Funding Liberty! Table of Contents
Funding Liberty!
Chapter 25
Scenic Massachusetts
A Personal Perspective
We now come to Party history in which I myself played a modest role. I shall try to emulate Thucydides, the father of historical writing, who described what happened even to himself, seeking to say what was true even if it did not enhance his name. This is not an entirely simple task.
In 1994, Massachusetts Libertarians were organized as the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts (LAMA). LAMA had annual conventions and a regularly published newsletter. That year, the Massachusetts Libertarian Party gained Major Party status: One of its candidates for statewide office got more than 3% of the vote. Major Party status meant LAMA could put the Presidential ticket on the ballot in 1996 without doing any petitioning. Major Party Status also had other consequences. In 1994, the party had few campaign plans beyond running a President in 1996. Those other consequences seemed much less important.
[Massachusetts election law has different rules for independent candidates, Party Designations, and Major Parties. The Appendix to this Chapter describes our election code. If you are a serious activist, you should read the Appendix, if only so you can ask yourself 'OK, how is this different from the election code in my state?']
In 1995 I appeared at a meeting of the LAMA State Committee, which then met at MIT. I carried some maps of Massachusetts. The maps showed all the State Representative and State Senate Districts, color coded to show where there had recently been both Democratic and Republican candidates (a moderate number of these), only a Republican candidate (rare), or only a Democratic candidate (the largest number). I proposed that we should make a targeted effort to run candidates in Districts in which there historically had been no contest, because these would give us clearer shots at winning elections or at least getting lots of votes. The thought of inciting members to run for lower (below statewide) office, let alone run candidates in targeted districts, was a bit radical for some members of the State Committee.
We also discussed retaining major party status after 1996. Retention required that one of our 1996 statewide candidates get 3% of the vote, or that we register 1% of the voters as Libertarians. The latter alternative was logistically unattainable. Retaining Major Party status thus required running someone for U.S. Senate, since it seemed unlikely that any Libertarian running for President in 1996 could get 3% of the vote. We never discussed whether or not it would actually be desirable to retain major party status. We had no other candidate. I agreed to run.
It seemed reasonable at the time.
I allowed that because the Party had managed to get its candidates on the ballot in 1994, we would also do so in 1996. I do not remember reservations being raised by other members of the state party. Indeed, the-then-State-Chair proposed that after we got me on the ballot, we should try to get a second person on the primary election ballot for the same office: A contested Senate primary would generate positive publicity. This would have been a really excellent idea, if we could have pulled it off.
What we did not at first appreciate was that getting candidates on the ballot under the Major Party rules would be far harder than getting candidates on the ballot had been in 1994, when we had Party Designation status. To get on the ballot, I put up a substantial amount of my own money, raised rather more, recruited volunteer petitioners, tried to coordinate things, and collected some of my own signatures If everyone had come through with the promised number of signatures and the signature validity rate had been as high in 1996 as it had been in 1994, I would have been on the ballot. None of these issues worked out quite right. I didn't get enough valid signatures and missed ballot access. Since 1996, the LPMA has placed candidates on the statewide ballot under Major Party rules, but that took far more resources than we had available in 1996.
The back-up plan for ballot access was a sticker campaign to win the Libertarian Senate primary. For lower office, this is a workable path to getting on the ballot. In 1996 one of our State Representative candidates got on the ballot via a sticker campaign. The obstacle was that State law required that I get a minimum of 5,000 votes to advance to the November ballot. I did not get the votes, but my campaign was an opportunity to do outreach for the Party. That year I spent almost as much on advertising the Party as Harry Browne did—around $6000.
What if I had had enough votes, and been on the November ballot? The Kerry-Weld election was heavily funded. The news outlet that actually runs statewide debates is prejudiced against the Libertarian Party. It regularly promises that it will let our candidates into their debates, some other year. It was unlikely that I would be able to debate Kerry and Weld, unless they were both seized with the idea that I should be brought on board as a participant.
The record suggests how I would have done in a debate. In 1998 I ran for Congress and faced off against my opponents nearly a dozen times. My incumbent opponent, Congressman Jim McGovern, is a vigorous, thoughtful Democrat, a rising star of his Party, and a much better debater than either Weld or Kerry. My Republican opponent had spent terms in the State Senate and was the strongest candidate his party could find. News outlets reported of our debates 'Libertarian is Surprise Winner'.
In 1996, there was a small Libertarian activist group in Worcester. Our candidate for State Representative missed getting on the ballot through a fluke. His erstwhile Democratic opponent, Representative Binienda, was, nonetheless, annoyed by our candidate's efforts to run for office.. He rammed a bill through the state legislature doubling the number of signatures required to get a Libertarian on the ballot, at least so long as we were a Major Party. After 1996, it would be even more difficult to get a candidate on the ballot under major party rules.
In 1994-1995, I was also involved in new local Libertarian groups in Worcester and Wales, Massachusetts. The Wales group, the Pioneer Valley Libertarian Association founded by John Brickner and friends, prospered and is now the oldest continuously-existing Libertarian political group in Massachusetts. The Worcester group faded away after the 1996 election.
In 1996, I was elected to the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts state board. I was busy with my Senate campaign. Early in the year the Party newsletter stopped appearing. In retrospect, the newsletter's irregularity seriously damaged my ballot access drive. Email was far less effective in 1996 than it is now. Most Party members had no idea that I had a ballot access drive. Despite my work load, I put together the second issue of a revived newsletter. I supported Ken Peterson when he was willing to become editor. I outsourced printing and distribution of the newsletter, sharply reducing costs and restoring monthly regularity of printing and mailing.
