Fundraiser includes fundraising with George Wallace’s American Independent Party.
The Joint Fundraising Agreement between the Libertarian National Committee, the RFK campaign, and several other groups was today leaked to this newspaper. We will publish the agreement as a separate report for the convenience of readers who cannot read PDF files. Today it was also leaked to the LNC. I say leaked because National Chair McArdle has ignored multiple requests to reveal to the LNC what the LNC voted to agree to. Note that the leaked document was arguably not approved by the LNC, which only agreed to an agreement with the RFK campaign.
There has been discussion on the LNC on this issue. That discussion follows. At least 8 State Parties have passed condemnatory motions asking for censure of LNC members Angela McArdle, Pat Ford, Andrew Watkins, and Kathy Yeniscavich. A copy of one of the resolutions (we gather that they are all identical) will be reported separately.
Keith Thompson, Region 3 Alternate
Sent: Thursday, August 1, 2024
As it’s been more than a few days, I fear this has fallen off the radar.
The following was asked by a member last night and it appears relevant to this thread, so I’ll add it to the list:
“According to Anthony at Team Kennedy, Ellie Cox, the treasurer of the JFC, and Vermilion and Lowey, the accountants facilitating the custodian of records for the JFC, they all confirmed when asked that the allocation of the JFC has the LNC receiving the bulk of the money, and that the LNC would be directly spending 90% of the money in support of the Kennedy Campaign.
Is the Chair willing to confirm or deny this assertion that the LNC will be directly campaigning for an opposing candidate, or will she be willing to release the contract publicly that even LNC members were not allowed to read before being told to vote to reaffirm?”
While being a pain in the behind isn’t a life goal of mine, I offer apologies if I’m nevertheless excelling in this area. It is my hope that direct, full answers would alleviate any member concerns about the JFC.
Keith Thompson
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2024
Subject: Re: RFK Jr. Joint Fundraiser Clarification, Please!
Good afternoon,
Has there been any movement on these questions since July 22?
I’ve had several people reach out to ask for updates on these questions and I regret that I have heard nothing more than what’s in this thread.
With the RFK Jr. campaign actively courting state affiliates to join, two of which already have, it would be nice to get some solid answers on how the spending will be coordinated.
To be clear, here’s the issue as I understand it:
It has been asserted by multiple people that, in order for us to abide by FEC regs, the political party getting the donations would have to be the one to spend them, aside from what we can legally give to the RFK Jr. campaign.
If we are obligated to spend 90% of the money on the RFK Jr. campaign, it would seemingly have to be technically spent by the Party itself.
If that’s remotely true, then it’s a gigantic conflict of interest for us to be spending money for an opposition candidate even if we’re acting as a passthrough.
Bueller,
Keith Thompson
Region 3 Alternate
Keith Thompson
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2024
Re: RFK Jr. Joint Fundraiser Clarification, Please!
Now that the JFC contract has been leaked by a kind soul, perhaps we can now speak on it plainly.
It appears that the donations would be allocated as such:
Team Kennedy (TK) would get the first $6,600 (appearing on page 7 as "6,660", presumably for demonic invocations).
The LNC would get the following 41,300 allocation.
10,000 per state affiliate participating
Other organizations Now you may think “sweet, the LNC gets up to 41.3k!”, but that is placed in a new bank account co-owned by TK for coordinated spending.
Distribution appears as follows as kindly summarized on page 7:
6,600 - TK
41,300 - LNC
Of that money, 90% would be placed into a new bank account for coordinated spending with TK.
We're allowed to keep 10% in our own account.
$10k per FEC-recognized state affiliate
90% of that would be send to the LNC's bank account that's shared with TK.
The affiliate could keep the remaining 10%.So basically, given a max level donation, TK would get 6600 off the top, the LNC would get 41,300 (or 9,000 if going through a state affiliate), then the LNC would put 90% of that into a coordinated spending account for TK.
That outline having been given, here are my concerns:
The FEC limit for coordinated spending with our Presidential Nominee, Chase Oliver, is a generous $32,392,200. However, that’s specifically for our nominee, and I remind the body that we held a Presidential Nominating Convention and selected a nominee other than RFK Jr.
As the 32M figure is tied to the Presidential Nominee, which RFK Jr. is not, it appears that the coordinated spending limit would then default to a lower amount, as even the FEC has not conceived of a case where a National Party would fundraise against its own nominee. However, it appears that in the absence of a rule allowing the higher limit, this would fall to limits applied to non-Presidential nominees.
