Rachel Hawkridge Quits Libertarian Party

Washington state LP officer Rachel Hawkridge (who two years ago addressed the LNC's attempted purge of Lee Wrights) joins the long list of activists and leaders who've left the Libertarian Party.

Hawkridge gives her reasons in the below email, which was forwarded to me.

Hawkridge writes:


Dear State Chairs, Friends & Allies –

Most of you know by now that I have abandoned you, disappeared, and you have probably heard that I have left the LP.

It's all true. I'm finished. Life member of the LP. LPWA's "Activist of the Year -– 1999". I'm not going to be silent, nor take any more BS from this bunch of misogynists.

Several months ago, [LP national chair] Hinkle demanded that I step down from the Convention Oversight Committee. He said I wasn't participating, that furthermore, "everyone tells him" that I hadn't done anything last term on COC.

Except the Admiral (last year's COC Chair), who when asked if this was true, said "Absolutely NOT"!

I said I had been participating –- just about one week before this demand, I had been on a conference call WHERE HE WAS PRESENT, where I talked a lot!

For most of the conference calls, I had been present, but muted, as they were invariably scheduled during dinner time with my Hugs. I listened to the discussions, sometimes unmuted and commented, but mostly eMailed in between.

I told him this, and he continued to insist that I resign, or he would remove me. He said it would "be better for me" if I resigned.

Former treasurer James Oaksun told me that most COC correspondence was not being distributed to me (nothing that went through the Secretary, Alicia Mattson). Mattson confirmed that she was not sending me the information on a conference call when David Nolan asked.

I provided proof of my presence (hours of damned conference calls from my phone bills, and eMails), and also told him that the conference call reports listed participants.

Hinkle then called me a "bald faced liar" to a friend of mine.

Then there was the Oregon debacle -– Hinkle, Mattson and Carling showed up at an Oregon convention, and Carling and Mattson intimidated the State Chair into canceling due to lack of quorum. They maintained that the quorum requirement (according to RONR) was not met, as it required a percentage of the entire membership.

Another Registered Parliamentarian provided an differing opinion, as Oregon's conventions are NOT conventions with "elected representatives" as in the RONR requirement, they are "mass meetings" where everyone who is a member is welcome. Hinkle threatened Oregon officers with "We'll be watching."

The LNC's secretary, Alicia Mattson, established a secret discussion list from which I was excluded, apparently on the basis of untrue allegations that I couldn't be trusted with confidential information. This list is used to conduct business, as the Vegas binder had printed pages from it on agenda items.

In Jan, it came to my attention that Pat Dixon was actively sabotaging the LSLA conference.

At that point, the health problems that I had fighting for a couple of months became a crisis, and I went into surgery. The result of putting off surgery for a couple of months meant that I was seriously run down, and hellaciously anemic. I spent several days in the hospital just getting TPN BEFORE I could have surgery. (TPN is nutrition by IV; in my case by a line directly to my heart.) I was in the hospital for a total of 2 weeks, followed by a long and very tough recovery.

My Hugs demanded answers from Hinkle, and has never gotten any response other than "Tell her to resign."

Hinkle is a liar, and will cut out any representative that he doesn't like. As State Chairs, we are not important enough for him to respectour State autonomy, nor our representative. He refused before his election to vote against "his friend, Aaron Starr", and now Starr has a firm hand on the puppet strings. Starr's paramour Mattson is Secretary, and taking over much of the decision making on agenda and RONR, since Hinkle is incompetent.

Finally, the "data dump" sent to State Chairs more or less monthly, most recently in April 2011, did not list me as a member, even though I'm still officially the state chair of the Libertarian Party of Washington, and a Life Member of the Libertarian Party. (Headquarters claims to know nothing about why my name wasn't on the April "data dump" for the LPWA, and claim that I'm still listed as a member).

Hinkle will lie, with no compunction, even about things that can be proven.

My Hugs and I are leaving the LP completely. He's been a member since his original member number of 324. I've been a member since 1995.

Please accept my gratitude for allowing me to be your representative, and forgive me for quitting on you. I cannot continue to be part of the disgrace that much of the LNC has become.

I urge you to elect Vicki Kirkland to Rep., and elect a new Alternate on Monday evening. Don't let the seat fall to someone who will misrepresent you.

I appreciate getting the chance to get to know all of you, and would love to continue to have a social relationship with you, even though I will not be involved in the Party.

Peace.

Rachel Hawkridge
Sovereign Woman, Nama Waycho & Lover of Hugs


Libertarian activists are abandoning the dysfunctional LP (which increasingly behaves as a subsidiary of Wayne Allyn Root Enterprises), and are instead investing their time and money in Antiwar.com, Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, or really, anyplace other than the LP.