LNC’s Direct Financial Support for the Browne Nominating Campaign

Direct Financial Support for the Browne Nominating Campaign

Payments by the National Committee to Perry Willis continued after Willis resigned as National Director. National Party gadfly Jacob Hornberger raised the issue, writing in one of his regular critiques of the Party:

“When Willis resigned from the national LP to go to work for the Browne campaign, he cut a deal with LP National Chairman (and current LP National Director) Steve Dasbach that guaranteed Willis continued payments of LP money while serving as Browne’s campaign manager….”

The meaning of ‘cut a deal’ was clarified by LNC member Joe Dehn. The deals had apparently existed well before Willis resigned. Writing on June 18, 2001 to the Libertarian Party membership through the lpus-misc@dehnbase.org email list, Dehn explained:

“…The fact is that there were two deals—a more general one and a more specific one. The general deal, providing that Willis would continue to receive money, was made several years prior to the resignation, and not revealed to the LNC until around the time of the resignation (i.e., the 1993-96 LNC was not told about it at the time it was made, and the 1996-98 LNC wasn’t told about it until the provision was invoked). The specific deal, about work that Willis would do for the LP during the time that he would be paid by the LP (already required by the earlier deal) was presented to the LNC around the time of the resignation, but without any alternative—the implication was that without this deal, we would still be obliged to pay him but we would get less in return. The LNC was essentially presented with a fait accompli, with no practical choice to be made.”

In a later missive, sent to lpus-misc@dehnbase.org on June 19, 2001, Dehn further clarified the contract between the LNC and Willis. Dehn’s major theme was that several claims by Willis in his 2001 confession appeared to be untrue. Willis said that prior National Directors were not entitled to participate in LNC meetings, and the LNC had agreed to let him do so. Dehn said that during his three terms on the LNC, all prior to Willis’s appointment, the National Director had always been accorded the privilege of participating in LNC meetings, and went on to say “The other thing that seems odd is that there doesn’t seem to be any record of the ‘agreement’ of the LNC to these ‘conditions’. The Minutes of the December 1993 meeting do not report there being any such agreement in connection with vote to approve his hiring…” Having discussed the Willis confession, Dehn went on to say “There was, allegedly, an employment contract made between Dasbach and Willis, but this contrast was, as far as I know, never seen by the LNC so it can hardly be cited as evidence that the LNC agreed to its terms.”

In support of Dehn’s assertions, on June 20, 2001 John Famularo wrote on lpus-misc@dehnbase.org that “I can only speak for myself. I was the Party Secretary at the time (1993-1996) and as such a member of the LNC and the EC. At this point we only have Steve Dasbach and Perry Willis’s words that a contract existed as of April 1994. I was never informed of, nor saw any contract during my term in office. However, besides the implied consent to abide by and execute the LNC policies, the specific prohibition on supporting a candidate for internal election was communicated to Willis at more than one formal meeting…”