Karl Dickey at Palm Beach Free Press:

Cocoa Beach, Fla — The Libertarian Party of Florida (LP Florida) is conducting its annual business meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida this weekend. The weekend has featured nationally-known libertarians and other speakers for the crowd. LP Florida is the third largest political party in Florida and is undergoing a dramatic growth spurt while the two older parties are not faring as well. Yesterday, delegates to the convention elected Marco Miralles to replace Char-Lez Braden as the Chairman to the Libertarian Party of Florida. Despite Miralles only being 23 years old, people were inspired by the county affiliate’s accomplishments in Miami-Dade County which he is the Vice-Chairman. Miralles is easy on the eyes and we heard from several women in attendance they look forward to him bringing more women into the party. Miralles will officially become the party’s chair after the conclusion of today’s annual business meeting. Miralles is seeking to have at least 100 Libertarians in public office by 2021 and hopes to dramatically increase help to candidates running for office. He also seeks to increase the fundraising efforts of the county affiliates and LP Florida. As with most political parties there were some internal conflicts and there was a move afoot to replace the entire LP Florida Executive Committee. But that was not to be. Omar Recuero was re-elected Vice-Chairman of LP Florida and Alison Foxall was re-elected Director At Large 1. LP Florida newcomer Greg Peele won Director At Large 3 by an overwhelming majority. Today, the state political party will elect their Regional Representatives who also serve on the party’s Executive Committee. The Regional Reps are voted in by each of their regions for which there are 14. Between Friday and Saturday, noted speakers included Bernard Von Nothaus, Thomas DiLorenzo, Matt Welch, Lauren Rumpler, and Larry Sharpe. This morning, LP Florida delegates adjourn around mid-day and we will offer a full report on Monday.

Followup post:

Cocoa Beach, Fla — So, the Libertarian Party of Florida (LP Florida) concluded its annual business meeting shortly before noon yesterday, May 7, 2017. As we noted in an article yesterday, Marcos Miralles was elected as the new Chairman, Alison Foxall At Large Director 1 and Greg Peele to At Large Director 3. In addition to those LP Florida offices being up for election, all the Regional Representative offices were up for election. Regional Reps serve on the LP Florida Executive Committee and are the official liaisons for Florida county affiliates. Here is the following how the vote went down: Region 1 Raymond McGee (Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton) Region 2 Anna Marie Morris (Holmes, Washington, Bay, Jackson, Calhoun, Gulf, Liberty, Franklin) Region 3 Joshua Folsom (Gadsden, Leon, Wakulla, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor) Region 4 Ryan Ramsey (Hamilton, Suwanee, Lafayette, Dixie, Gilchrist, Columbia, Union, Bradford, Alachua) Region 5 Joe Martin (Baker, Nassau, Duval, Clay) Region 6 Kristen Daniel (Levy, Marion, Citrus, Sumter, Lake) Region 7 Paul Stanton (Putnam, Flagler, Seminole, Volusia, St. Johns) Region 8 John D. Pierce (Hernando, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco) Region 9 George Lebovitz (Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Polk) Region 10 Char-Lez Braden (Manatee, Sarasota, Hardee, DeSoto, Highlands) Region 11 Shawn Elliot (Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, Okeechobee, Glades) Region 12 Rob Tolp (Charlotte, Lee, Collier) Region 13 Karl Dickey (Broward, Hendry, Palm Beach) Region 14 Steven Nekhaila (Monroe, Miami-Dade) Here are some of the scenes from the convention: [follow link above back to original article for photos]

Thomas L. Knapp at Kn@ppster:

I’m back from the Libertarian Party of Florida’s 2017 state convention. I wish I could say I’m rested up from it, but I’m not quite there yet. Still, I’d like to get some thoughts down on what transpired. First, a huge THANK YOU to those who financially supported me in making this trip! There were things I wanted to accomplish, some of which worked out and some of which didn’t, but I think the effort was worthwhile regardless. And THANK YOU to the convention for consenting to a moment of silence in memory of Libertarian Hero R. Lee Wrights. So, here’s what happened vis a vis my own agenda: The Battles I Fought and Won



I proposed the following bylaws amendment: “The following section shall be added to Article III, Section 4 of the bylaws (‘Meetings of the Executive Committee’): The Executive Committee shall use roll call voting on all substantive motions. On all roll call votes, the vote of each individual Committee member shall be recorded in the minutes.” It passed, and I think that’s a good thing when it comes to transparency and accountability.

