The Libertarian National Committee is meeting this weekend in Alexandria, Virginia .
Broadcast channel #1:
Click here for the Ustream version of the broadcast or visit :
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/libertarian-party1
Broadcast channel #2:
Click here for an audio-only version or visit :
http://libertarian.caster.fm/
Meeting agenda:
Click here for a version of the proposed agenda .
These agendas are usually modified.
Comments from yesterday and earlier this morning here.
Paul said: “In other news Gary Sinawski, the LP’s counsel, has passed away. RIP.”
I never met Gary Sinawski in person, but I spoke to him on the phone a couple of times. He seemed like a decent fellow. Sorry to hear he passed away.
Watch your email tomorrow morning. 🙂
Both of these should be on LP.org blog, facebook, etc.
To answer as I can, OAI lawsuit was discussed briefly, but I have not received the information I would like from OAI sufficent to make any comment on its progress.
I’m saddened at Mr. Sinawski’s passing. I have spoken to Mr. Hall, as well as started a broader search process for replacement counsel.
EC call tomorrow night to discuss Kentucky. If you want to contribute to the legal offense fund to support it, please do.
Kentucky debate lawsuit will be dealt with on exec comm call.
Oh my, very sad news about Gary Sinawski.
I met him first in 1994 when he was counsel to the New Alliance Party (yep!) and I informally represented LPNY that year.
Two years ago, he helped New Yorker Dan O’Connor in his attempt to get the Democratic nomination for the 7th Congressional District (covering parts of Brooklyn, lower Manhattan and Queens). Here’s his bio from that website:
Gary Sinawski graduated Harvard University, cum laude in 1968 and earned his JD from the University of Michigan Law School in 1973.
Gary has represented at various times the presidential campaigns, national organizations and some state organizations of the Reform Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, Populist Party, Natural Law Party and New Alliance Party in more than four dozen ballot access and other fair elections lawsuits in federal and/or state court in 19 states; defended petition challenge litigation in New York during every election cycle since 1983 at the Board of Elections, Supreme Court, Appellate Division and Court of Appeals levels.
Gary Co-authored the “Fair Elections Act” (a bill introduced into several Congresses to set fair and uniform nationwide ballot access standards for independent and minor party candidates for federal office.) He has testified before mayoral, gubernatorial and state legislative committees on election reform and lectured in numerous forums, including the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, on election-related subjects such as ballot access and term limits.
Gary is a former member of the State Executive Committee and the Kings County Executive Committee of the Independence Party of New York as well as former Secretary of the Nassau County Committee of the Independence Party of New York.
Not sure about that, but getting a new counsel was already being discussed. Sad to hear about Sinawski though, he has helped a lot over the years. He was in ill health for at least the last few months, but reportedly feeling better.
The last is a great shame. Sinawski worked faithfully and diligently to advance the interests of the party.
One might imagine that there has been a sufficient change of personalities that the party’s prior counsel might be approached.
I believe it was on the agenda. Can’t remember off hand whether in executive session or not, but that and the topics of the executive session(s) are also in the agenda which is in the main post above (for those of you not reading this in dashboard like I am).
In other news Gary Sinawski, the LP’s counsel, has passed away. RIP.
I’ve read through all of the above and Saturday’s as well. Alicia did a magnificent job validating the convention voting. It would seem that without her review, the discrepancies would likely never have come to light (am I correct in this — do we not have a formal audit of the results process). But what makes we wish I had been in Columbus is the idea that — FOR TWO CONVENTIONS IN A ROW, we have had a chair’s race with a candidate with EXACTLY 50 percent of the vote?!? What are the odds of that??
Of course if I had been there, and had been voting, I guess I’d have not seen that happen anyway (although I might have been more vivilant about the projected vote totals. I’d like to think I’d have noticed Florida being off (11 being counted as II (2 in Roman)).
No discussion of OAI or the CPD lawsuit? Or perhaps that was in Executive Session. Will the TOPICS discussed in the Executive (Secret Session) be revealed, I wonder?
Such are my reactions as a distracted libertarian (currently with one too many houses and working to reach the tipping point of moving enough stuff from the one in Park City to the one in Alpine to get back down to ONE house (for the first time since 1999). I currently own nine toilets — 5 in Alpine, 3 in Park City and 1 in my RV. That seems to be the critical mass for living a life with constant toilet repair –especially when 5 of them are 20 year old, first generation, government designed low-flow models. Wait, I guess that’s re-energized my libertarian activism after all . . .)
🙂
Joe
It does seem better run than last term.
