| Vol. IX, No. 11 | Editor: Robert Giedt | December 1999 |
The Libertarian Party of San Mateo County will experience a contested election for the Libertarian County Central Committee in March. There are eight seats on the Libertarian County Central Committee, and there will be nine candidates for that office. By having a contested election like this, the county will include us in its notice to all voters in the Sample Ballot about the election. This will give the Libertarian Party welcome visibility with all the voters in San Mateo County.
The three candidates for state or federal office (Jack Hickey for Senate, Barbara Less for U.S. Congress, and Steve Lundry for State Assembly) will automatically appear as candidates for the Libertarian County Central Committee. In addition, six other candidates will be running. These are Christopher Schmidt (Secretary of the LPSM), Lacy Nelson (Vice-chair), Robert Giedt (Newsletter Chair), J.R. Prohaska (Membership Chair), Steve Marsland (Chair), and Mary Anne Marsland (not an LPSM officer).
The County Central Committee is recognized by the county Elections Office as the official representatives of the Libertarian Party on interaction between the Libertarian Party and elections officials. County Central Committee members may get copies of the lists of registered voters, for example, to conduct mailings or other party activities such as voter registration drives.
Having a contested election gives us great visibility with all the voters in San Mateo County. And having a full eight seats filled in the County Central Committee makes it easier for us to work with the election office. Now we will have a number of people who can handle party business, instead of just relying on one or two.
The three candidates for state or federal office automatically become candidates for the County Central Committee. The other six candidates are busy collecting the 20 nominating signatures they need to appear on the ballot. They will need to submit these by December 10.
Having someone run for County Central Committee gives them a taste of what it is like to be a full-fledged candidate in a partisan or non-partisan race. They declare their candidacy, fill out some forms, collect nominating signatures, and can even raise funds to win the County Central Committee seat. It is the simplest and easiest office to run for. This means people who may want to run for higher public office can gain useful experience running for County Central Committee.
Good luck to all candidates! And may the best eight out of nine win!
In a cost-cutting move to help balance its budget, the Libertarian Party of California has decided to publish the December and February issues of LPC Monthly exclusively on the Internet at http://www.ca.lp.org/lpc-monthly.html.
The LPC urges everyone with Internet access to read the newsletter online--so if you generally read the LPC Monthly online, go to the above URL and click the Online Member Services button. From there, just click the Enter Request button in the lower left where it says "Stop Hardcopy Newsletter" and then fill out the accompanying form. You'll need to have your subscriber number (located on the mailing label of this newsletter).
If you'd like to be notified when the most recent issue of the LPC Monthly goes online, you can join our LPSM Announcements list by sending an e-mail to lpsm_announce-subscribe@listbot.com. As soon as we hear that the next LPC Monthly has been posted, we'll let you know!
SACRAMENTO--November 23, 1999--Voter registration numbers for the Libertarian Party increased over the past year--the same period in which statewide voter registrations declined over 300,000 voters, the Libertarian Party of California announced today.
"These numbers provide further proof of three things: that the two-party system is becoming a thing of the past, that the Democrats and Republicans are repelling voters in greater numbers, and that those voters are increasingly turning to the Libertarian Party," stated Libertarian state chair Mark Hinkle.
According to the latest Report of Registration from the Secretary of State, Libertarian registrations increased by 3,167 voters, or 3.87%, between October 5, 1998 and October 5, 1999. In that same period, statewide voter rolls fell by 2.11%, or 315,964 voters. Additionally, Democrats lost 200,964 voters while Republicans bled 188,144 voters. Total Libertarian registrations total 84,947.
"It's a clear sign of our party's strength that our numbers should increase in a period of overall decline," Hinkle said.
But are Libertarians the kings of the third party hill?
Not quite: they share that title with the Green Party, which increased 4.86% during the past year, largely due to the election of Audie Bock to the State Assembly, according to Hinkle. "Libertarians and Greens are appealing because of our ideological purity: we are parties based on certain principles--albeit divergent ones. That sort of principled leadership is what voters want and what we provide," Hinkle said.
[Webmaster's note: Subsequent to her election, Ms. Bock resigned from the Green Party to "broaden her fund raising potential".]
Libertarians are within striking distance of surpassing the Reform Party, which experienced a 3.57% decline despite tremendous media coverage of Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's election and the race for the Reform presidential nomination. Reform registrations total 85,554, just 607 more than Libertarians.
