Motion: Establish and Fund a Campaign Support Fund (Special Fund)

I just want to be clear here… this motion as is not with any changes is what we will be voting on? I really think we were all in line with part of this and the part we weren’t really needs some fine tuning. It is a lot easier to add well thought out plans than it is to take out bad or ambiguous language.
 
Thanks, everyone! I am good to remove the piece about financial candidate support given the concerns that have been raised and seeing that we wouldn’t be doing so in the near term. We can untie that knot another day.

I’m en route to the beach (‘cause that’s what you do when you have a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf 😉), but once I get settled, I’ll make the necessary edits.
 
Thanks, everyone! I am good to remove the piece about financial candidate support given the concerns that have been raised and seeing that we wouldn’t be doing so in the near term. We can untie that knot another day.

I’m en route to the beach (‘cause that’s what you do when you have a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf 😉), but once I get settled, I’ll make the necessary edits.
Just a procedural comment. To do this either the current sponsors will need to withdraw their support to release the motion, edit it, then sponsor it again OR a new thread and motion needs to be made. We cannot assume that because there was some discussion/objections that the same people are still sponsoring a different motion. If this is something we may need to workshop a bit, in person rules give us much more robust and expedient amendment options.
 
Just a procedural comment. To do this either the current sponsors will need to withdraw their support to release the motion, edit it, then sponsor it again OR a new thread and motion needs to be made. We cannot assume that because there was some discussion/objections that the same people are still sponsoring a different motion. If this is something we may need to workshop a bit, in person rules give us much more robust and expedient amendment options.
Absolutely. My intent was edit out the financial candidate support piece and start a new motion.
 
I agree with Jacob, Nathan, Amanda, and Matthew. Anything else I would write would be redundant. If we want to establish a fund where all candidates receive support, then that’s different.
I echo this concern and I would like to know the specific criteria that would establish if a campaign deserves support for advertising, block-walking etc. I second Jacobs fears. We don't need to pick winners and losers. I think funding overall support from LP Texas to candidates is a great idea as it is our primary mission and we should put some dollars behind it.
 
Point of information. Is not funding blockwalkers direct funding of a candidate? I think it is under FEC and likely direct or in-kind under TEC.
 
And picking winners and losers is something we (should) do. In my short stint as a county officer, I have left the L ballot line empty, and have wondered aloud why others haven’t when there is a clear lack of platform alignment. Not just one point, but general alignment. I get we should be big tent, and I am a strong supporter of that idea, but some of these folks have got to be using us for ballot access.
 
Point of information. Is not funding blockwalkers direct funding of a candidate? I think it is under FEC and likely direct or in-kind under TEC.
Not if we have "LPTexas" block walkers that are walking for the party and then inform voters of ALL libertarian candidates that will be on the ballot. The block walkers would be walking for the party, not a campaign.
 
I am also reticent about this current proposition. I love the idea of this party being more active and directly supporting our candidates. Money is an easy way to do that when you don't have volunteers on the ground. I especially love the training aspects. I wouldn't object to funds being spent on general-purpose action items that support all of our candidates and our party objectives, which are to 1) get libertarians elected to office, and 2) build up the libertarian voting base to vote for our candidates through membership recruitment. We don't often mention the second part of how we get our nominees elected.

However, before we start handing out money directly to candidates I want to have much clearer language on how that is going to be decided, and what procedures will need to be followed. I would like there to be a lot of transparency around which candidates are being offered money and which candidates have requested funding, etc.

I will support general candidate support funds if the language restricts the fund to training and other activities that support political action and volunteer recruitment without any earmarks for specific candidates. A committee should be formed to explore the issues and recommend a procedure for funding candidates to be presented to SLEC at a future date for approval separately.

As a suggestion, while this fund is being established and we're figuring out the details, perhaps it would be a good idea to limit which types of races qualify for funding from the LP. If we want to push to get State Reps in, we could say that we're only funding TXSD races, and that would cut out a lot of the murk. This is just an example, I think it would be for SLEC to decide which kinds of races would qualify. But again, we need the language that spells all of this out.
 
I think having a fund that could be used to support any sort of training by LPTX, or even profiling and bringing public awareness to candidates through LPTX channels such as social media, block walking, or even candidate meet and greets, would be a good idea. Like Nathan said, any funds would need to clearly be spent on party related activities. I would vote for that, but I do agree that there needs to be clarity that this does NOT involve direct donations to candidates, otherwise we are asking for trouble.
I am ignorant on the topic, but I think a fair question that I have seen mentioned...do we not already have a fund that can operate in this way? If so, is there a benefit to making an additional or more specific fund to earmark for this purpose?
 
And picking winners and losers is something we (should) do. In my short stint as a county officer, I have left the L ballot line empty, and have wondered aloud why others haven’t when there is a clear lack of platform alignment. Not just one point, but general alignment. I get we should be big tent, and I am a strong supporter of that idea, but some of these folks have got to be using us for ballot access.
The party picks winners and losers when the party picks its nominees.

Individuals pick winners and losers at the ballot box.

The latter has nothing to do with the party's obligation to the nominees it chose. This is why it is important to consider candidates thoroughly prior to nomination and to be willing to NOTA people who don't align with our platform or other criteria instead of nominating them. If we get there, we can support our nominees with confidence.
 