No discussion of Oregon. The Secretary’s findings were briefly mentioned in the teller’s report, as supporting evidence for the need to have more volunteers. The Secretary reports that doing other things while counting is going on creates distraction, which seems logical. She mentioned that at one convention, there was Beyonce playing while she was counting. She also mentioned that some states don’t check out because, for some reason, we like to pretend that checking out reduces the quorum requirement, and as a result, checking out lets a small number continue business. In fact, if everyone remembered to check out, the last person to leave could rewrite the bylaws and platform, reconsider the chair’s election then elect himself (so long as he voted on the prevailing side…) Of course, checking out doesn’t actually reduce the quorum, but so long as we act as if it did…the bylaws committee needs to look at this.
By “trusted” I mean people that I knew had counted ballots in the past and knew the general process. I’ve done it at several national conventions as well as many of our state conventions. The scale at a state convention is obviously smaller, but the process is similar. You have to make sure that the count is clean, regardless of what your own personal vote was in a race.
It should not have just been two of us. I went up and volunteered when the convention started because it appeared that the Secretary had little or no help. He seemed quite relieved that someone had volunteered to help with balloting, so I decided to seek out Dan as someone else to help. I thought of asking a few more people, but most of the people I trusted to help with the job were running for office and could not help. Neither Dan or I had any plans to seek election.
We had 2008, 2010 and 2012 under control. It appears to me that the 2014 convention was just left to chance in a lot of ways. I noticed that some things were very well organized, such as food and “entertainment”, but floor arrangements were lacking in many areas.
I don’t want anyone to assume that the Secretary was unprepared for the voting change. He had been advised of the proposed change and already had ballots and envelopes prepared in case it passed.
As far as the waiting while we’re counting votes, in some prior conventions we have used that time for presentations or speeches by candidates. Things still moved along and people didn’t get restless.
Thanks.
Emily asked all delegation chairs to advise Credentials whenever people in their delegations left, which I did but perhaps not everyone else did.
I only had about a dozen delegates so it was easier for me than for Indiana, Ohio and some of the others to make sure that all my state’s delegates voted and it added up correctly. You should not have had to do the individual delegation’s work.
My pet peeve as a person sitting on the convention floor: The convention needed to move on and have something else to do while Dan and you were counting. It’s one thing to break for ten minutes, but there was pretty much nothing to do for the lengthy time it took to ascertain the results of the at-large vote. As we now know that will take a while, even with more volunteers which is essential, hopefully the 2016 planners will address that problem.
I don’t have Dave’s opinion, but Dan and I both agreed that it had no actual effect on the outcome. The change that required turning in the ballots and the rule that if you voted for NOTA you could not vote for anyone else on your ballot (a logical rule), caused us to have to verify a few states. During the verification, we discovered a math error in the results turned in by a delegation, which required verification. In our opinion that was the job of the delegation, so we had to wait while they recounted their ballots. Dealing with large piles of envelopes and trying to keep them with the tally sheet for the state also made things more difficult and wasted quite a bit of time keeping things organized.
In summary: we need more volunteers (probably a total of five-six) to do ballot counting. We need to meet before the convention starts to make sure everyone knows their task. Regardless of whether it is an aid in any potential re-election bid, the Secretary needs to be off of the floor so that he/she cannot be interrupted as easily. The teller table needs to be on the floor level near the Secretary. Someone needs to act as a door-keeper to stop all of the “When will you be done” interruptions. After the tenth or twelfth interruption I stopped being polite and started telling people to leave us alone and go away. 🙂
By the end of the convention we had figured out a few ways to improve the system. If we can start 2016 with an organized team that the Secretary can rely on to count the ballots we can cut out a lot of wasted time. There are also a few technological improvements in how ballots are transcribed that we could make to reduce the process even more.
My biggest pet peeve? States that disappear and don’t bother to let anyone know that they are leaving. Having to search for missing delegations wastes a lot of time. I believe it may have been five or six states by the end of the convention. Delegate chairs should be more responsible when their delegation departs.
Stewart–
Without getting into a long discussion, was it the general feeling of Dan, Dave Blau and you that the new method for selecting at-large members was an improvement or not over the old method?
“And, was there nothing said about the Oregon LP, or Ms. Mattson’s look at the voting from the national convention?”
I wasn’t listening to the stream, but my guess is that she was talking about what was reported about the process. We had procedural issues which everyone knows caused delays. My guess is that is what she was talking about.
We (the tellers) exchanged several email messages after the convention to document our thoughts on what took place. Dan Karlan wrote a very good briefing that he submitted to the Secretary. I didn’t really have anything to add to it since he covered it all very well. I’m sure it will be published with the minutes.
