The size of the ‘management fee’ is anomalous.
On one hand, in Summer 1996 then-Party-Chair Steve Dasbach claimed to Dean Ahmad and Jesse Markowitz that Willis had been paid to produce a ‘document’ for Browne and that Willis produced Browne’s document “…on his own time and he was paid market rate for the work.” This document for the Browne campaign was also discussed at the April 1995 LNC meeting. From Browne’s FEC filings prior to April, Willis had been paid $578 as of the date of the LNC meeting. The document in question may, however, have been a document for which Willis was later paid $2000. In either case, Willis’s market-rate pay for a document was no more than $2000.
On the other hand, Willis was paid $23,000 by the LNC—eleven or forty times as much as for the 1995 document—as a management fee to produce and ship a Project Archimedes recruiting letter. If the document for Browne correctly set $578 or $2000 as a market rate for a document, for the second document Willis appears to received far more than market rate. Regardless of the rate, payment on a royalty basis for writing a fundraising letter is extraordinary, particularly when the royalties are based on the number of copies mailed and not on whether the letter succeeded.
I have myself written fundraising letters—including one for a Libertarian Presidential campaign (it made money). The work is in writing the letter and generating the graphics. If you are the writer, it makes essentially no difference whether the mailing house is shipping a hundred or a million letters. The writer does the same amount of work, no matter how many copies are mailed. It makes sense to pay a letter writer a flat fee, or perhaps a commission based on returns. Payment on a royalty-type basis based on copies mailed approaches being inexplicable.
Furthermore, $23,000 appears to be well in excess of a reasonable market rate, given that $578 or $2000 has already been identified as the market rate for writing a document. Regardless of intent, the $23,000 was a very generous de facto subsidy of the Browne Campaign by the National Committee, in the form of a stipend for Browne’s campaign manager, from a Chair and National Director who owed their jobs to the political work of Harry Browne and his staff.
In Fall 1999 Willis told the National Party that he needed to work full time for Browne. He was promptly released from further work for the National Committee. In the two years between his resignation as National Director and the end of his work for the National Committee, Willis had been paid at least $57,000 by the LNC—not a first class salary, but a very healthy supplement to his other income.
Dasbach’s memo also reported on LNC payments to Stephanie Yanik. Yanik was employed by the LNC in March and April 1998, earning modestly under $2000. She left the LNC at the end of April 1998 to work for the Browne campaign.
