April 2020 - Lnc-business - Moellman Enterprises Email

Appointments to Convention Oversight Committee
by Nicholas Sarwark 05 Jun '20

05 Jun '20

Dear All, I am appointing to the Convention Oversight Committee the following non-LNC members: Daniel Hayes - Chair Ken Moellman Drew Layda After the great success of the 2018 Convention, it made sense to keep the same team together. Yours in liberty, Nick

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Convention Oversight Committee Changes
by Nicholas Sarwark 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

Dear All, I would like to thank Drew Layda for his service on the Convention Oversight Committee to this point. Mr. Layda stepped down from the Convention Oversight Committee due to professional obligations. I am pleased to announce that BetteRose Ryan has been appointed to fill the vacancy and welcome her back to the committee. Yours in liberty, Nick

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March End-of-Month Financial Reports
by Tim Hagan 02 May '20

02 May '20

The March End-of-Month Financial Reports are attached. Membership dues and donations are a under budget by $24,773 and $88,899 respectfully for the year-to-date. The way things have shifted during the past month and a half, I expect that eventually we may need to shift money from Ballot Access petitioning to Litigation. --- Tim Hagan Treasurer, Libertarian National Committee

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Re: [Lnc-business] COC Report update
by Joe Bishop-Henchman 02 May '20

02 May '20

Attached. It's still draft as the Bylaws Committee does not plan on adopting it unless the LNC decides to go in that direction. We have a meeting scheduled for May 3 for that eventuality. The Bylaws Committee is not making a recommendation to the LNC, just preparing for any eventuality that may require Bylaws actions. JBH ------------ Joe Bishop-Henchman LNC Member (At-Large) joe.bishop-henchman(a)lp.org www.facebook.com/groups/189510455174837 On 2020-04-28 22:33, Sam Goldstein wrote: > Ken, > > If that is the case then I would suggest that Mr. Bishop-Henchman > submit the language for Option 3 that has been approved by the Bylaws > Committee or their most recent language if they have not yet approved > a proposal to the LNC. That would give the LNC an additional option > to consider this Saturday. > > ---the v > Sam Goldstein, At Large Member > Libertarian National Committee > 317-850-0726 Cell > > On 2020-04-28 20:39, Ken Moellman wrote: > >> Some of you have received the report and for others it is still >> in-flight. I have been informed by Mr. Bishop-Henchman that the >> report inaccurately characterizes the state of the bylaws proposal >> for scenario #3. >> >> This was unintentional. Some members of the COC had spoken with >> several bylaws committee members after the original COC/Bylaws >> meeting who gave us that impression, but I did not reach out to Mr. >> Bishop-Henchman directly. This was my error, and I apologize for it. >> >> >> ken >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "LNC Gsuite Migration" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, >> send an email to lnctest+unsubscribe(a)lphq.org. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "LNC Gsuite Migration" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to lnctest+unsubscribe(a)lphq.org.

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Amending Articles of Incorporation
by Joe Bishop-Henchman 01 May '20

01 May '20

Colleagues, I would like to put forward a mechanism that I don't believe has come up yet, that can be used in tandem with several of the options under consideration. That's amending our "other" governing document, the Articles of Incorporation. Articles of Incorporation are usually general documents that are usually rarely amended except in "break the glass" situations. The LNC is incorporated in the District of Columbia, and the Articles of Incorporation establish that we will have Bylaws, among other things. DC law authorizes electronic meetings if they are authorized by the organization's Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws. DC Code § 29–405.01(e). Under DC law (DC Code § 29–408.03), amending the Articles of Incorporation is a two-step process. First, the Board (the LNC) must approve the amendment. Second, it must be transmitted to and approved by the members by majority vote, so long as at least 10% of all members participate in the vote. (This is usually done at other orgs by mail or email.) So if we wanted to move straight to online ballots, or postpone with the subsequent fallback option of online ballots, we could move to amend the AofI to state that "Remote participation and online balloting is authorized for conventions where (insert appropriate caveats), notwithstanding the Bylaws or RONR." If the LNC approves, it would then go to the membership and they decide, up or down. This approach would remove the worry that states will remove us from the ballot for not complying with our internal rules, or of RONR not allowing us to proceed electronically unless authorized by our internal rules. Page 11 of RONR acknowledges that Articles of Incorporation supersede Bylaws and RONR. I have spoken to Mr. Hall, who identified no issues with it and agrees it's an option we can consider. JBH ------------ Joe Bishop-Henchman LNC Member (At-Large) joe.bishop-henchman(a)lp.org www.facebook.com/groups/189510455174837