Eastern Dominance of Massachusetts Libertarian Organizations
In late 1996, the State Board debated whether the State Party should join the National Party's Unified Membership Plan (UMP). Under this plan: State and party membership became one. The state party received $1/month or more for each member. The National Party collected all dues and donations and kept most of the donation money. The plan cost us almost all donations that arrived as part of the membership renewal check. Our nominal membership would be greatly increased if we joined UMP. However, the new state party members would be long-time national party members residing in Massachusetts who had regularly been invited to join the state party, and who had equally regularly declined. We would be gaining new members who were not interested in what we did. UMP bureaucratic centralization was also inconsistent with our Party philosophy. The majority of the Board favored the UMP, so we joined. The then-editor of the state newsletter, Ken Peterson, resigned in protest. The loudest exponent of joining the UMP soon ceased to be active in the state party organization.
At the end of my term, I was busy with local organizing issues. I declined nomination for re-election to the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts state board. It was clear that most LAMA board members had particular ideas about the directions in which they wished to move, directions that to my eyes appeared ill-advised. I thought it would be better if the LAMA board were filled by people who enthusiastically supported a consistent set of directions. I also had other projects. In years since, there have been suggestions that I resigned from the state board over the UMP decision. I did not resign; I served out my term.
The 1998 elections were approaching. Having run unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1996, I committed to running for Congress in 1998. I knew what I had done in 1996, and saw how to correct my problems. Fortunately, given Massachusetts' strange ballot access statutes, after 1996 we managed to purge ourselves of Major Party Status. To file 2000 valid signatures while we were a Party Designation rather than a Major Party I only needed to collect about 3000 raw signatures. I hired professional petitioners to collect that number [thanks to volunteers, I actually got more than 3000 signatures]. The signatures were collected in early 1998, validated, and delivered to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's Office in May. That was a petitioning drive under the Party Designation rules. We'll see in a bit what happened to Libertarian Jim Fredrickson when he tried to run for Congress in 2001 under the Major Party rules.
In 1998, the eastern group that was running the State Party decided both to run a full slate of candidates for state office, or as close as could be obtained. They also decided to encourage Party members to run for the state legislature. Candidates were obtained for five of the six statewide offices (no Libertarian attorney would agree to run for Attorney General), and around 20 legislative positions.
For a change, there was some public discussion of the wisdom of pursuing Major Party status. I observed that Major Party status would make it enormously more difficult to put on the ballot all of our other candidates. Furthermore, it was hardly believable that we were going to elect a Governor or Senator, so running Libertarians for those offices was not going to increase the number of elected Libertarians. Nor was a set of campaigns for statewide office likely to put our top-of-ticket candidates into many debates. If we took the resources that were about to be thrown away on campaigns for statewide office, and invested them in building local party groups and running candidates down-ticket, we would be ahead in the long run. The State Board remained attached to running candidates for statewide office. The minor detail that several current or recent State Board members were to be statewide candidates (Dean Cook—Governor; Eli Israel—Lieutenant Governor; Carla Howell—Auditor) did nothing to reduce their enthusiasm.
We now reach the first bit of friction between the eastern group that ran the State Party and the Pioneer Valley Libertarian Association (PVLA). The Libertarian Association of Massachusetts (LAMA) had a seven-member elected State Board. It also accepted local affiliate groups. Each affiliate, the PVLA being one, was entitled to its own voting representative on the State Board. In early 1998 PVLA representatives came back to our meetings and reported that the State Board had issues with accepting our representatives. Finally, I went to a State Board meeting myself. When I noted that I was the duly appointed PVLA representative, State Chair Carla Howell said "George, I don't want to get into that now", and refused to let me take a seat as the PVLA representative. This meeting marked the last time the PVLA tried to send a representative to a State Board meeting.
Having declined to seat the PVLA representative, the State Board used the meeting to take a de facto stand on local organization. Presented with nearly 20 candidates whom they had recruited to run for the State Legislature, the State Board agreed at the meeting to give those candidates no help in getting on the ballot. If the candidates wanted to be on the ballot, they would have to handle all of their own petitioning and fundraising. Most prospective candidates had never run for office before, had never been in a campaign before, and had no idea what to do next. Unsurprisingly, few were able to qualify themselves as candidates.
The LPMA's practices on campaign spending were very different for the campaigns of the people running the State Party. In 1998, the State Board mobilized extensive resources to help statewide candidates--a majority of whom were State Board members--with ballot access. When the Howell 2000 campaign hit a ballot access crisis, and ran to the State Board for help, Howell 2000 was given thousands of dollars.
Could the State Board and its statewide candidates have helped the candidates for local office? The statewide candidates could perfectly well have taken their extensive set of paid petitioners, sent them to appropriate districts, and had them collect a second signature form, thereby putting the legislative candidates on the ballot. There would have had to be adequate financial compensation to the petitioners for the extra work, but the cost per candidate would have been minimal relative to the overall cost of the campaigns. The legislative candidates would have strengthened the campaigns for statewide office. The state slate chose to ignore local campaigns. In the end, the PVLA put its member-candidate on the ballot. I put myself on the ballot. The 1996 State Rep candidate who ran again put himself on the ballot. Most other Libertarians did not qualify for ballot access.