However, it appears that there may be a loophole: it’s possible that we could argue that, because RFK Jr. is on the ballot in some states as a Libertarian, he is “a” Presidential candidate affiliated with the Party and should therefore get the 32M limit.
But this would give the LNC an incentive to have RFK Jr. appear on the ballot as a Libertarian in at least one state in order for this to work, which is clearly a huge conflict of interest.
This LNC has:
Been openly hostile to sending nominating paperwork to various Secretary of State offices, which could help RFK Jr. get on the ballot as a Libertarian.
Has refused to openly condemn his having been placed on the ballot as a Libertarian, shooting down a motion to do so but then passing one that only trims out that aspect.
Has been quick to handle efforts to prevent our ballot access from being hijacked in private without condemning those efforts in public.
Has targeted the LNC Secretary for working to save our nominee’s ballot access, claiming it was a conflict of interest to help our own candidate.
I should also mention that the following state affiliates have issued resolutions condemning this fundraiser, with several others pending:
Louisiana
Mississippi
Idaho
Missouri
Oklahoma
Texas
South Carolina
UtahAll that having been said, could we please kindly get clear, thorough answers to questions not only asked by many members, but also several state affiliates?
Thank you,
Keith Thompson
Super Region 3 Alternate
LP Secretary
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2024
Subject: Re: RFK Jr. Joint Fundraiser Clarification, Please!
And I will get down to brass tacks. Us COORDINATING ANY KIND OF SPENDING TO THE MOST DIRECT COMPETITOR TO OUR CANDIDATE IS OBSCENE. Downright obscene. And I can just imagine how some would be acting if the composition of the LNC were different, Rectenwald or Smith were nominated, and things like this are going on.
I would further note, not that rules seem to matter any longer, that this agreement is void on its face as it was not what it was represented. It was to be between US AND RFK. Not US and a bunch of other people. Other LP parties could potentially be excused but NOT the California American Independent Party, which is the first time any of us have heard of this.
Now I know that Wikipedia can be as “reliable” as the SPLC at times, but we SHOULD HAVE LEAST BEEN GIVEN THE CHOICE WHETHER TO HAVE OUR NAME ASSOCIATED WITH THIS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Independent_Party
We were not.
Shame.
It is ridiculous to claim that the late George Wallace has anything to do with the American Independent Party. Yes, that was how the American Independent Party started, but that party went defunct decades ago. In the 1990’s the American Independent Party became the California affiliate of the Constitution Party. The Constitution Party was founded around 1992 as the US Taxpayers Party. I think the American Independent Party’s affiliation with started with them while they were the US Taxpayers Party. California does not allow political parties to change their name and it is extremely difficult to qualify for the ballot as a new party in California. In 2008 some bad actors on their state committee refused to put the national convention nominated presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, Chuck Baldwin, on the ballot, and instead put Alan Keyes on the ballot. The last time the American Independent Party of California did anything noteworthy was when Chelene Nightengale ran for Governor in 2010 as their candidate. Chenele Nightengale had been a Libertarian Party member at one time and she had been the campaign manager for Art Olivier when he ran for Governor of California as a Libertarian Party candidate.
The bad actors on the American Independent Party state committee disaffiliated with the Constitution Party sometime around the above mentioned time frame, and after 2010 this party turned into a complete joke as it abandoned any principles or platform which it had and became a largely do nothing organization. It became an empty vessel which basically sells its ballot access. In 2020 it put Roque De La Fuente on the ballot for President and Kanye West for Vice President on the ballot. The American Independent Party of today has absolutely nothing to do with its George Wallace era or its Constitution Party era.
Most of the people in California registered to vote under the American Independent Party label have no idea that it is even a political party, and this was the case when it was a Constitution Party affiliate and it actually stood for something. The vast majority of its registered voters think that when they checked the American Independent Party box it meant that they were registering to vote as independents or non-partisan, but they were actually supposed to check the Decline To State A Political Party box, which later was changed to the No Party Preference box.
Your history is in error. The American Independent Party was created in 1967-8 to support Wallace, and has continued to exist ever since. At times, it has allied with national parties for presidential nominations, but remained an independent party otherwise, for all other offices. It conominated the Constitution Party presidential tickets in four (4) elections – 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004. That’s out of 15 presidential elections – six before it had anything to do with the Constitution Party and 5 after (including this year).
