generating this documentation, which is a haphazard process when done at all.

LNC Meeting Report: Personnel matters

2005-08-27T04:39:00.000-05:00

The dreaded showdown between staff and the LNC was pleasantly averted. The staff report submitted prior to the meeting (in place of the ED’s report) featured several sections by each director level employee entitled “Narrative on the Effects of the ‘Raiser’s Edge Resolution’” (with the notable exception of New). This refers to the resolution of the Executive Committee (EC) which directed staff to cease all outreach and similar operations until the new database was finally fixed according to certain specifications, as well as another resolution a month later which kept these prohibitions in place.

This report had initially been labeled confidential due to the direct employee-employer communication contained within it. A second edited version of this report was also produced for public view, but the first version was the one included in the LNC notebooks. Dixon ruled that the first version was not confidential, but still openly questioned the value of distributing that information beyond the committee.

Cory and New were present to represent staff and displayed great cooperation and diplomacy. The LNC in turn seemed to accept their written report as venting frustration and graciously responded to them in kind.

The time in the meeting for staff reports became an extended question and answer session about the status of many projects and operations, often returning to the basic questions about the staff-board relationship. Starr asked Cory directly what his biggest challenges were and how the LNC could best help with them. Cory replied that we need “heroes of the party” we can present to the public. He also said there needs to be better communication with the state parties, and that better conduits of communication need to be created both with the state chairs and the membership as a whole. Staff member Chris Thorman had been assigned before the meeting to call all the state chairs or EDs to establish some more direct communication, using the task of confirming the states’ information on the website. Contacting the states in this way proved more challenging than expected according to Cory.

Tony Ryan asked how they can get past any conflict and move forward. Cory replied that this was already happening. Staff felt it was necessary to be heard, but that was accomplished so staff has already moved on and gotten back to work. Ryan later expressed his concern that these reports from staff could be damaging now that they are public knowledge. Dixon said that he and Colley would be following up with staff about this in the coming days.

Starr explained that his vote in favor of the resolutions was simply based on performance and wished it had not been taken as a political message. He expressed the opinion that the resolution had been filtered in its transmission to staff to give the false impression that it was politically motivated. Cory confirmed Starr’s impression, but refused to answer any follow up questions about who it was that gave them this impression beyond the fact that it was a member of the LNC. In reply to a follow up question posed later by Lark, Cory reiterated that in their view this has been resolved, saying Dixon had explained things to staff sufficiently in the conference call with them the day after Seehusen’s resignation.

Cory reported that the database work demanded by the EC resolution was two thirds complete, with the last part, the final merging of phone and email fields, due to be finished by September 1st at the latest. Robert Kraus is the person to contact for questions or to report any further problems regarding the database.

BetteRose Ryan said that the resolutions are now moot considering that they were directed to an ED who is no longer employed with us. Colley said now is a good time to rest the clock and rescind the resolution.

A motion to rescind the EC’s resolution passed by a unanimous voice vote.

The move of the office to Suite 200 in the Watergate building is being held up due to a dispute with the landlord. The last major issue remaining is upgrading a wall in the call center to improve the wiring and bring it up to the electrical and fire code standards. The wall and the wiring within it had been put there by the previous tenant. The landlord had maintained it was our responsibility to do this work, but we are begging to differ. Colley reported we are receiving excellent legal help pro bono from an attorney experienced in these matters. Also still needed are some minor renovations for security, ventilation and doors for the offices. The move will happen when all these things are resolved. The new lease is for six years.

Since the meeting, Jessica Wilson has given her notice. She will be accepting a new job in South Carolina and will stay on for a few extra weeks while we are looking for her replacement. Cory reported during the meeting that we are also hiring more people to staff the call center.

LNC Meeting Report: Executive Directors Past and Future

2005-08-27T04:38:00.000-05:00

Dixon said to begin his report that Joe Seehusen would be remembered for how he turned around our finances, restructured the type and style our employment at HQ, and changed our contracting procedures to substantially cut costs. Friday August 5th was Seehusen’s last day, with Cory filling in as interim chief of staff until a new Executive Director (ED) is hired.