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General thoughts on this whole convention issue
by Caryn Ann Harlos 01 May '20

01 May '20

I am coming to the conclusion that we are going about this entirely wrong, and that any "online convention" should not even be on our radar. Our bylaws ALREADY provide a solution if there is no nomination at a convention. Why are we trying to find an end-run around that? If the delegates in the past wanted to change that they could, and they did not. No convention, the LNC votes on the nomination. It leaves us free to vow to follow the will of some poll of the delegates (which I would highly say we must) but we are creating a problem that does not exist - at least not for that issue. I am very uncomfortable with that. Second, I believe there is a conflict of interest issue here. Some of us, myself included, have a vested interest in this proceeding as we are running for internal office and may have personal reasons for preferring one to another that is about our best interest and not that of the party. RONR does not require recusal for anything but that doesn't lessen the fact that there is a conflict of interest here. I will not go against our bylaws which provide the solution already. We either have an in-person convention or the LNC picks the nominees (using whatever criteria we decide upon). Would I personally prefer something else? Yes. But that is not what my duty here is. * In Liberty,* * Personal Note: I have what is commonly known as Asperger's Syndrome (part of the autism spectrum). This can affect inter-personal communication skills in both personal and electronic arenas. If anyone found anything offensive or overly off-putting (or some other social faux pas) in an actual email, please contact me privately and let me know. *

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What time is the Saturday LNC e-meeting?
by William Redpath 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

I thought it was going to be at 12 Noon Eastern Time, but I have also seen 1PM Eastern Time. Which is it? Thanks, Bill Redpath

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confirm your invitation to be a panelist on Saturday
by Daniel Fishman 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

Please let me know if you have NOT received an invitation to be a panelist for the LNC meeting on Saturday --- Daniel Fishman Executive Director The Libertarian Party Join Us <http://www.lp.org/join>

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DRAFT MINUTES FEBRUARY 1-2 2020 V2
by Caryn Ann Harlos 30 Apr '20

30 Apr '20

Incorporating the feedback thus far. LNC-MINUTES_2020_02-01_V2.docx <https://drive.google.com/file/d/11BGyeSLjo4R_B_DLtLjdFEQ45NVKUBW8/view?usp=…> LNC-MINUTES_2020_02-01_V2.pdf <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lH-8OThRSqXZfED62Fm-Qca0wqlQDuEt/view?usp=…> * In Liberty,* * Personal Note: I have what is commonly known as Asperger's Syndrome (part of the autism spectrum). This can affect inter-personal communication skills in both personal and electronic arenas. If anyone found anything offensive or overly off-putting (or some other social faux pas) in an actual email, please contact me privately and let me know. *

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Interesting development concerning qualified immunity
by james.lark＠lp.org 29 Apr '20