It’s true that in 2008 there was a faction split, and the faction allied with the Constitution Party lost. You obviously have a strong opinion as to which side was correct. I do not. I’m not an expert, and don’t want to be, but my impression is both factions had their pluses and minuses. In any case it’s old news, a ship that long ago sailed and seems unlikely to return. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
It’s true that the majority of AIP registrations aren’t due to Wallace, but I’ve also read that many of the original registrants who qualified the AIP in CA for Wallace are still alive, still live in that state, and still are registered with that party. I don’t remember where I read it, and don’t know if it’s true or how difficult it would be to confirm or deny, but if it’s at all true, it would not be “ridiculous” to claim Wallace has nothing to do with it. It may simply be that a small active core of supporters who were young men in 1968 and are elderly men now steers the party, very loosely nowadays as age, top two, faction fights etc have worn them down.
George Wallace, incidentally, was a lifelong liberal, as in progressive democrat. He larped as a racial conservative during the decade when he was most famous – 1962-72 – but never sincerely held those beliefs, and openly opposed them before and since. He pretended to adopt them after losing his first gubernatorial election, and entirely renounced them following a foiled assassination attempt. Contrast him with Lester Maddox, a true man of principle who held firm to his beliefs his whole life, to his dying breath. Unfortunately, he wasn’t nearly the ambitious, flamboyant attention grabber that the phony conservative Wallace was during that decade.
The CA AIP was affiliated with the Populist Party in the 1980s (which once ran David Duke for President) and had old George Wallace supporters on the ballot in 1988, then suddenly became not white supremacist when it affiliated with the Constitution Party in 1991? That’s a stretch.
William Shearer founded the AIP in 1968. He served on the AIP and CA AIP central committee in various roles until his death in 2007. His daughter was still the CA AIP Chair until 2006, while it was affiliated with the CP.
In order to believe the CA AIP changed its views from the time of George Wallace, you have to believe William Shearer changed his views.
Until 2008 – through the entirety of its Constitution Party affiliation – the CA AIP web site had a history section which spoke glowingly of its founding as part of the George Wallace campaign. It also contained this statement “There has been remarkable continuity in the party’s platforms since the first one was adopted in 1968.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20080704010917/http://www.aipca.org/History/history.html
An additional point to consider: the Populist Party (which had previously nominated David Duke in 1988) nominated Bo Gritz for President in 1992. Gritz only ran with the Populist party after first having tried and failed to get the nomination of the Constitution Party earlier that year. Gritz, at least, seemed to think the parties at the time had similar enough views that he felt comfortably running in both.
Another point to consider: The American Independent Party spun off the Independent American Party. The Nevada affiliate of the Independent American Party would later become an affiliate of the Constitution Party.
The more you dig into it, the more connections you can find between Wallace’s 1968 campaign and the Constitution Party of the 1990s.
I don’t take issue with any of that. I’d only quibble with the term White supremacist. I know numerous White nationalists, White separatists, and segregationists, including black nationalists, pan-nationalists, etc. I don’t believe I’ve ever met White supremacists of the liberal stereotype. The Wallace 68 campaign certainly wasn’t. The ideology of White supremacists led directly to colonialism, imperialism, and indirectly to massive non White immigration into traditionally White led nations and widespread miscegenation. Today’s so called “White supremacists” generally take issue with that term and historical ideology.
White supremacist ideology also led to Hitler and a fratricidal European theater of a world war. Very few people today have any interest in resurrecting it.
Not just the Constitution Party but the Libertarian Party as well around the time you mentioned had a great deal in common with the Wallace movement. During my forays into the LP around 1988 on behalf of Ron Paul and 2008 on behalf of Bob Barr I saw many of the same folks, ideological points made, and writings discussed as in the American / American Independent Party in 1967-76, the Reform Party around 2000, and the Constitution Party when I was involved with that for Virgil Goode in 2012.
The Judicial Committee with two exceptions is filled with MC yes men sabotaging party with Jacobs.
Now that the information is public through a journalistic outlet, the Judicial Committee is fully within its purview to use this information in its ruling. I know some of them read Third Party Watch.
This is the information McArdle was apparently trying to dodge in the hearing: the LNC has contracted itself to directly spend money in direct support of an opposing, non-Libertarian candidate. The attempt to put RFK on the ballot in Colorado was evidently the plan to paper over this to make it “defensible,” but that has been obliterated.
There is only one logical outcome: the Judicial Committee must put an end to this insanity.
Third Party Watch can state with certainty that the Judicial Committee has been supplied with a copy of the agreement.