Daily Archives: July 13, 2022

On stage at the Libertarian National Convention in Reno in May, Caryn Ann Harlos put her head in her hands and cried...not tears of sorrow, but of relief and joy. She had just been reelected national party secretary after being ousted a year before during a time of internal fracturing.

The Castle Rock Libertarian, who is known for her electric pink hair and Statue of Liberty crown, had found herself in the middle of a schism over the direction the party should take.

She discovered the Libertarian Party in 2014, a year after she moved to Castle Rock from Florida to be with a man shed met online and would soon marry. After she used the word libertarian in a debate on Facebook, she realized that she didnt actually know what the word meant. She looked it up, and ended up on the Libertarian Party website. As she read the platform, it clicked instantly that this was what shed been looking for in a political party; she considered herself a RINO because she was a registered Republican but had never really participated in politics.

I literally changed my mind within a space of fifteen minutes, Harlos recalls. All I did was read the platform and say, Holy crap, this makes sense. And I switched my voter registration on the spot.

Harlos has always been liberal on social issues, but has never approved of what she sees as oppressive government intervention. There was space for both of those positions in the Libertarian Party.

She soon threw herself into the party. Her husband, Wayne Harlos, became a Libertarian the year after she did; before that, hed considered himself part of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. Together they formed the Libertarian Party of Douglas County in 2016, the year she was first elected as Region 1 representative to the Libertarian National Committee. She served as the secretary of the Libertarian Party of Colorado; Wayne is currently the state party chair.

And then she decided to go for a national office. A paralegal and registered parliamentarian, Harlos is an expert on parliamentary procedure and Roberts Rules of Order; she thought those qualifications made her a perfect fit to serve as national secretary. She was elected in 2018, then ran again in 2020. At the time, the upstart Mises Caucus was advocating that the party leave behind its recent, pragmatist past and advocate for an end to government interference in economics, localization and single-issue coalitions to achieve policy goals.

Harlos was sympathetic to that position. But then she discovered that a certain faction of the party considered her very much out of order.

They decided to start their own political party, gathering others who felt the same way and holding a press conference announcing the formation of the Libertarian Party in January 1972. That year, the first Libertarian National Convention was held in Denver.

The party took off fast. By 1980, it was on the presidential ballot in all fifty states. Today its the third biggest political party in the United States, with 2.4 million voters registered nationally as of October 2021. Colorado had 42,000 registered Libertarians as of 2020.

The party stands for individualism and opposes any form of government intervention; as a result, it shares beliefs with both the Democratic and Republican parties. For example, Libertarians have long supported gay marriage, decreasing the prison population and ending foreign intervention in wars, all positions that align closely with liberal ideals. But the party also supports limited federal government, abolishing taxation, and unregulated economic activity, items that align closely with conservative ideals.

To gain traction, at times the party has leaned toward a more pragmatic approach to national politics, emphasizing parts of the platform that are more agreeable to the masses particularly Republican masses such as less taxation and smaller government rather than the ideological purity of no taxes at all.

Mary-Kate Lizotte, a professor of political science in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University in Georgia, co-authored a 2021 paper titled Understanding the appeal of libertarianism: Gender and race differences in the endorsement of libertarian principles; she says she suspects that the pragmatist wing of the Libertarian Party leans Republican because it prioritizes individualism and lack of government interference over its other values.

Democrats also often largely endorse that idea of a meritocracy and self-reliance as well; they just happen to prioritize egalitarianism over that individualism, and I think with Libertarians, its just the opposite, Lizotte says. Theyre more in line with the Republican Party, which also tends to prioritize individualism.

The party member who gained the most recognition from that pragmatist approach was presidential nominee Gary Johnson, who won 4 percent of the popular vote in the 2016 election. On the other side of the spectrum was Ron Paul, the partys 1988 nominee, who advocated for ideological purity rather than chasing mass appeal.

Gary Johnson during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Devines research found that, in general, those who voted Libertarian werent as radical as the partys platform. But looking back on it now, he says that his 2020 analysis almost feels like an obituary because of the ways that the party has changed since then.

Maybe this is just a brief detour and then they come back to where they were, Devine adds, but to the extent that this is a lasting change, it seems like a major shift in the party and a real break from the first fifty years.

At the heart of the change is the Mises Caucus. Named after the Mises Institute, a Libertarian think tank in Alabama that follows the Austrian economics principles of its namesake, Ludwig von Mises, the Libertarian Mises Caucus was founded by Michael Heise in 2017. Its political action committee has raised $356,000 in 2022 alone, according to the nonprofit OpenSecrets.

