All:
Please find attached a copy of the agenda for this evening's call.
I added Mr. Moellman's request regarding the Rules Committee to the agenda.
I wanted to express my strong objections to redoing this committee, at this
time, in advance of this evening's call (although you will hear it from me
again on the call). Before I get into my specific objections, I think
everyone needs to understand how we got to where we are today, and some
history is in order.
My involvement with this party began as its attorney. Specifically, in
2014, I was asked to represent the party in its lawsuit against KET by the
Chair at the time, which was Mr. Moellman. And, in strictly a legal
capacity, I continued to represent the party in 2016 on some ballot access
issues, and in 2015 on the Schickel/Watson campaign finance challenge.
In 2016, I joined the party. And, in that year, was involved with
interfacing with both Mr. Moellman and Mr. Capano. I went to Orlando and
Mr. Moellman helped seat me with the Ohio delegation to the national
convention.
As you may know, in 2016, Gary Johnson got over 2% of the vote in Kentucky,
which gives us ballot access through 2020.
In 2017, and maybe in late 2016, I began to hear from Mr. Moellman that LPKY
was messed up, and a number of criticisms were lodged, mainly at Mr. Capano
(from where I sit today, some of those criticisms were valid, and some not
so much). A "Get Stuff Done" caucus was formed by Mr. Moellman. I was
recruited, by both "factions" of the party, to sit on the rules committee,
with the main focus being a rewrite of our governing documents, mainly with
an eye towards complying with state law so we put our candidates on the
ballot.
I am not proud of this, but at that time, Mr. Moellman pushed for a number
of other provisions to be put into the party's constitution. The gist of
those changes were essentially to address what he viewed as deficiencies or
exploitation by Mr. Capano (or perhaps the rest of the state executive
committee).
The reason I am not particularly proud of it, was that I had a hand in
putting those changed into the governing documents. I did not have the
experience with the party, or perhaps the sophistication, to realize the
havoc some of those items would cause. But if there was something Mr.
Capano did, or was alleged to have done, we got a governing document change
or rule to try and deal with it.
I have said this before, and I will say it again, and as Libertarians I
would hope some would agree with this: you cannot write rules to stop or
deter every form of unwanted human behavior. Government tries to do it,
with abysmal results. Us doing it internally is no different.
The vast majority of those changes, however, were to be reserved for bylaws,
which the executive committee would later pass. And, again, by and large,
Mr. Moellman pushed for a wide variety of bylaws and by and large, got his
way. There were, however, tweaks made in committee, including a series of
rules that Mr. Moellman had a complete conniption fit over.
With the benefit of perfect hindsight, what I should have done - and the
right thing to have done -- was to keep the executive committee completely
out of the rules revision process. To leave it to the delegates at state
convention to hash things out, with the benefit of transparency and advance
notice of changes.
After the executive committee passed the bylaws, Mr. Moellman did several
disruptive, and in my view, abusive things to the party and its officers at
the time - first, he demanded an formal arbitration; and second, he resigned
as treasurer. That had the effect of freezing party funds, and tying up Mr.
Compton and I throughout the fall of 2017 on the arbitration issue. And, in
turn, that made us able to recruit far less candidates than we would have
liked in 2018. In fact, those things pretty much killed any momentum we had
for the 2018 election cycle coming out of the Gary Johnson 2% ballot access
win in 2016.
In the meantime, we went into the 2018 convention cycle with a rules
committee constitutional revision that literally took the executive
committee out of any rules writing process. It also removed from the
Constitution several of the problematic things we did in 2017.
And so the spin campaign by Mr. Moellman launched itself again. The mantra
out there was that the big bad rules committee had usurped members rights
(even though the proposal was to do the exact opposite and put all rule
items in the hands of the state delegates at convention). And the spin
worked, until the presentation of the Rules Committee report, when numerous
delegates to the state convention came up to me after the presentation of
that report and indicated to me that they had their eyes opened. In any
event, there was a stand-off between Mr. Moellman and his proposals, and
what I am going to refer to as the Rules Committee report.
Harlen Compton, our chair at the time, indicated that he would call a
special convention IF, and ONLY IF, there was consensus on the proposals.
That got twisted over time to Mr. Compton refusing to honor his promise,
because he did not call a special convention. Mind you, there was never
consensus.
