by James R. Oaksun
Original published at: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3868
This coming weekend – February 26 to 28 — a Libertarian Party state leaders conference is being held in Austin, Texas. Libertarian activists from across the country will get together, share ideas, and network. On Saturday night, there will be a debate among the four declared candidates for LNC Chair. Sunday, the National Committee will have a regular meeting.
(Some subtle (and perhaps not-so-subtle) campaigning for other LNC positions will also take place, in all likelihood.)
In preparation for the conference and to help me and perhaps others sort out the current situation on the committee, I have analyzed all the LNC’s recorded votes since the Denver convention. The end result of the analysis is a schematic that illustrates the coalitions on the committee – who is with whom, and who is against whom.
The source for the analysis is the posted minutes of the LNC meetings, from the lp.org website. I was not present at the meetings and relied solely on the formal textual record.
In addition, I only included votes where there was a stated division – where I could determine who voted yes/no/present. The committee took several voice votes through the period, where the record simply indicated “measure passed” or “measure failed”. I excluded those.
I include both mail votes and votes from the physical meeting.
Many of the votes seemed, at first glance, to be merely procedural – e.g., approval of the prior meeting’s minutes. But appearances can deceive you. Considering all votes as part of a woven cloth, it is obvious what has been going on within the LNC the last 18 months.
The first step in the analysis was simply to look at who voted most often with the majority committee sentiment.
Mark Hinkle…………………. 86%
Michael Jingozian………… 82%
Stewart Flood………………. 82%
Admiral Michael Colley… 81%
Patrick Dixon……………….. 75%
Rebecca Sink-Burris……. 75%
James Lark……………….…. 75%
Dan Karlan…………………… 71%
Robert Sullentrup………… 64%
Alicia Mattson…………….… 64%
Aaron Starr………………….. 61%
Julie Fox…………………….…. 61%
Tony Ryan……………….…… 58%
Rachel Hawkridge…….….. 57%
Mary Ruwart…………….…… 54%
Lee Wrights…………….……. 48%
Angela Keaton………….….. 40%
Now, what of LNC Chair Bill Redpath? Customarily Bill does not vote, or votes “present”. He will vote, however, to break ties. In addition, he cast a couple other critical votes in the period that clearly determine where he belongs in the schematic.
While interesting, this analysis of majority sentiment congruence does not tell the whole story. To determine what is actually going on, I conducted a pairs analysis. I considered how often each member of the committee voted with each other member of the committee, one by one. I ranked the pairs by their degree of congruence with each other.
The five strongest pairs on the committee are:
Starr with Mattson…… 100%
Ruwart with Fox………… 93%
Ruwart with Wrights…. 92%
Wrights with Fox……….. 92%
Colley with Mattson…… 91%
The five weakest pairs on the committee (i.e., the five that vote least often with each other) are:
Starr with Wrights…….. 16%
Ruwart with Mattson…. 18%
Keaton with Karlan……. 20%
Starr with Ruwart………. 21%
Starr with Hawkridge…. 25%
This produces the following diagram of connections. The thickness of the line indicates the degree of congruence in the voting pattern.
Clearly the right column dominates the left, although there are other dynamics that one must note.
The addition of Alicia Mattson clearly strengthened the hand of Starr, Sullentrup, Karlan, Flood and Colley. The departure of Angela Keaton from the committee, and her replacement by Mattson – a 100% reliable ally to Starr – was a huge victory for the Starr camp’s cause.
While Dixon, Sink-Burris and Jingozian are usual allies of the Starr camp, those three are not completely reliable to that camp. The addition of Mattson was a significant tip in the power structure.
As mentioned earlier, LNC Chair Bill Redpath – when push comes to shove – will ally with the right column, not the left.
The diagram also illustrates the importance to the Starr camp of attempting to remove Lee Wrights from the committee. This would have left Ruwart, Hawkridge, Fox and Ryan with only inconsistent support from Hinkle and Lark. If the Starr camp had succeeded in removing Wrights and replacing him with a new ally (presumably Carling), it would have given them a frequent two-thirds majority on the committee on most if not all issues (as Dixon, Sink-Burris, Jingozian and even occasionally Redpath line up on their side typically). Under the Bylaws, two-thirds control is a significant benchmark and one that, presumably, the Starr camp would have used to their advantage.
Mr. Oaksun is a candidate for LNC Treasurer.
