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 |  Subject: Imbecilic Colorado Libertarians sticking with plans to hold state convention  Thu Mar 19, 2020 3:42 am | |
| The Colorado Libertarian Party plans to go ahead with its state convention in early April despite recommendations by public health officials to avoid large gatherings to reduce the chances of spreading the new coronavirus.
"Let’s use common sense," Victoria Reynolds, chairman of the state party, told Colorado Politics. "Wash your hands, keep your distance, let’s not shake hands, and I think we will be able to get through this and still exercise our right to assemble and elect our candidates for the 2020 election."
State Libertarian officials voted Sunday night to move the convention from the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs to the Sheraton Denver West in Lakewood after the local health department limited gatherings in Garfield County to 50 people in an effort to curb infections in one of Colorado's pandemic hotspots.
The convention — this year's theme is "Focus on Liberty" — is scheduled to take place April 3-5 at the Lakewood hotel but will be held the following weekend in the basement of the Independence Institute in Denver if the government tightens restrictions on meetings, said Reynolds, who added that she expects at least 100 people to attend.
"Fear that our speakers may not show up did not stop us from making the extremely hard decision to go against what was popular and concentrate on what is right," she told fellow Libertarians Monday, announcing the move.
Ammon Bundy, who led the 2016 armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Saturday night banquet, which could also include a debate between some of the party's presidential candidates.
In addition, the convention is set to feature a debate about the Electoral College, as well as votes to nominate candidates to Colorado's ballot — Reynolds is running for Douglas County commissioner — and elect delegates to the national convention.
"More people have been asking if they can come," Reynolds said. "Of course they can come. We don’t disinvite anybody. With conventions canceling all over the country, we are pretty much the only ones doing this. We are one of the only ones left."
Colorado's Democratic and Republican parties are scrambling to reconfigure a busy schedule of county, district and state assemblies and conventions, holding some of the larger confabs online and others remotely, allowing delegates to vote by mail or other methods.
Reynolds said the party's tech experts were working on how to hold the Libertarians' state meeting remotely if it comes to that but said party officials are concerned about being able to put something together quickly while allowing for proper credentialing and adequate security.
Unlike the state's major parties, whose delegate selection starts at precinct caucuses, Colorado Libertarians just convene at the state level, where any of their 46,000 registered members can attend and vote, so long as they've been affiliated with the party at least 90 days.
If the party is forced to abandon its plans at the Lakewood hotel — including panel discussions, candidate training and a Roaring '20s-themed party — Reynolds said she doesn't expect more than 50 people will gather to conduct business at the libertarian-minded Independence Institute, where the party's board meets monthly.
"We obey the laws even though we don’t think they are correct," she said. "We are trying to be able to effectively have our candidates on the ballot within the requirements of the secretary of state. By shutting our assembly down, the government would effectively eliminate our ballot access."
Reynolds stressed that plans to forge ahead with the convention aren't meant to be a middle finger to the government, though she also struck a note of defiance.
"It’s definitely government over-reach, closing restaurants, preventing people from exercising their free will — that’s overly intrusive," she said.
"The job of government is not to be our parent or our nanny. Gov. (Jared) Polis is about my age. He’s not old enough o be my mom or my dad," she said. "Having a government say, 'Don’t visit your loved ones, don’t visit a nursing home'? It’s up to the individual people if they want to take that risk. It’s personal responsibility, it’s not the government’s job. Individual freedom and personal responsibility, they go hand in hand. Use common sense, people."
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/quick-hits/our-right-to-assemble-colorado-libertarians-sticking-with-plans-to/article_adc8f4c2-6869-11ea-8d90-9bdd74d2f02b.html
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