And, in the run up to the 2019 convention, there was even more drama on
rules leading into that convention. As a result, we essentially hashed out,
on the convention floor, a complete rewrite to the constitution. It was
exhausting. We also attempted to do operating rules that conformed to votes
taken by delegates on the floor.
Part of the issue is that in many cases, people heard one side of the story
going into convention, only to find that there was another side. And,
invariably, the floor fight and debate had to occur at convention. We had a
Rules Committee, with varying viewpoints and so there was discussion and
votes. Which was probably a good thing, because it presented multiple sides
of issues for delegates to think about and vote on.
The focus on rules, in 2017, 2018, and 2019 was exhausting and time
consuming, and resource consuming. I know. I was there. And I can flat
out tell you it exhausted volunteer hours that, in my opinion, should have
gone towards spreading our message and trying to elect our candidates.
And so now we have - again -- Mr. Moellman's request to reconstitute the
rules committee. I have issues, and objections, with this request on
several levels.
First, timing: it's the end of June. We have four statewide candidates, and
our Governor/Lt. Governor campaign needs help and assistance. We do not
have a website up for them. There is general interest, and we aren't (in my
opinion) advancing the ball on that front like we need to be. Even more
concerning is that we apparently want to direct volunteer hours and
resources towards writing rules, instead of working for our candidates. I
think a rules cdebate can wait until after election day. I have said it
before. I will say it again. There is a cost to this.
Here is my biggest concern: next year is our ballot access retention
election. If the LP Presidential candidate does not get 2%, we lose ballot
access. Our Governor/Lt. Governor race is, in my opinion, the key towards
helping to build grassroots support to getting 2%. If we squander precious
time between now and then with a Rules Committee, or a Rules Debate, shame
on us. And the work people have put in over the last 5-8 years will largely
go to waste. It is not worth it. The Rules debate/fight can wait 4 months.
Really, it can.
Here is my second concern: part of this is my recognition that Mr. Moellman
probably has a list of items he wants changed. He has mentioned some of
them.
However, I recognize that there are people in this party who probably do not
want the things changed Mr. Moellman wants changed, and they may have good
reasons, perhaps rooted in the history of the party, behind it.
This is not meant to be disrespectful to anyone who has been proposed to be
added to the Rules Committee, but Mr. Moellman has suggested a Rules
Committee, where, in terms of continuity from the last committee, it is him
and Mr. Gailey. Without getting into past Rules Committee debates, there
were a number of proposals that Mr. Moellman and Mr. Gailey supported, yet
other members of the former committee did not. And, as it turns out, our
delegates, on the floor, were not in support of a number of those proposals
either.
He has proposed to add Ms. Randall, who is new to the party (but is
certainly invested and I appreciate her excitement) and Mr. Daniel (also
invested and involved), who has a similar perspective in terms of being new.
And Mr. Cranley, who stepped away from the party for a while, but is now
back.
The bottom line is that I do not believe people who should be added are
being added. And I think that is going to be a problem.
My point here is that substantively, this appears to be little more than an
attempt to stack a committee with people that Mr. Moellman believes will
support his proposals, perhaps at the expense of members who disagree.
Whether they do, in fact, support the proposals is another matter
altogether.
But having a committee that is comprised of one side of a debate, or one
faction, seems to me to be highly problematic. There are a number of people
in this party who have a different vision and direction than Mr. Moellman,
and have been around long enough to deserve to have their voices heard, that
are not being proposed to be added.
I suggest that is no accident.
There is a time, and a place, to have a rules debate. And to make rules
committee appointments. I strongly suggest, for the benefit of this party,
its success, and our 2020 ballot access retention, that we wait to do this
until after this election cycle is over.
At that same time, I know of several people who are highly interested in
participating. They, like me, want to focus our efforts between now and
then on our candidates and outreach, and not rules debates.
And look, its not just about Hicks/Cormican. Its also that I have been
through this enough to know that there will be some (maybe a lot of) drama
that comes out of this proposal and the rules revision process. And I
believe that it is best to confine that drama to 4 months from November to
March, rather than dragging this party through it all year.
I have said my peace. And, maybe I have been around long enough to know
what is coming next - expect Mr. Moellman to get the last word in and argue
the contrary. He can't help himself. But please count that as proof that I
really have been through enough of this to know what is coming.
Thanks, talk to you all tonight,
Chris
513-257-1895