Some caucus members consider themselves part of a radical arm, swooping in to save a party that doesnt know what it is anymore. But while Libertarian Party membership seems to be leaning more intensely toward ideological purity, Devine points out that Ron Paul remains the father of the movement.

What it reminds us, really, is that the Libertarian Party has not been one thing throughout fifty-plus years, Devine says. Theres always been some fluctuation between the relative strength of different movements within the party. Im not saying this is just the same thing all over again; I think it is a shift, but to anyone who thinks that this is just an alien force taking over the party, I would say there are some deeper roots.

The pandemic and resulting lockdowns and mask mandates may have helped shift the party toward a more radical viewpoint. Such policies go against the libertarian notion of individual choice and hands-off government, and explain why Angela McArdle, the new national party chair, decided to run in 2020.

The Libertarian Party had failed to take a stand on lockdowns, she says, missing a chance to let people know about the option of this third party.

What I would like to do at the national level if we ever get locked down again and hopefully that does not happen is to say that we oppose it and that we believe that your ability to go outside, engage in commerce, and interact with your friends and family is one of your foundational liberties, McArdle explains. Harlos was also concerned when the national party failed to come out strong against lockdowns.

She calls Johnsons style of libertarianism thick libertarianism and Pauls thin libertarianism. Thin Libertarians, she says, believe that an individuals personal opinions on social issues are irrelevant to their libertarianism as long as they dont try to implement a law based on them. Thick Libertarians, on the other hand, believe in what thin Libertarians believe but also demand that people be on a certain side of social issues.

Harlos saw masks as one of those issues. Although shes on the more liberal side of many social issues she believes in gay marriage, abortion rights and the legalization of sex work she doesnt think that they have a place in the Libertarian platform.

Caryn Ann Harlos at the 2022 Libertarian National Convention.

Courtesy of Caryn Ann Harlos

It was too prominent for some, including then-New Hampshire Libertarian Party chair Jilletta Jarvis and then-Libertarian National Committee chair Joseph Bishop-Henchman. After Jeremy Kauffman, part of the New Hampshire partys communications committee, took control of the partys Twitter account and began sharing provocative statements including one about legalizing child labor and another about repealing the Civil Rights Act Jarvis attempted to break away from the existing state party and form a new one. Bishop-Henchman supported her, but much of the national party leadership, including Harlos, did not, and Bishop-Henchman eventually resigned in June 2021 over the issue.

Harlos stood up for the existing New Hampshire party, and exposed Bishop-Henchmans coordination with Jarvis on attempts to form a new party. But members of the national party leadership who believed that Bishop-Henchman had done the right thing, and that the Mises Caucus was infiltrating the party to its detriment still held a majority at that time. They voted to remove Harlos from her position.

After that, similar movements to wrestle Mises Caucus power from local chapters in Delaware and Massachusetts emerged. Believing that those attempts were emboldened by her removal, Harlos tried to help the local caucuses, offering free services as a registered parliamentarian. And she joined the Mises Caucus herself.

A lot of the Mises people, theyre younger people, Harlos says. Theyre guys, usually, in their twenties; they dont have a ton of money. Then older people, with more experience and more money, start coming against them. What are they going to do if somebody doesnt step up to volunteer to help them? Theyre pretty much helpless.

She appreciates their focus on local Libertarian candidates and ballot measures, as well as creating new, county-level affiliates of the Libertarian Party. In Colorado, the Mises Caucus supported the 2019 Decriminalize Denver initiative that aimed to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms.

Other single-issue campaigns supported by the Mises Caucus include creating coalitions for gun rights, legalizing gold and silver as legal tender, and pushing for further federal legislation of hemp.

Although Harlos felt secure in her choice to stand up for liberty, her removal from national office came at a difficult time. Shed just resigned her job as a paralegal, and it was tough to find a new one, because every potential employer would find the Wikipedia page that noted shed been removed from her position within the party.

People play these petty political games and dont realize it follows people for the rest of their life when you do things like that, she says.

Even after her ousting, Harlos stayed active in the party, documenting Libertarian history from records kept in a storage locker near her Castle Rock home. And she continued contributing to LPedia, the partys collaborative website, cataloguing its history and happenings.

History turned around quickly. The Mises Caucus nearly swept the party elections this year. When Harlos went to the national convention, she was given back her position as secretary, and the party amended the official record to void her removal, noting that she hadnt been given due process.

According to Harlos, only two of the newly elected national committeedelegates arent members of the Mises Caucus or endorsed by it.

With the Mises Caucus firmly in power, the party now plans to move forward with a new vision, leaving behind wokeness.

Amy LePore, vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Delaware.