Dixon spoke to the staff the day after Seehusen’s resignation. He retains the authority of the position now and relies upon Cory to execute his directives. He added that Cory was hired in part for his leadership skills, and cited the recent progress on fixing our database as an example.

The Employment Policy and Compensation Committee (EPCC) headed by Colley will conduct the search for a new ED. Colley will be spending time in the office in the fall to assist the transition. On Sunday, Nelson made a motion to transfer $65,000 in the budget from salary to professional services, both to reflect how our money is actually being spent and to fund the executive search. This passed by a voice vote.

Later in the meeting, Colley said he wants input from the LNC on the bonus structure for the ED position as well as on the position itself. He is consulting with professional search people for help, although internal candidates for the position are also encouraged to apply. Send your resumes and letters of interest to Sam New at HQ.

BetteRose Ryan continues as a member of the EPCC, and McGinnis was named later in the meeting to the committee. They will also have a role in gathering and shaping the information about defining the mission and goals of the position.

After the meeting adjourned, most LNC members stayed for a roundtable discussion led by Colley to find out what they are looking for in a new ED. The discussion was very positive and wide ranging with no particular sentiments coming to the fore. The general sense of the committee seems to be in favor of someone who will carry on Seehusen’s outreach programs while also being strong in fundraising and administration. They also seemed to understand that they as a board need to do a better job of defining and clarifying their expectations, with Starr being the most forceful advocate of this view.

At the close of the meeting, a resolution thanking Seehusen for his service passed by a unanimous voice vote.

While this has never risen above the rumor stage, the only tangible reason I have heard about the timing of Seehusen’s resignation is that it was in response to the infamous Raiser’s Edge resolutions of the Executive Committee between this and the previous meeting. Colley was the only one to publicly acknowledge that Seehusen mentioned this as a factor in his decision.

LNC Meeting Report: more on the Iraq Exit Strategy

2005-08-27T04:37:00.000-05:00

I received a one week reprieve for my deadline, and in that week all hell broke loose with NC ballot access, which still dominates my time. But my report is now complete and waiting in Lee's inbox, so I can post the remaining sections.

First, a couple paragraphs I added to a previous report about the Iraq Exit Strategy:

Dixon spoke of his appearance on the Alan Colmes nationally syndicated radio show talking about the IES. He expressed some dismay that the first call, from Terry Parker, took a fratricidal tone, with Parker asserting that as a founding member he was far more qualified to speak for the party than the Chair we elected in convention. Fortunately the rest of the callers were more supportive. Dixon said that the IES gives us a great opportunity to talk to America about things no one else is saying, and that current events prove the prescience of the IES.

During his report, Cory noted that the Lew Rockwell article critical of the IES brought in at least 1800 extra hits to our website and that many of those people signed on to the IES.

NC Ballot Access News

2005-08-19T01:55:00.000-05:00

We interrupt our coverage for this important commercial announcement. Here is a message I sent to our LPNC membership earlier this evening. (I don't care what the time stamp says, it's still Thursday until I go to bed.) Even if you do not live in NC, there's a way you can help at the end of this message.

Dear Friends in Liberty, there’s a lot of ballot access news to report to you, some good, some maybe not so good, and some downright defiant news.

The dicey news is that the State Board of Elections has scheduled a conference call meeting for Monday at 4.30pm and we’re on the agenda. Under North Carolina statutes, they could vote to decertify us at that time. We have provided them with plenty of sound arguments why they should not kick us off the ballot. LPNC’s Chair Thomas Hill and Executive Director Sean Haugh (that’s me) will be in attendance to make our case. We are hopeful of a positive outcome, especially in light of the timing of the good news.

The good news is that NC House Bill 88, the Electoral Fairness Act, is being heard on Tuesday morning in the House Finance Committee meeting at 8.30am in room 544 of the Legislative Office Building. That’s the one behind the main General Assembly building on Jones St. in Raleigh.

If passed, H88 would reduce the number of signatures needed to keep our place on the NC ballot to 25% of what it is now, and reduce our vote total requirement to stay on the ballot from 10% or Governor or President to 2% in those races.

If passed, we *already* have enough signatures to be done with our current ballot drive. If it doesn’t pass then we will have to collect an estimated 75,000 more signatures, at a cost approaching $100,000. Obviously we have great incentive for this bill to become law now!

