FW: Injustice in the JC; Multi-State Amicus Submission in re: New Hampshire Dissafiliation
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From: Austin Martin <austin...@lp.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2026 9:33:50 PM (UTC+00:00) Monrovia, Reykjavik
To: ken.moellman <ken.mo...@lpstates.com>; Judicial <judi...@lp.org>; LNC Public <lnc-p...@lp.org>; lnc-public_forward <lnc-publi...@lp.org>
Cc: Abbra Green <lphise...@gmail.com>; lphitr...@gmail.com <lphitr...@gmail.com>; chair <ch...@lptn.org>; chair <ch...@lporegon.org>; chair <ch...@lpwi.org>
Subject: Re: Injustice in the JC; Multi-State Amicus Submission in re: New Hampshire Dissafiliation
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You cited Rule 2.5 to exclude 6 state parties from being heard and as an obstacle to their arguments from being considered in their official capacity as state parties. However, Rule 2.5 applies to petitions, not Amicus briefs. which is not applicable here. The organizational rights of members can be expressed by affiliates through their elected officers' signatures and should be presumed valid. Therefore, any challenge to our authority to sign should be for good cause and must disposed through the proper process. The wording in the cited rule, Rule 2.5 is specific to "petitions", which is different than the broader word "submissions", which is defined in Rule 1.7. The burden in question is stipulated in Rule 2.4 — only where the "submission must be signed or is supported by the signatures of members". We maintain that no such requirement exists here in such a way to preemptively rebut the elected authority of affiliate chairs to submit an amicus on behalf of their state party.
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Most state chairs would be legally authorized without a formal motion to join a JC Amicus — I have precisely this authority granted to me in my bylaws. However, because I was anticipating exactly this kind of unjust "gotcha" from this JC, the LPHI went to the trouble of producing a unanimous ballot for this question. However I maintain that I do not have the burden of proof here — you do. Prove the requirement exists and applies. We maintain it cannot, because your request puts our governance authority and state bylaws under direct prerequisite consideration prior to deliberations, which exceeds the scope and delegated authority of the JC from the LP bylaws for the matter actually under consideration.
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Eben if such a requirement existed, it would be repugnant to the LP Statement of Principles and the LP Bylaws. The US government courts are actually less restrictive than the current JC of the Libertarian Party with respect to this arbitrary burden that you presume to shift on state parties without cause. The Oregon Party reliably informs us that not even SCOTUS places this level of burden on Amici. Perhaps another litigant could challenge the standing of a signer for good cause, but I am having trouble seeing this as anything but an abhorrent attempt to suppress and violate the rights of entire state parties, subjecting them to the arbitrary discretions of a highly partisan committee with questionable authority to function under present circumstances in the first place.
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As party chair, my official attestation is prima-facia evidence of the will of my committee that would be admissible in nearly any circumstance absent a direct challenge. My bylaws confer this authority on me; the questioning of my authority to act for my affiliate is not a matter properly before this JC for consideration. I hereby attest that the LPHI has spoken properly to this body as an entity, not merely a collection of members. Is this genuinely being disputed?
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For those states whose authorization is not as specific in the bylaws, requiring the signatures of our state board members would arguably change the character of the affiliate amicus to a multi-member submission, and in so doing, deny affiliates their organizational right to express their interest as an entity. It would also raise a problem of a de-facto judicial review of a state's bylaws and officer's authority to act, even though the ordinary presumption would be in favor of the elected official engaging in duties ordinarily performed. On what basis is this being rebutted, and under what authority does the JC intend to make interpretive rulings on our states' bylaws?
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2026 7:59:13 AM
To: Austin Martin <austin...@lp.org>
Subject: Re: Multi-State Amicus Submission in re: New Hampshire Dissafiliation
Hi Austin,
The JC has received this amicus filing and has performed a cursory review. One thing that was found, in the initial review, that needs to be remedied is the amicus conforming to rule 2.5 which reads:
When a petition is submitted on behalf of an organization, the organization shall be required to provide evidence (e.g., meeting minutes, bylaws, etc.) that the petition was submitted in compliance with its governing documents, and not in conflict with the Bylaws, as part of the filing.
This provision is meant to protect state affiliates by ensuring that the signer purporting to speak for the organization was duly authorized to do so by the organization, as we cannot reasonably know the bylaws or the inner machinations of the state affiliates.