Might a larger slate of state legislative candidates have had consequences? In Massachusetts, a substantial majority of State Legislators and Congressmen run unopposed. A political party could try to field a full slate of candidates for lower office, including 160 State Representatives, 40 State Senators, 8 members of the Governor's Council, and 10 Congressmen. This would not be a trivial effort. The Party would need to find more than 200 candidates and collect as a Party Designation perhaps 100,000 signatures [as a Major Party, 200,000+ raw signatures would be needed]. However, the Party that did this would have an excellent chance of outpolling the Republican Party.
In early 1998, the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts held its annual convention. There was a major fundraiser, billed as raising money for our candidates across Massachusetts. By report, more than ten thousand dollars was raised. I was one of the Party's candidates. I certainly did not expect to get all the money, but neither I nor the state legislative candidates had seen any money at all. After I raised the issue repeatedly, I received a response from State Chair Eli Israel. Addressing me and the Party State Board, Israel answered my emailed question
At 08:03 AM 9/7/98 -0400, you [GP: me] wrote:
where *is* the money we raised at the February Convention? There should be about ten grand, as I recall from the announcement at the time.
By stating
The fundraising was done in the name of LAMA and the statewide campaigns. Knowing that it would be difficult to ask people to write out checks for different purposes during a single fundraising request, we decided to make a single appeal for funds to LAMA and then approach the larger donors for help with the campaigns.
The breakdown is as follows:
Approximately $11.2K was raised at the convention dinner. However, that total includes approximately $2-3K in monthly contributions to be collected over the year. Of the remaining amount, several of the largest contributors chose to redirect approximately $3K to their favorite campaigns, after I called and explained to them that LAMA couldn't give the money to campaigns directly, per OCPF [GP: Office of Campaign and Political Finance, the Massachusetts equivalent of the Federal Election Commission.] rules. The remaining amount, about $6K, went to the LAMA treasury for use in LAMA activities. For comparison, the entire amount raised for the '97 convention was $6400, all of which went to LAMA.
I hope this answers your question. I must stress that none of this was the work of a single person and all of it was planned in advance and known to the board members and convention planners as the strategy of record.
I certainly did not expect to get more than a modest part of the money. In the end, my campaign received not a penny. Nor did a penny go to any of the State Legislative candidates who had put themselves on the ballot.
So where did the money go? Some of the money went to nonpolitical activities. The rest of the money was diverted by Eli Israel and the 1998 LAMA State Board from LAMA to the statewide slate of candidates. The diversion was not an accident. As Israel admits, the State Board had planned in advance to run a fundraiser at the state convention nominally for the state association, and then use the scheme described above to divert the movable money to their own campaigns. As Israel neglected to remind the Board, LAMA was the state's Federal Libertarian PAC. Under OCPF rules it could not give money to state candidates, but under FEC rules it could have given money to my campaign. It chose not to do so.
Exactly how was the diversion accomplished? The State Board gave the statewide slate and its representatives an opportunity to contact major donors and explain the situation. There were some technical legal complications in exactly how the explanation to the donors had to be phrased to avoid violating state law. Donors who were willing to write a new check could get their money to the campaigns of the statewide candidates. Other Libertarian candidates across Massachusetts were not offered an opportunity to make the same contacts with donors. The net result was that the State Board—three of whose members (Israel, Howell, Cook) were running for statewide office—moved substantial amounts of money to their personal campaigns. The state convention's fundraiser raised not a penny for campaigns other than those of the State Board members.
Coordination between campaigns was rather limited. As it turned out, none of the Libertarians who had volunteered to run for state legislature were in my Congressional District, so I was unable to share petitioners. The statewide slate did no advertising on Worcester-area (my Congressional district) media outlets, under the pretext that they advertised on Boston outlets that could be heard in Worcester.
The LPMA Becomes a "Major" Party
Two statewide candidates did receive more than 3% of the popular vote. Under state law, they were allowed to designate a group to manage the Libertarian Party's affairs until state law governing the election of state committeemen and state committeewomen became operative. In early 1999 they turned to the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts Political Action Committee, on which I was one of four board members. [As a candidate, I could not be a principal officer of the PAC, but I could be on the board.]
The Libertarian Party of Massachusetts PAC was not a political party. It was a PAC, no different than that run by the physicians or by the Boston transit workers' union, created in 1997 when the LPMA lost Major Party status. After a somewhat extended negotiating session, LPMAPAC Board members agreed in early 1999 that we would appoint new board members from LAMA, they would take control of the LPMAPAC, and that two of us would leave the Board. I had some doubts about letting the eastern group take control of the LPMAPAC, when they already controlled LAMA. How many Libertarian organizations could one group of people need? We spent a lot of time voting 2-2, so my agreement was in practice necessary. I finally agreed. It seemed at the time to be the right thing to do. In retrospect, by agreeing I did enormous damage to the Libertarian movement in Massachusetts.
In 1999, Massachusetts Libertarians were presented with a serious, credible opportunity to elect a city council member in Worcester, which was then the second largest city in New England. Libertarian activist Jerry Horton, who had a long record of various sorts of community involvement, challenged do-nothing city counsel member Steve Patten. Horton assembled 100 volunteers, raised close to ten thousand dollars, and executed all the maneuvers of a serious campaign. He lost by approximately 500 votes, getting 46% of the vote in a two way race. Early on, he approached the eastern Massachusetts Libertarian establishment, looking for assistance. As the matter was described to me, Horton was not successful in establishing contact with eastern Massachusetts activists. While he was a dues-paying national Party member and a registered Libertarian, Horton never received a penny or meaningful support from the state organization. He concluded that his Libertarian registration carried only negatives. Before election day 1999 he re-registered as an 'Unenrolled' (independent) voter. While Horton is still a National party member, he has continued to distance himself from the State Party. In 2000 he voted in the Republican Presidential primary, which under Massachusetts Law enrolled him as a Republican.