29 Apr '20

Dear colleagues: I hope all is well with you. As some of you may know, for several years I have been very keen to see Libertarians (including LP candidates) draw attention to the legal doctrine of qualified immunity. Yesterday Jay Schweikert wrote an article for Cato at Liberty titled “Supreme Court Will Soon Decide Whether to Reconsider Qualified Immunity.” The article is available at https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-whethe… <https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-whethe…> &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fee_partners; I have enclosed it below for your convenience. As always, thanks for your work for liberty. I hope you find the article worthy of your attention. Take care, Jim James W. Lark, III Professor, Dept. of Engineering Systems and Environment Professor, Applied Mathematics Program, Dept. of Engineering and Society Affiliated Faculty, Dept. of Statistics University of Virginia Advisor, The Liberty Coalition University of Virginia Region 5 Representative, Libertarian National Committee ----- https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-whethe… <https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-whethe…> &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fee_partners April 28, 2020 4:26PM Supreme Court Will Soon Decide Whether To Reconsider Qualified Immunity By Jay Schweikert <https://www.cato.org/people/jay-schweikert> For the last several years, Cato has been leading the campaign to abolish qualified immunity <https://www.unlawfulshield.com/frequently-asked-questions-about-qualified-i…> , an atextual, ahistorical judicial doctrine that shields state officials from liability, even when they violate people's constitutional rights. The most immediate practical goal of this campaign has been to convince the Supreme Court to hear one of the many cases calling for qualified immunity to be either narrowed or reconsidered outright. And over the last seven months, I've written several <https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-may-be-preparing-consider-several-m…> times <https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-considers-several-qualified-immunit…> about how the Court has indicated that it's preparing to consider several qualified immunity cases, given the manner in which it has repeatedly rescheduled several cert petitions that have been fully briefed and ready for resolution since October of last year. My hypothesis at the time was that the Supreme Court was delaying resolution of these petitions so that it could consider them along with several other high-profile cases that also raised the same underlying question of whether qualified immunity should be reconsidered. Now it would seem that prediction has been vindicated. Just today, the Supreme Court distributed eight different qualified immunity cert petitions for its conference of May 15, 2020. This is obviously no coincidence, and it means that by the morning of Monday, May 18th, we will finally know whether the Justices are prepared to confront one of the most pernicious and legally baseless doctrines in the history of the Court. Here's the complete list of the eight different petitions that have been distributed for the May 15th conference. In nearly all of these cases, Cato filed an amicus brief in support of the petition, and in many of them, we either helped coordinate or took the lead on a "cross-ideological brief," on behalf of a diverse alliance of organizations opposed to qualified immunity. * Baxter v. Bracey <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> . In this case, Sixth Circuit <https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0566n-06.pdf> granted qualified immunity to two officers who deployed a police dog against a suspect who had already surrendered and was sitting on the ground with his hands up. The ACLU filed a cert petition <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1287/95661/20190408145246695_B…> back in April 2019, asking whether “the judge‐made doctrine of qualified immunity” should “be narrowed or abolished.” Cato filed a brief <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1287/101473/20190530161957223_…> in support of the petition, and we also helped to coordinate the filing of a cross‐ideological brief <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1287/101646/20190531162059735_…> . This case was originally set to be considered all the way back on October 1, 2019, but it has been rescheduled five times since then. Now, it looks like the Court is finally prepared to resolve Mr. Baxter's petition. * <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> Brennan v. Dawson. In this case, the Sixth Circuit <https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0508n-06.pdf> granted immunity to a police officer who, in an attempt to administer an alcohol breath test to a man on misdemeanor probation, parked his car in front of the man’s home at 8:00pm; turned the lights and sirens on for over an hour; circled the man’s house five to ten times, peering into and knocking on windows; and wrapped the home’s security camera in police tape. The court held that this warrantless invasion of the curtilage violated the Fourth Amendment, but nevertheless granted immunity due to a lack of “clearly established law.” The cert petition <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-913/80215/20190111120052778_Fi…> in this case was filed on January 11, 2019, and asks the Court to “reign in the qualified immunity standard to . . . reflect the common‐law roots of qualified immunity.” * <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> Zadeh v. Robinson and <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> Corbitt v. Vickers. Zadeh is the case where the Fifth Circuit <http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-50518-CV1.pdf> granted immunity to state investigators that entered a doctor’s office and, without notice and without a warrant, demanded to rifle through the medical records of 16 patients. And Corbitt is the case where the Eleventh Circuit <http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201715566.pdf> granted immunity to a deputy sheriff who shot a