Can you please collect the snippet of the bylaws or meeting minutes (or draft meeting minutes, if not yet approved) for each signer for the amicus, limited to the part that is relevant to the authority of these signers to submit on behalf of their organization, along with a reference to the full document if that is available?
Once collected, please include them as an appendix on the original filing and re-submit, and we will consider that an amendment to the original filing.
So you are aware, we have not yet set a date and time for the hearing, but we are working on that now.
I have also BCC'd this correspondence on our internal email list. The external forwarder operated by LP National fails to reach all of the members because of the way the email forwarding is set up, so we use this internal list to ensure that all members of the Judicial Committee receive a copy of everything, and to have an archive of the inner-workings of the Judicial Committee if that becomes necessary to produce at a later date.
Thank you,
Ken Moellman
Chair, Judicial Committee
On 2026-07-10 17:06, Austin Martin wrote:
Aloha!On behalf of the six undersigned state party affiliates, including the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, I am submitting this Amicus Brief for consideration by this Judicial Committee in the matter of the New Hampshire disaffiliation decision.Please acknowledge receipt at your earliest convenience.Mahalo in advance for your kokua.Austin MartinLibertarian Party of Hawaii | ChairLNC Representative for Region 1Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono
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From: Austin Martin <austin...@lp.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2026 12:00:53 AM (UTC+00:00) Monrovia, Reykjavik
To: ken.moellman <ken.mo...@lpstates.com>
Cc: LNC Public <lnc-p...@lp.org>; lnc-public_forward <lnc-publi...@lp.org>; Abbra Green <lphise...@gmail.com>; lphitr...@gmail.com <lphitr...@gmail.com>; chair <ch...@lptn.org>; chair <ch...@lporegon.org>; chair <ch...@lpwi.org>
Subject: Re: Injustice in the JC; Multi-State Amicus Submission in re: New Hampshire Dissafiliation
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Rule 7.1 must be read against its predecessor, Rule 5.1, which permitted "members" to file amicus briefs. The recent amendment added a single qualifier: sustaining membership. It did not add a second, unstated restriction barring affiliates from filing as entities. To read one in is to legislate a limitation the drafters did not enact. That matters acutely here, because whether a state party is a corporate person with cognizable rights is one of the precise questions the New Hampshire appeal presents. A rule construction that forecloses affiliates from being heard as affiliates, on the question of whether affiliates have rights as entities, inappropriately decides the merits through a filing rule.
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There are two distinct questions, and only one is before this Committee. The first is whether the person presenting a state's action was authorized to present it. That question is within the Committee's cognizance, and it is answered by the attestation itself: a sitting chair invoking their office carries the presumption of official duties regularly performed. The second question is the internal validity of the state's action under its own governing documents. That is a matter of affiliate governance. It is not delegated to this Committee by the Bylaws, and the Committee has no authority to reach it.
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Rule 2.4's evidentiary burden does not attach to a chair's attestation of entity action. A member purporting to speak for a state would carry a real burden under that rule. A chair invoking the authority of their office does not, because to demand more is to place the affiliate's bylaws and the officer's authority under Committee review. That is the autonomy violation, and it is the same review the Bylaws withhold from this Committee. The presumption of regularity is therefore dispositive of the authorization question, not a starting point subject to shifting at will.
Sent: Saturday, 11 July 2026 13:33:58
To: Austin Martin <austin...@lp.org>
Cc: LNC Public <lnc-p...@lp.org>; lnc-public_forward <lnc-publi...@lp.org>; Abbra Green <lphise...@gmail.com>; lphitr...@gmail.com <lphitr...@gmail.com>; chair <ch...@lptn.org>; chair <ch...@lporegon.org>; chair <ch...@lpwi.org>
Subject: Re: Injustice in the JC; Multi-State Amicus Submission in re: New Hampshire Dissafiliation
Hi Austin,
My apologies. You are correct. JC Rule 2.5 does only apply to those filing petitions, and an amicus brief is not a petition.
However, there's a larger issue that was discovered after the most-recent correspondence.
Rule 1.7 States:
"Submission" means any petition, response, amicus brief, or supporting material filed with the Committee.
And Rule 2.4 states:
Where a submission must be signed or is supported by the signatures of members, the party making the submission shall supply evidence that each signer is entitled to sign or otherwise submit it; and, where these Rules or the Bylaws require the signatures of a particular number of a given classification of members, shall demonstrate that the submission carries the requisite number. The burden of establishing that a signer is entitled rests on the party making the submission, which shall obtain the necessary proof from each signer; any signature for which entitlement is not established shall not be counted toward the requisite total.