Every election cycle, a substantial number of State Legislators take permanent state jobs, each legislator being replaced in a special election. In 1999, PVLA member Paul Norton ran for State Representative in a special election. Norton was one of very few Libertarians to contest a special state legislative election. He requested support from the State Party. It did not help Norton's request for funds that the state group was not trying to take advantage of special elections for open seats. The PVLA had long since quite trying to seat its representative on the LAMA State Board, so Norton had no direct voice to speak for him.
The State organizations, LPMA and LAMA, offered Norton no concrete support for his campaign other than lists of registered voters, lists that he already had from town clerks. LAMA/LPMA did ask for a campaign business plan, which Norton's campaigners spent much time writing. No money appeared. Five days before the special election, Norton's Campaign Manager suddenly received a phone call: Up to ten thousand dollars was available if he had a way to spend it. Norton's campaign had no full time staff, nor plans to accommodate such an unexpected last-second windfall. The money was declined because it was too late to spend it effectively.
At the start of 2000, the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts Board, which was also controlled by the eastern group, changed its by-laws. They added a new requirement for LAMA affiliates. As a condition for continued affiliation, they demanded that affiliates require their officers and board representative to register to vote as Libertarians. The extant PVLA By-Laws allowed any member, including people who could not legally register to vote (e.g., the Connecticut resident), to be an officer. I have heard that the LAMA Board recognized in their debate that their rule change would potentially create a difficulty with having the PVLA as an affiliate. I dutifully advised the PVLA what LAMA wanted. Indeed, as a matter of courtesy, I made the motion to amend the PVLA By-Laws as LAMA had requested.
Debate in the PVLA centered on the utility of LAMA affiliation. It did not help the motion that PVLA members recalled LAMA support for other candidates and LAMA unwillingness to seat the PVLA's representative to the LAMA Board. The requested change in PVLA By-Laws was unanimously rejected by PVLA members. The PVLA sent LAMA's Secretary a short letter noting that LAMA had changed their conditions for affiliation. Because the PVLA did not qualify under LAMA's new rules, the PVLA understood that LAMA had discontinued their affiliation with the PVLA. The PVLA never actually got a response from LAMA. Apparently affiliation was not a significant issue with LAMA, because several months later LAMA Board members had to be reminded that the PVLA had responded to LAMA's request. Indeed, at a considerably later date PVLA members began to encounter reports, not circulated by the PVLA, that the PVLA had seceded from LAMA, when in fact LAMA had withdrawn from a relationship that the PVLA had no interest in ending. Our actual letter to the LAMA Board had read:
George Phillies — Chair
87-6 Park Avenue
Worcester MA 01605
March 8, 2000
Dear LAMA Board,
The Pioneer Valley Libertarian Association has received your communication as forwarded by the LAMA Board of Directors, indicating that the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts has imposed on groups wishing to be local Chapters of LAMA a new condition, namely a requirement that:
"all Chapter Officers and the Executive Board Representative must register to vote in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as members of the Libertarian Party or the Libertarian party designation, whichever the Secretary of the Commonwealth recognizes."
At its Annual Election Meeting of March 8, 2000, the Pioneer Valley Libertarian Association considered your new condition for groups wishing to be Chapters of LAMA.
The Pioneer Valley Libertarian Association chose not to amend its By-Laws along the lines you have proposed.
We understand that you — the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts —- are therefore severing your connection with us — the Pioneer Valley Libertarian Association. We of course wish you our best with respect to our common desire to bring the Libertarian future of peace, prosperity, and freedom to the world. We remain
Yours for Liberty!
LAMA Breathes Its Last
What I had not anticipated when I left the LPMAPAC Board was that eastern Massachusetts activists would use their joint control of the LAMA and LPMAPAC Boards to destroy LAMA—the long-term LPUS affiliate—under the guise of a merger. The eastern group announced that they were going to merge the two organizations. The presentation of the merger proposal to Libertarians around the state—the author attended one of them—took the form of Eli Israel appearing and saying 'here is what we have decided to do'. His presentation was based on telling to the membership what was going to happen, rather than presenting supporting material so that LAMA members could make an informed decision. In small-party politics, the technical phrase for this approach to decision making is 'democratic centralism'.
No arguments opposing the merger were circulated to the membership. At the joint convention, as soon as each of the four merger motions was made, the same eastern Massachusetts resident rose and moved the previous question, preventing any debate at the convention on any of the four motions involved in the merger. It is not clear that debate would have made any difference, because most people at the convention had no idea that there were opposing arguments. The only permitted debate was over a point of order.
