On June 28, the Reform Party asked the U.S. District Court in Gainesville, Florida, to lift the order forbidding the party from spending money on anything, until it pays back the $333,558 that it owes to the Federal Election Commission. The party had raised this point earlier in the 11th circuit, but the 11th circuit said to take it up with the U.S. District Court. The case is still called FEC v Reform Party USA, no. 1:04cv-79-MMP.
If the FEC were pragmatic, it wouldn’t fight this point, since it is obvious that if the order remains in effect, the party won’t be able to raise money to pay what it owes. It takes money to raise money.
The Reform Party should just disband and re-form itself (no pun intended) under a different name. Wouldn’t that eliminate their debt?
Stine: worse than that, there is the PAC/ semi party/ American Reform Party [more alligned with Jesse Ventura than with Boss Ross Perot] just sitting there on the shelf! And even worse, the various ballot access but empty shells of the state Natural Law Parties were just waiting for taking over [with only minor tweeking] as of April First 2004.
In California, I [Southern California], Philip Sawyer of Sacramento, and BAN’s Richard Winger [San Francisco Bay Area] simultaniously came up with various reform groups taking over various NLP state organizations in the first half of 2004. This was actually done by three folks [the United Party] in Idaho in 3 weeks in 2006 per teleconferencing with Winger.
In California, ‘reformers’ Jeff Rainforth, Valli Sharpe Geisler, and John Blare just would not here of it. The dysfunctional Reform Party of California is still not ballot access and [especially if Unity08 is serious about the West Coast in 2008] probably never will be again!
The best thing the Reform Party had going for it was that it was centrist; the worst thing was there was no unity, nothing to hold it together. Perhaps, if it was a machine that matured early on, and had unifying goals, it might have sustained its large grassroots base?