Courtesy of Caryn Ann Harlos

As a result, the Mises Caucus now advocates for leaving social issues out of the party platform and focusing purely on libertarian ideology. Harlos praises the party for being the first in America to de-woke.

It signals, kind of, a return to fundamentals and not what I call hiding the ball, Harlos says. The ultimate position of the Libertarian Party its shocking to a lot of people, because we havent said it for years when we say we want the state out of things, we literally mean that.

Under that view, the only roles for the state involve courts, police and a limited military. That means no public schools, no social welfare programs, no Americans With Disabilities Act and no declaring drugs illegal, among a slew of other positions.

The reality is there are always going to be people who reject us in the mainstream, McArdle says. That should never give us a reason to compromise our principles. It should never be something that influences the fundamental decisions that we make regarding how we message liberty.

According to Lizotte, third parties in the past have aligned themselves with a major party politically, as the Libertarian Party has done with the Republican Party. But moving away from that could be a logical next step, since that Republican Party alignment doesnt seem to be winning the Libertarian Party many victories.

If, at this point, they feel like thats not getting them the end results that theyre looking for and that theyre just sort of being taken advantage of by the Republican Party and taken for granted, then I think it makes a lot of sense that they would sort of re-evaluate what they should be moving forward, Lizotte says.

In her research, Lizotte found that people who support libertarian principles tend to deride the Democratic Party. But McArdle doesnt buy Lizottes theory. She thinks the Libertarian Party has done too much lately to placate liberals rather than conservatives.

We want to distinguish ourselves, obviously, from the other two parties."

During the 2021 Pride Month, she points out, the national party sent an email about pansexuality. While the Libertarian Party has always defended gay marriage, McArdle says that pansexuality is a left-leaning buzzword that wasnt needed to send the message that the party supports LGBTQ+ rights.

A political partys platform cant require its members to be a good person, Harlos says: Thats nothing to do with a party. There are assholes in every party.

To that end, at the 2022 convention in Reno, the party changed its platform. The line that used to condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant was replaced with this: We reject the idea that a natural right can ever impose an obligation upon others to fulfill that right. We uphold and defend the rights of every person, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or any other aspect of their identity. Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts, and other free market solutions.

It basically says the same thing, but with less ambiguity but for some reason, people lost their frickin minds, Harlos says. We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant thats not a political statement; thats a virtue signal. What policy does that translate into in libertarianism? Nothing, but to say we defend the rights of all people? Now, that actually says something.

The statement now indicates action rather than feelings, she points out. It doesnt insist that anyone in the party has an obligation to condemn bigotry, or take action to defend someone elses rights.

I dont think that equity keeps out bigotry, McArdle says. In order to make things quote-unquote equitable, you usually have to cut someone else down and remove them from their status. Oftentimes, that means youre removing or cutting down someone who has worked very hard and achieved a position on their own merits.

Although McArdle says the Mises Caucus actually has a more diverse makeup than the party at large, Devine says it tends to avoid specifically addressing its stance on bigotry. They would not identify, I think, as supporting bigotry or prejudice of any kind, but they also dont want to talk about it much, Devine says, noting that the line condemning bigotry has been in and out of the party platform over the years.

Mises Caucus folks will say, well, theres no shift going on here. Were just taking away some of the performative wokeism, as they describe it, of the party in recent years, getting back to basics, Devine continues. A lot of other people say, Come on, we can read between the lines. Not talking about certain things and then trying to provoke people on other points, this is a cultural shift, and one that has bigotry at its root.

But Harlos points to herself as an example of how the Mises Caucus isnt bigoted, much less leaning into Nazi-like ideas.

Last I checked, Nazis didnt like pink-haired white women who purposely chose not to reproduce and have lots of little white children, she says. Everyones realized that the cancel mob is great until it comes for you and it always comes for you.

Everyones realized that the cancel mob is great until it comes for you and it always comes for you.

The Libertarian Party simply doesnt see a role for the government in preventing oppression, she notes. Thats why a popular saying in the party is this: Some of the most terrifying words in the world are Im from the government, and Im here to help.

If the government does need to step in, McArdle notes, it should be on a local rather than a federal level. Usually, though, it should be up to the individual and the community to fight back.

We believe that individuals have the right to bear arms, that you can fight back against someone, and we dont believe in Utopia, she says. We understand the fallible nature of human beings, and I believe that its reasonable to call upon friends and family and people around you for help.

Angela McArdle, chair of the national Libertarian Party.