I got my answer. Motion passed without objection.
Thanks to Nick Sarwark and entire LNC,
“Michael H. Wilson September 21, 2014 at 1:42 pm
For what my opinion is worth, which probably ain’t much, the LP needs to make a serious effort at updating the available literature in the next few months.”
I’ve been saying this for years. A lot of the party outreach material is out-of-date, and there are current issues that are not even addressed in party outreach material, like NSA spying for one.
I made the suggestion a long time ago that the national party have a contest for who can design the best outreach material. The entries could be voted on at the http://www.LP.org website, and the winners get placed on the website, and could receive some kind of prize (perhaps given out at a national convention).
For what my opinion is worth, which probably ain’t much, the LP needs to make a serious effort at updating the available literature in the next few months.
I have a piece on health care and another on global warming that I can get out in a few days. Does anyone have any idea who I should send these to? Paulie do you want to take a look at them before they go to anyone up the ladder? Maybe the should go directly to Nick. Thoughts, comments, criticism and abuse are all welcome.
Josh or others–
I was unavailable after 10:30 this morning. What happened on funding defense of Gigi Bowman litigation?
Thanks.
I believe one of the goals passed was to have an operational state affiliate in every state by June 1st of 2015 🙂
My observation from the Internet Peanut Gallery is that this seemed to be a productive meeting.
It doesn’t sound like any one or two personalities took over.
And, was there nothing said about the Oregon LP, or Ms. Mattson’s look at the voting from the national convention?
Was there any talk of trying to help save the LP of CA?
There’s also http://insomniaclibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/09/bill-redpath-at-libertarian-party.html
Very nice!
Joshua Katz: “Minnesota reimbursement from 2012 was passed.”
It is really disgusting that it has taken over 2 years for the LNC to pay for its ballot access petitioning debt in Minnesota. This is not the first time it has taken the party a long time to pay debts owed from ballot access. This is an example of the kind of crap that needs to end in this party.
Inbox
x
[email protected] via googlegroups.com
10:13 AM (18 minutes ago)
to lnc-business
After sending the goals that were adopted, I had an additional request for the list of other proposed goals that did NOT make the final cut. Those were (in descending order of support levels):
Facilitate creation of a campus affiliate in each state by June 2016
$2 million revenue in 2015
20,000 sustaining members as of June 1, 2016
Sponsor a series of workshops in 2015 around the country like Success ’97
Raise at least $3 million from July 1, 2014 – June 1, 2016 incl bldg fund
20,000 active donors ($1 or more) as of end of 2015
Increase by 10% the number of active county-level affiliates
Elimination of 1 federal-level entity/department by 2016
Put tools in place to allow our Presidential candidate to achieve 2 mill votes
[I think that was Mattson also but I’ll have to double check because she did not sign this one -p]
[email protected] via googlegroups.com
10:08 AM (20 minutes ago)
to lnc-business
I’ve had two region reps request that I provide copies of the 6 goals the LNC adopted today. They are (in descending order of support level):
1. 1000 candidates in 2016
2. Take action to see that each state has operational affiliate by June 1, 2015
3. 300 candidates by 2016 trained in Who’s Driving
4. Updated issue-based outreach literature this term
5. 38-state party-status ballot access as of Dec 1, 2016
6. 200 elected Libertarian officials in Dec 2016
Alicia Mattson
LNC Secretary
Meeting ended. I concur with Starchild on strategic planning in general – it can be done well, but too often it’s a mix of ideas from business schools, arbitrary numbers, and dreams dressed up as attainable goals. We should have one goal, for a long time, and ask if the things we do aim at it or not.
Minnesota reimbursement from 2012 was passed. Money for legal defense for NY (Bowman) passed. Money to support a lawsuit in Kentucky passed. There wasn’t much open discussion for obvious reasons. The Kentucky lawsuit relates to debate access.
Sounds like the meeting ended…
If you’d like to see a tour of the new HQ and speeches at the opening go to http://insomniaclibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/09/nicholas-sawark-at-grand-opening-of.html
Due to sound being in and out I could not tell what was done with either Minnesota or Kentucky funding. I heard that they were being discussed. Is anyone who is there in person reading along and willing to help with updates? Failing that fill us in when you get home?
I see they are now voting on adopting goals. Spending lots of time talking about “goals” for the organization — mostly arbitrary numbers picked out of thin air — seems to be a perennial LNC activity.
I don’t remember offhand which goals we adopted last term, but I do recall we wasted a lot of time on the topic.
The Preamble to the Libertarian Party platform is pretty clear about the party’s goal: “Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime.