The other front on this battle for the soul of the Libertarian Party is on the LNC.
In a real sense, the LNC is powerless here. In other states, they offer resources for securing ballot access and host the websites of state affiliates and provide other technical and political assistance. In larger states they offer influence on the various committees and in delegate counts to the national conventions.
In Delaware, on the other hand, ballot access is secured by registered party members and controlled by the regularly organized and constituted statewide governing authority of the state political party. We host our own website on free resources. We do not have carved out seats for us on national party committees and have a paltry 0.4% of the allocated convention delegates. There are no carrots they can offer us and no sticks that will hurt us.
Nevertheless, we are a symbol of a fight for the future of the LP. Will the Libertarian Party be a movement of inclusiveness and striving for the highest ideals of human freedom? Or will it be a small club using the rhetoric of small government as a means of giving mean people the freedom to be mean?
Many of us were drawn into our state affiliates by work done at the national level. A united Libertarian Party with 50 state ballot access is an accomplishment to be proud of and not something to be thrown off lightly. Over the course of two different meetings, the LNC has attempted to "resolve" the situation in Delaware by stepping outside their authority to abridge the autonomy of state affiliates or simply tossing Delaware out of the boat to bring in a new organization dominated by the former Mises leadership.
Before either of those meetings, the charge has been lead by the Region 5 Representative, Susan Hogarth. The Libertarian Party of Delaware has since withdrawn from Region 5, but these events began around the time the Region 5 Alternate elected at the 2020 national convention resigned. The Region 5 meeting to replace him was held soon after. At Susan Hogarth's prompting, the State Chairs voted overwhelmingly to exclude Delaware's vote, with only the Chair of the LPPA voting against the motion. This motion is outside the authority of the Regional Agreement and serves in effect to disaffiliate the Libertarian Party of Delaware from the national party, at least insofar as its regional relationships are concerned.
The second attempt, on November 21st at a special online meeting of the LNC once again saw the Regional Representative leading the charge. Over the course of a 5 1/2 hour meeting motions were made and defeated to recognize the expelled leadership of the LPD and to disaffiliate the LPD from the national party. The first motion was challenged on the basis that recognizing leadership was outside the scope of the LNC's authority, but the ruling upholding that position was narrowly overturned on appeal before finally being defeated. The motion to disaffiliate the LPD required a higher vote threshold that could not be reached.
The final attempt, so far, was at the December 4-5 meeting of the LNC in Boston. Here, a poorly written and even more poorly conceived motion was ultimately adopted to "encourage" the Libertarian Party of Delaware to hold a "general membership meeting" to determine its leadership, and in the event of competing meetings, the meeting with the most members would carry the affiliation with the national party. These processes also are well outside the boundaries of the national and Delaware bylaws.
On that basis, it has been appealed as the constructive disaffiliation of the Libertarian Party of Delaware, despite not following the prescribed procedures and taking place inside the six month window preceding the convention when states are forbidden by explicit language from being disaffiliated. Several members of the LNC were not even clear on the effect of this motion and with additional understanding it is doubtful the margin passing the motion would have been sufficient for the disaffiliation it represents.
The Judicial Committee of the national party does not require broad support to hear an appeal on disaffiliation, but since this motion is not labelled as such it is possible they will refuse to hear the appeal on that basis. In that case, to appeal any other decision of the LNC requires a petition signed by 10% of the delegates to the most recent national convention or 1% of the total sustaining members of the national party. You can support our efforts by signing that petition.
