Category Archives: Libertarian

Since the results of the Libertarian National Convention last month, there has been major criticism against the newly-elected executive chairs of the Libertarian Party after what has been called a takeover by one major wing of the party. The other wing, the Mises Caucus, founded and led by Michael Heise, has aimed to bring the party more to the views of Ron Paul and lead it away from the pragmatic views of Gary Johnson. Those who have opposed and criticized the Mises Caucus have pointed out views that were seen as more Alt-Right.

What are my personal opinions about the Mises Caucus? In the past months, this has been a very difficult question to answer, especially since I do have some friends and acquaintances who are part of the Mises Caucus. I do have my agreements and disagreements with them as they do with me. Instead of criticizing the Mises Caucus itself, its the direction the Mises Caucus-led Libertarian National Convention is taking the Libertarian Party into that I will be more critical of.

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Nolan Schmidt is an independent filmmaker, and serves as Vice Chair for the Guadalupe County Libertarian Party.

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Schmidt: The Mises Caucus is heading in the wrong direction - Seguin Gazette-Enterprise

While the freezes were bad news for Bitcoin investors that are already suffering a historic downturn, they also expose a contradiction at the heart of the cryptocurrency world.

For all the industrys promises of decentralising finance, those who have exchanged their cash for crypto have done little more than put their faith in one financial gatekeeper over another.

Binance and Celsius customers savings were no more free for being in Bitcoin. They were still subject to the whims of an intermediary with the power to shut its doors and cut off users, just as they would be with a bank.

The key difference is that if a cryptocurrency company goes bust, there is no regulation protecting deposits.

Yes, Bitcoin technically operates independently of any institution or country, governed only by computer code and the network of miners that maintain it. This is why, strictly, it can never be regulated. You can download your bitcoin on to a hard drive and truly own it.

But most people dont: it is not worth the hassle or the risk. Instead, they store their cryptocurrencies in an online exchange where it can be easily withdrawn and liquidated.

Convenience wins over idealism, and as the current crop of Silicon Valley monopolies has shown, consumers drift towards centralisation.

Once it sits in an exchange where it can be converted, Bitcoin must interact with the rest of the financial system, making it subject to regulation.

Coinbase, one of the worlds biggest exchanges, deals with hundreds of law enforcement requests a week. Those operating in Britain are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Criminals are finding it increasingly difficult to convert stolen crypto into cash, because it is often seized when it enters an exchange.

As cryptocurrency companies come under closer scrutiny, they will start looking less representative of the libertarian ideal on which Bitcoin was founded and more like the ageing banks it was meant to replace.

At that point, we might start to wonder where its value comes from. If a couple of companies have the power to crash the entire market, Bitcoin does not look so free after all.

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The crypto crash proves it Bitcoin's libertarian dream is over - The Telegraph

With the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Federalist Society appears poised for a triumph. This organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers and law professors and students turns 40 this year.

Yet contrary to progressive perceptions, the societys function has not been solely, or even primarily, to roll back abortion and other elements of the sexual revolution. If you look at the full scope of its activities, you will notice that a far more important mission has been to mount an economic revolution of its own, on behalf of corporations and other powerful market actors.

The Federalist Society has become a judicial pipeline of the Republican Party, helping to supply numerous nominees to the federal bench. In the progressive imagination, the society is a secretive cabal of theocrats and cultural reactionaries. In reality, it is best understood as a professional-development club for what the writer Michael Lind calls libertarians in robes who shift power from working-class voters to overclass judges.

The society was largely one of many institutions nurtured by the right wing of the American donor class to roll back the legal and material achievements of U.S. workers dating back to the New Deal and to elevate economic deregulation to high moral and constitutional principle. In tandem, other right-of-center institutions emerged to solidify Americas status abroad as a hegemon guarding the rule of global capital against rival claimants for organizing world order.

None of this is news to leftist critics of 20th-century conservatism. But a growing number of dissidents within conservatism view these legacy institutions not just the Federalist Society but also the Heritage Foundation, National Review Institute and others as ultimately hostile to core commitments that ought to inform the right. These would include cultivation of republican and personal virtue that rests on common prosperity and, yes, a measure of material equality; robust social-democratic support, especially for working families, who shouldnt have to choose between paying their bills and having children; and modesty about Washingtons role in foreign affairs.

Yet the institutions of Conservatism Inc. persist in advancing a pro-business agenda despite opposition from the large populist-right segment of the Republican rank and file. While the G.O.P. has never been a workers party, many of its voters are. Yet Conservatism Inc. refuses to embrace a multiethnic, working-class ethos.

Having seen the workings of institutional conservatism firsthand for several decades, we believe that the best way to understand the contemporary conservative intellectual movement is by examining the material interests that underwrite its workings and shape its mission. Those material interests arent all perfectly in agreement with one another, which is why the organizations in question dont always play nice together. There are disagreements at the margins. But the North Star of all is rule by large corporate and financial power, and support for militarism and cultural aggression abroad.

The Federalist Society itself offers the best illustration of the misguided development of movement conservatism. Hot-button social questions are sometimes fiercely contested among those with ties to the society. For instance, it was Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch who in 2020 led a majority of the court in ruling that sexual orientation and gender identity apply to the 1964 Civil Rights Acts definition of sex. And Edward Whelan, an originalist stalwart, countered arguments in favor of constitutional protection of fetal personhood the likely next stage in the anti-abortion battle if or when Roe falls.

Where the society has been supremely effective and far more united is in the realm of political economy. In the same decades of progressive ascendancy on cultural issues, society-certified judges on the federal bench pushed through a raft of decisions aimed at thwarting collective action by workers and government action against monopolies.

Over the past several decades, society heroes like Justice Antonin Scalia upended decades of settled law and clear congressional intent to expand the use of commercial arbitration to employment and consumer contexts. This was despite the manifest imbalance in power between the parties agreeing to arbitrate their disputes.

The conservative legal scholar Robert Bork proposed reforms to U.S. antitrust law by arguing that it should focus on consumer welfare, often understood to mean lower prices, even if monopoly power means a less competitive economy lorded over by a few giant companies.

The Federalist Society is not the only conservative institution to pursue a similar, pro-corporate agenda. Others, like the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute and National Review Institute, also receive large sums from wealthy individuals and trusts and have similarly too often equated conservatism with a neoliberal, imperial agenda.

What does this tell us about whether the right can really be realigned with the working class? There are a number of smaller right-of-center institutions trying meaningfully to adapt, but Conservatism Inc. at best pays only lip service to working-class concerns. The largest institutions are still dedicated to inventing, often from whole cloth, as the Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich revolutionaries also did, a version of movement conservatism that holds at bay authentic American traditions that run counter to corporate interests.

In the republican tradition, the political economy must be embedded, with state intervention as needed, within a moral order. Yet the longstanding American tradition that fretted over compromises to civic virtue and democratic self-rule demanded by unchecked financial power and imperial expansion has very little institutional expression in todays Conservatism Inc.

In his farewell address, in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned his compatriots about just this threat: the rise of a military-industrial complex that shuts out the primacy of public order and the common good to secure the economic commitments of corporate entities. This is what the conservative movement became, the jackals of Mammon. And it is what threatens the common good of the nation.

Sohrab Ahmari is a founder and editor of the journal Compact. Patrick Deneen is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. Chad Pecknold is an associate professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University of America.

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Opinion | The Federalist Society Has Helped Create a Corporate-Friendly Court That Hurts U.S. Workers - The New York Times

Once a month, the local Republican Party of Dane County, Wisconsin gathers for an evening event called Pints and Politics. Tonights gathering is taking place on a June night at a small public park with a pavilion in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, one of several cities besides Madison in the heavily Democratic county. Some years back I was banned from the groups events for having written an accurate public account of one of them, but all has since been forgiven, and now I am as welcome as anyone.

Tonights lineup of speakers features seven candidates, including state representative and gubernatorial contender Tim Ramthun, who will be speaking last. The event organizer is Rolf Lindgren, a local libertarian of my long acquaintance. We talk soon after I arrive. He calls Donald Trump the most libertarian president weve had . . . ever: He got rid of the reviled Section 215. (Remember Michael Moore yelling about the Patriot Act?) He didnt start any new wars. He presided over a large drop in the number of federal prisoners. He banned the shackling of pregnant women in prison. And so on. Lindgrens priorities speak well of him.

About 50 people mill about, and even though they were invited to bring or cook food, hardly anyone is eatingor even drinking, which is unusual in Wisconsin. Scott Grabins, the local party chair, starts things off at 6 p.m.

We have an opportunity here, he tells the gathering. We have that . . . red wave coming. All you have to do is go down to the gas station. Rim shot, please.

Grabins is one of the ten Wisconsin Republicans who met in secret on Dec. 14, 2020after Trump lost Wisconsin by nearly 21,000 votesto sign an official-looking document purporting to declare Trump the winner on the authority of the states Republican electors. (At the same timein the same state capitol buildingthe states real electors were holding an official ceremony to authorize the states votes for Biden.) Republicans attempted the ruse in several states with the goal of giving Vice President Mike Pence an excuse to throw the election to Trump, which he declined to do. Two of Wisconsins actual electors recently filed suit against the pretend ones in the hope that doing so would prevent the losing side from attempting to subvert election outcomes in this manner in the future.

Notwithstanding the pending lawsuit against him, Grabins is jazzed tonight about the role that local Republicans will play in key races. Dane County has the third-largest number of Republicans in the state of Wisconsin, he says. We will determine who the next governor is, who the next attorney general is, who the state treasurer is, the secretary of state. We will determine whether Senator [Ron] Johnson goes back to the Senate.

He might be right. While Dane County is heavily Democraticin the 2020 election, Joe Biden beat Trump 77 percent to 22 percentthe level of enthusiasm that the people at this gathering can bring to bear on behalf of Republican candidates in the August 9 primary could prove pivotal in the November election.

Another speaker, candidate for state treasurer John Leiber, notes that the upcoming elections represent the GOPs best chance in half a century to clinch total control of Wisconsin state governmentnot just both houses of the legislature, but the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state treasurer, and secretary of state. Its a distinct possibility.

In fact, what happens in this falls elections in Wisconsin could sway the outcome of the next presidential election, should Republicans regain the governors office and seize control of the states electoral apparatus. That is their stated intent. All anyone has to do is listen.

Early in the program, Lindgren points out to the audience me and journalist Dylan Brogan, playfully reminding everyone present that whatever they say might end up in the news.

The speakers are not noticeably inhibited.

Andrew McKinney, a candidate for state assembly and Sun Prairie School District employee, explains that Democrats conned him into running as a Democrat in a previous race and have since made him keep his mouth shut. No more: McKinney shares that when the HR director at a nonprofit he worked for pressed him to give his pronouns, the ones he gave her were motherfucker and motherfuckers.

Another speakerMatt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsincalls the likely repeal of Roe v. Wade a great first step, adding that his group will then work to remove the exception for saving the life of the mother from the 1849 Wisconsin anti-abortion law that could go back into effect if Roe is overturned. This is a spiritual battle, he says, urging people to just pray they stick to this [leaked draft] Alito decision.

Secretary of state candidate Jay Schroeder, who came close to beating the longtime incumbent, Democrat Doug La Follette, in 2018 and is now one of three Republicans vying for the chance to oppose him in November, tells the gathering that the person holding this office has to sign a sheet of paper to certify the states electors in the presidential election. Had he had this power in 2020, I would not have signed it. (Its not clear whether this would make the document invalid. La Follette, who signed it in 2020, tells me in an email that he doesnt know.)

But the nights most extraordinary speaker on the issue of election security is Jefferson E. Davis, chair of an ad hoc committee on voter integrity. Davis directs his attention to me and fellow reporter Brogan, hoping to end up in the news. He points to his car, a black Saab parked on the street. That car, he announces, is full of receipts and data that he would share afterward with the two of us to show how the election was stolen in Wisconsin.

If you think Joe Biden won the state of Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, if you think hes the sitting president . . . then Im the starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, he tells the gathering. Davis is not the Packers starting quarterback.

While a smooth speaker with plenty of ready-to-hand figures and percentages, Davis doesnt have much in the way of evidence to share with the larger group. He claims that Democrats visited tens of thousands of nursing home residents on election day to steal as many of their votes, their dignity, and their identity as possible. They also connived to send out as many absentee-ballot request forms as they could, even to people who didnt ask to receive them. Theyre gonna do it again in 2022, he warns.

Davis is immediately followed by Orville Seymer, a longtime conservative activist, who circulates a handout outlining an exciting new idea for Republican electoral success: Make a list of people you know, look up their voting history on the Wisconsin Elections Commissions website, and request that they be sent absentee ballot request forms; then swoop in to do everything for them except sign it. Youve just doubled your vote, and youve done it completely legally, he notes, correctly.

At last, the floor goes to the candidate Lindgren introduces as Radical Tim Ramthun. Ramthun gives a long, rambling talk that rotates like an elliptical around an idea he puts this way: When election integrity doesnt happen, and nefarious acts and illegal acts result in [the] wrong people being in seats, youve got problems like we have now in our society. Its a big deal.

Ramthun is vying for the GOPs gubernatorial nomination against former Lieutenant Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and businessmen Kevin Nicholson and Tim Michels. He tells the group he spoke with Trump for seven minutes and 45 seconds in December (He said, Youre my kind of guy.) and again at Mar-a-Lago in April, after which he heard from others that he would be getting Trumps nod. Instead, in May, Trump endorsed Michels. Ramthun is still scratching his head: I heard Reince Preibus was involved. Moneys probably involved.

Ramthun also recounts his clashes with Robin Vos, the Republican who is speaker of the Wisconsin assembly. At Trumps instigation, Voslaunched a probe into the 2020 election result that had already survived a recount and a state supreme court ruling. The probe that has thus far cost taxpayers nearly $900,000 and uncovered no fraudexcept the unsupportable claims made by those conducting it. After Ramthun falsely accused Republicans of signing a pact with Hillary Clinton to authorize voting dropboxes, Vos stripped him of his sole staff member. Radical Tim assures the gathering that he is undaunted.

People continue just to tell me, Well, Tim, youre a conspiracy theorist or Its not constitutional. The only word that comes to mind for me is ignorance. The facts, he says, continue to pour out: You cant dispute the data. The geospatial ping data qualifies [as] fact. Period.

Ramthun at one point refers to the Democrat-orchestrated riot that happened on January 6thYes, I said it that way; write that down, he notes to me and Broganbut he doesnt elaborate on the claim. So, at the end of his talk, I raise my hand and ask Ramthun to explain what he meant. Here is what he says:

In my opinion, I am aware of seven states that were coming to that certification event on January 6th to object to it. It is my opinion that Democrat leadership knew of that and did not want the objection to happen. The seven states were the swing states, including Nevada and New Mexico, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. So the reason I said it is because the plan is clear: They were going to object to the certification on January 6th on the floor, and every state was going to have to vote independent. It was going to string it out and be a big deal and it was going to be chaotic for the side that wanted it donethey wanted to rubber stamp it, they didnt want that, so lets cause a deflection. Lets create something, and well just make it happen automatic and no one will know better, because theyll be focused on the other thing that happenedwhich, by the way, worked very well. My opinion.

Who needs congressional hearings when you can have the events of January 6th explained as clearly as this?

By the way, at no point during the event does anyone concerned about election integrity mention Grabinss participation in an actual plot to subvert the 2020 election result.

As the event concludes, Jefferson Davis tries to follow through on his offer to show me and Brogan the receipts and other evidence hes keeping in his Saab that the states 2020 election was stolen. Its late, the Brewers are playing, and Im hungryas is everyone else who came to this cookout but didnt eat, I imagineso I leave. Later, Brogan texts a photo of Davis with some of the papers and offers this disappointing report: guy talked to me for 40 mins, pulled out a bunch of binders with spreadsheets but finally admitted nothing he showed was proof, but thats coming.

I can hardly wait.

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Fear and Loathing in Dane County - The Bulwark

After waking up at 6:30 a.m. and confirming that she was still leading in the Democratic primary for House District 100, Zooey Zephyr got a bacon breakfast burrito and a cafe au lait from her local coffee shop.

While the cafe au lait is her standard for days that are not sweltering, the breakfast burrito was a treat, as following Tuesdays primary election, Zephyr, 33, became one step closer to becoming one of the first two openly transgender candidates elected to the Montana Legislature.

Zephyr and SJ Howell, a transgender non-binary candidate for Missoulas House District 95, will both be on the ballot in November.

Their run for office comes at a pivotal time for the transgender community as more and more bills that advocates say are detrimental for LGBTQ folks are being introduced at state legislatures across the country, including Montana. The Human Rights Campaign, a LGBTQ advocacy group and LGBTQ political lobbying organization, went as far as to label 2021 the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history.

With Zephyrs district located in a decidedly blue slice of central Missoula, her path to victory seems clear in 2020, Rep. Andrea Olsen, D-Missoula, won the seat with 82% of the vote. And the district has voted Democrat in the last four elections, although before the lines were redrawn in 2014, Republicans dominated between 2003 and 2013.

I am feeling good, I am obviously excited, primarily I feel awash in gratitude for the people who helped me, for the people who voted for me, for Missoula theres a lot to do, theres a lot to plan for, but right now I am just overwhelmed with gratitude, Zephyr told the Daily Montanan in a phone interview.

On Tuesday, Zephyr, who has spent much of her career working for the University of Montana, beat her primary opponent David Severson 1,188 to 832, according to preliminary numbers from the Montana Secretary of States Office. She will face Republican Sean Patrick McCoy and Libertarian Michael Vanecekin in November.

Howell, 41, did not have a primary opponent and will be up against Republican Lauren Subith and Libertarian J.C. Windmueller in the general.

Howell is the executive director of Montana Women Vote, a nonprofit advocacy group, and is also in a secure Democratic district. Between 2003 and 2021, voters in the district only elected a Republican to the office once, but Howell said they are ready to dig in going into the general.

I certainly dont take the general election for granted. I am excited to get to work; Ive been knocking on doors already,Howell said.

If Zephyr and Howell win in November, Montana will be the second state to have elected multiple transgender people to a state legislature New Hampshire currently has three transgender women in its House of Representatives.

There is a difference between legislators having a conversation about you compared to having a conversation with you.

S.J. Howell, candidate, Montana Legislature

In total, 11 openly LGBTQ candidates ran for office in this years Montana primary, with six advancing to the general election. For Montana and across the country, LGBTQ candidates make up a minuscule amount of elected officials. There are 1,040 out LGBTQ elected officials nationwide only eight of whom are transgender which amounts to .2% of all elected officials, according to the LGBTQ Victory Institute. And in Montana, there are just six out LGBTQ elected officials, according to the institutes Out for America Map, which tracks out LGBTQ elected officials nationally.

Both Montana candidates advocated for LGBTQ rights at the Capitol during the last session. On Wednesday, they spoke about the importance of having transgender voices in the Legislature after multiple bills were passed last session that affected the trans community.

Its big for Montana. What feels really exciting to me is that we are sort of going from zero to two, which in a lot of ways feels like a big exponential step forward, Howell said. I feel that there is a difference between legislators having a conversation about you compared to having a conversation with you, and I think it changes the tone of the debate; I think we both have the intention of getting in and fighting hard for the rights of queer and trans Montanans.

The Legislature took up bills limiting how transgender youth can participate in sports, putting more restrictions in place for updating a gender marker on birth certificates and restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth. While the last of the three failed to pass out of the state house, the other two passed and are currently being challenged in court.

Republicans at the time defended the bills as necessary safeguards for protecting children.

For Zephyr, its all about representation. Zephyr decided to run after watching Senate Bill 280, which changed transgender Montanans ability to update their birth certificates, pass the Senate 26-24.

I remember it passed by one vote, and I thought, I know I could change that heart, I know I could be the difference between a yes and a no there. It would have only taken one person to protect my community from discrimination, Zephyr said. We will be the best defense there is against this particular brand of hate.

One of the reasons SB280 was so impactful for Zephyr is prior to the passage of the bill, she was able to update her own birth certificate.

The office of vital records told me as far as the state of Montana is concerned we are updating a 30-year clerical error. It was one of those moments that felt like a full recognition of who I am it meant an extra layer of safety and acknowledgment of who I am, Zephyr said.

Bills that affect people who are transgender and the rest of the LGBTQ community have proliferated beyond Montana. A spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign said in an email that it is tracking 341 bills across the country it views as harmful toward LGTBQ people; of those bills, more than 143 are anti-trans, including more than 40 healthcare bans, 76 sports bans, and 15 bathroom bills.

An analysis by NBC News found that the annual number of anti-LGBTQ bills filed in state legislatures across the U.S. increased from 41 bills in 2018 to 238 in the first three months of 2022.

However, during the same period, more LGBTQ candidates have filed to run for office.

We coined it the rainbow wave. Weve seen a number of candidates run and win. And this year, in particular, we have about 50 candidates from the trans community running for office up and down the ballot across the country, said Ceasar Toledo, deputy political director at the LGBTQ Victory Fund a political action committee that focuses on increasing the number of openly LGBTQ public official. The fund endorsed both Howell and Zephyr in their races this year.

Surveys by the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, outlined how these types of bills and the debates surrounding them negatively impact transgender youth. One survey found that of the 35,000 LGBTQ youth questioned, 42% had considered suicide within the prior year. And another found that two-thirds of LGBTQ youth surveyed said debates about anti-trans legislation had negatively impacted their mental health.

Shawn Reagor, director of equality at the Montana Human Rights Network, said the organization has seen a recent uptick in reports of vandalism and harassment toward the LGBTQ community, which he attributed to increased activity by white supremacist and militia groups in the state.

But Reagor said more LGBTQ representation in the Legislature will help combat those attacks.

We know that when people are able to build relationships with transgender and nonbinary community members, they are significantly less likely to vote against the needs of the community and make statements that further misunderstanding of who trans and nonbinary people are, he said. Not only do Howell and Zooey represent role models for the community, but they also provide an important opportunity for other legislators and the state as a whole to further get to know some of the wonderful trans and nonbinary people that live in Montana.

Toledo said having LGBTQ voices present during debates on bills impacting their communities humanizes the policy. He added, Its those voices at the table that can be the difference.

And in general, Reagor said he is excited about the likely wins by Zephyr and Howell.

As a trans person, I am incredibly proud and excited at the possibility that our community could be represented in the state Capitol by great leaders like Zooey and Howell. After the attacks during the last legislative session, I am thrilled to see trans candidates run for office and receive this level of support, he said. They are smart, hard-working, and have a deep understanding of the needs of our state.

Bryce Bennett, a former Democratic lawmaker and first openly gay man elected to the Legislature,echoed Reagors message.

For the first time in Montana history, young people coming to terms with their gender identity will look to their Legislature and see people like Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell who know their story, their struggles, and the bright possibilities ahead. When they get to the Legislature, the day of people talking about trans people will be over; they will finally have to talk with them. That is why representation is so incredibly powerful, Bennett said in a text message to the Daily Montanan.

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Montana on track to make history with election of two transgender candidates Daily Montanan - Daily Montanan

Libertarians believe that people should be able to travel freely as long as they are peaceful. We welcome immigrants who come seeking a better life. The vast majority of immigrants are very peaceful and highly productive.

Indeed, the United States is a country of immigrants, of all backgrounds and walks of lifesome families have just been here for more generations than others. Newcomers bring great vitality to our society.

A trulyfree market requires the free movement of people, not justproductsand ideas.

Whether theyare from India or Mexico, whether they have advanced degrees or very little education, immigrants have one great thing in common: they bravely left their familiar surroundings in search of a better life. Many are fleeing extreme poverty and violence and are searching for afree and safe place to try to build their lives.We respect and admire their courage and are proud that they see the United States as a placeof freedom, stability, and prosperity.

Of course, if someone has a record of violence, credible plans for violence, or acts violently, then Libertarianssupport blocking their entry, deporting, and/or prosecuting and imprisoning them, depending on the offense.

Libertarians do not support classifying undocumented immigrants as criminals. Our current immigration system is an embarrassment. People who would like to follow the legal procedures are unable to because these procedures are so complex and expensive and lengthy. If Americanswant immigrants to enter through legal channels, we need to make those channels fair, reasonable, and accessible.

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Immigration | Libertarian Party

When an 82-year-old woman showed up to vote at her polling place in Manalapan today, poll workers turned her away. They said she could not vote as a Republican because shes on the rolls as Libertarian.

But Ann P. Ciaccio wasnt going to be disenfranchised without a fight, so she went to court and asked a judge to allow her to cast her vote.

Records show that Ciaccio registered as a member of the Libertarian Party in August 2020 while applying for identification at the Motor Vehicles Commission.

Ciaccio said she had no recollection of registering as a Libertarian and never intended to affiliate with that party. She testified that she was not seeking to perpetrate any fraud, but rather to protect her right to vote.

Superior Court Judge Mara Zazzali-Hogan allowed Ciaccio to vote by provisional ballot, and finding her testimony to be credible, ordered her provisional ballot to be counted and that her party affiliation revert to her prior registration as a Republican.

The right to vote would be empty indeed if it did not include the right of choice for whom to vote, Zazzali-Hogan said.

In July 2020, more than a month before Ciaccios issue occurred, the state acknowledged that a computer glitch at motor vehicles was responsible for some voters being assigned the wrong party identification.

Minor party registration had increased 2169% between 2016 and 2020.

New Jerseys 2018 Motor Voter law automatically registers any eligible voter conducting a transaction at a state motor vehicle agency, unless they specifically opt-out.

The prompt refers to a screen allows voter to select a party affiliation: Democratic, Republican, Unaffiliated or other. If the choice is other, the voter is taken to a new screen that offers a choice of seven third-party options: Green, Libertarian, N.J. Conservative, Natural Law, Reform, Socialist or U.S. Constitution.

The design flaw is that voters must pick one of those seven parties; there is no way to complete the motor vehicle transaction without doing so.

The now-defunct Natural Law Party, which hasnt run a candidate in New Jersey in 21 years, has seen their voter registration jump from 396 voters in June 2016 to 7,019 in 2020.

Among the voters registered with the Natural Law Party was a New Jersey woman who voted in 13 of 18 Democratic primaries but found that election officials changed her party affiliation in 2018 without her knowledge after a visit to a motor vehicle agency.

The Reform Party of New Jersey was founded in 1995 as a vehicle for Ross Perots independent presidential campaign, has grown from 146 members to 1,987 now, even though the organization disbanded more than 17 years ago.

Records show that a lopsided number of new minor political party registrants have come by way of the Motor Vehicle Commission customer service experience.

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After poll workers turned her away, 82-year-old woman goes to court to get her vote counted - New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied review for a case brought by an Oakland couple regarding their owner move-in eviction, in a blow to all landlords who want to legally challenge city requirements regarding tenant buyouts in no-fault evictions.

The real estate lobby and landlords in Bay Area cities that have strict rules about tenant relocation payments were closely watching this case, which dates back to 2018. Landlords Lyndsey and Sharon Ballinger, who were both enlisted in the Air Force when they moved out of their Oakland home in order to be transferred to Washington, D.C. in 2015, came back in late 2018 to find that they could not just politely ask their tenants to leave. They were required under Oakland law to pay $6,582 in relocation expenses to the tenants, which they paid, but they then sued the city over what they considered illegal government seizure of property.

Libertarian activists nationwide, and real estate interests, saw this as a good case to run up the chain in the hopes of invalidating pro-tenant laws like this, the likes of which have been on the books in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, and Los Angeles for years but Oakland's law only took effect in 2018. The libertarian-leaning Pacific Legal Foundation took on the case.

In 2019, a federal judge ruled against the Ballingers, saying that the "[Oakland] City Councils legislative purpose, to promote community stability and help tenants avoid displacement and high moving costs, was a legitimate one."

They appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit, which ruled against them in February. "The Ballingers voluntarily chose to lease their property and to evict under the ordinance conduct that required them to pay the relocation fee," wrote Trump-appointed Judge Ryan Nelson in the 3-0 ruling. Nelson further wrote that the Oakland ordinance was not an illegal government seizure of money or property, but was a standard "regulation of the landlord-tenant relationship," which the Supreme Court had consistently upheld. Cities are permitted to charge taxes and fees to property owners for various reasons, including for things like hazardous waste cleanup.

And as the Chronicle reports, the Supreme Court has essentially concurred, though without any written decision or evidence of dissent.

The Pacific Legals Foundation has tried to set this up as a conflict between two hard-working members of the military and their former tenants, who were apparently tech workers.

"The Ballingers are disappointed that the court failed to recognize that the Oakland law forcing them to pay their software industry tenants $6,500 before they could re-occupy their own home, in accordance with the terms of lease executed before the law was even enacted, is unconstitutional," the foundation said in a comment after the Ninth Circuit ruling four months ago.

But tenants' rights advocates argue that such laws are necessary especially in places like the Bay Area with extremely high rents.

Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said, in response to the Supreme Court's denial, that "the modest relocation assistance landlords must provide to tenants who are displaced, by no fault of their own, in an owner move-in eviction, provides critical support for those facing unanticipated moving expenses and other relocation costs," and can help tenants avoid homelessness. Parker previously has cited the fact that many displaced tenants lose the rent-control protection they may have had for years, and they face a rental market with exorbitantly higher rents than they were paying, leading to potential displacement out of their community altogether.

J. David Breemer of the Pacific Legal Foundation said in a statement, per the Chronicle, that the Ballingers are disappointed but they hope the Supreme Court, in a future case, "will ultimately agree that rental owners are entitled to real constitutional protection when government requires them to pay off tenants before moving back into their own home."

Previously: Oakland Landlords Lose Case Over Paying Tenants $6,500 To Leave

Photo: Ian Hutchinson

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Supreme Court Rejects Oakland Couple's Case Opposing Tenant Payouts, In Win For Tenants' Rights - SFist

In his 1963 book The Deadlock of Democracy, political historian James MacGregor Burns offered anovel suggestion. Then as now, most academics agreed that Americas party system was an unusually stable one. Ever since the Civil War era, when the election of Abraham Lincoln helped to consolidate the dominance of two major political parties, Republicans and Democrats had ruled with relatively little outside contestation. But Burns saw things differently. America did not have two political parties, he argued, butfour.

In Burnss formulation, each of the major parties was split into two branchesa congressional wing and a presidential wingand there could be significant tensions between the two. Today, the specific division that Burns highlighted has been largely forgotten by history. But his approach of surveying American politics by dividing it up into factions more nuanced than Democrat and Republican has been much more resilient. For example, in 2021, author and journalist George Packer published abook arguing that the nations politics are not driven by division between two groupsliberals and conservativesbut rather by conflict between four tribes: alibertarian Free America, anationalistic Real America, atechnocratic Smart America, and aprogressive-minded JustAmerica.

In creating such aclassification, Packer stands in acrowded field. Since Burnss time, aplethora of columnists and commentators have followed in the historians footsteps, dividing the electorate into rival blocs and asking the provocative question: What if America did not have two political parties, but three? Or four? Or six? What if this were not ahypothetical scenario, but rather areflection of our currentreality?

Whether we like it or not, Americas established two-party order shows little sign of being replaced in the near future. But it can still be valuable to examine how the voting blocs that exist in U.S. politics might align if we were in, say, Germany, Spain or New Zealand. Instead of simply classifying voters as Democrats or Republicans and treating the identity of these parties as static, we can examine the shifting factions that have contentiously vied for control within each party. This way of looking at political factions is more than an interesting thought experiment. For organizers, it can allow for better strategic decision-making, yielding new insights into influencing other groups, building coalitionsand winning realpower.

Breaking down multi-partyAmerica

Of the many efforts to divide the American body politic into groupings thatin another contextmight be cohesive enough to function as independent political parties, perhaps the most long-standing has been that of the Pew Research Center. Since 1987, Pew has gathered survey data and released areport approximately every five years that seeks to look at internal divisions within both the Republican and Democratic coalitions. The original report, written in the waning days of the Cold War, said that, In 1987, the conventional labels of liberal and conservative are about as relevant as the words Whig and Federalist. The report argued that these expressions have not only lost much of their traditional meaning, they do not even remotely come close to defining the nature of American publicopinion.

To more actively characterize the divisions among the U.S. public, Pews researchers identified nine basic values and orientations that served to motivate voters and divide people into groups. These were: religious faith, tolerance, social justice, militant anti-Communism, alienation (or the belief that the American system does not work for oneself), American exceptionalism, financial pressure, attitudes towards government, and attitudes towards corporations. Ask someone about these issues, the surveys logic went, and you could find their true politicaltribe.

Over the years, the cleavages highlighted in Pews political typologies have shifted somewhatfear of Soviet Communism, for example, has been supplanted by concerns about immigration as adriver of political behavior. But the overall approach of breaking the American public into subgroups based on their attitudes toward key issues has remained constant over eight reports spanning more than three decades. Others have also joined Pew in creating like-minded typologiesamong the more detailed of which are from the right-leaning Virginia-based think tank Echelon Insights and progressive political scientist Lee Drutman.

So how do Republicans and Democrats breakdown?

With regard to those on the right wing of the political spectrum, the very first Pew report contended that The Republican Party has two distinct groups: the Enterprisers, whose more traditional form of Republicanism is driven by free enterprise economic concerns, and the Moralists, an equally large, less affluent and more populist group driven by moral issues and Militant anti-communism. Thirty-five years later, such adivision may still be valid. At the same time, Drutman, alecturer at Johns Hopkins University and asenior fellow at New America, has offered some updates for the current political climate. He believes that, if operating in amulti-party system, Republicans would probably split into three: acenter-right Reform Conservative Party (think Marco Rubio), aconsistently conservative Christian Republican Party (think Cruz), and apopulist-nationalist America First Party (think Trump). He also allows that Maybe asmall Libertarian Party would win someseats.

Pews recent surveys further draw out some of the fault lines. The most business-minded Republicans, which in 2017 Pew called New Era Enterprisers, demand aggressive tax cuts and deregulation, but they may be open to immigration and tolerant when it comes to same-sex marriage. They are relatively cosmopolitan and largely internationalist, supportive of government efforts to advance corporate-led globalization. These well-off conservatives stand in contrast with another group, dubbed the Populist Right in the 2021 survey, which is most likely to find its ranks based in rural areas. Its members are rabidly anti-immigrant, show significant resentment toward banks and corporate elites, and rail against free trade treaties. Athird group, Faith and Flag Conservatives are older and overwhelmingly Christian. Diverging from the populists, they generally view the U.S. economic system as fair. Instead, they are driven by the culture war. Seeing themselves in an electoral battle against abortionists, homosexuals, and radical feminists, they have never met a Dont Say Gay bill they didntlike.

The fact that New Era Enterprisers, the Populist Right, and Faith and Flag Conservatives have been able to hold together within the Republican Party coalition is remarkableand sometimes tenuous. The Tea Partys challenges to incumbents they dubbed RINOs, or Republican in name only, illustrates that the coexistence has not always been peaceful. As for points of unity, Pew noted in 2021 that the factions are fairly aligned in beliefs about race: the groups consistently rebut the idea that white people benefit from advantages in society that Black people dont have and largely contend that increased public attention to the history of slavery and racism in America isnegative.

With regard to the political left, the Democratic coalition contains divisions of its own. When asked ahead of the 2020 presidential primaries about the prospect of former Vice President Joe Biden winning the Democratic Party nomination, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) memorably groaned. Oh God, she remarked to New York magazine, In any other country, Joe Biden and Iwould not be in the same party, but in America, weare.

A variety of political analysts have backed Ocasio-Cortezs sentiment. In a2019 studyentitled What if the U.S. Were aMulti-Party Democracy?Echelon Insights imagined the Democrats splitting into three distinct groups in aEuropean-style party system, with its members divided between the Acela, Green, and Labor parties. The neoliberal Acela Party would be oriented toward business-aligned centrists. In the studys words, it would aim to Advance social progress including womens rights and LGBTQ rights, work with other countries through free trade and diplomacy, cut the deficit, and reform capitalism with sensibleregulation.

Progressives on the left end of the Democratic coalition would hardly find this to be an attractive platform. Instead, Echelon predicted that they would join a Green Party led by Ocasio-Cortez and other members of The Squad. This party would seek to pass aGreen New Deal to build acarbon-free economy with jobs for all, break up big corporations, end systemic inequality, and promote social and economicjustice.

Between these two poles would fall most traditional Democrats. Echelon envisioned that abloc of people possibly more than twice as large as each of the other groupings might join aEuropean-style Labor Party. This party would put the middle class first, pass universal health insurance, strengthen labor unions, and raise taxes on the wealthy to support programs for those less welloff.

Members of the hypothetical Acela, Labor, and Green parties might actually agree in their diagnosis of many problems, and yet disagree on the solutions. Pew argues that, within the Democratic coalition, intensity of belief is often more important than cleavages based around issueswith mainstream liberals being content with modest reforms and younger radicals believing that much more drastic change is needed. In amulti-party system, this dynamic might force these parties to work in coalition, even as they remain at odds about what specific actions the state shouldtake.

The value of understandingfactions

Not all attempts to think about the United States as having amulti-party system are driven by the same motives. While some political observers are merely launching what if? conversations, other advocates are pushing for America to fundamentally revise its election lawsan improbable goal given the strong incentive the two dominant parties have to maintain theirnear-monopolies.

So, if we accept that electoral structures are unlikely to significantly transform anytime soon, why is it useful to look at various efforts to think of America as amulti-party system?

First, it allows us to better understand what the Democratic and Republican parties actually are. Instead of seeing the two major parties as ideologically well-defined groups with stable sets of beliefs, we can view them as fractiouscoalitions.

Various legal structures, electoral rules and political norms have created asituation in the United States in which forming new parties is difficult. Those outsider parties that do form tend to have limited success. Therefore, competing groups often instead seek influence within the dominant parties, which end up being big-tent entities that try to keep many constituencies together under the same roof. Inside the tent, factions make uncomfortable truces in order to create majorities that can hand them ashare ofpower.

