Originally Posted in the December 2003 edition of Libertarian Strategy Gazette

A Program for a National Chair:

What do we need in a Chair? A Libertarian National Committee

(LNC) Chair needs to know how to run meetings and adhere to Rules of Order. As a professor active in faculty governance, I’ve done that under difficult circumstances. An LNC Chair and Party CEO must understand that the Libertarian Party is a voluntary organization, not except for a very few employees a hierarchical corporation. Corporate management techniques (not to be confused with honest accounting procedures) routinely fail catastrophically in volunteer groups. I’ve seen these failures at close range.

The next LNC Chair needs to purge the LNC meeting practices that helped give the National Party its Decade of Stagnation. The notion that LNC members are there to write management guidelines, but not to get their hands dirty in the shop by doing real work, needs to come to an end. Party

Members need to contribute to this end when they decide who to elect to the next National Committee. The notion

that an agenda should sometimes leave mission critical items to late in the meeting (see the December 2001 meeting for an example) should also go. The National Committee should focus on doing politics.

Finally, the LNC Chair is our Party CEO. Potential Chairs should explain what the Party should do.

So, what should the LNC be doing? I offer a twelve step plan, substantially from my book Stand Up For Liberty!

( http://3mpub.com/phillies )

In short:

(1) Subcommittee Structure for the LNC

(2) Candidate Support material

(3) National-scale projects

(4) Ballot access support

(5) Incite activism and volunteerism

(6) Libertarian affinity groups

(7) Party Newsletter for politics; legitimate libertarian news papers for outreach.

(8) Make the Party a group people want to join.

(9) Move the National headquarters out of Washington.

(10)-12) That would be telling. You’ll have to read the rest of the article.

First, subcommittee structure. An eighteen (see footnote 1) member board that is any good has working subcommittees. The LNC has a very few. It should get substantially more of them. To send a message to LNC members, ‘subcommittees’ should be called ‘working groups’. Working

Groups exist to do work between national committee meetings.

Obvious Working Groups for the LNC are Elections, Political Action, Outreach, Fundraising, Membership, and Operations. Operations should have internal Working Groups for Budget and Finance, Conventions, Information, and Audit (We have a few of these now.) Some working groups should mostly be people who are not National Committee

members. Note that when I proposed which Working Groups we need I deliberately listed the Groups that would do real political activities first, and the Groups that will shuffle paper later.

What do the proposed Working Groups do?

Elections recruits candidates at the Federal level, and encourages and supports candidates running for office. Why do Democrats and Republicans reliably have strong Senate candidates? Because when conditions get tough, they can count on the President, Speaker of the House,… to get on the telephone and motivate people of their party to run for

office. Our National Chair should do the same.

Political Action supports all other sorts of political action, including Referenda, Web Sites, Rallies and Demonstrations, and effective Street Theater.

Outreach includes Affinity Group formation, letters to the editor, speakers’ bureaus, the publication of prolibertarian legitimate newspapers,…

Membership covers recruitment and retention, arranges for novel membership benefits, generates lists of volunteers for various tasks,…

Second, the National Party should develop and distribute extensive candidate support materials. Actually, I’ve already done that. With material from Libertarians around the country, and the assistance of Bonnie Scott, I produced a Candidate Support CD ROM. Some of you already have

one. If you were or will be a candidate, you have but to ask me for a copy. I proposed this in 2002. However, I did not just talk. I made it happen.

Third, some activities are best done by the National Party. The LNC should foster cooperation with other libertarian groups, including educational and publishing organizations. The LNC is well-placed for lobbying and press relations. Libertarian lobbyists may lose, but lobbying puts ideas before the press and the public.

Fourth, the LNC should support ballot access efforts in the fifty states. Many people have committed to us by voting for our candidates. To retain these people as supporters, they need the chance to Vote Libertarian! in every election. While many state parties are reasonably expected to gain ballot access by themselves, in a few states the requirements are so onerous as to be beyond the reach of the local state party. The National Party should help them. (However, the LNC should also think about its acts. In the past, the LNC has spent tens of thousands of dollars on “ballot access” projects that made ballot access worse for the recipient.)

Fifth, some activities are equally important for National, State, and Local Libertarian groups. The LNC should incite activism by encouraging members to run for office, to work on Libertarian campaigns, and to volunteer to build a strong party. The National Party should consistently ask members to volunteer their time, not just their pocketbooks, should track potential volunteers, and should see that volunteer lists reach local organizers who use the information. The National Party should strive to develop a stronger voter base, for example by encouraging local campaigns and referenda.  The National Party should do outreach to put our message in front of voters. The National Party should do legitimate fundraising for sound projects, and account to the members on how their gifts were spent. The National Party should do good information management, so activists can find each other. Federal, State, and Local groups should all do these, with National doing its fair share.

Sixth, the National Party should help develop libertarian affinity groups. An affinity group has members with common interests. Affinity groups include the National Rifle Association and the National Educational Association. With great uniformity, each affinity group supports only one political party. An affinity group may also have important non-political activities. The Libertarian Party has had past successes creating affinity groups. Our DefendYourPrivacy web site was a civil liberties protective organization focused on a single issue of banking privacy. Affinity groups that develop their own clientele, members, and officers, so that they support our candidates without needing continued National party intervention, are preferable.

Seventh, the National Party newspaper should focus more on activist incitement and support. Non-Party libertarian legitimate newspapers, such as the excellent Free Liberal described by Dr. Milsted, should discuss Libertarian policies and how they will benefit America. Web printing is cheap.

The National Party usefully supports good non-party newspapers by arranging for copies to go to the membership as a membership benefit. The LNC should create a support fund to pay for sending libertarian legitimate newspapers to schools and public libraries, coffee houses, and old age homes, among other places, across America.

Eighth, membership recruitment and growth will occur when we have a strong party. We cannot build a strong party by recruiting members. When the Libertarian Party does well, when our candidates are heard with respect and draw serious vote totals, Americans will flock to join us. Bulk mail recruiting letters sent to rented lists are a waste of money. For a bigger party, first create a better party.

Ninth, the National Headquarters should leave Washington. I am proposing that we move far from DC, not to a suburb. We pay well over $30 per year per square foot for our current space (see footnote 2), or close to $100,000 per year. In New Hampshire, comparable space is $4-8. Moving to New Hampshire would save the National Party $75,000 per year, roughly enough over a four year cycle to pay for 50-state ballot access. Furthermore, DC has

an extremely high cost of living. The pay scales that give marginal middleclass life in DC will give a far higher standard of living when paid in other parts of the country, letting us afford a superior staff.

Notes: Consider Branch headquarters in major tourist locations, so that the party faithful can visit while the children are on the roller coaster. Our lease means we probably cannot move in less than several years. And if you read claims that I want to shut down the National Headquarters, well, it’s not true.

You’ll notice that I just listed a twelve step plan with nine steps. That’s not an accident. I have my nine steps, because I’ve listened to lots of Party members from around the country. The other three steps are waiting for all of you to create.. That’s my last change in the way the National party is run. I think that members from all around the country have good ideas for us.

http://3mpub.com/phillies

(1) Actually, read the Bylaws:

The number is _not_ fixed at exactly eighteen, but other values are less likely.

(2) Or so an LNC member told me, and the rent and space match.