Comments on the State Committee Organizing Meetings of the Libertarian Party in Arizona, January 27, 2001
NOTE: These are NOT the official minutes of any of the meetings that took place on Saturday. If you are interested in seeing the official minutes you should contact the secretaries of the respective organizations:
ALP - Tim McDermott
ALP, Inc. - John Zajac
What follows are some facts along with my opinions: A frank analysis of what happened, what I think it means and where I think we should go from here. If you don't care what I think, delete this now and get a copy of the official minutes.
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I began my letter to Libertarian Precinct Committeemen in Pima County with a question to the recipients, "Is it finally time to end the state party fight?" I believe the events of the meetings on Saturday have collectively answered that question in the negative. It isn't the answer I wanted, but at least the question has been asked and answered by the State Committee and the officers of ALP and ALP, Inc.
GOALS:
In the long version of my letter (which I posted online) I outlined some goals for the State Committee meetings:
Goal: Having one State Committee Meeting for both organizations. Result: FAILED. For the most part, the leadership of both organizations were not against the idea in theory. However, despite my urging neither leadership group was willing to expend much effort towards making it a reality. Logistical problems such as who opened, chaired, and closed the meeting, where it was to be held, and who would be credentialed were difficulties each side prefered to solve with a separate meeting rather than dialog and negotiation.
Goal: Getting myself elected to a State Committee officer position. Result: MIXED. I failed in my attempt to run for Secretary against John Zajac. The vote was 19 for John Zajac, 15 for me, with 1 indeterminant Vote. I succeeded in my attempt to run for Second Vice-Chairman by the slimmest possible margin of 1 vote, 18 to 17. More information below.
Goal: Passing a resolution to require State Committee approval of new litigation. Result: FAILED, 11 to 16. More information below.
Goal: Electing the same set of officers to both State Committee organizations. Result: FAILED. This was my fallback plan for obtaining a similar result to having one meeting. The plan was to recess ALP's meeting, then reconvene it after the close of ALP, Inc.'s meeting and elect the same officers. The recessing part went well. However, after ALP, Inc.'s officers had been elected we were informed by ALP's acting chairman, Mike Dugger, that no officers of ALP, Inc. would be eligible to serve on ALP's state committee. Anti-fusion laws and conflict of interest were cited. The State Committee wanted to elect the same officers, but the acting ALP chair simply would not allow that to happen. No one on the state committee would nominate any other officers, so we simply adjourned the ALP meeting without electing any officers to the ALP State Committee. My opinion: The ALP folks didn't like what they saw going on over at the ALP, Inc. meeting (more below) and decided they couldn't live with the same officers after all. Unfortunately this action buttresses the claim that ALP likes to change their rules arbitrarily: I made my intention to elect the same officers to both organizations clear several weeks ago. Why did the ALP leadership's position on doing that change within the course of a few hours?
THE DECISIVE VOTES AT THE ALP, INC. MEETING:
ALP, Inc.'s meeting is where the decisive votes occurred. Some interesting things happened with proxys at that meeting. I walked in with 7 proxys, and Scott Stewart walked in with 8. However, three of Scott's proxys were people who had given me their proxy a few days before, but in the intervening days had revoked the proxy given to me and given a new one to Scott. Thus, I ended up holding 4 proxys to Scott's 8. Every single State Committee member was either at the ALP, Inc. meeting in person or represented by a proxy.
About the proxys: From my first letter to Precinct Committeemen, I made no effort to conceal my goals for the meeting. I wanted to make sure that the result truly reflected the wishes of the State Committee, rather than a reaction to a surpise move. The ALP, Inc. meeting went precisely as the majority of the state committee chose it to go. My letter to the Precinct Committeemen made my position on ending the party feud very clear. I called nearly all of the state committeemen and reiterated my position. The three people who revoked the proxys they had given to me and gave them to Scott Stewart instead did so of their own free will, as did the other 5 who gave proxys to Scott right from the start. Quite simply, they trusted Scott's judgement more than they trusted mine...and by extension they trusted Scott's judgement regarding the party feud more than they trusted mine. I'll not rationalize any of the meeting results as "just because of the proxys". That said, the difference in the number of proxys held by Scott Stewart and the number of proxys that I held made the difference between success and failure for me on each of the critical votes. The importance of the proxys should be understood by all.
From the outset, Peter Schmerl made it clear to everyone in attendance that if either the current Secretary (John Zajac) or Treasurer (Brad Toland) were not re-elected, Peter would also not run for chair. He viewed all the top officer elections as a vote of confidence for his approach to things, including the feud. This was certainly within his perogative to do. I had suspected there were a fair number of people who would support me against John Zajac but not against Peter Schmerl. Unfortunately for me, Peter's statement that he would refuse to run for chair if John Zajac lost the Secretary position meant that even though I was NOT running for chair, I was _essentially_ running against Peter when I ran against John for the office of secretary. As I said above, the result was that I lost 15 to 19.
The election of State Committee Chair was also interesting and the only thing that truly surprised me all day. Despite urgings from a few State Committeemen, I did not run for the office of chair. The only person who did run for chair was Peter. The result was 21 votes for Peter, 11 Abstentions, 1 vote of "No Confidence", 1 vote for "Bushkin", and 1 vote for "Britney Spears". It should be noted that "None Of The Above" was NOT an option. As far as I know, there was no coordinated effort or campaign to get people to not vote for Peter. My opinion: There was only one more vote for cast for me against John Zajac than there was cast "against" Peter when he was the only candidate running. To me this indicates unambiguously that the majority support Peter's approach, but there is a significant minority who clearly do not. The state committee is fairly polarized.
There were some interesting manuevers that took place during my election to the office of second vice chair, which resulted in the vote count of 18-17. However, understanding what really happened would require hearing some of the discussion which took place in hushed tones on the floor while the nomination speeches were going on. Such conversations probably shouldn't be repeated in a general email as there's always the possibility that I misunderstood something. If you're really interested, perhaps someone who was there can fill you in on the details privately.
At this point it was not at all surprising that the resolution requiring state committee approval for litigation failed 11 to 16. It failed despite numerous wording changes to render it a recommendation instead of a requirement. You can probably tell from the vote count that by then several people had already left the meeting and gone home. The inescapable conclusion is that given their track record, the State Committeemen as a whole trust Peter and the ALP, Inc. board of directors to initiate litigation at will.
SUMMING UP: Peter Schmerl, John Zajac, Brad Toland, and Scott Stewart clearly view each other as essential to the "team" and are willing to marshall all of their individual support to protect the offices and interests of the others. There is nothing improper about that...it's just something people should be aware of. If you support one of them, particularly by proxy, then you effectively support them all.
WHAT NOW:
In regards to the feud, all we can do now is wait for the court ruling. Based on the results of the state committee meetings, at this time I cannot proceed any further with my attempt to end the feud. I cannot go to the ALP general convention and ask it to approve bylaw changes granting more power to the State Committee, when the State Committee has just made clear its intent to continue to pursue the complete replacement of ALP by whatever means necessary. I cannot make the case to ALP, Inc. that we're merely arguing over bylaws when we failed to elect the same state committee officers to both organizations. The leaders of both factions have repeately stated the opinion that this fight will all be wrapped up one way or the other in the next 6-9 months. Please remember that prediction. I sincerely hope that they are right about it. I have my doubts.
For those in Arizona who are unhappy with the outcome of Saturday's meetings, I can only advise you to get more involved with the party organizations in whatever capacity you feel comfortable. Perhaps you should even consider getting involved in a few capacities where you don't feel entirely comfortable. Run for Precinct Committeeman, then State Committeeman, and participate. Go to ALP's convention and participate. Run for office. DO NOT GO AWAY! People who get involved are the ones that make the decisions. If those who want to see an end to the feud back away from the party instead of getting more involved, the status quo will forever reign supreme.
Sometime down the road if we find ourselves still fighting, perhaps someone will again ask the question, "Is it finally time to end the state party fight?" For now, everyone should know that the collective answer from the State Committee is "No", perhaps with the caveat "We think the court is going to end it for us." Let's move on as best we can. We have a lot of work to do to register 3000-4000 new Libertarians so we don't lose our ballot status in 2002. It seems that voter registration is at least one priority we can all agree on. Both ALP and ALP, Inc. have stated a desire to work on voter registration quite intensely over the next few months. This is a worthy and critical project. My advice is to get behind whichever leadership you feel you can work with, and participate in their plan for voter registration.
--Jason Auvenshine