Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a situation interrupting the ability of organizations and individuals to conduct business as usual, and many states require political parties to submit the name(s) of candidates for office a date before which it would be practical to hold an in-person nominating convention;
Whereas The Libertarian Party Bylaws require all business to be conducted at Regular Conventions and shall be conducted at Regular Conventions only;
Whereas the Chair of the LNC ruled a “place” to mean an online convention, was subsequently overruled by the members of the Libertarian National Committee convened in a meeting on May 9, 2020; Whereas the sanctity of the secret ballot must be preserved as well as the transparency of the results upheld;
Whereas Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised is recognized as the governing document in the absence of specific Bylaws or Special Rules of Order state that action taken by officers, committees, delegates, or bodies, must be ratified by a subsequent in-person meeting in order to carry out decisions made at an electronic meeting;
Whereas the LNC compromised on an earlier decision, and voted in favor of, holding a bifurcated regular convention for Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominations of the United States in an online “first sitting” on Friday, May 22, 2020. This was to be followed by an in-person “second sitting” to be held July 8 – 12, 2020, in Orlando Florida, for all other remaining convention business, and ratification of such decisions made on May 22nd;
Therefore, be it Resolved, that the Connecticut Libertarian Party:
1. Recognizes the LNC has an organizational and structural problem that does not facilitate prompt decision making, as evidenced by the lead up to the Convention. The delegates must implement a new process or set of processes to fix that problem so that decisions are actually made in a timely manner to implement them and the Party business is facilitated.
2. Recognizes the LNC as a business entity, with a purpose of implementing the Party business as directed by the Convention. Its job is not philosophy or education. Its job is putting the will of the Convention into action, and to facilitate the business of the Convention.
3. Recognizes that COVID-19 creates impossibilities the Bylaws of the Party did not contemplate. In attempting to have the compromise arrived at by the LNC to conduct the Presidential and Vice Presidential Nominations revisited or otherwise reworked into facilitating all of the business online, the LNC Chair has exhibited the appearance of bias, and complicated an already confusing situation.
4. Affirms that the rights of members to debate and make motions cannot be suppressed and are paramount to order and transparency.
5. Affirms the correct course of action to be to conduct the online nominations on May 22, 2020, and then ratify such nominations when the Convention meets, at a later date, in person.
6. Declares, in the event the Chair of the LNC, or anyone else on the LNC, successfully subverts, reinvents or somehow undoes the compromise to only conduct the Presidential and Vice Presidential Nominations online, or otherwise modify the business, to make the Convention online, the Libertarian Party of Connecticut can take one or more of the following actions as an appropriate in response:
A. Placing its own Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates online
B. Disaffiliation