Recently, it has been learned that during this period debate on the LPMA e-mail lists, on which more anon, was also censored. Writing in a spring 2002 issue of Let Freedom Ring!, the PVLA's nationally circulated newsletter, former LNC Treasurer and Massachusetts resident Mark Tuniewicz observed:
"Regarding the censoring and closure of the LAMA email discussion list, this certainly isn't the first time this has happened. During the months leading up to the 2000 LP Convention, LPMA list-manager Muni Savyon would routinely review messages before they hit the list and delete those with political discussion that was critical of Browne, Bergland, Howell, and Cloud. I know, because it happened to my postings repeatedly. When I brought it to LPMA Chair Elias Israel's attention, he refused to take any action against Savyon. This is a extension of the national LP leadership culture that says it's OK to silence or ignore your internal LP opponents (either in email, LP News, or at events) rather than engage them in open, honest debate. It's anti-libertarian, as are those who promote it...plain & simple"
The most important consequence of the merger was buried in state election law. The LAMA state board had been elected by the membership at the annual state convention. The LPMA State Committee, one man and one woman from each State Senate district, was under state law elected during the Presidential Primary (February or so of the Presidential election year) for four year terms. These elections had taken place before the merger. Until the merger took place, the LPMA State Committee did nothing except appoint Presidential electors and, if they so chose, raise money for state party candidates. Because the Party State Committee was so unimportant, almost no one ran for it. Indeed, in 1996, no one at all ran for the LPMA State Board.
However, after the merger, the Massachusetts Libertarian organization was totally controlled by the LPMA State Board, whose regular members had run for office months earlier, back when most Libertarians Massachusetts viewed the LPMA Board as an obscure, insignificant fundraising group. Under State Law, the four year terms of State Committeemen and State Committeewomen ran until 2004. As a result, State Chair Eli Israel and the other LPMA state officers who engineered the merger had a four year lockhold on their control of the state party.
The State Board did allow supplemental election of 'Associate' members at biennial State Conventions. These elections were beauty contests. In 1998, following the state convention the Party state newsletter Mass Liberty listed addresses for 29 core party activists, ranging from the State Chair and Regional Chairs through to board members. Of these, 18 lived in Suffolk (Boston) or Middlesex (largely north from Boston) Counties, which together account for a third of the Commonwealth's registered voters. The other third of the State committee came from the other two-thirds of the state. Indeed, after counting close friends on the Committee, the Libertarian party of Massachusetts was really organized as the Libertarian Party of Middlesex County and environs. In 2002, candidates for Associate Member were not even allowed to address the convention before the election took place. The favored candidates were the people who had been written up in the Mass Liberty, the state newsletter whose editorial policies were under the control of the State Party.
The LPMA then adopted By-Laws regulating the right of Board members to vote: In order to vote, State Committee members were required to become dues-paying members of the National Party. This By-Law disenfranchised Sally Howes, the only regular State Committee member elected from western Massachusetts. Howes was registered to vote as a Libertarian, but did not belong to LPUS, so she was under the By-Laws not entitled to vote on the State Board.
2000--Progress for Massachusetts Libertarians
The 2000 elections marked a substantial step forward for Massachusetts Libertarians. Many more people were elected to local office, and nearly 20 Libertarians on the ballot for the state legislature. Ilana Freedman, candidate for State Representative in Billerica, received 25% of the vote, including 42% of the vote in her home town of Billerica, where she had been active on a variety of local Commissions. She had had a significant libertarian triumph: She had persuaded a board responsible for raising money for local industries to dissolve itself. Al Wilcox, running for State Representative, received 35% of the vote in his home town of Monson and 36% of the vote in neighboring Wales, Massachusetts. For the 2002 elections, Wales was gerrymandered out of Wilcox's District. Terry Franklin of Amherst, whose yearly Extravaganja was the second largest re-legalization festival in Massachusetts, ran as an independent, also getting a substantial fraction of the vote.
National attention within the Libertarian Party went to the U.S. Senate race. Incumbent Teddy Kennedy breezed to an unsurprisingly easy victory, winning more than 70% of the vote with a campaign in which he declined to debate his opponents. He ran almost no advertising until the final days before the election. The Republican candidate, Jack E. Robinson III, was almost knocked off the ballot in June via legal challenges against his petitions by the Democratic and Libertarian Parties. It did not help Robinson's case that a prominent Republican Party State Official denied that his apparent signature on Robinson's nominating papers was legitimate. Paul Cellucci, the sitting Republican governor, refused to say if he would vote for Robinson. Robinson's campaign came to a dead halt after the September primaries, with almost no further spending or campaign appearances in evidence.
The race also included Libertarian Carla Howell, as well as Natural Law, Constitution, and Timeshare-Dot-Com Party candidates. The Timeshare-Dot-Com candidate put himself on the ballot, personally collecting 40,000 signatures of which only 12,000 were valid. Robinson got 13% of the vote, narrowly beating Carla Howell's 12%. The Constitution Party candidate ran radio ads attacking Libertarian Howell and got 1.5% of the vote. Howell's 2000 campaign is the subject of the next chapter.
In Worcester, Jerry Horton ran again in 2001, fielding a larger campaign. In 1999 the city Democratic machine had ignored him. In 2001 they turned out a maximum effort to defeat Horton in a nominally non-partisan race. Despite their efforts, which included a letter of support from the sitting Congressman, state legislators,... Horton gained 300 votes relative to 1999, while Patten gained only 100. Patten eaked out the narrowest of victories. Horton was still a dues paying National Party member, and received substantial financial and technical support from Libertarians outside Massachusetts.
In summer 2001 Congressman Moakley of Massachusetts passed away after a long illness. Libertarian Jim Fredrickson promptly announced that he would run for the open seat. Fredrickson received substantial volunteer support from Ilana Freedman (at this date, running for U.S. Congress herself), her friends, and other Libertarians across Massachusetts, including personal contributions and petitioning support from State Chair Eli Israel and his wife. I was able to give Fredrickson extensive advice and my lists of Libertarian contacts across Massachusetts.
