So the founder went and registered the party name, basically to fuck with him. There were a couple stories about it a while back. Where he was holding meetings with just himself.
Here, enjoy:
Press Release November 16,2006
Orman Elected New Chair of Connecticut for Lieberman Party
I called the Secretary of State?s Office in Connecticut to find out how many people joined the Connecticut for Lieberman Party and I was told that no one had joined, not even Senator Joe Lieberman. I went down to Trumbull town hall and changed my registration to the Connecticut for Lieberman Party. Then I went home and called a meeting of all the registered Connecticut for Lieberman members to reflect on our party?s victory in the U.S. Senate race with Senator Joseph Lieberman. Senator Lieberman did not attend the organizational meeting for Connecticut for Lieberman because he no longer wants to be labeled as a member of the party.
In order for the CFL to keep the great ballot spot that Joe Lieberman earned for us, our party had to organize and submit rules to the Secretary of State of Connecticut. Senator Lieberman did not do this when he ran so there was work to be done like platform and rules.
Minutes from first organizational meeting of Connecticut for Lieberman, at John Orman?s house in Trumbull, November 15, 2006
At the first meeting I nominated myself to be party chair for Connecticut for Lieberman. I seconded my own nomination and then I voted for myself. I was selected unanimously as Chair of Connecticut for Lieberman on Novemeber 15,2006.
These new rules were adopted:
1. This party is open to every citizen who wants to keep Senator Joseph Lieberman accountable. It is open to critics, opponents, bloggers and everyone else who will work to provide citizen oversight for Lieberman?s actions, words and deeds over the next six years.
2. The chair of the party shall be elected for a period of six years until Lieberman decides to run again.
3. Party history: This party was officially formed the day after Joe Lieberman was defeated in the August Democratic primary in 2006 by Ned Lamont. Lieberman
Turned in the required signatures to go with his party organizing committee to declare their intent to form a new political party. Senator Lieberman and his committee did not change their party registration so some suggested that Senator Lieberman may have used the CFL as a gimmick to run twice for the same Senate seat within three months. We who are members of the CFL do not care .
4. We at CFL do care that Senator Lieberman is now turning his back on our party and wants to be called an ?Independent Democrat? even though he was not the nominee from the Democratic Party. He was from our party, Connecticut for Lieberman and he should be identified that way.
5. Many citizens complained about our CFL and one citizen (me) asked the Secretary of State and the Elections Enforcement Commission to rule that the CFL was a fake political party contrived to allow Senator Lieberman to be a sore loser and to keep running after he lost. It was argued that Senator Lieberman had no intention of forming the CFL. State officials ruled that Connecticut for Lieberman was not a one man fake party and that it was legitimate.
New Connecticut for Lieberman Rules:
a. If you run under Connecticut for Lieberman, you must actually join our party.
b. The party will nominate people for office who have the last name of Lieberman and/or who are critics and opponents of Senator Lieberman.
c. If any CFL candidate loses our party?s nomination in a primary, that candidate must bolt our party, form a new party and work to defeat our party endorsed candidate.d. We in the CFL intend to run the same candidate for three different jobs at the same time, ie. House, Senate and Governor.
The meeting closed by observing that Senator Lieberman was threatening to caucus with the Republicans. One member said, ?How can he turn his back on the CFL? We got him to where he is today.?
Another member asked ?What if state election officials rule post election that there is no such legal entity as Connecticut for Lieberman and that it is not a legitimate third party since Dr. Orman is the only registered member? What if they rule a party for one is not allowed in our state?? No chance of them going back on their previous rulings for Joe Lieberman, right.
A member asked, ?What if election officials won?t let us run for three different jobs by one candidate at the same time because we would be making a mockery of the electoral system in Connecticut?? No chance of that happening either.
These are the new rules for my new political party that I am working to keep alive so it will not be some fake gimmick that Senator Lieberman used to get elected. Thank you,
Sincerely
Dr. John Orman
Chair, Connecticut for Lieberman
http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4685December 1, 2006
Crashing the Lieberman Party
By Shawn Zeller
As Democrats and Republicans prepare to spar for any advantage in the narrowly divided Senate starting next month, Joseph I. Lieberman, who’s describing himself these days as an independent Democrat, has made it plain that he does not feel all that indebted or beholden to either major political party.
But it doesn’t seem as though he has control over the party created this summer — Connecticut For Lieberman — so that he could stay on the general election ballot in Connecticut despite his loss to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. That party is now in the prickly trusteeship of Fairfield University political scientist John Orman, a fierce antiwar critic of Lieberman’s who briefly ran himself for the Democratic Senate nomination before giving way to Lamont. Orman complained that Connecticut For Lieberman was but a fly-by-night front group, founded only to promote Lieberman’s re-election.
To prove his point, Orman went to the town hall in his home town of Trumbull last month and changed his voter registration from Democrat to Connecticut For Lieberman. Since the party had no other registered members — the senator himself has always been a registered Democrat — Orman promptly returned home to vote himself party chairman. His first act in office, unsurprisingly, was to issue a blistering news release denouncing Lieberman for “turning his back on our party” — and for rejoining the Senate Democratic Caucus “even though he was not the nominee from the Democratic Party.”
Orman also took it upon himself to draft new rules of party membership. Among them is a requirement that future Connecticut For Lieberman party candidates must actually join the party — and a stipulation that future party candidates will not be limited to those named Lieberman.
Lieberman’s office didn’t answer requests for comment.
It’s far from clear whether Orman’s reign as party chair will pass muster under Connecticut law. Though Trumbull officials accepted Orman’s change-of-registration form, Dan Tapper, a spokesman for Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, says new parties may not accept new members until after state election results are certified, and that happened only last week.
Orman — who petitioned Bysiewicz to kick Lieberman’s “fake political party” off the November ballot back in August — would be delighted with a showdown with the secretary of state, who’s a Democrat.“I want her to make the same rulings against me that she wouldn’t make against Joe,” he says.
Such an action, he argues, would shine a bright light on how Lieberman’s election-year innovation “just makes a mockery of the way we form new political parties. He had no intention at all of forming a real political party.”http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/12/01/cq_1997.html?pagewanted=print
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