While political conflict in Europe often is expressed in arguments between different parties, in the United States, we are just as likely to see tensions playing out as arguments within the major parties. The Democrats and Republicans contain subgroups that rise and fall over time, and with their ascent or decline, these factions change the demographics and ideologies of the parties. Winning power requires thinking about how your faction can become dominant. As organizer Alexandra Flores-Quilty put it in arecent report for Momentum, Political parties are not monoliths. They are open terrains of conflict andstruggle.

At several key junctures in the past centuryincluding during the New Deal, and the emergence of the religious right in the 1970s and 80swhat it has meant to be aRepublican or Democrat has fundamentally altered. Attention to rising and falling factions allow for insight into how major realignments happen within mainstreampolitics.

Thinking about America in amulti-party context can be useful particularly for those on the political left. The landscape of political blocs illustrates how, even if the left had its own party that was more ideologically coherent than the Democrats, it would still have to deal with the problems of interacting with otherfactions.

Disgusted with both Democrats and Republicans, advocates of third parties often promote afresh party infrastructure as apanacea. But the creation of anew party does not solve every political problemit only introduces new sets of problems that then must be resolved. Because groups of people with different beliefs will not simply disappear, even those pursuing athird-party strategy must be attentive to fault lines within the electorate. They will need to consider which factions can be peeled off from the existing parties, and what narratives they might use to unite disparate groups. When the traditional parties try to win back their members by co-opting some of the third partys issues and exploiting divisions in their ranks, they will need to find ways torespond.

Questions of coalitions also remain. Athird party might have the advantage of amore disciplined and principled ideological identity, but purity only goes so far: European parties must constantly consider what groups they are willing to join in alliances with, and which they would never join. They must decide whether they might be willing to serve as apartner in agoverning coalition led by others, or whether they want to stay on the outside. If they do opt to go inside, they must consider what gains it allows them to secure, and what it costs them in terms of principles and their political appeal. As a2020 headline in the Irish Times observed, Serving in coalition government can be bad for junior partners health. On the other hand, being perpetually excluded from power altogether can lead aparty to lose followers and to grow ever more insular andirrelevant.

These considerations do not pertain only to hypothetical party coalitions. Many observers have contended that, within the current Democratic Party coalition, progressives can be seen as ajunior partner in just such agovernment. Those who would ultimately like to see this faction form its own party, as well as those seeking to make it adominant force within abigger Democratic tent, must deal with many of the same strategicquestions.

In 2019, Waleed Shahid, aspokesperson for Justice Democrats, agroup that backs progressive Democratic primary challenges, told Politico, There is going to be awar within the party. We are going to lean into it. Nearly adecade before, Tea Party advocates sought to reshape the Republican Party with RINO hunts that took down figures as prominent as former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (RVa.). In each case, the insurgents in question might have more easily created new parties under adifferent political system. But in America, these factional battles have played out under the cover of what might look from the outside like aplacid and stable two-partyorder.

In this respect, the type of thinking encouraged by James MacGregor Burns nearly 60years ago has grown in importance not only for those who want to understand the rifts driving American politicsbut also those who seek to make the most of the opportunities theypresent.

Research assistance provided by CelestePepitone-Nahas.

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What If America Had Six Political Parties? - In These Times

WAUSAU Open state Senate seats will dominate local elections in the Marathon County area this fall.

Decisions by Republican state Senate incumbents Kathy Bernierand Jerry Petrowskito not seek reelection will set up primary elections on Aug. 9.

Three Republicans will compete to replace Bernier in the 23rd Senate District. The winner of the primary will also win the seat in November because no Democrat filed to run for the seat.

Meanwhile, the winner of a three-way Republican primary to replacePetrowski in the 29th Senate District will face Democrat Robert Look.

Here are the races for the Marathon County area.An (*) indicates a race that will require a primary; (i) denotes the incumbent.

Incumbent Kathy Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, is not seeking reelection.

Republicans*: Brian Westrate, Fall Creek; Sandra Scholz, Chippewa Falls; Jesse James, Altoona

Challengers: None

Incumbent Jerry Petrowski, R-Stettin, is not seeking reelection.

Republicans*: Brent Jacobson, Mosinee; Jon Kaiser, Ladysmith; Cory Tomczyk, Mosinee

Democratic: Robert Look, Rothschild

Republican: Calvin Callahan (i), Tomahawk

Independent:Todd Frederick, Merrill

Republican: Donna M. Rozar (i), Marshfield

Democratic:Lisa Boero, Marshfield

Republican: Pat Snyder (i), Schofield

Democratic: Kristin Conway, Schofield

Republican: John Spiros (i), Marshfield

Challengers: None

Republicans: James W. Edming (i), Glen Flora; Michael Bub, Medford

Democratic:Elizabeth Riley, Hayward

Libertarian: Wade A. Mueller, Athens, still pending state approval

Independent, Libertarian: Tom Rasmussen, Medford, still pending state approval

Republicans*: Kelly Schremp (i), Benjamin Seidlerand Pam Van Ooyen.

Incumbent Sheriff Scott Parks is not seeking reelection. Parks endorsed his chief deputy, Chad Billeb, in announcing his decision last summer.

Republican: Chad Billeb

Challengers: None

MORE NEWS: New plans for the Wausau Center mall site include apartments, restaurants and small retail

MORE NEWS: Wausau Streetwise: A Taste of Manila sells West Side Tasty Treat building, Cobblestone Hotel breaks ground in Mosinee

Contact reporter Alan Hovorka at 715-345-2252 or ahovorka@gannett.com.Follow him on Twitter at @ajhovorka.

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Wausau election roundup: 23rd and 29th state Senate seats up for grabs this fall - Wausau Daily Herald