Fredrickson needed 2000 valid signatures on his nominating papers to get on the Libertarian Primary ballot. He collected over 6000 raw signatures. Of these, fewer than 1700 proved to be valid. The rest were signatures of Democrats, Republicans, and people not registered to vote. Fredrickson missed getting on the ballot. As I had estimated several years earlier, a Libertarian Congressional candidate in his situation needed at least 8000 raw signatures. A little math shows that with 8000 signatures, Fredrickson's ballot access would still have been a very close-run thing. With any smaller number of signatures, such as the numbers advocated from some points east of Worcester, he would have failed.
While many Libertarians worked hard to help Fredrickson, the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts did not lift a finger to help Fredrickson get on the ballot. Fredrickson received not a dollar from state coffers. The State Party had a paid staff member. In an off-season election, with no other important races underway, the staffer had other things to do that were more important to the state party than candidate support. The state party has an email announcement list. The state party's many dollar a plate hotel dinner, for a speaker on public and home schooling, appeared at the top of the list; the call for petitioning volunteers to help Fredrickson appeared near the bottom. The people controlling the state party, by running their candidates for statewide office, had enormously raised the ballot access bar for other Libertarian candidates throughout Massachusetts. With few exceptions they then made no effort to use their Party organization to help the candidates they had disadvantaged.
Your author has made a specific recommendation for Massachusetts Libertarian candidates, given the consequences of Massachusetts' odd ballot access laws. In other states, I would make very different recommendations, but I am writing in Massachusetts. At the State Representative/State Senate level, petitioning requirements are painful but tolerable, less so for candidates for State Senate than for candidates for State Representative. At higher levels, the required raw signature counts are unmanageable except for extremely expensive (by Libertarian standards) campaigns. Therefore, I have recommended that Libertarians running for higher office would be better off to re-register as independent voters, and run (as state law permits them to do) under some Liberty-related cognomen, say "Liberty Tree". The cognomen would appear on the ballot line. Any registered voter could then sign the nominating papers.
If Fredrickson had followed my recommendations, he would easily have gotten onto the ballot. He could then have been able to use his time and resources through the entire election campaign to spread our political positions and build a party organization. He instead was out of the race after the petitioning period. Unfortunately, Massachusetts ballot access laws are counterintuitive. It is usually very difficult to explain Massachusetts ballot access issues to people until they have gone through at least one ballot access cycle as a candidate or campaign staffer.
In October 2001, the PVLA invited prospective Libertarian candidates for local and Federal office to appear at its November meeting and show their wares to the Libertarian body politic. We had in attendance a State Rep candidate, two State Senate candidates, three prospective and former Libertarian candidates for U.S. Congress, and in the end a volunteer to run for Governor's Council. Several Libertarians sent notices of the meeting to activists@lpma.org, the LPMA activist e-list. The announcements told Libertarian Party activists of an opportunity to meet and assess Libertarian Party candidates well before petitioning began. The list moderator refused to transmit the announcement, despite requests from several members of the LPMA State Board that he do so. The pretext was that the PVLA was not an affiliate of LPMA. However, when members of the State Board had spoken at other non-Party events their activities were regularly announced.
Craig Matthias's State Representative Campaign
In October 2001, Libertarian activist Craig Matthias ran for State Representative in a special election in the Ashland-Framingham district. Matthias had a long record of community activism, including elected terms on the Town Finance Committee and the Town Selectboard (including serving as Chair, a post analogous to Town Mayor in some other parts of the United States). He ran a vigorous campaign, extensively supported by individual Libertarians across the state. In a three-way race in a heavily-contested district, Matthias finished third with 10% of the vote. This is not a winning percentage, but it is much better than most Libertarian candidates do in three-way races.
Matthias did receive $500 from the State Party, much less than the State Party could legally have provided him. Similarly, in 2000, Congressional candidate David Euchner received $1500 from the State Party, much less than the support given by the state and National parties to the Howell Senate campaign. This very limited support for Libertarian candidates was explained by State Chair Eli Israel in my presence at the Arizona LP convention in January 2002. Israel described a desire by the State Party not to create candidates who are hothouse plants depending on the State Party for their money, unable to survive without Party support. Despite this alleged policy, when in 2000 the Howell Campaign ran into petitioning problems, Israel and his State Board gave the Howell Campaign thousands of dollars.
Matthias's campaign made two requests of Carla Howell, who the previous year had been the Party's candidate for U.S. Senate. The first was for a list of Ashland-Framingham locations that had accepted Howell lawn signs, on the reasonable assumption that many of these locations would also be available for other Libertarian candidates. The request, Matthias's campaign chair David Euchner reported, was declined on the grounds that lawn sign locations were viewed by the Howell organization as proprietary information. The second request was that Howell endorse Matthias, preferably by appearing in Ashland at an event. Ashland is only a few miles from Howell's home town of Wayland. Howell also turned down the second request.
On January 2, 2002, Matthias resigned from the LPMA State Board, to which he had been elected less than two years previously. He also left the State Party, changing his voter registration from Libertarian to Unenrolled. At last report, he remains a member of the National Party. Writing in Let Freedom Ring! in early 2002, Matthias made a public statement about these changes. His core remarks included:
"...while my political beliefs have not changed, I no longer believe that the Libertarian Party is the right vehicle to reach the goals we all share...Part of my thinking here revolves around the various scandals that have damaged our reputation, and part of it comes from the rather rigid orthodoxy of those who lead the (especially Massachusetts) party at the moment. I spent many years as a party activist, and as a Libertarian serving in both appointed and elected office...While not all of my personal beliefs are hard-core Libertarian, I remain committed to the cause of freedom. So why leave the Party?
