Libertarian Apocalypse 1998 — The LAMA Board Raises Money, But Only for Its Members

In early 1998, the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts held its annual convention. There was a major fundraiser, billed as raising money for our candidates across Massachusetts. By report, more than ten thousand dollars was raised. I was one of the Party’s candidates. I certainly did not expect to get all the money, but neither I nor the state legislative candidates had seen any money at all. After I raised the issue repeatedly, I received a response from State Chair Eli Israel. Addressing me and the Party State Board, Israel answered my emailed question

At 08:03 AM 9/7/98 -0400, you [GP: me] wrote:

“where *is* the money we raised at the February Convention? There should be about ten grand, as I recall from the announcement at the time.

By stating

The fundraising was done in the name of LAMA and the statewide campaigns. Knowing that it would be difficult to ask people to write out checks for different purposes during a single fundraising request, we decided to make a single appeal for funds to LAMA and then approach the larger donors for help with the campaigns.

The breakdown is as follows:

Approximately $11.2K was raised at the convention dinner. However, that total includes approximately $2-3K in monthly contributions to be collected over the year. Of the remaining amount, several of the largest contributors chose to redirect approximately $3K to their favorite campaigns, after I called and explained to them that LAMA couldn’t give the money to campaigns directly, per OCPF [GP: Office of Campaign and Political Finance, the Massachusetts equivalent of the Federal Election Commission.] rules. The remaining amount, about $6K, went to the LAMA treasury for use in LAMA activities. For comparison, the entire amount raised for the ‘97 convention was $6400, all of which went to LAMA.

I hope this answers your question. I must stress that none of this was the work of a single person and all of it was planned in advance and known to the board members and convention planners as the strategy of record.”

I certainly did not expect to get more than a modest part of the money. In the end, my campaign received not a penny. Nor did a penny go to any of the State Legislative candidates who had put themselves on the ballot.

So where did the money go? Some of the money went to nonpolitical activities. The rest of the money was diverted by Eli Israel and the 1998 LAMA State Board from LAMA to the statewide slate of candidates. The diversion was not an accident. As Israel admits, the State Board had planned in advance to run a fundraiser at the state convention nominally for the state association, and then use the scheme described above to divert the movable money to their own campaigns. As Israel neglected to remind the Board, LAMA was the state’s Federal Libertarian PAC. Under OCPF rules it could not give money to state candidates, but under FEC rules it could have given money to my campaign. It chose not to do so.

Exactly how was the diversion accomplished? The State Board gave the statewide slate and its representatives an opportunity to contact major donors and explain the situation. There were some technical legal complications in exactly how the explanation to the donors had to be phrased to avoid violating state law. Donors who were willing to write a new check could get their money to the campaigns of the statewide candidates. Other Libertarian candidates across Massachusetts were not offered an opportunity to make the same contacts with donors. The net result was that the State Board—three of whose members (Israel, Howell, Cook) were running for statewide office—moved substantial amounts of money to their personal campaigns. The state convention’s fundraiser raised not a penny for campaigns other than those of the State Board members.