Summary:
2024 was a strong and transformative year for the LPHI, despite initial difficulties inherited from prior years.
Background:
2024 had a rough start. At this time last year, our board was still contending with extensive infighting, recovering missing infrastructure, adjusting to changes in board composition, and preparing our ship to enter an election season with no experienced sailors on deck. The new LPHI Executive Committee had to rapidly build much of the party infrastructure as if from the ground up, and train themselves to coordinate elections statewide. In short, our starting position was isolated, ignored, unprepared, and irrelevant; we were lacking both experience & money. It was not ideal. However, even in the face of these difficulties, we banded together, rising to overcome this challenge in 2024 by quickly acquiring talent, training, and experience before and during the election season. A few dedicated executives put in 60-hour weeks, working day and night as volunteers to stand in the gap for our party. During this time, we transformed the LPHI to become truly competitive in the new political landscape of 2024, despite only starting with a skeleton crew, and having virtually no assets or funding. But the most valuable resource in politics isn’t money, power, or even influence; it’s our people - effective activists. This year, I am pleased to report that the LPHI has exponentially increased its fundraising ability, rebuilt its broken or missing infrastructure, fostered strong strategic partnerships with allies in the Liberty Movement, and now has the power to make waves & even shape Hawaii’s political discourse. We now have a plan, a vision, direction, hope of real success, and the resources to realize & manifest these outcomes. There is good reason to be excited about the direction of the LPHI, and our power to make Liberty win in the coming elections.
Our biggest challenges yet
The biggest problem currently facing all of Hawaii’s political institutions & parties is a lack of public participation. The current political climate has been defined by difficulty in finding volunteers and a general atmosphere of fear of getting “involved in politics”. This, coupled with the lack of support, contact, or turnover from previous boards had put our people in a very difficult position leading into the 2024 legislative session and election season. In addition to this, our board was contending with overt acts of sabotage and infiltration by non-friendly organizations, with some even going so far as targeting our new executives and party infrastructure in a hostile takeover attempt by outsiders. Despite all this, Hawaii Libertarians rallied to overcome these challenges and made an unexpectedly powerful impact throughout 2024. We were able to secure some truly excellent new talent and together found a way forward for liberty.
2024 Legislative Session
During the legislative session, we began training our members on how to make a difference in the state house and senate, how to provide effective public testimony, and how to generally track bills of interest. For instance, the results of our efforts were manifest in our opposition to bills like HB 2079, which ostensibly claimed to protect “Trans Rights”, but in reality, explicitly legalized private and public acts of interstate kidnapping of minor children from their biological parents (including by non-parents), so long as the acts were ostensibly taken as a means to provide “gender-affirming care” to the victim. The LPHI’s efforts in opposing this radical bill were instrumental in preventing its passage and put us back on the map of political influence & significance. Our combined content about HB 2079 ultimately reached nearly half a million people. Even though our messaging was ultimately censored and suppressed, we were nevertheless successful in our campaign to promote Libertarian influence in the legislature. We also strongly articulated Hawaii’s need for localism, free-market economics, less taxation, restoration of due process, respect for private property rights, and legalizing individual freedom & self-responsibility. We will continue ramping up our efforts to make your voices heard in the Hawaii legislature in the coming year, with even more resources and experience to bring to bear on the 2025 fight for freedom & independence in Hawaii. This includes the fight to introduce & pass the Defend the Guard Act - among other libertarian bills & initiatives.
2024 Election
This year, we fielded three federal-level candidates, and two state house candidates, with several other members or aligned persons running as non-partisan candidates. We ensured that our LNC-nominated Presidential & Vice Presidential candidates were included on Hawaii’s ballot. Overall, the 2024 season outcomes were in line with prior years, despite the extreme difficulties we faced at the beginning of the year. Over the season, our new executives took extensive notes and carefully studied what it would take to win seats: our results are exciting and encouraging. Hawaii is winnable for us, and we are going to realize those gains in the next election cycle.
Systematic Improvements
Over 2024, we took proactive steps to ensure the next election season would see our first Libertarian victory in the State Legislature and beyond, including:
Developing a viable, actionable plan and strategy for coordinating victory in the next state-level election season
Developing detailed training manual guides for executives, volunteers, candidates, & their committees
Creating strategic partnerships that will provide for:
Pipelines for new member recruitment & engagement
Training & empowering candidates, volunteers, & activists
Training for upcoming party leaders
Materials & support for activism & grassroots campaigns, including importing experienced volunteers
Improved fundraising
Developing executive guidebooks and manuals for our executives
Adopting a “Cost-Commission Fundraising” model, which allows us to pay activists who can source donations for the LPHI.
Expanding party infrastructure across the board, including for larger-scale political fundraising - which has enabled a 10x increase in our fundraising numbers
Empowering & training effective activists to influence legislative sessions for the LPHI to score wins & increase our overall influence in Hawaii’s political culture.
The future is looking bright for the LPHI. We want to invite you to be a part of the coming victories. Moving forward, we will be placing a stronger emphasis on campus activism across Hawaii, fighting the ideological and cultural battle for the hearts of Hawaii’s students, and training the next generation of leaders in the Liberty movement - to prepare them for leadership & real-world public administration.
Cheers to 2025. May the coming year be blessed for all who stand with us for Liberty.
~ Austin Martin
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