And Rule 7.1 states:
Sustaining members may file amicus briefs in support of the petitioners or respondents.
The actual deficiency is that organizations have no outlined rights to file an amicus under our rules. This was a carry-over from the previous rules, section 5.1, which were amended with the additional restriction of sustaining membership versus generic membership:
Members may file amicus briefs in support of the petitioners or respondents.
In the petition, the names were submitted as being on "behalf of" the state organizations, and not as individuals. The organizations are not "members" or "sustaining members" of the national party, as defined under the bylaws. They are affiliates; a separate class.
I agree that as individual actors, these co-signers could sign as individuals, provided they are sustaining members of the national party. An individual obviously has the authority to speak for themselves if they submit an amicus brief on their own behalf. They may be required to supply proof of sustaining membership as outlined in the second portion of Rule 2.4, if they're not known to the Judicial Committee to be sustaining members. We do not have access to the national party's database to be able to make such verification.
There is nothing factional about any of this. We are humans acting in good faith to do the best that we can to ensure all filings are correct. All of the rules will be applied equally.
Again, I apologize for any confusion caused by my initial response.
This message has been BCC'd to the internal JC mailing list as well, for the same reasons the previous correspondence was.
Ken Moellman
Chair, Judicial Committee
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From: Austin Martin <austin...@lp.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2026 3:45:18 AM (UTC+00:00) Monrovia, Reykjavik
To: ken.moellman <ken.mo...@lpstates.com>
Cc: LNC Public <lnc-p...@lp.org>; lnc-public_forward <lnc-publi...@lp.org>; Abbra Green <lphise...@gmail.com>; lphitr...@gmail.com <lphitr...@gmail.com>
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Article 5, Section 6 of the Bylaws, the provision governing this appeal, states that the Judicial Committee "shall notify all interested persons, which persons shall have the right to appear and submit evidence and argument." That right is conferred by the Bylaws, not by the Rules. Rule 7.1 cannot be construed to eliminate it.
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State affiliates are the paradigm "interested persons" in an affiliate disaffiliation appeal. The precedent set here affects the security of every affiliate's status. Had the drafters meant to limit participation to sustaining members, they would have written "sustaining members." They wrote a broader term because they meant a broader class, and affiliates are its most obvious occupants in this proceeding.
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You correctly note that affiliates are a distinct class under the Bylaws. That is precisely why Article 5.6 reaches them. Reading Rule 7.1 to exclude the class of persons Article 5.6 expressly named inverts the hierarchy of authorities. A committee rule cannot restrict a bylaws-level right. To the extent it purports to, it yields.
To: Austin Martin <austin...@lp.org>
Cc: LNC Public <lnc-p...@lp.org>; lnc-public_forward <lnc-publi...@lp.org>; Abbra Green <lphise...@gmail.com>; lphitr...@gmail.com <lphitr...@gmail.com>; chair <ch...@lptn.org>; chair <ch...@lporegon.org>; chair <ch...@lpwi.org>
Subject: Re: Injustice in the JC; Multi-State Amicus Submission in re: New Hampshire Dissafiliation
Hi Austin,
It is important to note that the section heading for section 7 is "Privileges of interested parties", a title that was retained from section 5 of the previous rules. Under the current (and previous) rules, the section heading makes clear that submission of an amicus brief is a privilege, not a right.
Rule 7.1 (formerly rule 5.1, amended) is a specific granting of the privilege for sustaining members to submit an amicus, and nowhere else in the rules is there a provision for any others to submit an amicus brief.
What you had submitted to the Judicial Committee specifically used the language "on behalf of the Libertarian Party of ____" in the signature block of the document for each of the signers, and your original email used the language "On behalf of the six undersigned state party affiliates...". In plain language, this means the submission was not made on behalf of each chair as an individual sustaining member of the national party, but instead intended to be made by the respective organizations.
Therefore, to apply the specific privilege outlined in the rules equally among all sustaining members, we must reject amicus briefs from anyone except sustaining members acting in their capacity as an individual sustaining member, and the question of affiliate party authorization in this circumstance is moot.
If the original amicus brief you had submitted is re-submitted by one or more national party sustaining members as individual signers rather than signatories on behalf of organizations, and conforms to the rules for such submissions, it will be accepted on behalf of those sustaining members.
This message has been BCC'd to the internal JC mailing list.
Thank you,
Ken Moellman
Chair, Judicial Committee