Matthew poses the very relevant question of “So, the question should not be: do we, today, see ourselves spending more than $1,000 on a ballot with any regularity? The question should be, how do we get people energized andcontributing such that we can spend more than $1,000 on the ballot basically every year? If we have the PAC, we can solicit donations for it – not very many people will just blindly donate to political parties.”
Better that than not trying at all.
Francoise
Hi All,
Sounds like we have a consensus among the core LPSF activists for forming a General Purpose Campaign Committee (or a horse by any other name that carries the same weight). Now that I know for sure Les has volunteered to be treasurer of such a committee, I am keeping my "yes" vote also.
Regarding Francoise's question as to whether volunteer hours count as campaign expenditures, I would say NO, based on the following,
http://www.fppc.ca.gov/manuals/manual1state.pdf
"Volunteer Personal Services: If an
individual donates his or her
personal or
professional services to a campaign,
no
contribution has been made or
received.
However, if an employer donates
employee
services to a campaign, and any
employee
spends more than 10% of his or her
compensated time in a calendar month
providing the services, the employer
has
made a nonmonetary contribution to
the
committee"
I guess our next step is to decide on the "when?" I am wondering when all this is going to start. I have suggested after November 5, to make sure the powers that be do not confuse our newly formed committee as one for this election. But, there may be other considerations that I don't know about.
Also,the only two Campaign Treasurer Training Seminars that I see are: January 22, 2014 in Santa Clara http://www.sfethics.org/ethics/2013/04/candidates-training-for-the-november-5-2013-election.html ; and one that is already passed on May 1, 2013 (on the Ethics Commission website). I have taken an on-line webinar, but as I understand it, such a webinar does not satisfy the campaign treasurer requirement.
Marcy
Francoise raises a good point here about whether people will donate to a Libertarian PAC so we engage in more ballot measure campaigning. I think it is worth a try. I feel for sure that, if we do not form a PAC, then we are going to have to give up any idea of running campaign for or against specific measures. We will have to restrict ourselves to general promotion of libertarian ideas and the Libertarian Party.
If the PAC cannot raise sufficient funds, then we can always dissolve AND cease any further ballot measure campaigning.
Les