In the ongoing litigation in Oregon a new Motion for Summary Judgment has been filed by the Defendant LPO. If you are unfamiliar with the Oregon case, much of the political drama is archived on Independent Political Report.
THE PROBLEM:
LNC Paralyzed!
Secretary Blocks All Business!
Since early December, our Libertarian National Committee has been totally paralyzed, unable to transact business or vote on motions because the National Secretary has been inactive.
THE SOLUTION (from the forthcoming January 2013 Liberty for America)
—Editorial—
It’s Time for Impeachment
Since 2000. this newspaper and its predecessor, Let Freedom Ring!, have covered Libertarian National Committee activities in great detail. Indeed, we have given the LNC more extensive investigatory coverage than has any other news source.
The current situation on the National Committee is utterly unacceptable. Motions cannot be brought to a vote. Motions that may have passed cannot be acted upon, because the official results are unknown. Meeting Minutes reach draft format, but are perpetually in need of correction. When vote totals are reported, they are frequently found to be incorrect.
You can’t run a serious political party this way. Party members should demand immediate change. To contact the LNC: http://www.lp.org/lnc-leadership for email addresses.
There is only one solution. National Secretary Ruth Bennett must forthwith for cause be impeached (“suspended” is the term of art in the Party Bylaws) and removed from office. The cause, of course, is failure to discharge the duties of the office. The process is complex. First the LNC must vote to suspend. Then the vote must survive the suspended officer’s appeal to the Judicial Committee.
Fortunately, the National Party has at hand an excellent replacement. Chuck Moulton is an attorney and former Vice Chair. He is willing to serve.
Former National Convention delegates may recall charts and graphs of LNC votes — those were Chuck’s work. Moulton delivers. Those, by the way, were the charts and graphs that Bennett had removed from delegate tables at the 2012 NatCon before they could be read. Readers may also recall that Bennett nominated M Carling for Judicial Committee and gave the 2012 NatCon its floor fees.
LAMA Saves Massachusetts Ballot Access
Astute planning, and a bit of luck, have saved ballot accessibility for Massachusetts Libertarians. Unlike 2008, in which Massachusetts Libertarians made the well-intended mistake of running a candidate for US Senate on the Libertarian line in order to boost votes for Bob Barr — which requires no effort, just a candidate to run with the Presidential candidate — in 2012 Massachusetts Libertarians left the US Senate line blank. By doing this, they as a practical matter ensured that “Libertarian” would remain a “Political Designation” rather than a “Party”.
Under bizarre Massachusetts ballot access laws, it is far easier to put candidates on the ballot as a Designation than as a Party. Indeed, every single recent Libertarian candidate for partisan office has emphasized that running as “Libertarian” with “Party” status would have made it impossible for them to get on the ballot. Furthermore, if Massachusetts Libertarians gain ballot access, other Massachusetts political parties will be able to use party primaries to knock our candidates off the ballot.
Massachusetts Libertarians are routinely harassed by out-of-staters demanding that Massachusetts Libertarians should procure Political Party status, a step opposed by every Massachusetts Libertarian member who has recently run for partisan office. References to Massachusetts as “keeping” or “losing” ballot access are just plain wrong. You have been able to run as a “Libertarian” (that’s what it says on the ballot paper) in Massachusetts for some decades now.
Brubaker Secures Wyoming Ballot Access
Richard Brubaker of Wyoming gained 3.4% of the vote in his race for U.S. Congress in Wyoming, thus securing ballot access for the Wyoming Libertarian Party.
Bruce Majors Wins DC Party Status
Libertarian Bruce Majors has won major party status for our party in DC. The DC Party, which was entirely defunct for a prolonged period, now has primaries.
Majors performed his feat by winning more than 13,000 votes and finishing in second place in a race against incumbent D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. He finished in second place, ahead of Green Statehood candidate Natale Stracuzzi, who won party status for the Greens. Majors is already discussing the important part of the future, recruiting candidates for the next set of campaigns. Under DC ballot access rules, those candidates will need do almost nothing to get on the ballot; they can spend all their time campaigning.
Howe Saves NC Ballot Access
A press release from the Libertarian National Committee reports the glorious news that Barbara Howe has saved ballot access for the Libertarian Party of North Carolina. They report:
The Libertarian campaign of Barbara Howe for Governor in North Carolina scored a major victory for the LP that will save the LP over $300,000 in future petitioning costs.