"One...I need time to think, and to recharge my batteries. But my primary reasons for leaving the Party derive from a number of experiences during my recent run for State Representative. And that leads me to Carla Howell...The party needs lots of people, with a variety of skills, in many, many roles. We must tolerate our individual differences on issues if the Party is to grow.. Sadly, I concluded that the LPMA is not a big tent, it is not about the business of broadening membership, and it is not a growing, vibrant political force. It is a club, and perhaps even a cult - without, of course, the kool-aid, but with the same cliquish behavior that typifies that of many a third-grade playground.
"At the state convention last year, Carla and I spoke of...building on the momentum of our respective activities. Imagine my surprise, [a few months after the state convention], she refused to provide an endorsement to my campaign...I was further surprised that the Howell campaign would not provide my campaign with a list of locations within my district that previously sported Howell lawn signs...
"I started to think...and came to two conclusions. First, I believe Carla saw me (legitimately, I might add) as a potential competitor for higher office....The lack of support from Carla, and the LPMA in general, was at the very least disheartening. This is not in any way meant as a slight to the individual Libertarians who worked very hard on my campaign. But the LPMA really didn't seem to see this as the opportunity that it was, and I believe Carla was more than a little influential here.
"The other conclusion had more serious repercussions. As I noted, I am not a rigid Libertarian. I also believe in gradualism... from Carla's literature, she expects to be elected and then become not governor, but in fact queen, simply "shredding" every law in sight that isn't 100% in compliance with her vision of Libertarian orthodoxy.
"... That's small-tent thinking, and the LPMA (and the LP in general) will never become a force in Massachusetts or American politics with such an approach at the forefront... Rigid orthodoxy is the wrong approach, and the wrong vision for the LPMA....All-or-nothing positions (and this includes the Small Government Act) are doomed to failure...
"I'm going to predict here that Carla will be utterly humiliated in the Governor's race. She did well against a weak Republican in the Senate contest (and, as weak as he was, he still beat her), but against strong Democratic and Republican candidates this year, she will get creamed...."
Silencing general@lpma.org
How did Massachusetts Libertarians take to this range of opinions as to how a Libertarian Party organization ought to be advanced? In fact, most of them were unaware that there was any disagreement. The Massachusetts email lists, as noted above, did not always carry a full range of Libertarian opinions. Many Massachusetts Libertarians appear to receive their information from the email lists maintained by the Browne and Howell Campaign Committees. These lists are not focused on telling their readers of the diversity of Libertarian opinions that exist. Massachusetts activists regularly encounter readers of these email lists who are surprised to learn that they have not been reading the official party email list.
Until February 2002, interested Massachusetts Libertarians did have access to the state list general@lpma.org, which gave substantially unmoderated coverage of Massachusetts events to its few readers. (The much more widely read list activists@lpma.org was heavily moderated.) In February 2002 the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts shut down general@lpma.org. The proximate cause were letters on the general@ list giving URLs for an article by Steve Trinward in Rational Review (www.rationalreview.com) and for an article by John Gregg in the Sunday, February 3 issue of MetroWest Daily (http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/waylhowell02032002.htm.) MetroWest Daily is one of the more-widely-circulated newspapers in Massachusetts
After questions were raised within the LPMA State Board as to the list’s fate, State Vice Chair Kamal Jain explained the events in a message sent to the LPMA State Board and forwarded to me by friends:
“From: Kamal Jain <kamal@marathon1.com
To: <statecomm@lpma.org
Subject: General List
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 12:26:08 -0500
Fellow State Committee Members:
The General list has been officially shut down at my request and under my authority. For years there has been an ongoing debate over keeping the list around. The decision to shut it down was made for business reasons, among them:
1. Numerous activists and donors have been chased away by some of the content that has been posted to that list over the years, hence harming the party. This is not theoretical. Specific damage to candidates and the party has taken place because of slander and misbehavior on the General list.
2. The list generated nothing positive or of value to the party.
Furthermore, the list was de-facto sanctioned by the state party since it was "@lpma.org"—and we cannot be a party to the lies, misrepresentations, and slander that appeared on the General list.
- kamal
Kamal Jain
Executive Director & Vice Chairman
Libertarian Party of Massachusetts”
Why was the list shut down? Writing on ma-liberty@.yahoogroups, long-time LP activist Howard Pearce asserted:
“The general e-list of the MA LP has been shut down due to financial concerns for the Howell Campaign. Apparently the campaign lost contributors/supporters shortly after an e-zine article by Steve Trinward at www.rationalreview .com and a negative piece appearing in the Metro West of the Herald a couple of days later. In order to help suppress a possible discussion of these issues, the general list was closed.”
Gregg had reported that Carla Howell and Michael Cloud each received $12,000 in consulting and other fees in 2001 from their referendum Committee for Small Government, out of Committee income of over $233, 000.
Long-time LP activist David Euchner, whose quotes enlivened Trinward’s article, noted Jain's remarks: “For years there has been an ongoing debate over keeping the list around.”, and answered: “I don't doubt that there has in fact been a debate. One behind closed doors.”
National controversy about the LPMA’s actions arose immediately Writing on the masslp list, long time Massachusetts activist Jim Sullivan wrote:
“My opinion, as a former chair of LPMA and multi-term member of the state committee, is that a free exchange of ideas will help the person or people who can most eloquently present the case, and shutting down any avenue of free speech is a bad thing.
