Scandal At The Convention: Allegations of Illegal Delegation

On June 16 of this year, the Executive Committee (EC) for the Libertarian Party of Florida (LPF) passed a motion, calling on the Libertarian National Committee to investigate allegations regarding the nominations of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat as the presidential and vice presidential candidate of the Libertarian party respectively. The reasoning for such a motion is a memorandum alleging “a series of continuous breaches of the Libertarian Party bylaws in the form of improper motions allowing a sufficient number of ineligible delegates to vote in the national convention elections.

If true, without the votes of these alleged ineligible delegates, the outcome of elections for both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees would be different. Accordingly, the Libertarian Party at a national and state level could be sued to challenge these results in court.”

The Memo In Question

The memo cited by the LPF EC was sent on June 10, supposedly from a number of delegates to the Libertarian Party (LP) National Convention. It claims that of the delegates present at the National Convention, 59 from the delegations of Michigan, Oklahoma, Washington, Ohio, and Missouri. If true, the LP and affiliate parties would be in violation of their own bylaws, leading to the election results not only of Oliver and ter Maat, but also Mark Rutherford for Vice Chair of the and Caryn Ann Harlos for Secretary being disputable and even null and void.

However, many issues abound with the memo, as the cited violations of bylaws conflict with the evidence provided by it, such as the minutes for the convention and the video record of it, as well as decisions made by the state affiliates implicated.

LP Missouri Delegation

Regarding the moving of Arielle Shack to the LP of Missouri’s (LPMO) delegation, the authors of the memo claim that she “was ineligible to as a Missouri delegate being a resident of the state of New Jersey despite being voted in by seven-eighths.” They cite the first sections of Articles 3 and 13 of the LPMO’s bylaws, which state that only General Members or Voting Members, which is conferred onto those registered in the state of Missouri to vote, are qualified to apply to be a delegate to the National Convention. They thus claim that, even though the appointment of Shack was unchallenged during the convention, it was in clear violations of the LPMO’s bylaws to appoint her.

However, this ignores Section 5 of Article 13 within those same bylaws, which states in part:

“The Delegation Chair may, if any Missouri delegate seats are vacant with no elected alternate to fill them, accept other qualified party members present at the National Convention as Missouri delegates.”

To allege that the appointment of Shack was in violation of their bylaws requires ignoring sections of the bylaws, sections from articles that they themselves have cited. The grounds for claiming that Shack was an ineligible member is unfounded.

LP Ohio Delegation

The claim made by the authors of the memo that Cara Schulz and Heather Biedermann were ineligible to be delegates for the LP of Ohio’s (LPO) delegation follows the same reasoning as with the LPMO delegation, citing Article 3, Section 4 and Article 2, Section 1 of the LPO’s constitution (erroneously calling them the bylaws in the memo), and noting that Schulz and Biedermann were residents of Minnesota. The memo ignores Bylaw 500, Section 4 of the LPO’s bylaws, which states in part:

“After the start of the convention, the Party may consider LP pledge-signing citizens of voting age from other states within the region to join their delegation if Ohio delegate positions remain or become open. The Delegation Chair will approve each addition.”

From the live minutes, it appears that the movement of Schulz and Biedermann to the Ohio delegation was unchallenged during the convention and not even brought up at all, and may have been part of the amended CC reports at the beginning of each day of the convention; unless there is more direct evidence of a violation of the bylaws of either the state affiliate or the national bylaws, this accusation that Schulz and Biedermann were ineligible is also unfounded.

LP Oklahoma Delegation

The memo claims that the listing of 15 delegates to the LP of Oklahoma’s (OKLP) delegation was in violation of the bylaws of the LP, citing Article 10, Section 4e, which states that “By seven-eighths vote, the convention may
approve additional delegates and alternates whose names and
addresses are submitted to the Credentials Committee during the
convention.” This point was brought up by Andrew Chadderdon, Chair of the LP of Michigan and delegate present at the National Convention, and the issue was sustained by Angela McCardle, Chair of the LP.

However, these were appealed and overruled by the delegation twice, first by a simple majority who, following the appeal of the Chair’s ruling by Pietro Geraci, a delegate from the LP of New York, voted for the amendment of the Convention Committee’s list of delegates to include the 15 OKLP delegates; and by a 2/3 majority approving the seating of the OKLP delegates as well as the LP of Washington’s delegates, and amending the LP bylaws to change the 7/8 majority needed in Article 10, Section 4e to a 2/3 majority.

The claim by the authors that this was in violation of the bylaws is also unfounded, as according to the EC of the OKLP, the list of the 15 delegates were presented to the Credentials Committee before the start of the convention. The section cited only applies to delegates added and submitted to the Credentials Committee (CC) after the convention had started, and the addition of these delegates was made as an amendment to the list made by the CC, which would fall under simple majority vote.

There may still be arguments for the illegality of the delegates appointed: during the convention, the Chair of the CC and of the LPF EC, Joshua Hlavka, had argued that the chosen delegates was in violation of Article 15, Section 5 of the OKLP’s bylaws, which states in part:

“Out-of-state delegates may be seated as Delegates representing Oklahoma during the National Convention for unfilled seats with a majority vote of duly elected National Delegates…”

Hlavka states that, because the delegates that were out-of-state were chosen before the convention, it was in violation of the bylaws to allow them since it said that they may be seated “during the National Convention.”

However, Rex Lawhorn, a former member of the Judicial Committee (JC) and former Chair of the Bylaws Committee of the OKLP, and overlooked the creation of that section of the bylaws, denies it. “The short answer is they are wrong, have zero authority to interpret our bylaws, and are grasping at straws.” This is in line with the official ruling of the JC, which stated that the delegate list was in full accordance to their bylaws, as the emphasis that Hlavka puts on the specific parts of the section contradict with the spirit of the bylaws, in which “Delegates representing Oklahoma during the National Convention” is to be read as a whole item, with the last four words describing an attribute of the delegates rather than how the delegates were to be selected.

Again, the basis for the accusations put forth in the memo appear to be unfounded. We shall also see this in regards to the Washington delegates.

LP Washington Delegation

Just like the OKLP Delegation, the memo alleges that the 14 delegates chosen for the LP of Washington’s (LPWA) delegation were not properly selected, requiring the 7/8 selection mentioned earlier and brought up my Chadderdon and McCardle; and they also were allowed in via both a simple majority following the appeal of Mimi Robsin, a delegate for the LP of California, and then the 2/3 majority. Again, because the delegates were chosen before the convention and the list had been given to the CC prior to the convention, the amendment of the CC listings to allow the delegates did not require a 7/8 majority as it did not fall under that section of the LP bylaws.

There may still be possibilities of illegality, as some of the delegates were from out of state and, unlike the OKLP, the bylaws of the LPWA do not have a section stating that out-of-state delegates can be appointed prior to the convention. Article 11, Section D1 of the LPWA bylaws reads in part:

“All delegates and representatives to national conventions of the Libertarian Party must be sustaining members of the State Party at the time of their participation in the convention…Unfilled seats may be filled at the national convention by a three-fifths (3/5) vote of the entire state delegation — and may include people who are not residents of Washington state as long as they fulfill all the other requirements and there are no other available members desiring to participate who do meet the requirement to be residents of Washington state.”

However, Colin Morgan, Chair of the LPWA, is sure that the delegates were chosen in accordance to their bylaws:

“LPWA is extremely confident that our delegates were validly selected per our bylaws... Our Judicial Committee held a hearing to interpret some bylaws that had been brought into question by an outside party, our SEC voted unanimously in support of the JC ruling, our delegation Chair followed that ruling accurately, and as party Chair, not a single delegate nor member have communicated even a concern to me about our bylaws not being followed.

Therefore, I speak for the party to say we stand by our delegation as being legally selected, in good faith, with substantial effort to the best of our ability. We did not knowingly, and with very high confidence did not unknowingly seat any delegates inappropriately.”

Update 6/21: The JC ruling mentioned by Morgan has been published, and can be found here.

LP Michigan Delegation

The LP of Michigan (LPMI) is in itself a complicated issue: Chadderdon, the above mentioned Chair of the LPMI, is under a restraining order due to the actions taken by members of the LPMI to allegedly disenfranchise the 27 delegates of the LPMI, the same delegates that the memo alleges were added in violation of the same section of the bylaws cited earlier for LPWA and OKLP.

Chadderdon had brought up the 7/8 requirement regarding the addition of the 27 LPMI delegates, but McCardle ruled that, because the list of delegates for the LPMI had been submitted to the CC before the convention, it did not fall under that section of the bylaws. Her ruling was upheld by the simple majority of the delegates, and the 27 delegates were allowed.

The legality of 5 of the delegates are still in debate, as the JC of the LPMI had ruled that their election was invalid; however, according to the granting of the aforementioned restraining order by the Honorable Aaron J. Gauthier of Cheboygen County Circuit Court of the State of Michigan, that ruling was “rendered outside of the scope of the proper authority of the Judicial Committee and was not based on any plausible reading of the bylaws of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.” However, since this is an ongoing lawsuit, we cannot say for certain what the final decision regarding the delegates’ legality is. However, we will say that, in regards to the allegations made in the memo, it is unfounded to claim that all 27 delegates for the LPMI were illegitimate.

A Symptom of Division

These allegations, while for the most part unfounded, indicate a much deeper problem within the LP: the boiling over of ongoing division and fragmentation. The past few years has seen the LP get into many conflicts within itself, leading even to varying lawsuits against members and state affiliates. If the party is to move through and survive such divisions, the causes of inner turmoils must be addressed. What those causes are specifically, I am unsure; but as long as the issue is over who has power over the party, and not the serving of the members of the party and the growth of the party, so as to lead to political progress towards freedom for all individuals, nothing will be solved.

A party should be open to investigation and ascertaining that the election represents the constituents rightly: that is part of the spirit of democracy and freedom. However, these allegations need more than conjectures that are promptly debunked by looking through the sources cited and argued against by the state affiliates themselves. The LPF is not in the wrong for wanting to make sure that proper laws and procedure is followed, but it cannot be certain that the allegations themselves in which their request for investigation is based on were made in good faith.

The LPO, Cara Schulz, Joshua Hlavka, Daniel Ziemba (Secretary of the LPMI), Chris Powell (Chair of the OKLP), and Todd Hagopian did not respond to requests for comment. Jay Norton (Chair of the OKLP JC) and Connor Nepomuceno (Chair of the LPMI JC) gave no comment, though Nepomuceno provided the LPMI JC decision files referenced above.