We need people at the Finance Committee meeting! Please call Sean Haugh at 919-286-0152 or write to him at director@lpnc.org if you can attend or if you have any questions about this committee hearing.

We also need you to call or write the Representatives on the Finance Committee and tell them to vote FOR H88! Even if you have written already, send another email. If you have called already, call again. There are some talking points for your message later in this email.

When Thomas and I went to lobby these people for our bill a couple weeks ago, many of the Representatives we saw mentioned they had received your messages. That’s how it works folks, they have so much to consider that you need to push your concerns to the front of their minds. You have done this! Thank you! Now we need you to do it again.

Here is the list of House Finance Committee members who *especially* need to hear from you:

Chairman, Rep. Pryor Gibson (Union), 419A LOB, 919-715-3007, pryorg@ncleg.net
Chairman, Rep. Julia Howard (Davie), 1106, 919-733-5904, juliah@ncleg.net
Chairman, Rep. Danny McComas (New Hanover), 506 LOB, 919-733-5786, dannym@ncleg.net
Chairman, Rep. William Wainwright (Craven), 532 LOB, 919-733-5995, williamw@ncleg.net
Vice Chairman, Rep. Bill Daughtridge (Nash), 304B LOB, 919-733-5802, billd@ncleg.net
Vice Chairman, Rep. Larry Womble (Forsyth), 534 LOB 919-733-5777, larryw@ncleg.net
Rep. Bernard Allen (Wake), 1325, 919-733-5772, bernarda@ncleg.net
Rep. Curtis Blackwood (Union), 1317, 919-733-2406, curtisb@ncleg.net
Rep. Alice Bordsen (Alamance), 530 LOB, 919-733-5820, aliceb@ncleg.net
Rep. Russell Capps (Wake), 501 LOB, 919-733-5903, russellc@ncleg.net
Rep. Becky Carney (Mecklenburg), 1221, 919-733-5827, beckyc@ncleg.net
Rep. Bobby England (Rutherford), 2219, 919-733-5749, bobe@ncleg.net
Rep. Bill Faison (Orange), 537 LOB, 919-715-3019, billf@ncleg.net
Rep. Susan Fisher (Buncombe), 420 LOB, 919-715-2013, susanf@ncleg.net
Rep. Dale Folwell (Forsyth), 508 LOB, 919-733-5787, dalef@ncleg.net
Rep. Rick Glazier (Cumberland), 2215, 919-733-5601, rickg@ncleg.net
Rep. Bruce Goforth (Buncombe), 1220, 919-733-5746, bruceg@ncleg.net
Rep. Joe Hackney (Orange), 2207, 919-733-5752, joeh@ncleg.net
Rep. Jim Harrell (Surry), 403 LOB, 919-715-1883, jimha@ncleg.net
Rep. Verla Insko (Orange), 2121, 919-733-7208, verlai@ncleg.net
Rep. Earl Jones (Guilford), 536 LOB, 919-733-5825, earlj@ncleg.net
Rep. Marvin Lucas (Cumberland), 1323, 919-733-5775, marvinl@ncleg.net
Rep. Alice Underhill (Craven), 1206, 919-733-5853, aliceu@ncleg.net
Rep. Doug Vinson (Mecklenburg), 1010, 919-733-5886, dougv@ncleg.net

Please also take the time to THANK those Finance Committee members who have voiced support for the Electoral Fairness Act. Some of these folks are on the fence, some are strong supporters, but all have said they are inclined to vote for our bill. Of particular note, Reps. Luebke, Rayfield and Weiss (along with non-committee members Paul Miller and Paul Stam) are sponsors of our bill and Reps. Alexander, Lewis and Ross have worked hard to move it along. Now is the time to thank them and tell them to stay strong:

Chairman, Rep. Martha Alexander (Mecklenburg), 2208, 919-733-5807, marthaa@ncleg.net
Chairman, Rep. Paul Luebke (Durham), 529 LOB, 919-733-7663, paull@ncleg.net
Vice Chairman, Rep. Dewey Hill (Columbus), 1309, 919-733-5830, deweyh@ncleg.net
Vice Chairman, Rep. Deborah Ross (Wake), 2203, 919-733-5773, deborahr@ncleg.net
Vice Chairman, Rep. Jennifer Weiss (Wake), 2221, 919-733-5781, jenniferw@ncleg.net
Rep. John Blust (Guilford), 1420, 919-733-5806, johnbl@ncleg.net (yes)
Rep. Jerry Dockham (Davidson), 1424, 919-715-2526, jerryd@ncleg.net
Rep. Hugh Holliman (Davidson), 1213, 919-715-0873, hughh@ncleg.net
Rep. David Lewis (Harnett), 509 LOB 919-715-3015, davidl@ncleg.net
Rep. Bill McGee (Forsyth), 531 LOB, 919-733-5747, williamm@ncleg.net
Rep. John Rayfield (Gaston), 510 LOB, 919-733-5868, johnr@ncleg.net
Rep. Trudi Walend (Transylvania), 1015, 919-715-4466, trudiw@ncleg.net
Rep. Laura Wiley (Guilford), 513 LOB, 919-733-5877, lauraw@ncleg.net

Here is a sample letter to help you compose your personal message to your Representatives. It is better if you write in your own words, and best of all if you live in the district of the legislator you are writing. But the important thing is that you write! They won’t know how to vote unless you tell them how.

“Dear Rep. [name],

“I hope that this message reaches you in good spirits.

“H88, the Electoral Fairness Act, would encourage North Carolinians to vote by giving them more choices at the ballot box.

“Our President George Bush, when asked about the recent election in Iran, denounced them saying, ‘it was designed to maintain power in the hands of an unelected few who denied ballot access to more than 1,000 people who wanted to run.’ He is right to stand up for ballot access around the world. Will you join our President and stand up for ballot access in North Carolina?

“In the recent Supreme Court decision in Clingman v. Beaver, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer, wrote that if all of Oklahoma ballot access law were properly brought before them, ‘the Court would want to examine the cumulative burdens imposed by the overall scheme of electoral regulations upon the rights of voters and parties to associate through primary elections. A panoply of regulations, each apparently defensible when considered alone, may nevertheless have the combined effect of severely restricting participation and competition. Even if each part of a regulatory regime might be upheld if challenged separately, one or another of these parts might have to fall if the overall scheme unreasonably curtails associational freedoms.’ Note that Oklahoma ballot access law is extremely similar to North Carolina’s. If you won’t lower the unconstitutional restrictions on free association through ballot access, we will have no choice but to seek redress in court. If O’Connor and Breyer’s concurrence in Clingman is to be believed, it’s a case that you can’t win.

“According to Ballot Access News, North Carolina currently is ranked 47th in the country for ballot access fairness. If passed, H88 would bring North Carolina to the median among all states in this critical aspect of free and fair elections.

“For example, NC was one of only three states in the country where votes for presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000 were not counted. The Libertarian Party had to spend $100,000 on a nine month petition drive just to maintain their ballot access.

“Clearly, our current laws are too restrictive to parties with significant grassroots support in NC. They are not in line with ballot access requirements in neighboring states. Worse still, they are unfair to the voters, who are stay away from the voting booths in part because they don’t have enough choices to satisfy them.

“I ask for your support of the Electoral Fairness Act to make our political system in North Carolina fair and competitive. I believe, as I am sure you do, that the people of our great state deserve a choice at the ballot box.

“Thank you for your time and for your potential support on this very important issue.

“Best wishes,
“[your name and contact info]”

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the defiant news. It is time we take the fight to court!

The last time I wrote to you about ballot access, I told you we were beginning to look into legal action against ballot access law. There has been significant progress on this front. We have begun negotiations with an attorney to take our case and are preparing to file in state court.

We feel we have a very strong case. Very similar cases have been won since 1982 in Alaska, Maryland and Michigan, and one is being fought in Oklahoma right now. We are collecting our evidence and honing our arguments with a goal to be ready to file by the end of next week if we have to.

If the State Board of Elections votes to decertify us, we will have to file immediately so we can protect our strong candidates in Charlotte and Winston-Salem, where city council elections are partisan. If the General Assembly adjourns for the year without passing the Electoral Fairness Act, we can’t wait another year. Our resolve is firm.