ten‐year‐old child lying on the ground, while repeatedly attempting to shoot a pet dog that wasn’t posing any threat. The plaintiffs in both cases are now represented by Paul Hughes, who filed cert <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-676/123464/20191122163707356_Z…> petitions <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-679/123466/20191122164334779_C…> on November 22, 2019, each of which asks “[w]hether the Court should recalibrate or reverse the doctrine of qualified immunity.” Cato submitted briefs in both <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-676/126407/20191220141759139_Z…> cases <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-679/126410/20191220142234327_C…> , this time taking the lead on the cross‐ideological brief, whose signatories also included the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Association for Justice, the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, the Due Process Institute, the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, the MacArthur Justice Center, the NAACP, Public Justice, R Street, and the Second Amendment Foundation. * Kelsay v. Ernst <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> . This is the case where the Eighth Circuit <https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/17-2181/17-2181-2019-…> , in an 8–4 en banc decision, granted immunity to a police officer who grabbed a small woman in a bear hug and slammed her to ground, breaking her collarbone and knocking her unconscious, all because she walked away from him after he told her to “get back here.” The MacArthur Justice Center filed a cert petition <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-682/123715/20191126132451862_1…> on November 26, 2019. While the petition doesn’t ask the Court to reconsider qualified immunity outright, it does ask the Court to “take steps within the confines of current law to rein in the most extreme departures from the original meaning of Section 1983.” Cato filed a brief <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-682/126531/20191223123129162_K…> in support of this petition as well. * West v. Winfield <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> . In this case, the Ninth Circuit <http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/07/25/18-35300.pdf> granted immunity to police officers who bombarded an innocent woman's home with tear-gas grenades. The homeowner had given the officers permission to enter her home to look for a suspect, but never consented to anything like the practical destruction of her home that resulted. Nevertheless, the court granted immunity on the grounds that no prior case specifically established that this sort of bombardment exceeded the scope of consent that the homeowner had given. On January 16, 2020, the Institute for Justice filed a cert petition <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-899/128836/20200116111103542_W…> asking the Court to clarify and limit the scope of qualified immunity, and Cato filed a brief <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-899/133720/20200220163458558_W…> in support of this petition. * <https://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> Jessop v. City of Fresno. In this case, the Ninth Circuit <https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/04/17-16756.pdf> granted immunity to police officers who stole over $225,000 in cash and rare coins in the course of executing a search warrant. The court noted that noted that while “the theft [of] personal property by police officers sworn to uphold the law” may be “morally wrong,” the officers could not be sued for the theft because the Ninth Circuit had never issued a decision specifically involving the question of “whether the theft of property covered by the terms of a search warrant, and seized pursuant to that warrant, violates the Fourth Amendment.” Neal Katyal filed a cert petition <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1021/133072/20200214133249205_…> on behalf of Mr. Jessop on February 14, 2020, and Cato, joined by Americans for Prosperity, filed a brief <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1021/137554/20200309165122684_…> in support of the petition. * <https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/…> Hunter v. Cole. Of all the qualified immunity cases going to conference on May 15th, this is the only one in which the lower court denied immunity to the defendants. In this case, the Fifth Circuit <http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/14/14-10228-CV3.pdf> denied immunity to an officer who shot a 17-year-old boy without warning. Although the boy was holding a gun, he had made no threatening gestures toward the officers and was facing away from them and unaware of their presence when he was shot. At the en banc stage, this case generated a lively discussion between several Fifth Circuit judges about whether qualified immunity should be reconsidered, which I discussed here <https://www.cato.org/blog/dissenters-fifth-circuit-qualified-immunity-case-…> . On December 9, 2019, the officer filed a cert petition <https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-753/124977/20191209164457662_B…> , asking the Court to hold that his shooting of the teenage boy not violate clearly established law. The fact that the Court sent all eight of these cases to conference on the same day -- especially after repeatedly rescheduling many of them -- is unmistakable evidence that the Justices are looking closely at the fundamental question of whether qualified immunity itself needs to be reconsidered. This is a question that Justice Thomas <https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1358_6khn.pdf> urged the Court to take up all the way back in 2017, and which Cato has been vigorously pushing since it launched its qualified campaign <https://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/qualified-immunity-supreme-courts-un…> back in March of 2018. It is far past time for the Supreme Court to reconsider qualified immunity, and in less than three weeks, we'll finally know whether the Court is prepared to take up that question.

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