I fear no slander. I fear no lie. I fear nothing that another person might write, truthful or otherwise. I can always answer the questions and address the arguments, in an open forum, so long as that forum remains truly open - not coerced or limited, whether by those on the side of the supposed truth or on the side of the supposed lie.
We are, in the majority, reasonably intelligent individuals. We may differ in our opinions, but we rarely resort to outright fabrications. I think the shutting down of a means of communication, whatever the supposed good reasons for doing so, smacks of the same sort of control wished for by the anti-tobacco, anti-firearm, anti-free speech crowds. I'm sure that the intention isn't as vicious (I think Kamal is a good man, and an honest man), but the end result is just as bad. Having said that... Who owns the server? LPMA, as an entity? Or an individual? The final answer on whether or not to shut down belongs to the owner, not the users.”
And what was the campaign about which news was being reported? It was Carla Howell's campaign for U.S. Senate, to be described in the next Chapter.
Appendix: Massachusetts Election Law
Every state has its own election laws, with their own features and quirks. To understand the electoral significance of Major Party Status, we have to consider a slew of details. This section treats the election laws of Massachusetts.
With some regularity, I get messages, always from the same sources, saying that this Appendix is incorrect because the Massachusetts laws I describe are inconsistent with the Eu decision. However the Eu decision only affected California law. To make that decision applicable—if it is—to Massachusetts Law, someone would have to litigate to have the laws struck down. No one has done so. Until then, the following is a correct description of the Massachusetts Laws that actually are on the books and are actually being enforced. I will not describe the fantasy laws that might come into existence in the hypothetical case that someone litigated against Massachusetts Laws, and won.
Massachusetts recognizes minor political parties (called "Party Designations") and Major Political Parties. Party Designation status is obtained by petition. The would-be party submits a petition signed by at least 50 registered voters, and receives Party Designation status. Party Designation status means that a central count is kept of the numbered of voters enrolled under that designation, not that there is a legal permission to register with the designation. In Massachusetts, any voter may register ("enroll") as the member of any party. Under Massachusetts Law, any candidate may place a label of up to three words (Recall Mr. Ferguson, who ran with the label "Larouche Was Right") by his name on the ballot.
Major Party Status is obtained if (1) the Party has enrolled at least 1% of the registered voters in the state, or (2) any of the Party's candidates received at least 3% of the vote in the most recent statewide election. In recent memory, only the Democrats and Republicans have had enough registered voters. Several Parties, including Libertarian, Green, and Reform, have received enough votes to qualify as a major party through the next election cycle. With Major Party Status, the Party's name appears on the Voter Registration form, so that people can enroll in the party by checking a box.
It is important to understand that in Massachusetts Major Party status makes it substantially harder to put candidates on the ballot. This circumstance is the opposite of that found in many other states, where Major Party Status makes it easier to get candidates on the ballot. The core issue is that in Massachusetts all candidates go on the ballot by petition. There are "nominating conventions", but these conventions are decorative, not functional.
Why is Major Party Status a disadvantage? The signature count requirements are exactly the same for all candidates. For example, to run for State Representative, you need 150 valid signatures, no matter if you are a Democrat or an independent. If you are running with a Party Designation, any registered voter may sign your petition. However, if you are running as a Major Party candidate, registered voters enrolled in other major parties are not allowed to sign your petition. The restriction on Major-Party candidates effectively doubles or more the number of signatures that a small-major-party candidate needs to collect in order to have enough valid signatures, relative to the number of signatures that a Democrat needs to collect.
I said "petition". In different states, petitions are very different. In some states, a petition page lists a slate of candidates from a District, each voter signs a separate page, and each signature counts toward all those candidates. In Massachusetts, each candidate must circulate his own nominating papers, which only count toward his candidacy. When I ran for Congress, I needed my 2000 signatures, the 4 or so State Senate candidates in my district each needed their 1200 signatures, and the 16 or so State Representative candidates each needed their 150 valid signatures.
Worse yet, Massachusetts has a substantial history of using its election laws and the September Primary election to knock small-major-party candidates out of the race, Under these laws, a small-major-party that put its candidate on the September Primary Ballot can be left with no candidate whatsoever on the ballot in the General election. The path to this predicament is straightforward. The large Major Party seeking to eliminate a small-major-party candidate from the ballot waits until the Summer before the election. It then re-registers a very small number of its faithful members as members of that small party, or lines up the "Unenrolled" (other states would call them "Independent") registered voters of its support groups. Come the September Primary, these people go to the polling place, take a small-major-party ballot, and write in a straw candidate, or the candidate of the large major party, rather than voting for the candidate of the small major party.
If the write-in candidate wins [this has happened at the U.S. Congress level], he has two choices. He can accept the nomination, in which case he gets a second party designation under his name. He can decline the nomination, in which case under State Law the small-major-party ballot line is left blank. In neither case can the small major party put its own candidate back on the ballot.
Furthermore, Party Designations may govern themselves as they see fit, but Major Parties are mandatorily governed by State Committeemen and State Committeewomen elected for four-year terms during the Presidential Primary by the registered voters in each State Senate District. Under current State Law, this governance requirement would permit a large-major-party to elect its own puppets to a majority of the State Committee posts of the small major party, and convert the Small Major Party to its puppet.
In Massachusetts, Major Party status thus makes it much harder to petition to get candidates on the ballot. Major Party status makes it much easier for other major parties to make those candidates go away before November. Major Party Status does not change how or where a candidate's name and Party Designation appears on any ballot. In 1998, when we were a Party Designation and not a Major Party, I ran for U.S. Congress. My ballot line read "George Phillies—Libertarian".