Substantial Issues Dividing the Arizona Factions
What were the two Arizona groups arguing about? Why did they care which of them was the state-recognized Libertarian Party? The substantial benefits of state recognition were rather limited. The largest single benefit is that state parties are entitled to copies of the voter rolls. These rolls reveal Party affiliations of registered voters. Because the Phoenix group viewed their members to be the registered Libertarian voters, this list was their one reliable way of finding their own members.
In Arizona, state recognition gives a state party very little power. Below the Presidential level, the State Party does not control who gets on the ballot as a Libertarian. In Arizona candidates get on the primary election ballot by collecting signatures, and advance from the primary election to the general election by winning their primary. A State Party organization can refuse to endorse or support candidates who do not support all of its positions, but access to the primary and general election ballots is controlled by the voters, not by the state committee. In Arizona, primaries are open. Independent voters can vote in the Libertarian Party primary election. There is no guarantee that the winner of a Libertarian primary has any support from the state’s 18,000 Libertarians rather than the state’s 350,000 independents. Indeed, in an earlier election cycle the Phoenix group was the legal State Party. It had put forth Tom Rawls as its candidate for governor. An anonymous last moment mailing, accusing Rawls of financial irregularities, led to his defeat in the primary by a candidate supported by the Tucson group.
The two groups also had different strategies. Interviews with Tucson supporters clarified the Tucson group’s underlying strategy. Their plan was to run paper candidates who would do minimal campaigning for municipal office, raise money to qualify the candidates for Clean Elections money, and accept the Clean Elections money. Clean Elections money would then primarily be used to strengthen the state party by registering additional members of the state party. The difficulty with this approach, which was recognized by the Tucson group, is that a Libertarian registrant who has had no other contact with the party is unlikely to be activated, and will likely just sit there as campaigns swirl around him.
To overcome this difficulty, the Tucson group put forth a sound strategy emphasizing local organization, based on electing people as Precinct Committeemen. Each committeeman and committeewoman was to do organizing work in his or her own ward and precinct to convert previously-registered voters into reliable activists. The committeeperson approach had the significant challenge that state committeepeople were elected on a rigid timeline fixed by the State of Arizona. Volunteers could only be elected on the state’s schedule. Readers will recognize obvious work-arounds to the State Election code.
The Phoenix group had not been especially interested in Party registration drives, such as the one launched by the National Committee. In the early 1990s, registration growth was tracking the growth in party activities, and was in fact growing year after year. It was reasonably expected that by 2004 or so the Party would have attained permanent major party status by virtue of having enough registered voters. Some activists, noting the success of the 1994 Buttrick Campaign at bringing in new Libertarians, felt that major party status might be achieved sooner, perhaps by 1998. With enough money, an adequate count of registered voters could be attained earlier than 2004. However, the count of registered voters by itself bought the State Party few particular benefits. The Phoenix group believed that the money spent registering additional Libertarian Party members would better have been spent strengthening the State Party by running better elections and referenda.
The Phoenix group was as interested in the Clean Elections Act money as the Tucson group, but for an entirely different reason. The Phoenix group viewed acceptance of Clean Elections Act money as a violation of the Party’s principles and By-Laws. They vehemently disapproved of the Tucson group’s decision to accept State Clean Elections Act money, and refused to support any Libertarian party candidate who chose to accept that money. Part of this dispute apparently went away with changes in the state election law. For candidates for statewide office the dispute remains active.
