LNC Region 2/California Report

for the LNC meeting of
11-12 March 2000

by Joe Dehn

Candidates

Libertarians are on the ballot for 113 out of the 153 partisan offices being contested this year, more than all other minor parties combined:

1 / 1 US Senate seat
45/52 US House seats
15/20 State Senate seats
52/80 State Assembly seats

About a dozen candidates for local offices (which are all non-partisan) have been identified so far. A significant recruiting effort will be needed to bring the total number of candidates to the goal of 200.

Ballot Status

A ballot status milestone was passed in January when for the first time since the 1980s Libertarian registration passed the threshhold for ballot status. Parties in California can maintain ballot status in either of two ways: by having enough registrants or by having one of their statewide candidates get sufficient votes. After the initial ballot drive which qualified the party two decades ago, registration had dropped off but ballot status had been maintained on the basis of votes. We are now qualified BOTH ways.

Primary

California's primary was 7 March, and for the first time featured open voting for presidential candidates of all parties by voters of all parties. Due to Democratic and Republican rules for allocating delegates which required that only votes cast by their own registrants be counted, votes were tallied separately for voters of each party, producing some very interesting statistics of a type we have never had available before concerning voting by registered Libertarians and by voters of other parties for Libertarian candidates. (See tables on attached page.)

In voting for other partisan offices there was only one contested race between Libertarians, so this part of the primary was of little interest to most Libertarians, except as a preview of how our candidates might do in the fall. There were also in some areas non-partisan offices being voted on; as of this writing I have not heard of any winners among LP members.

There were, as usual, a large number of propositions on the ballot as well. Results were mixed from a Libertarian viewpoint. Perhaps most significant was the narrow defeat of a proposal to reduce the voting requirement for passage of school bonds from 2/3 to a simple majority.

Convention

The state convention was held 18-21 February. Business featured election of state party officials (except officers, who are elected in odd years for two-year terms), LNC representatives and representatives to national convention committees, and national delegates. Only a few minor changes were made to the state platform and bylaws. (See attached summary page.)

Local Organizations

The LPC is divided into 58 geographic regions. All regions in the southern part of the state and most regions in the northern part of the state are now organized. With plans for organizing several more during 2000, it is estimated that by the end of the year more than 99% of the membership will be covered by an organized region.

Plans are being made for the 2nd annual conference of regions to be held at the end of August in the Fresno area.

Finances

The financial crisis of last fall has been temporarily dealt with; specifically, distribution of UMP revenue to the local regions has been brought completely up to date. At the post- convention meeting of the Executive Committee a budget envisioning total gross revenue of about $307,000 was adopted (see attachment), but it does not include sufficient funds to maintain monthly printing/mailing of the newsletter or to pay for a new staff position that the Chair would like to add.

California Open Presidential Primary -- 7 March 2000

Votes for each candidate from all voters:

    Al Gore          2369332
    George W. Bush   1940201
    John McCain      1599318
    Bill Bradley      579303
    Alan Keyes        151961
    Ralph Nader       101165
  > Harry Browne       18647
    Lyndon LaRouche    17756
    Donald J. Trump    13673
    Steve Forbes       12838
    Gary Bauer          9299
    George D. Weber     8535
    Orrin Hatch         8273
    Howard Phillips     8161
    Joel Kovel          6031
    John Hagelin        5298
    Robert Bowman       4315
  > Kip Lee             3552
  > L. Neil Smith       2869
    John B. Anderson    2794
  > Larry Hines         2718
  > Dave Lynn Hollist   2285
    Charles Collins     1620
                     -------
                     6869944

Voter behavior by party of voter:

          Browne Hines Hollist Lee Smith   Big2D   Big2R   Other   Lib%

reg Lib.    7961   842   721   656   992    6177   13853    3657 32.05%
reg Dem.    3802   677   546  1255   688 2403413  688214  111600  0.22%
reg Rep.    3064   458   377   635   430  203842 2427365  137443  0.18%
reg A.I.     350    73    62    97    83   31731   49140    9771  0.73%
reg Grn.     182    37    14    25    25   14773    6810   23480  0.62%
reg N.L.      33    12     7    14     5    4940    2812    1914  0.73%
reg Ref.     207    21    19    15    26    8294   18682    4480  0.91%
others      3048   598   539   855   620  275465  332643   59374  0.84%

all voters 18647  2718  2285  3552  2869 2948635 3539519  351719  0.44%

Notes:
  Big2D means Gore and Bradley
  Big2R means Bush and McCain
  Other means all except Libs, Big2D, and Big2R

LPC 2000 Budget

Following is the LPC 2000 budget as adopted at the 21 February Executive Committee meeting.

(Note: I have reformatted the revenue portion to show cost of revenue side by side with the corresponding sources and added a net revenue column -- none of the numbers in that column appear in the original document. There is something of a religious argument about whether it is better to total up the revenue on a gross basis or after computing a net for each category -- this format shows it both ways. I have also changed the sequence of the expense categories to put similar items closer to each other, and moved the main category totals to the bottom of each column. The newsletter and excess of support over expenses figures have been adjusted for the changes made before adoption. Otherwise all categories and numbers are as in the original.)

  REVENUE AND SUPPORT         COST OF REVENUE                   [NET]


  Membership Dues             Membership Dues                  47,600
   From Members       3,000    To National           3,000
   UMP Memberships  119,000    To Regions           71,400
  Periodic Pledges   51,000   Periodic Pledges                 43,000
                               To Regions            5,000
                               Free Memberships      3,000
  Mail Fundraising   25,600   Mail Fundraising      14,400     11,200
  Convention
   Operations        43,200   Convention Operations 43,000        200
   Fundraising        4,900                                     4,900
  Phone Fundraising  14,000   Phone Fundraising      8,300      5,700
  Major Donors       45,000                                    45,000
  Misc. Support       1,200                                     1,200
                    -------                        -------    -------
                    306,900                        148,100    158,800


  EXPENSES

  Payroll                71,000
  Exec Dir Expenses      16,800
  LA Office Rent          3,600
  LA Office Phonelines    1,350
  Other Administration    8,750
  Media Relations         5,300
  Newsletter             27,000
  Chair Expenses          2,400
  Vice Chair Expenses       400
  Treasurer Expenses        200
  Seed Money                600
                        -------
                        137,400

  Excess Support over Expenses    21,400