The Libertarian Party of Colorado convened their State Convention yesterday at the Red Lion Hotel in Aurora. Candidates and voters traveled from all around the State in a near blizzard to attend, including a brave young man running for County Commissioner way out in Mesa County Stephen Saint, in order to talk to and hear from fellow Libertarians.
There were 58 delegates in attendance choosing the Party's candidates for Federal, State, and local office. It was determined that there will be 23 candidates for the Libertarian Party for various offices across Colorado and a candiate for every U.S. Congressional district. Though three of those races will need primaries to determine the ultimate nominee; U.S. Senate race between Maclyn Stringer and John Finger, the CD1 race between Clint Jones and Jeffrey Schitter, and the Governor's race between Dan "Kilo" Sallis and Jaimes Brown. Though as pointed out by Rick Randall, who serves on the LP National Platform Committee, "with NOTA (None of the Above) always being an option, I would argue that they are all contested races." Nomination results from all of the races below.
There were also some interesting and at times contentious discussions regarding some of the proposed Colorado Libertarian platform planks, including the adoption of a platform plank regarding support for a similar proposal to Washington State's Sheriffs First Act, where Federal law enforcement officers would be required to gain written permission from a local Sheriff in order to make an arrest. This is in response to recent Federal intrusion into State and local law and would provide the local Sheriff (highest elected law enforcement officer) the ability to arrest an offending Federal officer if they didn't comply, actually giving local laws some teeth and Colorado a measure of autonomy back.
A number of other interesting philosophical discussions came up and were highlighted by Wayne Allyn Root and John J. Meyers speaking to the Convention about their race for Libertarian National Chair and how they would bring more people under the Libertarian tent. The main discussion revolved around the approach in spreading the Libertarian message to Tea Partiers and other disaffected voters around the country. John Jay 
Myers, the head of the Dallas Libertarian affiliate feels like the Party needs "radical leadership" that will definitely talk to the Tea Parties, but isn't going to change the message to gel with Tea Party sensibilities; whereas national activist and former Vice Presidential nominee Wayne Allyn Root feels like "focusing on the issues in common" with the Partiers is the way to peel off some support for the Libertarian cause. Though both understand that the Tea Party doesn't even try to address social liberties and war spending, the real reasons for the heavy burden of taxation most people are fed up with and mostly where Libertarians and Republicans divide.
The number of attendees hovered right around 70 all day and mostly everyone in attendance took part in the discussions in one way or another.
All in all, a small party atmosphere and lively discussions about common ideas prevailed. But the elephant in the room was the Tea Party and why more of them aren't finding what they are looking for in the Libertarian Platform, even though most of the time they are listening to libertarian speakers at these events.
***RESULTS:
Updated List with contact info.
Related:
- Elections of Party Officers: Vice Chair-Steve Gallant, Front Range Outreach Director-Ryan Gaunt (Boulder Libertarian Examiner), Records Director- Mary McFarlane, Legislative Director-Buck Bailey, Treasurer-Mike Spalding
- Colorado Libertarian Party voted to remove censure from Boulder activist Paul Tiger
- Adopted F.I.J. (Fully Informed Jury) platform plank; regarding jury rights and nullification(video @ bottom) education
- Adopted a platform plank declaring support for something similar to the Sheriffs First Act
- There are 11,971 registered Libertarians in Colorado as of March 2010
- Colorado is in the top 10 States of subscribing National Libertarians
For more info:
***UPDATE: Just ran across a very comprehensive unofficial 'minutes' of the Convention, all pretty much gels with the audio record with some added conjecture
Comments
Awesome job and thorough but missing Lt. Governor! :)
Censure lifted from Paul Tiger of Boulder County. This may have been my favorite moment of the entire convention.
The first thing I was taught in J-school at UNM is:
get the name right (per Keen Rafferty, a retired editor from the old Baltimore SUN). And opinion should not be mixed with facts ("elephant in the room?"). I didn't see one. In my opinion, the Chairman of the convention was somewhat "heavy-handed" in his use of the gavel. Examiner.com editors should exercise more care in their review of submissions--in my opinion.
Yeah, sorry about that Ken. Had it in the candidate contact list, just not the chart.
Best of luck sir.
A minor clarification. The plank adopted was based on the Sheriff's First Act, but was modified because Denver county does not have a Sheriff. The intent of this plank is to give the state "teeth" when the federal government violates the 10th Amendment. BTW, thank you for such a well written article!
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