Courtesy of Angela McArdle

However, Devine questions how the Mises Caucus will measure success if not by winning more voters in national elections. Who did Gary Johnson really inspire to become a lasting, committed, ideologically pure member of the party? Devine asks. According to the Mises Caucus? Not many. And theres probably some truth to that, maybe some exaggeration. So for the Mises Caucus, how do they know that theyve done a better job than anyone else?

Devine suspects they will focus on local numbers in states and counties, as well as how many libertarian-minded ballot measures pass across the country. He thinks the question of how strong and lasting a shift this is for the Libertarian Party might not be answered until 2024, when the party nominates a candidate for president.

Will it be a Mises Caucus rabble-rouser like comedian Dave Smith, who headlined the 2022 convention of the Libertarian Party of Colorado? Or will it be someone like former Republican congressman Justin Amash, who might be a bridge between the partys pragmatist past and radical future?

Either way, Harlos is excited. In the embodiment of the local focus touted by the Mises Caucus, shes running for Castle Rock Town Council this November. The race is nonpartisan, but Harlos is making it clear that she wants to push the town closer to libertarian principles, with less government involvement in peoples lives.

With actual, simple, clear, not-obfuscating-the-issue-of-what-we-believe messaging, I think that we could make a huge impact and for third parties, an impact isnt always winning elections, Harlos says. I dont care if Im in a room talking to five people or 500 people. You never know: The one person youre talking to could be the person thats going to change the world. Every person you talk to is important. Its not only about numbers.

Originally posted here:

Castle Rock's Caryn Ann Harlos Wants to Return the Libertarian Party to Its Roots - Westword

Candidates from the Indiana Democratic and Indiana Libertarian parties partnered for a town hall meeting June 28 at the Hamilton East Public Library in Fishers to discuss issues in Indiana politics. The meeting was the 13th in the town hall series across Indiana lead by the Indiana Democrats. Republican candidates were invited but declined the invitation.

The conversation was moderated by independent journalist Larry Lannan. Candidates answered questions from the audience about womens rights, gun control, the economy and voting rights.

Participants included Democratic U.S. Senate Democrat candidate Tom McDermott; U.S. Senate Libertarian candidate James Sceniak; U.S. House District 5 Democrat candidate Jeannine Lee Lake; Indiana House District 32 Democrat candidate Victoria Garia Wilburn; Indiana Senate District 31 Democrat candidate Jocelyn Vare; and Indiana Secretary of State candidates Destiny Wells, a Democrat, and Libertarian Jeff Maurer.

Candidates from both parties mostly agreed on womens rights but seemed to differ on gun rights and safety.

Sceniak, a behavior therapist, said our politicians should not act as physicians with regard to the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court.

McDermott, mayor of Hammond, said he plans to be more involved in statewide politics and continue to listen to Hoosiers if elected to the U.S. Senate. He said he believes people of all parties should be able to assemble peaceably and respect each other no matter their political stance.

Lake, a journalist, told a personal story about her own abortion and stated that abortion decisions should not be up to politicians. She said especially in the aftermath of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, military assault-style weapons should be banned and red flag laws should be in place in Indiana.

Wilburn, a teacher, said she hopes to be a voice for minority groups, women and public school children.

Vare, a member of the Fishers City Council, lauded Hamilton County for being one of the best and easiest early voting counties in the state. She wants to bring that mentality to the Senate to make the voting process easier and more accessible.

Wells, a military intelligence officer, emphasized the importance of democracy. She said Indiana is not a bright red state, but rather a purple state with a voter turnout problem.

Maurer said one of his policy concerns is voter registration. He said voters should receive receipts to create a paper trail that can be traced instead of relying on technology.

The Indiana Democratic party held another town hall in Zionsville June 30 and has others scheduled for this summer.

See the original post:

Candidates discuss topics at town hall meeting in Fishers Current Publishing - Current in Carmel

Earlier today, the National Constitution Center released its series of reports on "Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy." I am a coauthor of the Team Libertarian report, along with team leader Clark Neily of the Cato Institute, and Walter Olson (also of Cato). There is also a Team Conservative report (coauthored by team leader Sarah Isgur, David French, and Jonah Goldberg, all of The Dispatch), and a Team Progressive report (coauthored by prominent election law scholars Edward Foley and Franita Tolson).

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction of our Team Libertarian report, which summarizes our recommendations:

American democracy faces a number of serious challenges. In the immediate future, we must establish institutional safeguards to prevent the kind of negation of election results attempted by Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. In the medium-to long-run, more must be done to empower people to be able to make meaningful choices about the policies they live under. Ballot-box voting has great value. But it is not enough to ensure genuine political freedom. The latter requires enhancements to both "voice" and "exit" rights.We need to both increase citizens' ability to exercise voice within political institutions, and give them more and better exit options.