It passed, and I think that’s a good thing when it comes to transparency and accountability. I opposed the following language, which was proposed as part of a batch platform amendment: “We oppose using state and local resources to enforce federal immigration laws against foreign nationals who do not pose a credible threat to security, health or property.” That language was divided into a separate motion from the rest of the batch, and then tabled. The Battles I Fought and Lost I ran for the position of Director At Large 1 on the party’s executive committee. I didn’t expect to win, and I didn’t win. Congratulations to Alison Foxall, the incredibly hard-working incumbent who DID win. My purpose in running was to make one particular point about the party standing up for itself when threatened with frivolous/malicious litigation over its public communications, and I got the chance to do that. My impression is that quite a few delegates agreed with me on the matter and hopefully that will affect the executive committee’s actions in the future.

Thanks to my friend Paul Stanton, who nominated me for appointment to Florida’s slot on the national platform committee. The delegates chose Frank Caprio of the Orange County affiliate to fill that position. Congratulations to Frank. I will continue to work on the platform as I have been so far — as an advocate, and next year from the convention floor. The Battles I Didn’t End Up Fighting I was encouraged by several Florida Libertarians to run for a seat on the executive committee as my region’s representative. I wasn’t inclined to do so, and after informally discussing the matter with delegates from the region, my perception was that they were neither unhappy with the incumbent (Ryan Ramsey) nor inclined to replace him. God knows I’m not afraid to pick a fight (I’m sure some people think I pick way too many), nor am I afraid to lose a fight. I just wasn’t convinced that there was anything worthwhile to be gained by picking this fight. Congratulations to Ryan.

fight. Congratulations to Ryan. I proposed (prior to the convention through the party’s mechanism for doing so) a lengthy bylaws amendment relating to suspension/expulsion of members. When that motion arrived on the floor, I withdrew it. Obviously this bears explanation, so: The convention was pressed for time, and this was an item which would have required lengthy discussion and almost certainly would have run out the clock without a vote. I didn’t want to be the asshole who kept the delegates in session for longer than necessary without getting the job done anyway. At least one other amendment came up on which this proposal would have had bearing. Pressing it would have made things even more complicated, and that other amendment also made it clear that there is a load of work to do in getting the next convention’s delegates to think about the nature of “membership” in the party, what that entails, and what powers the executive committee actually has (the bylaws are at variance with both the party’s Constitution and Florida law). I plan to come to next year’s convention with a more comprehensive fix to bring the party’s rules into line with reality, and I plan to have thoroughly explained that fix and why it’s necessary before then. I expect to have more thoughts on this weekend’s happenings, but frankly I’m still too worn out to get those thoughts together — so I’ll come back with another post later.

Knapp also posted audio blogs from the convention here and here.

We also received a report from an anonymous source:

There were people yelling white power. Larry Sharpe went on an alt-right vlog by Ryan Ramsey called the Mad American Network. That group was with Invictus in Harrisburg, PA and at least one member, Dave Martel, was seen sieg heiling there. Invictus chased someone out of a courtesy suite with threats of violence. Invictus was then pushing Paul Stanton trying to pick a fight. There was loud applause of his speech where he hijacked our convention for five minutes, then just bragged about it… …our gubernatorial candidate denied Stanton a mic for a privileged motion, so that he could procedurally kill a pro-immigration platform plank without letting it be read. Thomas Knapp lost an ad hoc election to the LP platform committee to a “constitutional conservative” who once told me, “anti-racist is code for anti-white,” Frank Caprio. He’s from the LP of Orange County (Orlando area, same as Invictus -p). Oh, and by the way – no pretend antifa protesters showed up, of course.