I have our Libertarian state convention this weekend and I’m not looking forward to it. Being off social media has given me a peace I haven’t known in quite some time (oddly since about the time I started using social media, what a coincidence) but the prep work for convention has brought that political stress back into my life. I’m hoping that we will be able to accomplish everything necessary in one day instead of two since the board, in its incompetence, didn’t send out notice for any of their proposed amendments, nor did they forward the ones submitted to them either. While this is irritating, there’s still a way for us to remove the offending language from our bylaws – or more accurately, revert back to what it was before the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside baseball time: a few years back, a faction within the Libertarian Party had formed a caucus and managed to take over the board. While at the time I viewed this as a “good thing” their actions since the takeover (or “Reno Reset” as it has been called) have been terrible. At the last National Convention, they had Trump, RFK Jr., and Vivek Ramaswamy as featured speakers. The caucus had their preferred candidate to run for president under the Libertarian banner, but I later found out that the plan was for him to drop out and endorse Trump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their preferred candidate lost (likely at least partially related to him getting high on weed gummies and him being barely coherent before bailing out of a rebuttal to Trump’s speech) and there was a meltdown when that happened and a candidate they were opposed to won the nomination. This sent the caucus dominated board and affiliates into a panic because they couldn’t appear “based” online if they supported this candidate, who happened to be a gay man. (To be fair, many didn’t care that he is gay, but opposed positions he had taken during the COVID panic and medical privacy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) released their video announcing him as our nominee, the chair wore a red clown nose, and later said she thought he was the best nominee because he would pull from Democrats but not Republicans, thus benefiting Trump. She also later announced that she was going to be the Libertarian appointed to his cabinet as Trump had promised during his speech at our convention. She went on to lead the LNC into a fundraising agreement with RFK Jr. and (allegedly) unlawfully personally profited off that and other events. She resigned while under investigation for embezzlement earlier this year<\/a> and said it was because she was about to join the Trump administration, though it has been murmured that the board was about to vote on expelling her from her position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some state affiliates did similar things, joining the Joint Fundraising Committee to support RFK Jr. over our party’s nominee. In Montana we (allegedly) received a payout for working with the JFC, allowing RFK Jr. to accept additional donations from people in Montana. They also made moves like another state to have a different candidate on our ballot line than the individual selected at our National Convention – I believe that a strongly worded threat of a lawsuit changed their mind and they settled for a post attacking the selected candidate and explicitly not endorsing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funny thing about that – that candidate was the one selected as the preferred candidate in the straw poll that was held at our delegate convention prior to National.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyhow, back to the present (sort of): the caucus had been pushing for members to take over state affiliates to make sure they had the votes needed to take control of the party, and after the “Reno Reset” these affiliates were emboldened to make additional changes to help solidify power. One of these things that happened in Montana was amending the bylaws to allow the board and county affiliates to endorse candidates in partisan elections who are not part of the Libertarian Party. This language is what we want to clean up in our bylaws, but we will be unable to propose the amendment at this convention because of the board’s incompetence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although frustrating, there is another course of action to have this addressed immediately – a point of order. We use parliamentary procedure and our bylaws delegates parliamentary authority to the current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR), and RONR 23:6 states that a late point of order may be made “in connection with breaches that are of an ongoing nature,” and that “a point of order can be made at any time during the continuance of the breach – regardless of how much time has passed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, we are certainly experiencing a breach “of an ongoing nature” as the LP national bylaws explicitly prohibits endorsing candidates of other political parties in partisan elections (Article V, 4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyhow, that’s enough about internal party politics for today, I have to write up a sheet explaining all the specifics and details as to how we are in breach and at risk of disaffiliation, explaining RONR to those less familiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Song of the day: As I Am<\/a> by Dream Theater<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Supreme Court betrays Fourth Amendment with \u2018show your papers\u2019 ruling<\/a> – “Last week, in an unsigned order issued without an explanation, and in direct defiance of the plain language of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States permitted federal police to stop people in public and demand to see proof of lawful presence here, and in the absence of that proof, to arrest them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\nInteresting Tidbits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n