"The Reform Party is non-ideological--that's how they can have a right-wing extremist like Pat Buchanan in the same party as libertarian-leaning Ventura," Hinkle noted. "With no strong principles binding their positions or candidates, Reformers won't last beyond next year."
While Libertarian numbers swelled, the American Independent Party increased a mere 0.20% while Natural Law Party registrations dropped a whopping 13.2%.
"In the marketplace of ideas, the parties with the strongest ones will last," Hinkle predicted. "Which is why the Democrats and Republicans are on the way out and the Libertarians are here to stay."
The November meeting at Hobee's was attended by ten officers and members. A number of (mostly) unrelated topics were addressed briefly.
We authorized spending up to $380 to pay the balance of one legislative candidate's filing fee if sufficient signatures could not be collected by the deadline to waive the fee entirely (approved unanimously). Steve and Barbara pledged to collect more signatures, and Steve said he'd solicit donations to replenish the treasury if they came up short.
Enough signatures were collected (many by LPC members in Santa Clara County) to waive the entire filing fees for the other three candidates that our region sponsors. (Thanks!!) The special problem of CD12 is that almost 40% of the voters qualified to sign that petition live in San Francisco. Rather than deal with another bureaucracy (and inconveniently located), we'd hoped for a high response rate to our mailing in our county--similar to that of 1997. While our optimism was gratified in the south half of the county--14%--we saw a response of only 11% in the north half.
We decided (72) to send thank-you cards to petition signers instead of newsletters (done last time around).
We voted (62) to study locally and make recommendations regarding the state ballot propositions to be submitted to the voters in March. Some members have said that they like to preview the propositions with other libertarians (or at least prefer that to doing so alone!).
Because of the extraordinary number of propositions on the ballot--9 placed there by the legislature and 10 by petition (with the possibility of 2 more)--we decided (70) to spread the process over 2 meetings. We've allocated 45 minutes at the December meeting and 60 minutes at the January meeting for this purpose. Historically, the process has required more time, but we hope to use our lpsm_discuss@listbot.com mailing list to cover some ground in advance. You can sign up for this mailing list on our web site. I expect that the December meeting will assay all the propositions to identify the "easy ones" and vote to make recommendations regarding them at that time--leaving the "hard ones" for further research, discussion on the net, and final endorsement at the January meeting.
Figuring its moment in history may have finally arrived, Jack Hickey plans to resurrect a 1979 initiative to create state education "performance vouchers". The wrinkle is that the vouchers acquire value only after academic growth is demonstrated. He urges people to visit his PAVE2000 website at: http://www.pave2000.com for details.
Steve Marsland reported on his recruiting of county central committee candidates. [see article on page 1 Ed] At press time, the announced candidates are Steve, Mary Anne Marsland, Lacy, J.R., Robert, and I. Barbara, Steve Lundry, and Jack are automatically placed on the ballot because they are legislative candidates. We're fielding candidates in this race experimentally, because the county may include central committee candidates in the sample ballot mailed to all voters. (This wasn't the case prior to adoption of the blanket primary initiative.)
With any luck, a long list of libertarian candidates will increase our mindshare among the general public, and maybe name recognition for individuals. As you may know, name recognition is often a problem for libertarians and this is a cheap way to help build it a little. It will also help our candidates become familiar with election rules and procedures.
Note: According to LPC bylaws, a "county central committee member" is one who (1) signs the certification of non-initiation of force, (2) pays dues, (3) is affiliated with our region, and (4) isn't registered to vote in another party. The government holds an election for central committee because the Secretary of State prefers to apply the bylaws of the Peace and Freedom Party to us, since the legislature codified theirs in the election code, but has never adopted any similar section for the LP. If you are currently a central committee member under LPC bylaws, your status is not altered by this election.
Given our plan to review the propositions at our January meeting, we did some of the jockeying for offices next year at the November meeting. (The January meeting is our Annual Meeting, when we elect officers, per our bylaws.) We'd like to see 3 more members step forward and become active officers. If you're interested, come to the December and January meetings so we can talk about it.
Thursday, December 16
Hobee's Restaurant
(Directions to Hobee's)
1111
Shoreway Road, Belmont; just off Ralston, on the bay side of Highway 101
Dinner
and informal discussion: 6:00--7:30pm in the reserved dining room
Business meeting: 7:30--8:45pm in the dining room alcove.