The ONLY thing that will prevent us from suing the state now over ballot access is if the General Assembly passes our bill before they get out of town in the next week or so. That’s why we need you to write these Representatives now!

Meanwhile, we have to keep collecting signatures and raising money. As hard as we are fighting, we still cannot count upon any relief from either the legislature or the courts. We can’t afford sit back and wait.

Please visit our ballot access page. Download the petition and pass it around. Give money if you can so we can hire a great lawyer and productive professional petitioners.

Any way and every way you can help is appreciated! It takes a lot of work to create a political party, but that’s exactly what you are doing here in North Carolina. Every bit of progress we make happens because you sent in a $100 donation, or made a $25 monthly pledge, or sent an email to your Representative, or wrote a letter to the editor, or showed up at your city council meeting, or registered to vote Libertarian, or even just mailed in your own signature on our petition.

Take your contribution and add it to those from thousands of Libertarians all across North Carolina, and what you get is a strong voice for Liberty that elects Libertarians to office and changes public policy for the better. What you get for your contribution is more freedom.

Thank you!

yours in liberty –
Sean Haugh
Executive Director, Libertarian Party of NC

To subscribe or unsubscribe to LPNC Announcements, please reply to this message or send email to director@lpnc.org.

LNC Meeting Report: APRC reinstated and Exit Strategy response

2005-08-19T01:20:00.000-05:00

Dixon reported that he knew of the topic of the white paper for the Iraq Exit Strategy (IES) in advance but had not reviewed the text prior to publication. As part of his Treasurer’s report, Nelson said there was a short burst in memberships and donations from the website immediately after the release of the IES.

In response to a question from Region 2 Alternate Emily Salvette (Michigan), Cory said that proper timing is the key to any process for reviewing future white papers. The IES was dropped the day after President Bush gave a speech changing his Iraq policy. The next white paper, a solution to the so-called war on terror, will need to drop soon to be timely. Cory said a new Advertising and Publications Review Committee (APRC) could work quite well if staff could establish a close working relationship with them.

Lark brought forward a proposal to reconstitute the APRC. This committee is charged with reviewing all party materials for conformance with the party platform and statement of principles. Speaking for his motion, he stated that while he had strong concerns about how this would affect the timeliness of white papers and other media communications from our staff, he felt this was the best available solution to strike a balance between staff flexibility and ideological correctness, and invited the board to amend his proposal as they saw fit.

The structure of the committee would be very much the same as it had been when the LNC abolished it at their August 2004 meeting. The one main difference is that the APRC would only be comprised of LNC members. While I am personally proud of my work on that committee and would enjoy serving on it again, this in my view is a significant improvement. By doing this the LNC fully accepts its responsibility as ideological as well as administrative caretakers of the party and delegates the work in an appropriate fashion.

Starr moved to change the seven day turnaround time for white papers and similarly timely material to one day. After discussion, he altered the amendment to three days to review the original document and one day for any necessary follow up responses. This passed by voice vote.

Nelson made an amendment to remove the reporting requirement to staff, so the APRC would report only to the Chair. This passed on division 8-7.

A roll call was requested for the amended motion to restore the APRC, which passed 11-5:

Yes: Colley, Hoch, Lark, McGinnis, Redpath, B Ryan, T Ryan, Southerland, Squyres, Starr and Wrights.

No: Breudigam, Carling, Nelson, Rutherford and Sullentrup.

BetteRose Ryan moved to appoint Lark, Nelson and Wrights to the APRC, with Wrights as Chair. The appointments passed by a voice vote.

A draft of the next white paper was distributed. While I have been asked not to reveal details of the paper before publication, I did read it and am extremely pleased. It makes a strong and very practical case for the Libertarian policy of nonintervention in foreign affairs as the key to solving international tensions and protecting our country and its citizens.

LNC Meeting Report: FEC Compliance

2005-08-19T00:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in posting more meeting report. Since my return all aspects of the LPNC ballot drive have come to a head at once. More on this later. Most of my writing these days has to be directed to the State Board of Elections and various other lawyers, legislators and bureaucrats, not to mention our members and supporters here in North Carolina. But this writer finds nothing more inspirational than a deadline, and mine for Liberty For All is tomorrow night, so it's time to move this along.

