From: "Jason Auvenshine" <auvenj@mailcity.com>
Rick (and Haggard),
On Sun, 13 Feb 2000 08:59:12 Rick Tompkins/Kathy Harrer wrote:
>At 05:56 PM 2/12/00 -0700, you wrote:
>> "Libertarian Party" name, which is owned by the national LP.
>
>No, it isn't, to the best of my knowledge. If I recall correctly, they
>failed to "protect" it from "unauthorized use" a few years ago (in re their
>cease and desist letter to,
>guess who? Schmerl & Co. a few years ago) at which time I believe their
>legal counsel admitted that they could not prevent anyone from using the name.
I suspect you are right but I got the impression that they weren't going to take "no" for an answer. In other words, if National won't pursue it, they might try to get national to allow them to pursue it as agents, or gosh knows what else. Zajac did most of the talking...Peter was rather subdued on the topic. I'm sure you all know even better than I that they aren't afraid to go to court even when the outcome is far from certain. At the very least I expect ALP will get a demand letter similar to the one they got five years ago, and lawsuits would not surprise me.
On the topic laughing your arse off at John Zajac, now that I'm out of "unbiased reporter" mode, I'll say you'd have died laughing at how much of a stickler for procedure the guy was. I thought he was that way at the April convention just because it was part of Peter and his strategy and everything was so contentious. But today he kept raising points of order against a chairman he supported on issues everyone clearly agreed on. I mean, whatever happended to "Let's do _____. Any discussion? No? OK, All in favor..." It took us quite a while just to get the damn meeting open! Lots of people rolling their eyes and snickering...Who knows, maybe he was just "illustrating absurdity by being absurd".
--Jason Auvenshine