[LPIL - Board of Directors] Fwd: Political Division

[Blake Hanson]

Forward of Jake Leonard's email.

---
Regards,
~Blake Hanson
~Director, Field Operations Division
~Libertarian Party of Illinois
~Cell: (779) 777-5139
~Business Email: fieldopsdirector at lpillinois.org
~Personal Email: blake.a.hanson1 at gmail.com

-------- Original Message --------

  		SUBJECT:
  		Political Division

  		DATE:
  		2022-11-10 17:32

  		FROM:
  		<chairman at tricountylibertarians.org>

  		TO:
  		<chair at lpillinois.org>, <vicechair at lpillinois.org>, 
<secretary at lpillinois.org>, <treasurer at lpillinois.org>

  		CC:
  		<executivedirector at lpillinois.org>, <communications at lpillinois.org>, 
<fieldopsdirector at lpillinois.org>, <it at lpillinois.org>, 
<scc1 at lpillinois.org>, <scc3 at lpillinois.org>, <scc5 at lpillinois.org>, 
<scc6 at lpillinois.org>, <scc7 at lpillinois.org>, <scc9 at lpillinois.org>, 
<scc10 at lpillinois.org>, <scc11 at lpillinois.org>, <scc15 at lpillinois.org>, 
<scc16 at lpillinois.org>, <scc17 at lpillinois.org>

All,

Any email that I send to this party is never easy. My resignation as 
Political Director in May in wake of the aftermath of the national 
convention in Reno was one of the hardest decision I've ever had to make 
in my nine years in the party, six of which were in active involvement 
in the Political Division under the divisional administration leadership 
of Scott Schluter and Kyle Symons.

Early Wednesday morning, almost 2 a.m. if I recall correctly, Executive 
Director Justin Tucker and SCC District 9 representative Adam Balling, 
posed a question as to whether I would ever return to lead the Political 
Division, which the director role has been vacant since May.

I am aware that I upset some of my long-time allies within this party. I 
also angered people who were either adversaries (mainly because of some 
stupid, irrelevant caucus affiliation) or allies who became enemies 
because of that resignation email.

I felt a lot of anger and frustration over Reno that I (wrongly) assumed 
the worst for Illinois, hence what I call my rash decision to resign 
from all roles with the party, not only as Political Director, but from 
the national ballot access committee. I dissolved my chapter and didn't 
even reconstitute as ChrisMont (meaning Christian and Montgomery 
counties) Libertarian Central Committee until a week or so before the 
election.

Amidst all that, I may have been dealing with several bouts of burnout, 
given that most of my time in charge of the Political Division was 
often. It would have been nice to have a deputy director to cover some 
slack in alternating months.

I know I'm capable of continuing the work I did and fulfill some 
objectives that I wasn't quite able to enact. One of the initiatives I 
wanted to do was allocate candidate recruitment directors based on state 
region. Chicago/Cook County could very easily be its own recruitment 
region (and easily subdivided as necessary), given that in 2024, they 
will also be able to circulate petitions for all Congressional and 
General Assembly districts exclusively within its borders.

But I know that this is not what you want to know. You want to know if 
I'm capable of keeping my temperament in check. I know it won't be easy, 
but I'm sure as hell going to try.

At this point, I'm just ready to bury the hatchets and let bygones be 
bygones. Especially given the circumstances of Tuesday night, being that 
the Libertarian Party is officially established in my home county in 
Montgomery County as a result of Attorney General candidate Dan Robin 
getting 5.29%. That brings the number of established counties to eight, 
the third to be established as a result of a statewide candidate after 
McLean County (Gary Johnson, POTUS, 2016) and Kankakee County (Mike 
Leheney, 2018, State Treasurer).

Should this board opt to reappoint me to the role of Political Director, 
I'll be too busy planning for 2024 to even be bothered by factional 
infighting.

  	* Cook County has a plethora of races, which will include 
county-exclusive Congressional and General Assembly races. Their ballot 
access is good until 2026, and I only expect that to extend even longer. 
There was a great slate of candidates that we fought tooth and nail for 
in Federal court this cycle. Their rockstar candidate this cycle was 
most definitely Niko Tsatsoulis, who earned 200,000 votes in a 
head-to-head race against a Democratic incumbent for the office of 
county assessor.
  	* Similarly, McLean County has also extended their status to 2026 
earning nearly 24% combined between results from McLean County and the 
Bloomington Election Commission.
  	* We have work to go to retain our major party status in DeWitt, 
Kankakee, McHenry, Peoria, and Tazewell counties. Four counties didn't 
run any countywide candidates this cycle, while we didn't quite get 5% 
in McHenry. It will be of utmost importance to slate candidates in 2024 
to retain such status.
  	* Then, of course, we have Montgomery County to plan for. Every single 
election has gone uncontested by Republicans (and Democrat for county 
treasurer for as long as I've lived here.

But if this board opts not to, I'll understand and respect your wishes. 
That will just give me a clear message to just focus on Montgomery 
County for the 2024 and 2026 general elections, and the partisan 
township elections in 2025.

Thank you for your time.

Jake Leonard
Interim Chairman and Montgomery County Chairman | ChrisMont Libertarian 
Central Committee
Immediate Past Political Director (Nov. 2019-May 2022) | Libertarian 
Party of Illinois
800 Capps Ave., Nokomis, IL 62075
Website: www.tricountylibertarians.org [1]
work - Heartland Newsfeed: 217.569.4230 [2] x700   |   mobile: 
217.565.9273 [3]  |   mobile: 217.565.9709 [4]

  		 [5]
  		Virus-free.www.avast.com [5]



Links:
------
[1] http://www.tricountylibertarians.org/
[2] tel:217.569.4230
[3] tel:217.565.9273
[4] tel:217.565.9709
[5] 
https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient
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