It finally became clear why the LNC has been meeting in so many executive sessions over FEC compliance during the last few meetings. Not only are they discussing any legal response to our past filing errors, they have been spending a lot of time imagineering how to restructure party operations in order to fully comply with FEC regulations.

There were two motions which finally resulted from these discussions. It may be possible that the LNC feels they have more work to do to achieve full compliance with federal campaign finance law that seems to become more restrictive every month.

Rutherford moved to direct staff to not accept money from state parties that are not FEC filing committees. This passed by voice vote. Carling pointed out that there is a distinction between state party federal committees which actually file reports and those which are in compliance with the law although they do not have to file. However this did not cause anyone to attempt to amend the motion.

According to the FEC website, currently only 13 state parties and one county party have federal committees. They are: Alaska, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and York County PA. Some of these committees are probably dormant. I’m sure there are other states, such as North Carolina, which have established federal committees but have avoided going over the thresholds which require them to file reports.

Rutherford also moved to direct staff to investigate how we can outsource our material sales and LP News and report back by September 19th. This also passed by a voice vote, with Wrights as the lone dissenter.

The rationale for this is that a political party cannot accept corporate donations, not even for ad or product sales, but a separate organization that is still controlled by the LNC could. LP News editor Daniel Cloud will most likely be responsible for this transition. It appears to be assumed that Cloud will remain LP News editor no matter what form the entity may take.

While Wrights continues to advocate that the LNC consider fighting federal regulations instead of kowtowing to them (aka “screw BCRA”), the board as a whole seems to regard full compliance as part of their fiduciary responsibility. My personal opinion is somewhere in between, that the cost of compliance is acceptable when it results in operational changes which have a neutral to positive effect on the party, but that we should stand and fight when the government tries to regulate our desired activities out of existence. Despite my own moderation, I cannot help but to fully share my friend’s burning resentment that we are letting the federal government tell us how to run our party.

LNC Meeting Report: Zero dues analysis

2005-08-14T20:47:00.000-05:00

I personally am a strong supporter of the zero dues model. Mark Nelson was the person who sold me on the idea when I served on the LNC last term. George Squyres has worked hard to craft a very positive plan which I believe will help us become a much more viable political party.

But it really doesn’t matter how sweet this salve may be. Zero dues could be the best thing since ice water, but this plan is still in violation of the Bylaws. Wrights was correct that zero is not an amount envisioned by those who wrote Article 7 of our Bylaws, which reads:

Members of the Party shall be those persons who have certified in writing that they oppose the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals.

Dues for membership in the Party shall be set by the National Committee.

Only members whose national dues are current shall be counted for delegate apportionment, and National Committee representation. Only members whose national dues are current shall be eligible to hold National Party offices or be a candidate for President or Vice President.

Many who voted for zero dues subscribe to a logic that since zero is a number, and the range of numbers the LNC may use to set dues is not specified, then the LNC does indeed have the authority to set that number at zero. I respect the fact that they believe they are not violating the Bylaws with this action and so would not accuse them of deliberately flaunting them. Unfortunately they are incorrect.

If this theory were correct, then the basis for calculating delegate apportionment for our convention would not have to change from dues paying members to those who have signed the pledge. Clearly the convention delegates which voted for these provisions saw a distinction between dues-paying and pledge-signing members by assigning greater privileges to the former. That distinction can only be established if dues are set at a positive number.

If I still sat on the LNC, it would have been with a heavy heart but I would have felt compelled to vote no. At least three of the seven who did clearly stated their sole reason for opposition was that the LNC does not have the authority to do this. This dilemma could have be solved simply by making the act contingent upon changes in the Bylaws at the convention with an effective date of 7/4/06.

There may be a movement to appeal this decision to the Judicial Committee. This would require support of 5% of the membership. Since the Judicial Committee has not met in several years, it is unclear if they have any appellate procedures established beyond what is said in the Bylaws.

It is unfortunate that this plan was passed in a way that creates an unnecessary roadblock for its acceptance within the party.