This report takes on all three challenges. We propose a variety of reforms that, can address immediate short-term threats to democracy, while also increasing citizen empowerment in the long run.

Part I outlines reforms that can safeguard the electoral process against attempts at reversal, while also curbing presidential powers that could be abused in ways that undermine democracy. Among the most urgently needed reforms are new constraints on presidential powers under vaguely worded emergency statutes, such as the Insurrection Act. These can too easily be manipulated by an unscrupulous administration in ways that could hobble democracy. It is also essential to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887 in order to definitively preclude the sort of effort to overturn an election that then-President Trump engaged in after his defeat in 2020. In addition, we propose ways to incentivize electoral losers to concede defeat, rather than engage in bogus accusations of fraud and voter suppression, and to gradually restore public trust in the electoral system.

Part II describes how a number of serious flaws in the democratic process can be alleviated by expanding people's opportunities to "vote with their feet." Under conventional ballot-box voting, individual citizens usually have almost no chance of influencing the outcome. They also have strong perverse incentives to be "rationally ignorant" about the issues they vote on, and to process political information in a highly biased way.

Expanded foot voting rights can help alleviate these problems. People can vote with their feet choosing what jurisdiction to live in within a federal system, and also through making decisions in the private sector.Relative to ballot box voters, foot voters have a much higher chance of making a decisive choice, and therefore much stronger incentives to become well-informed. Expanded foot voting can also help alleviate the dangerous polarization that has gradually poisoned our political system.

Much can be done to expand foot voting opportunities in both the public and private sector by breaking down barriers to migration, such as exclusionary zoning. Foot voting can also be facilitated through greater decentralization of political power, which would reduce the incidence of one-size-fits-all federal policies from which there is no exit, short of leaving the country entirely.

Finally, Part III outlines ways in which ordinary citizens can be empowered to exercise greater "voice" in their dealings with the criminal justice system, particularly through reviving the institution of the citizen jury. Since the Founding and before, jury trials have been understood as an important tool of popular participation in government. Alexis de Tocqueville famously focused on the jury system as one America's most important institutions of "popular sovereignty.."

Sadly, in the modern criminal justice system, the constitutionally prescribed role of juries in resolving criminal charges has been almost entirely displaced by so-called plea bargaining. Indeed, widespread use of coercive plea-bargaining discourages the overwhelming majority of criminal defendants from exercising their right to a trial by jury, for fear that doing so would lead to far more severe penalties. As a result, citizen-jurors no longer exercise influence over those powers of government that directly impact the lives and liberty of the people more than most others.

We propose multiple reforms that can help restore juries to their proper role in the criminal justice system. Judges, governors, presidents, and legislators could adopt rules limiting the use of plea bargaining and especially coercive plea tactics. "Trial lotteries" could increase the number of cases brought to trial. State and federal governments can establish plea integrity units that can provide independent review of plea bargains to ensure that improper coercion was not used.

Within the trial process, more can be done to inform jurors of the full extent of their authority, particularly the ability to assess the justice of the laws and penalties in question, as well as factual questions related to the guilt of the accused.

Even if adopted in combination, our proposed reforms would not cure all the ills that afflict American democracy. But they can do much to shore it up against threats, and empower Americans to exercise greater control over the government policies they live under.

The progressive and conservative reports overlap with ours on some points, while diverging on others. For example, the Progressive report suggests changes to the Electoral Count Act that are similar to our proposals, and there is also some convergence on other measures related to protecting elections against reversal. On the other hand, it also recommends legislation criminalizing "deliberate electoral lies," whereas our report specifically counsels against such steps. The Progressive report's approach to the problem of voter ignorance (expanded civic education) is also at variance with ours (expanded foot voting). I express skepticism about the education solution in some detail in Chapter 7 of my book Democracy and Political Ignorance.

For its part the Conservative report largely focuses on a different set of issues than either ours or the progressive one. Their major recommendations involve strengthening Congress relative to the executive, and political parties relative to individual candidates and interest groups. I agree with much of this (particularly constraining the executive), but have some reservations on details. Like us, they recommend against controls on campaign-related speech, though for somewhat different reasons. On the other hand, they, like the Progressives, strike me as too optimistic about education as a tool for overcoming public ignorance.

There is, I think, much to be learned from all three reports, and I hope they will make useful contributions to the ongoing debate over these issues.

Tonight at 7 PM eastern time, the three team leaders - Ned Foley, Sarah Isgur, and Clark Neily - will be speaking about the reports with NCC President Jeffrey Rosen at a live webinar. You can register to watch for free here.

See more here:

National Constitution Center Releases Reports on "Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy" - Reason