A Delegate’s Guide to the 2026 Libertarian National Convention
The Libertarian Party is holding a national convention in Grand Rapids, these are priorities for delegates who want to reconstruct the party to be effective moving forward.
Nicholas Sarwark
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I am attending my 13th consecutive Libertarian Party national convention, this year as a delegate from Colorado. If you are also attending as a delegate or have friends who are and would like to know what you can do to help get the Libertarian Party back on a growth track, these are the top three things you should support.
1) Vote for Wes Benedict for Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. Wes Benedict was Executive Director of the Libertarian Party when I was elected Chair in 2014. Having never served on the LNC before, I didn’t know what I didn’t know about how the party operated.
Wes Benedict (along with Operations Director Robert Kraus) were managing the operations of a political party that had a full staff at a national headquarters in the DC area, regularly published a newspaper mailed to all members, LP News, managed press releases and media requests, and managed candidate training, recruitment, and fundraising, along with all the other things it takes to run a political party. Wes teaching me the things I didn’t know made my time as Chair much more successful and its something I’m still grateful to Wes for.
Since 2022, the Mises Caucus has systematically dismantled the capabilities of the Libertarian Party. The building has been sold, staff has been terminated, LP News has stopped printing, and candidate recruitment, training, and fundraising have all been abandoned entirely or scaled back dramatically. Membership is under 9,000 (from over 20,000 in 2022) and revenue is under $1MM per year, there is no more building and not even a working phone number.
What I learned from over a decade in information technology is that when a system fails, the first step is to return to the “last known good” configuration from backup and then work to rebuild from there. Of all the candidates seek the position as Chair, only Wes Benedict has the experience of having run the national office when things were working well. Everyone else seeking the position would be learning on the job and without having a professional staff who knows how things should work. Wes Benedict is the best choice for national chair in 2026.
2) Restore a strong anti-bigotry plank in the Libertarian Party platform. One of the main priorities of the Mises Caucus at the 2022 convention in Nevada was to remove the anti-bigotry plank that rejected bigotry as “irrational and repugnant” and made bigots feel uncomfortable joining the Libertarian Party. They succeeded and it made the Libertarian Party more welcoming to bigots for the last four years.
Proposal # 8 (recommended 13-0 by the Platform Committee), restores that clear opposition to bigotry and adopting it will make bigots feel unwelcome again
Proposal #8 from the 2026 Libertarian Party Platform Committee
3) Strengthen the “Free Trade and Migration” plank to make our position on ICE/DHS more clear to the public. The “Mass Deportation Now” agenda of Donald Trump and the Republicans has been the main priority of the federal government since 2025. Hundreds of agents from other federal agencies are being brought to places like Minneapolis to round up and deport our immigrant neighbors, killing Americans in the process.
The Libertarian Party has stood for the principles engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty since 1971, recognizing the individual human right of people to move to a better place for a better life. Platform Proposal #9 (recommended 13-0-1 by the Platform Committee) cleans up the existing language and brings in language from the 1980 platform that makes our position stronger and clearer at a time when this is the key issue in American politics.
Proposal # 9 from the 2026 Libertarian Party Platform Committee
Beyond those critical three priorities, if you are at the Libertarian National Convention, take the opportunity to meet libertarians from around the country and learn from what works in different place. Just as our states are 50 laboratories of democracy, our 50 state Libertarian Party affiliates are all doing things differently and we can learn from each other.
This election in November is going to be a big one, with many Americans thirsty for political change. How we as Libertarians position ourselves will determine whether we are a participant in that political change or just spectators. If you don’t want the Libertarian Party to be on the sidelines, please vote for Wes Benedict, vote to restore the anti-bigotry plank, and vote to strengthen the Free Trade and Migration plank.
Yours in liberty,
Nicholas J. Sarwark
In an effort to promote the approach I mentioned above I have sent an email to the national party I believe that was last weekend, So far noreply,
This is the post I sent to national:
I sent this post to the LNC over the weekend. It is probably too soon to expect a reply from them, but if you care to reply, I’d like to read your comments.
With Juneteenth here in a few days, I thought the committee might be interested in doing some related public relations. In line with that Libertarians should be calling for laws, regulations, and policies with racism in their tangled history to be repealed. The effort should be promoted as an anti-poverty effort. Historically, these laws are tangled in racism, but they have an impact across society and negatively impact people of many different cultures who are low income, but Blacks, Chinese and others were the intended racist targets.
Here is a short list of some of the laws that I thought it might be reasonable to repeal that have racism in their history along with some of the financial impact:
1.Repeal zoning laws and building codes. savings, $2 trillion annually.
2.Support alternative urban transit. savings, $26 to $32 Billion annually.
3.Reduce the cost of starting a business; “…saving about $30,000 to $40,000 for the first full year”.
4. Repeal occupational licensing laws: “… savings $203 billion.
5. Repeal the drug war; “savings Taxpayers spend almost $70 billion a year on corrections and incarceration.
6. Bring the troops home; savings” between $85 billion and $94 billion annually.
p.s. for a number of years, I’ve tried to work on these issues but have not seen much concern from others. Basically, open the marketplace much like Cobden and Bright did with the Anti-Corn Law League in the 1800s. This might also change the way the LP is viewed by some people.
Michael H. Wilson; OLympia, WA, 45 years a member
As usual, Nick speaks for me.
FYI, the Libertarian Party had no anti-bigotry plank for the majority of its history, including during the Ed Clark for President campaign set a long time record for votes, and including in the latter 1990’s and early 2000’s when the party set records which still stand today for the numbrr of dues paying members, LNC fund raising and the number of elected Libertarians.
Andy I agree but I also think it might be hard to sell. May I suggest another avenue to approach this? We need to go after the laws, regulations, and policies that have racism in their history. Zoning laws, and occupational licensing would be two of about 16 I have seen that fall into this category.
Most will also have a financial benefit and in a couple of case environmental benefits as well.