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My reservations are that it would be objective criteria. Some members would be happy with the decision while others would be unhappy, and this would go for candidates as well. The state party shouldn't objectively be picking winners and losers with the people who stepped up and ran as a Libertarian. These are the face of our party, and the ones who will be our biggest out reach to the community. Setting up a plan to reject our candidates the funds needed as someone (or a group of some ones) is not a plan that I, nor this party should get involved in. We should either make this plan to fund all candidates equally or none at all.
Objective criteria is not subjective. Objective is clearly measurable, empirical.

It could be something as simple as: *submit LPTexas a headshot to list on our site
*fill out their ballotopedia
*set up their social/online presence so LPTexas can link to it

Once complete, they get a $200 donation.

I would be curious where this is picking winners and losers or hurting someone's feelings.
 
Objective criteria is not subjective. Objective is clearly measurable, empirical.

It could be something as simple as: *submit LPTexas a headshot to list on our site
*fill out their ballotopedia
*set up their social/online presence so LPTexas can link to it

Once complete, they get a $200 donation.

I would be curious where this is picking winners and losers or hurting someone's feelings.
If 50 candidates do that, thats 10k. there is only 5k in the fund. Someone is not going to get the donation (loser). If we had a massive money pool for candidates, like the old partys, I would have no problem with this.
 
If 50 candidates do that, thats 10k. there is only 5k in the fund. Someone is not going to get the donation (loser). If we had a massive money pool for candidates, like the old partys, I would have no problem with this.
If we did something like this it would be perfectly reasonable to set some criteria and say everyone who meets the criteria and applies will be given a set amount of support on a first come first serve basis until the funds are gone. I also personally think while we're understandably worried about tons of applications coming in and us running out of money I think the reality will be worse. I think we will be surprised at how few apply. I've been to candidate events in this party where nobody ever asked for money. A few times I've went and pulled a few hundred in cash that was in my pocket that never got pulled out because I personally believe it's a waste to give money to an org or candidate who's not committed enough to ask. Almost every term there are multiple candidates who think it's a flex to campaign on not raising any money. I know of exactly one candidate in this party who regularly phone banks. I will not be surprised if we do this and get applications from like 5 candidates, 3 are on this board, and 2 are candidates who aren't but have been running for office for a while and have shown up to SLEC meetings before. All that said I think there are good reasons we may want to do this and good reasons we may not want to do this but I don't think the untested fear that we may not have enough food for everyone is a good reason we can't feed anyone. Who knows, if you're right, we do it the first time and there really isn't enough to go around, maybe the next time the donors see it and come through to make sure there is more next time.
 
So one thought I wanted to float on that candidate support fund. What if the scope were narrowed to statewide candidates that can count towards ballot access for LPTexas?

And make distributions equal in proportion to those candidates. So that if there are 4 statewide ballot access candidates and we allocated 4k, each would get a 1k campaign contribution. This would make it more a strategic investment for LPTexas.

As far as incentivising certain candidates over others, we already do this. With delegate allocation more delegates can be earned by having a county wide candidate do well in that county. This provides an incentive of support to those candidates over other candidates. Since it is done by policy and not subjective rating of candidates, that is largely seen as a non-controversial policy. I think having well thought out policy on a candidate support fund will mitigate controversy and hurt feelings.
 
So one thought I wanted to float on that candidate support fund. What if the scope were narrowed to statewide candidates that can count towards ballot access for LPTexas?

And make distributions equal in proportion to those candidates. So that if there are 4 statewide ballot access candidates and we allocated 4k, each would get a 1k campaign contribution. This would make it more a strategic investment for LPTexas.

As far as incentivising certain candidates over others, we already do this. With delegate allocation more delegates can be earned by having a county wide candidate do well in that county. This provides an incentive of support to those candidates over other candidates. Since it is done by policy and not subjective rating of candidates, that is largely seen as a non-controversial policy. I think having well thought out policy on a candidate support fund will mitigate controversy and hurt feelings.
This seems like another viable route to me but I would also want additional criteria to exclude paper candidates. An example may be setup a website, write up and send in a campaign strategy plan, write up and fill out your campaign focus/platform, get your campaign on ballotpedia, have completed the League of Women Voters candidate survey, and hold one public event with 10 or more people where you ask for donations or call 20 people and ask for donations or get at least 5 people to donate an amount equal to $200 or more. Not sure this is the right criteria but small very achievable goals that allow the candidate to show LPTexas they are serious.
 
So one thought I wanted to float on that candidate support fund. What if the scope were narrowed to statewide candidates that can count towards ballot access for LPTexas?

And make distributions equal in proportion to those candidates. So that if there are 4 statewide ballot access candidates and we allocated 4k, each would get a 1k campaign contribution. This would make it more a strategic investment for LPTexas.

As far as incentivising certain candidates over others, we already do this. With delegate allocation more delegates can be earned by having a county wide candidate do well in that county. This provides an incentive of support to those candidates over other candidates. Since it is done by policy and not subjective rating of candidates, that is largely seen as a non-controversial policy. I think having well thought out policy on a candidate support fund will mitigate controversy and hurt feelings.
When this fund was initially discussed, there was no intent to provide funding directly to candidates. If you would like to donate to a candidate, then feel free to donate directly to them. The intent of this fund is to focus on providing training and state wide resources to support candidates. There should be a new motion going up with the language changed to remove the direct donations to candidates.
 
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