just love this years libertarian conventions. for the 1st time in history the arizona libertarian party held a legal convention in phoenix, and in january as provided by title 16 of arizona law. of course we only did it because peter schmerl sued us and got the court to order us to have our conventions in january, and in the city of phoenix as required by arizona election law.
both the alp and alp inc conventions were held on sat jan 27, 2001 in phoenix on about 52nd street in elliot.
arizona election law requires political parties to hold their conventions in the city of phoenix and during the month of january. so of course in the past the arizona libertarian party (alp) held its convention in any month but january (usually april) and in any city but phoenix. the 2000 convention was in prescott, the 1999 convention in tuscon, and the 1998 convention in tempe. this years convention was held in phoenix and in january only because peter schmerl and his alp inc sued alp and got a judge to demand that alp obey state election law.
note:alp is reconized by the state of arizona as the official libertarian party, and was reconized by the national libertarian party as the offical arizona libertarian party until aug 1999. alp inc is reconized by the national libertarian party but not the state of arizona.
alp held its convention at the hotel on the north side of the street. the time was from 1:00pm till 4:00pm, but the convention was extended till about 5:00pm. alp only held this convention because the government thugs forced us to. the official alp convention will probably be in flagstaff in april.
alp inc, thats alp followed by the word inc held its convention on the south side of elliot from i think 1:30pm till 5:00 pm but they overstayed and i left at about 5:30pm. alp inc is the libertarian party in arizona reconized by the national libertarian party. the arizona government while it reconized them does not give them ballot access.
miked dugger and liz a opened the alp convention. but oddly the only people who could vote at it were 4 alp inc members from tucson who showed up. a young lady i think named ingred, jason a, ted glen, and a guy i had not met before. this is because they are precint committe members in pima county. (libertarians in maricopa county were not allowed to run for the office of precient committe members)
they were told that under state law and the by laws of alp they could not elect any people to the party that were involved in suing the alp, or who were officers of another political party such as alp inc.
they voted to suspend the convention till 3:30pm or when the alp inc convention ended which ever was earllier.
jason, ted glenn, and the other guy came back at about 4:30 and we resumed the convention.
they nominated peter schmerl for the alp party head and were told that was not allowed because
1) peter schmerl is suing alp 2) peter schmerl is an officer of the alp inc a political party that is different from alp
the alp convention ended with no officers elected. mainly because the only people who were allowed to vote under state law who are also members of a competing political party alp inc refused to nominate any offices that could serve.
one other nice thing happened at the alp convention. we got to tell these alp inc members that peter schmerl has sued a number of alp members with meritless lawsuits. and that the alp has never sued that alp inc or any of the alp inc members. the alp inc members always though it was the other way because peter told them that the alp was suing alp inc, which is a lie.
while nothing much happened at the alp convention the alp inc convention was different. and it seems that peter schmerl has a large faction in his group that want to end his fighting with maricopa county and get a unified arizona libertarian party, but but dont have enough votes to do it.
this faction seems to be led by jason, and ted, and ingred. jason was elected to one chairman post in a 18 to 17 vote. both schmerl and zajac urged the people to vote for the other guy. but jason won. jason is a member of the alp party and him becomming an officer of another political party will force him to resign from being a alp officer.
but im sure jason will continue to work to with both alp and alp inc to end the party fighting. jason is probably the best thing to educate the people in tucson on how alp operates. were not the evil folks schmerl paints us as. and if you talk to us you will find that out.
ted was nonimated for several offices but did not win any. but he did not lose badly either showing peter is losing support. in an intersting speach peter schmerl said he would step down if ted was elected and demanded the the people at the convention elect people he supports.
peter schmerl ran unopposed for the alp inc party chairman but in an amazing vote only received 25 votes with 11 people voting to abstain and not vote (i think thats the correct numbers but i was not there for that vote so im winging it). the alp inc does not allow people to vote for NOTA or None of the Above which is allowed at all other libertarian party conventions.
several other interesting things surfaced at the convention. zajac a tucson and pima county resident says he is registered to vote in maricopa county which is where phoenix is. since maricopa county no longer has ballot status that would make him inelligable to vote at his alp inc convention since only pima county has ballot access.
im not sure if zajac voted at his partys convention. but if he did it would be illegal. since he is now for voter registration a resident of maricopa county that means he cant possibly be a pima county precint committe member. and since maricopa county libertarian voter registration has dropped below the threshold level maricopa county libertarians are not allowed to elect precint committe members. so zajac certainly aint a maricopa county precint county member. and he mentions that at the convention that maricopa county has no precient committe members.
also we found out that schmerl has made it almost impossible to change the alp inc's bylaws. to do that they must have 100% of its voters physically present and voting at the convention. no proxy voting is allowed to change the bylaws. at this convention there were about 18 proxy votes. jason had 6 proxys, the guy who is elected to the pima community college district had 9 proxy votes.
jason interduced a resolution to help stop the phoenix/tucson fighting which would make it harder for peter schmerl to continue suing us libertarians who live in the phoenix area of maricopa county.
the resolution to stop peter and zajac from filing lawsuits and require the a vote to be taken and a lawsuit could only be filed if a majority of the party board members approved of it.
the resolution passed at the pima county alp inc meeting in tucson. but at 5:30 when i left it had not been interduced to the convention. hopefully jason will get it interduced, voted on and passed. if we can stop peter schmerl and zajac from suing us phoenix folks that will be a great way to mend the arizona libertarian party rift.
also their is the kat gallant question. one of the alp inc members had proxys from kat gallant to vote. someone said that kat had parted from the alp inc. (either way i will state that kat gallant is a good libertarian. i though her run for governor was great. and her freedom march across the usa on horseback until government goons stole her horses in the south was also great. kat was the only person running for governor who was a fugitive. some government goons in a southern state arrested her for animal crueality and stole her horses ending here march across america).