The Libertarian Party of Texas concludes its 25-city tour of Texas this

 week.  Meetings have covered all corners of the state, north to

 Amarillo, south to Brownsville, west to El Paso, east to Beaumont, and many

 points in between.  We have recruited candidates, helped organize

 counties and volunteers, attracted media, and raised funds.  We hope to see

 many supporters at our last 3 meetings:

Georgetown

Saturday, November 3, 11:00 am

 Blue Danube Diner

 3010 Williams Drive

 Georgetown, TX 78628

 512-863-7462

Waco

Saturday, November 3, 4:00 pm

 IHOP Restaurant

 1000 S 4th St

 Waco, TX 76706

 254-754-3001

San Angelo

Sunday, November 4, 1:00 pm

 Golden Corral

 1601 Knickerbocker Rd

 San Angelo, TX 76904

 325-658-7656

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Texas LP begins state tour

The Libertarian Party of Texas has begun its 25-city tour of the state.

  State chair Pat Dixon and Executive Director Wes Benedict hope to

 grow the party throughout the state with this effort to reach out to

 supporters and the general public. The tour has attracted the attention of

 media.

A reporter from News 8 Austin came to the conference in Austin and

 conducted an extensive interview with Benedict and the first declared

 candidate, Ben Easton for State Representative District 48.  This 24-hour

 Austin news channel ran this story multiple times in their televised

 broadcasts

(http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=191641)

Another reporter from an Austin local TV station interviewed Dixon at

 the Austin conference, which ran later that evening.

Benedict was hoping for a larger turnout to display on these televised

 events.  “While I wish we had had a larger turnout, we were competing

 against sunny weather on a Saturday afternoon (I can think of lots of

 other fun things I could have been doing), hours before a UT home

 football game, and a week after the start of the fall school semester.”

Later that evening on the largest AM radio station in Austin, KLBJ's

 Saturday night host Kenny Rahmeyer had Wes on his show to discuss the

 goals and results of our event Saturday.  This was the result of paid

 advertising by the Travis County Libertarian Party on KLBJ to promote the

 event.  Many people reported hearing the advertisements.

Another Austin radio personality, DJ Reale, "The Quiet Storm," on KAZI

 88.7 FM, heard about the event through the KLBJ Radio advertisement and

 attended to find out more about the candidate recruitment efforts.

The following day, Dixon and Benedict traveled to Houston for the

 second stop on the tour. Five Libertarians filed to run for office while an

 additional five filled out candidate preference sheets expressing a

 likelihood of filing for office soon as we work to identify appropriate

 races for them.  

Dixon hopes supporters turn out for the media coverage in other cities

 on the tour.  “It would have been nice if we had a large audience to

 show up and put on TV!  Several TV stations and newspapers have contacted

 us about coming to the events.  When we complain about not getting

 media coverage, we have no reason to complain if we do not show up when

 they do come.  We would really appreciate seeing you at the meeting we

 have scheduled in your area, even if only for a little while.”

The entire schedule is listed at www.LPTexas.org.

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State Party takes positions on Nov 6 ballot

The Libertarian Party of Texas (LPT) state executive committee has

 adopted positions on 10 of the 16 Texas constitutional amendment

 propositions to appear on the November 6 ballot.

For: 7, 10, 11, 14

Against: 2, 4, 5, 12, 15, 16

No position: 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 13

Propositions 3, 5, 6, and 9 generated debate among Libertarians. On the

 one hand, they appear to provide some tax relief. On the other hand,

 they are targeted toward narrow special-interest groups to buy votes and

 provide sound bites for re-election campaigns, while the legislature

 keeps raising, spending and shifting the tax burden onto others.

 Libertarians favor broad-based tax and spending cuts, rather than more

 complexity and special interest pandering.

These are the LPT positions, with brief explanations:

1. No position (Angelo State University governance change)

2. AGAINST (Additional $100 million bonds for student loans)

Bonds cause future tax increases. Government subsidies to students

 enable university bureaucrats to keep raising tuitions and fees. Student

 debt upon graduation has skyrocketed in the past ten years, and we

 shouldn't encourage that trend with more tax dollars.

3. No position (Tweaking appraisal cap rules)

4. AGAINST ($1 billion in bonds for state facilities)

Libertarians support less spending on state facilities, not more.

5. AGAINST (Tax incentives for downtown revitalization programs)

This would shift the tax burden onto non-downtown property owners.

 Libertarians oppose giving privileged status to politically popular

 sectors, although we strongly support reducing taxes across the board.

6. No position (Tax exemptions for personal vehicles used for business)

7. FOR (Eminent domain buy-back rights)

This would provide a small amount of protection in some cases. However,

 the 2007 legislature failed to pass stronger protections against

 eminent domain, and this is a perfect case where politicians are likely to

 mislead voters by claiming they support eminent domain reform more than

 they really do.

8. No position (Home equity loan regulations)

9. No position (Disabled veteran tax exemptions)

10. FOR (Abolish office of inspector of hides and animals)

Libertarians support eliminating the obsolete minor office of Inspector

 of Hides and Animals. We wish this amendment would also eliminate the

 State Board of Education, which would represent a real cut in

 government.

