I am George Phillies, Treasurer for the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts and custodian of our URLs. 

My responsibilities to our State Association are directly impacted by the recent LNC decision on the Oregon State Party, a decision currently under appeal by the State Party as a a de facto disaffiliation. 

Hopefully it can be resolved on this basis, without concerned parties having to generate the signatures of an adequate number of convention delegates to ask for a fresh Judicial Committee hearing. 

The LNC has effectively claimed it can come into my state, decide what our bylaws are, decide who our officers are, and try to walk off with our URLs and by implication other property such as out membership records, archives, and Treasury.  How can we raise money if I cannot assure members that they control who is on their state committee and what our Constitution and Bylaws are? 

I urge the Judicial Committee to overturn the recent LNC Executive Committee decision on Oregon as a violation of Article 3 of our Party Bylaws, which reads 

"ARTICLE 3: PURPOSES 

The Party is organized to implement and give voice to the principles embodied in the Statement of Principles by: functioning as a libertarian political entity separate and distinct from all other 

political parties or movements; moving public policy in a libertarian direction by building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office; chartering affiliate parties throughout the United 

States and promoting their growth and activities; nominating candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and supporting Party and affiliate party candidates for political office; and, entering into public information activities.'" 

The violation arises because the Executive Committee did not insist on rationales as to whether their actions would 

      *promote the growth and activity of affiliates, 

      *build a political party that elects Libertarians, or 

      *support affiliate candidates, 

to name three purposes most directly related  to this case.  The Executive Committee instead considered legalistic rationales deriving from Roberts' Rules of Order and related dogma, as witness the near-50 pages from LNC  Secretary Mattson. 

That is, the decision was wrongly decided, because it was a substantive decision being made on the basis of Robertsonian legalisms, not on whether the decision would advance the purposes of our party, as is implicitly mandated by Article 3 of the Bylaws.