NVRA CD2 Debate Booth: The Nevada Republican Assembly is hosting a debate for GOP candidates for Dean Heller's old congressional seat, and we're going to have a booth there. Yes, it's a Republican event, but it's a $10 booth. That's cheap, and, if we ever want an LP plurality in this state, we're going to have to convince some Republicans to switch teams someday. The event is at 6 pm on Wednesday, June 15 at the Boys & Girls Club on 9th Street in Reno.

Reno Sam Adams Night: Tuesday, June 21, 6:30 pm, at Kona Gold Coffee on the corner of McCarran and Mira Loma. Know a guest speaker or want to be one? Drop me an e-mail. I promise to actually announce our guest speaker this time (sorry Gary!). Without one, we'll just sit, commiserate, and do what we do every month - try to take over the world! Y'know... for liberty.

Carson City Sam Adams Night: Thursday, June 23, 6:30 pm at Comma Coffee, just across the street from the Nevada Legislature building on Carson Street. Same guest speaker conditions apply here.

Do you have anything you'd like to see some libertarian representation at? Shoot me an e-mail and let's see if we can't work something out. Also, on a related note, I have confirmed with our benevolent overlords in the state LP that we will be hosting a booth at LPAC 2011 (http://www.lpac2011.com/) from September 15-18. If you're interested in staffing the booth (we get two exhibitor bands for each day), please send me an e-mail so I can start planning and making reservations.

With the sugar out of the way, let's dig into the spice...

Voter registration forms: There were some questions about this at the Crossroads of the West gun show booth in Reno a couple of weeks back, so I'd like to address this. State law has some rather pernicious restrictions on voter registration drives, and, depending on whether certain bills pass or not, they're bound to get worse. What this means for us is that, if we accept a completed voter registration form from someone else and attempt to submit it, we'll be responsible for adhering to our state's voter registration drive laws. In the short term, this means we wouldn't be able to distribute LP literature at the same booth that we're accepting voter registration paperwork. In the long term, there's a bill in the Assembly that would require voter registration drive participants to register with the Secretary of State and attend a series of classes. Long story short, it's really not worth it, especially when there's a very simple way around it:

We can hand out as many blanks as people will give us. Upon handing out the form, the recipient is responsible for filling it out and mailing it in or otherwise submitting the form to their county registrar. In no way are we authorized to help them fill out the form - doing so would make us liable under NRS 293.5235, Subsection 13 and NRS 293.505, Subsection 8. That said, I'm not immediately aware of any prohibitions against giving them a stamp to mail the form in - if anybody would like to weigh in on this, that'd be great.

Donations: Since we're no longer an affiliate of the LPNV, if we accept financial donations we immediately become a PAC. Since we haven't registered to become one and have no intentions of doing so due to filing requirements, we are not allowed to solicit or receive financial donations, lest we invite a $5000 fine. That said, if people wish to secure booth space or other goods and services and offer to share those with fellow individual libertarians, perhaps through our existing contact list, there is no prohibition against that, at least that I can see. Alternatively, a donation to the Libertarian Party of Nevada, along with a politely written note to various members of our state Executive Committee, may encourage them to use your donation to help finance an official LPNV-sanctioned local outreach event up here. Please note, however, that the LPNV may elect to spend your donation on something more compatible with the strategic direction articulated by the super-majority of the LPNV Executive Committee that voted to consolidate efforts at the state level in May, regardless of your politely written note. Even so, if you don't ask, there's zero chance you'll get what you want, and if you keep it polite and positive, the chances for success increase substantially.

Name Change: Due to our disaffiliation, we can no longer call ourselves the "Nevada Capital Libertarian Party" since we are no longer a Libertarian Party affiliate. Instead, in a "clever" bid at retaining the same acronym so that we have a coherent reason to keep the same domain name, we're renaming ourselves to the Nevada Capital Libertarian Polity. Please note that this name change is strictly to serve as a placeholder for Northern Nevada Libertarian Party outreach efforts until the LPNV chooses to more formally organize and recognize our local efforts here. Consequently, our web site will remain current at http://www.nvclp.org.

Have any questions? Comments? Feel free to e-mail them to chair@nvclp.org (it's a useful placeholder for the moment) and someone will get back to you.