11. FOR (Require record votes on bill passage)

This would allow voters to actually find out how their representatives

 voted on final passage of a bill. More accountability is good.

12. AGAINST ($5 billion in bonds for Texas Transportation Commission)

The government already does a terrible job of spending transportation

 tax dollars, and we should not provide new revenue sources.

13. No position (Denial of bail to some offenders)

14. FOR (Permit judges who reach mandatory retirement age to serve out

 their terms)

Let elderly judges work if they want to.

15. AGAINST ($3 billion for a Cancer Research Institute)

Medical research is not a legitimate function of government. Funding

 for medical research should stay in the private sector. There is plenty

 of profit motive in seeking patents for drugs and medical devices, and

 if that weren't enough, there is also a great deal of funding provided

 by voluntary charitable donations.

16. AGAINST ($250 million in bonds for water development to poor

 unincorporated colonias)

Developers build neighborhoods without providing and paying for

 infrastructure like water, then want other taxpayers to pay for water and

 wastewater services for their developments. Wrong. Development should pay

 for itself without outside tax subsidies.

Early voting starts October 22 and ends November 2. Election day is

 Tuesday, November 6.

--------------------

Thanks for considering the recommendations of the Libertarian Party of

 Texas, and I encourage you to support the Libertarian Party of Texas

 today: 

http://lptexas.org/membership.shtml

--Wes Benedict

Executive Director

Libertarian Party of Texas

512-442-4910

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Texas LP says “No on 15”

The Libertarian Party of Texas formally opposes a measure on the Nov 6

 statewide ballot.

The measure is listed as Proposition 15 on the Nov 6 ballot. It is a

 proposed amendment to the Texas constitution that passed the state

 legislature in the bill HJR 90 and will be presented to the voters for

 ratification in the Nov 6 election.

The proposal would take $3 billion from Texas taxpayers to create a new

 state bureaucracy to work on cancer research.

State Chair Pat Dixon says, “We understand the need for research to

 cure all forms of disease, pain, and suffering. We do not think that

 politicians should decide for us what research is most deserving and use

 coercion to make us pay. We are concerned for the many organizations that

 accept voluntary donations to help fight these diseases. By increasing

 the tax burden, this constitutional amendment would take away

 discretionary funds from donors.”

The constitutional amendment was passed in the Texas legislature with

 support from both Republican and Democrat legislators and with the

 backing of Republican governor Rick Perry.  A companion bill HB 14 which

 enables the funding for this proposal was passed without a quorum of

 legislators present, which is a violation of the Texas constitution.

Dixon added, “The history of government bureaucracies like this is that

 you are lucky if half of the money is spent on what was promised. The

 result will be a higher tax burden for families suffering from higher

 appraisals on their property taxes while hurting existing foundations

 that solicit funds to conduct medical research.”

The state party’s executive committee passed a resolution opposing the

 creation of this $3 billion state agency, which can be seen at

 http://lptexas.org/release-20070717.shtml.

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Letter from the Chair

Wes and I have been traveling the state for the past 8 weeks to meet

 with you.  The experience has been great and it has been a success.

  There are a few locations where turnout was light.  In Sherman nobody

 showed up.  In Midland we had one husband and wife attend.  However we had

 good turnouts in Amarillo, Abilene, and Lubbock, as well as Corpus

 Christi and Brownsville.  We now have a sense of where we have active

 supporters and where we don’t.

Our staff of Wes and Art is gearing up for a very busy period.  The

 recruiting process will be complete by the end of the year by state law,

 so that means a lot of paperwork and correspondence needs to be handled

 in the next 2 months.  I can tell you that these guys work very long

 days and there is never enough time to get everything done.

Last year our state committee (SLECT) allocated some additional funds

 in the budget for a third staff position.  At one time in 2006 we had 3

 people on staff, but for most of 2007 we have only had 2.  We are

 looking at the possibility of bringing a third person on to help handle the

 load we expect through a busy 2008 campaign season.  We will need to

 raise additional funds to cover the funding for our staff in 2008.

SLECT will discuss these issues and others at our meeting in Austin on

 Nov 10.

I encourage you to contact our office (512-442-4910) if you can help in

 any way.  The deadline for filing for office is Jan 2, and we don’t

 want last minute paperwork getting stuck in the mail.  We appreciate your

 support, donations, and activism.

Patrick Dixon, Chair, Libertarian Party of Texas

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Calendar

Nov 6: Election day, proposals to amend the Texas constitution

Nov 10: SLECT (State Libertarian Executive Committee of Texas) meeting.

  Saturday Nov 10, 1 PM, La Palapa restaurant, 6640 E Hwy 290, Austin,

 www.lapalapaaustin.com

Dec 15: Bill of Rights dinner, Houston, TX, contact

 crystalmeadows@yahoo.com

Jan 2: Last day to file for office for the 2008 elections

March 15: County conventions   

March 22: District conventions

May: Municipal elections

May 23-25: LP national convention, Denver CO, www.lpconvention.org

June 13-15: Texas LP convention, location TBD

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