2024 LPKS State Convention Recap
The bad news is that I almost missed a blog post this month. I always write around the 15th of the month and last week I was absolutely swamped with getting things ready for our state convention. The good news is that going forward I will have way more time to pour into this beloved space!
I have served as the marketing director for our state libertarian party since 2020. In that time I have seen three state chairs come and go. I have created from the ground up our Instagram presence (999 followers) and our email newsletter (1,100 subscribers). I also redid our entire website and was ready to install a new CRM. Outside of marketing tasks, there were so many other administrative tasks I had to do. For example, I took care of getting our mailbox renewed every year (meanwhile our state chair doesn’t even have a party debit card). I have also served on the convention planning committee for the last few years as well as the bylaw committee this year. These are thankless positions anyway, but they were especially hard to do the past couple years.
Let me tell you just a few of the most frustrating parts of convention, which happened before we even got to the banquet room. Early on we had a couple vendor requests that I felt uncomfortable with. One was for the “Libertarians for RFK” group and the other was from a local gal who famously left the party while claiming she was now a republican. She wanted to bring her podcast and while it gave me pause, the rest of the committee seemed to think both were okay as they were paying customers. Later on, I got an email from someone wanting to place an ad in our attendee packets. We have had flyers in the packets in the past, just never for a fee. I asked the packet committee how they thought it should all work logistically and passed along the information to the advertiser. I did ask what the ad was for, but they didn’t answer. I assumed it was an ad for our national convention in DC or at the most promoting one presidential candidate over the others, but again it’s not really my job to discriminate. A few days before the convention I received a picture of the flier from the packet committee. I didn’t really read it then, just did a quick skim to see that they didn’t mention any people or organizations by name and moved on with all the other stuff I had to do. This flier will come back up later.
Another frustrating moment was when we needed to find a timekeeper for our business session. Another gal on the convention committee was doing this task during the presidential forum. When I tried to confirm that she’d keep up the task for our business session she replied she would not be doing that because she had “responsibilities to the caucus during business.” And this is the crux of my frustration with people in the Mises Caucus and has been from the very beginning. They value their club over the actual party. In no way, shape, or form is running individual caucus business more important than running the yearly party business that keeps us existing as a state party.
Later on in the convention that same girl told the entire convention floor that going over proposed bylaw and platform amendments was “optional.” Not only is that untrue and disrespectful to those committees, but it misrepresents what I know to be true of a large portion of our party members. I tried to explain this to our chair when we were discussing the order of business for the day so let me state it here plain and clear: what the party actually represents is more important to us than who is representing us.
Going into this convention I knew I was running for the open Vice Chair position. For my nomination speech I laid out how it’s the best role for me, because it allows me to continue with marketing efforts. I expressed that I wanted to expand the marketing team, that I want to focus on our IT needs as well as bringing in professional leadership training and mentoring for our Executive Committee. I explained that I value everyone in the party regardless of caucus and pleaded that we have more grace, compassion, and kindness with each other going forward. At this point the no-time-keeping-bylaw-optional gal and a Mises bro, who we literally only see once a year, took it upon themselves to say that somehow the flier in the attendee packet was my way of “alienating half the party.” This is absolute rubbish. I did my job as marketing director and guess what? Now you don’t have one.
All things considered, who Vice Chair is is not what party members should be the most concerned about. Party members should be concerned about the Mises Caucus actively working to weaken state parties. For proof of this all you need to do is look at how they systematically voted down every decent bylaw/platform proposal. There were a handful of bylaw proposals that came directly from our state treasurer. He is someone who has never let us down and knows political book keeping like the back of his hand. He told everyone that we needed to streamline our name throughout our bylaws and add verbiage that made it easier for us to incorporate in the future. These changes were to set us up for success and growth, but sure, let’s vote those down based on absolutely nothing of substance.
Later, they butchered a long standing plank that will cause us to lose one of our coalition partners. They claimed it was because of “bold messaging.” But guess what? Bold messaging doesn’t get bills passed. They have absolutely no clue what it takes to make progress in the Kansas legislature.
Finally, we wanted to add a 60 day requirement for some of our party member positions. We added this change because at National Convention in 2022 we had two folks that attended as our delegates who it turns out were not registered Libertarians. They told us at the door they had just done it online, but that was a lie we were able to confirm once we were at national. They took up two seats that could have gone to other Kansas Libertarians. This was a real problem with a real solution proposed - that was shot down.
The question you should be asking is why? Why weaken state parties? Why leave bylaws and platforms and judicial committees purposefully vague and ineffective? Why are they hell bent on pushing a bad presidential candidate? Why aren’t they more concerned with states losing ballot access? Sometimes the simplest answer is the most likely: because they want state parties to go under. They want the easiest path to sabotage.
I will not abandon my party. I still believe we have the purest political philosophy and that fighting for freedom is worth it. But I won’t associate with anyone who thinks this group and their actions are okay. I’ll be focusing on my senate race and my local government. I’ll be in DC to take a stand and I look forward to seeing others doing the same. Stay tuned for campaign events, local mixers, and more opportunities to work towards freedom together!
XO - Olivia
