Last updated on June 27, 2023
While some people thought that the Libertarian National Committee elected in 2022 advocated for transparency, their actions since then point in different direction. The national party membership report for each month historically appeared early in the next month. It is now June 17, and the report has not yet been released. There has been no public discussion this month of finances, though on Tuesday the 20th the LNC’s FEC report will be revealed.
The LNC to its credit did recently adopt a policy of reporting on its public discussion list whenever a discussion thread was opened on its confidential list. Since then there have been approximately* eleven confidential threads announced as opening, including four on staff issues, two on vendor issues, three on legal issues, and two whose general topic I was unable to divine. These are all discussions of substantive issues. The public list has only been used for the discussion of technical operations, with no discussion of what the party should be doing.
The mistake is not defining exactly what transparency means. I am not sure what the current rules are, having left the LP three years ago. But I know one thing that I have been observing is that they tend to have an awful lot of executive sessions these days.
When I was on the LNC, we would often debate the validity of going into executive session before going in. And while I cannot discuss what was said in any particular executive session, not just because I’m not allowed to but because I really don’t remember most of them, I can say that I only recall a few instances where things clearly not belong in executive session were discussed, and the chairman always shut it down immediately.
And it really didn’t matter if anyone thought that the discussion email list was “secret“, as it was always leaked to somebody who would report it somewhere such as this website or IPR.
I don’t consider transparency their biggest problem. The level of internal fighting between factions appears to be much higher than it was in the past, and they seem to think that disaffiliation is a trivial event, when it used to be the most serious issue discussed by the LNC, and avoided at all costs.
Out of curiosity, is there another party with more transparency than the LP? I checked 7 or 8 other party websites and found nothing comparable. The relative lack of transparency being discussed is just the LP being compared against the LP.
As I recall from my decades in the LP (1990s and 2000s), “outsider factions” always complained about the lack of transparency. And when they became “insiders,” others complained about their lack of transparency.
It’s an LP tradition. Always promise transparency when you have no power. Never deliver it when you do.
Okay, there were a few individual exceptions. Starchild kept his promises. But no faction as a whole ever did.
George…you got her angry! Asking too many questions? Tsk tsk!!!
First they ignore you
Then they ridicule you
Then they fight you
Then you win
I appear to have annoyed the LNC Secretary. Writing on Twitter, the LNC Secretary said:
“Phillies’ partial information statements are fun. These isn’t much discussion on public business email with this LNC. Why oh why can this be? Could it possibly be because we meet every month unlike the old LNC? Because this LNC also doesn’t micromanage staff but gives them goals? That the LNC is not made up of majority Boomers (not used as pejorative) but much younger people who don’t like email? Oh, no, can’t be anything like that. George you are a piece of work. I don’t trust you for anything.”
Of course, if there is no public discussion because the LNC meets every month, why is there so much secret discussion? And how often did the old LNC meet, last term? Here is a count and list. Indeed, they were just short of a meeting a month
The count:
2020, post-convention, 6 meetings
2021, 11 meetings
2022, pre-convention, 4 meetings
The meetings
May 26, 2022, LNC Pre-Convention Meeting Minutes
April 18, 2022, LNC Meeting Minutes
January 23, 2022, LNC Meeting Minutes
January 17, 2022, LNC Meeting Minutes
December 4-5, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
November 21, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
September 4-5, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
July 11, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
June 27, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
June 19, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
June 18, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
June 5-6, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
March 7, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
January 16, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
January 3, 2021, LNC Meeting Minutes
December 5-6, 2020, LNC Meeting Minutes
November 8, 2020, LNC Meeting Minutes
October 4, 2020, LNC Meeting Minutes
September 12-13, 2020, LNC Meeting Minutes
August 2, 2020, LNC Meeting Minutes
July 19, 2020, LNC Meeting Minutes
Younger readers may wish to comment on the claim that it is mostly elderly fogies who like and use email.
No, that was a somewhat tounge-in-cheek comment about their general solvency.
National conventions are funded entirely from registration fees, most notably the convention packages. I do not know how well they have been doing the past few conventions, but when I served on the convention committee we made money, which was usually used for ballot access.
One of the conventions under the Perry Willis regime made almost $100,000, not counting what was raised at the banquet. Package prices were reasonable too because costs were carefully considered. Get a thousand attendees and a profit should be easy to achieve.
I guess I haven’t been paying attention to the LNC’s finances. Not enough money to hold a nominating convention? Really? That is really sad. If it is a Biden-Trump replay election then one of the potentially best opportunities in the history of the LP will apparently be missed.
Does anyone actually care at this point? I doubt many will even notice when they are too broke to hold a nominating convention — unless they adopt Starchild’s long time recommendation of holding it in a public park somewhere.
There’s a reason those cats are covering things up: The LNC, at this point is pretty much just a litter box.