North Carolina is one of the most difficult and expensive states in the nation for getting Libertarians on the ballot. Now for the second time, the LP has secured ballot status, avoiding costly petitioning that would otherwise be required. She won 93,460 votes or 2.1% of the vote for governor, just over the 2% require in a statewide race to be a recognized political party.Michael Munger first secured Libertarian ballot access in the state in his 2008 race for governor where he won 121,585 votes, or 2.85%. He was included in the gubernatorial debates.
Howe has now achieved the same, despite being excluded from the debates. Without this victory, the North Carolina LP would need to collect 88,608 certified signatures, or at least 126,000 raw signatures, in 2016 to make the ballot.
Barbara Howe ran hard – literally – running 5k races in over 96 counties throughout the state to reach voters and to give them a choice for less government, lower taxes and more freedom.
“I am pleased that we accomplished the goal of keeping the LP a legally qualified party in NC. Thanks to all the enthusiastic supporters who planted signs, passed out rack cards, and shared the message,” she said.
David Moran Wins WV Ballot Access
David Moran of West Virginia has secured ballot access for the Libertarian Party of West Virginia, for the next four years. West Virginia ballot access has always been a challenge for our party, but now it is safe for four years.
Moran reportedly told his supporters: “I want to thank you sincerely for your belief, your work and your steadfast dedication to our campaign. Winning Official Major Party Status is an accomplishment in which you can take great pride. I am proud to have been able to serve your objectives.
“We achieved our goal of exceeding the 1% of the gubernatorial vote (1.33%) on a budget of about $3000. The principles for which we stand are our torch and beacon. We will take this forward into a new and grander campaign for liberty in our state in the future.
“The campaign for 2016 begins now. We will use the next four years to raise the awareness of our message to every person in the state. The policies that we have developed this year will continue to guide us as we move forward to make Liberty our foundation, and state prosperity our vision.
“I look forward to serving you and these objectives in every way possible.”
Kyle Markley, candidate for Oregon State House of Representatives for District 30 (Hillsboro, OR) proclaims proudly that he was not a spoiler for the election he was in. His results of 5.73% far exceed the typical results of third party candidates in Oregon. Mr. Markley notes that his positions resonated with voters and brought to light important issues such as civil property forfeiture laws and legal equality.
The full letter can be found here.
Libertarians are often accused of being spoilers. One example of an analysis of such accusations can be found on the Independent Political Report, where an evaluation is done to examine if Libertarians helped the Democrats keep the Senate.
This editor can’t help but comment that there is an implicit arrogance in thinking you deserve any vote that you can’t earn, so accusing anyone of being a spoiler says more about the person making the accusation.
Dear State Chairs,
I am writing you because of the issues that have been facing the LSLA. You may recall the resignation of previous LSLA chair Michael Johnston due to issues he had cited with the LSLA leadership. You may or may not be aware (as referenced in his letter) that I was removed from the state chairs mailing list by M Carling in 2011 and since then Mr. Starr has not added me back. I am the Chairperson of the Libertarian Party of Oregon according to the Oregon Secretary of State, the National LP (you will note they link the official LP Oregon website). This is of course not without controversy, but that controversy was started by Richard Burke, M Carling, and funded by Aaron Starr in an attempt to place a puppet regime into control of a state affiliate. I can provide this link if you really want to use it as a jumping off point to detail the entire Oregon affair so you can understand how deep the rabbit hole goes but that is not the core issue of this email, it is only the impetus for it.
Mr. Johnston’s resignation came amid a flurry of different controversial items. In my opinion it takes a very special and talented set of people to take an organization whose charter is seemingly so benign and create so much controversy with it. Given that the organization has seemingly become a platform for the political ambitions of some of its principals as well as apparently the economic interests of some of their personal contacts, I believe it is important to do two things so that the purpose the LSLA once represented can be fulfilled:
1) A new mailing list with all participants is created and administered fairly
2) A group of state chairs should create a new organization to fulfill the original purpose of the LSLA
I am already doing #1 (lpchairs@googlegroups.com) , and will pass control of it to whoever performs task #2. Anyone willing to do #2 and has assembled a small team to organize and call the state chairs conference for 2013 (sic), please contact me so I can discuss your budgetary needs for bootstrapping the organization. If you can provide the time, energy and honest intent, I will get you the resources you need to bootstrap it.
Sincerely,
Wes Wagner
Chairperson, Libertarian Party of Oregon
www.lporegon.org
For the first time I am publishing a timeline of facts and events surrounding the litigation of case CV 12010345 before the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of Clackamas.
I intend to merely present a timeline, commonly accepted facts and reference documents so the issue can be well understood by those who wish to invest the time to do so. continue reading…
This post is for discussing everything about the Election!
POTUS of course will probably dominate, but anything noteworthy is fair game.
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