As we are now aware the Republican Party of Louisiana, the LAGOP, is accepting cryptocurrency donations through their executive committee; yes, the LAGOP is using bitcoin. Bitcoin politics, the politics of bitcoin, now takes on a tangible, a clear and well defined presence as bitcoin technology enters into the industry of political campaign finance, a $4 billion dollar per year industry, an industry with year over year growth rates that rival any sector of the finance industry.
The LAGOP is technically the second, State level major US political party’s executive committee to accept bitcoin donations, the New York GOP being the first to do so. And interestingly, with Ben Lawsky and the NYDFS having crafted and published their ultra repressive BitLicense bitcoin regulatory intentions, the NYGOP accepting bitcoin might put them in a position to experience BitLicense first hand as it then effects their use, their politically oriented use of cryptocurrency most directly.
The primary difference between the acceptance of bitcoin by the LAGOP in contrast to the NYGOP’s accepting bitcoin donations on their websites is that the LAGOP has done so with some fanfare and concerted effort to publicize their move into the cryptocurrency space. The executive director of the LAGOP, Jason Doré, conducted an interview with Coindesk author Tanaya Macheel and provided a series of direct quotes in the article concerning the disposition of, and the outlook of the LAGOP with respect to cryptocurrency and bitcoin politics.
The LAGOP is certainly the most visible and public of the two major party executive committees to accept donations in bitcoin, (while striving to demonstrate full legal compliance with campaign elections regulatory body’s laws and guidelines). As well, there are candidates for public office in Louisiana running congressional races for seats both in the US Senate and the US House of Representatives, candidates who exercise bitcoin campaign donations strategies. There are no candidates currently running for office or on the ballot in New York that accept donations in bitcoin, although one New Yorker did exercise a bitcoin campaign donations strategy while he, Jeff Kurzon ran for US Congress.
What’s best for bitcoin in this effort to embrace bitcoin technology by the LAGOP is that their executive director, Jason Doré, states his willingness to continue to both study and observe the ongoing actions by NYDFS with regard to New York’s desire to impose BitLicense regulations. In his statements, which can only be interpreted as strongly supportive of the bitcoin ecosystem and community he says:
“Those who seek to tax and regulate everything they can will certainly be looking to do the same to bitcoin […] These types of regulations are meant to strangle the growing bitcoin community while it is still in its infancy.”
Jason Doré understands the perils the strangulation of bitcoin technology development by those that would tax and regulate bitcoin — to such a degree — Jason understands the harms to the potential prosperity our nation and all people might enjoy as a result of bitcoin and the development of bitcoin’s protocols. What greater personal and political risk could you ask of any bitcoin supporter, especially one in a position in which Jason Doré serves, serving as leadership among the top executive ranks of the Republican party for an entire State in the union of States, the United States of America? Your virtual foil cap paid for by the LAGOP is available in the back pocket of the seat in front of you, the popular Jason Doré model, engage!
And in the NYDFS’ misguided and extreme BitLicense approach to regulating bitcoin, Mr. Doré sees the opportunity for the Republican party to provide some measure of leadership in the bitcoin political ecosystem such that Louisiana could provide for a more hospitable environment for the use and development of bitcoin and blockchain technologies, (both potentially in Louisiana and by political entities).
Mr. Doré states:
“In Louisiana, we will continue to take a different approach than our friends in New York by working to create an environment where innovators flourish.”
We can see Mr. Doré understands the potentials in providing for a competitive atmosphere among States to encourage the prosperity that the use of bitcoin and innovative technology born from blockchain technologies represents going forward in the bitcoin development cycles. Yes, he wants a piece of the bitcoin action for his State, his State that he loves, was born in and champions.
Jason is a bitcoiner, and in that effort he is unstoppable.
We know already that there are nearly thirty political candidates at this time running for the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, for Governor’s seats of States in the United States, for seats in State level legislatures, (both State level Senate seats and State level Representative’s seats), and all of these bitcoin using candidates are listed in an exhaustive and currently maintained list of bitcoin candidates by BitPolitic.com. There are politicians running on the GOP ticket, on the Democratic ticket and on the Libertarian ticket who accept donations in bitcoin, and openly support and champion bitcoin. One of these bitcoin candidates for US House of Representatives mines bitcoin. He is a professional bitcoin miner running stacks of ASIC ANT bitcoin miners, he even repairs them and upgrades them himself. Randall Lord also employs his son to manage the software in his bitcoin mining business. Ah, your hat has fallen off, we have extras, not to worry, you can even have mine, it’s made of pure bitcoin. Mr. Lord got 25% of the general election vote in the last congressional race he ran, against the very same incumbent.
So that we might better understand the potential impact of the LAGOP now accepting bitcoin, we might examine how political campaigns for office, political action committees, (PAC), and political party executive committees function with respect to how they may, or how they choose to use the donations they receive. We will avoid going into a deep discussion, but it can be elucidating to understand that the use of bitcoin donations and donations in general for these three types of primary political entities differs.
It is important to make distinctions between Political Action Committees, PAC, and the executive committees of political parties. While both PAC and political party executive committees provide funding and support for political candidates they do so in different measures and are governed and regulated in different ways. PAC and party executive committees are both governed and regulated by campaign election laws and especially in the case of party executive committees governed by internal bylaws and regulations specific to their executive committee’s organizational strategies, (which are then aligned and deeply influenced by party affiliation).
The executive committees of political parties only donate to and support candidates that run on their party’s ticket. The GOP State level and national level and municipal level committees (executive committees), only donate to and support GOP candidates while a PAC, a political action committee, may and will donate to any candidate their candidate selection committees might choose. You as an individual can donate using bitcoin directly to any candidate running for office and then circumvent your involvement with either political party affiliations or involvements with political action committees at almost any level.
When you donate to a PAC you are not guaranteed that the PAC to which you donate will only fund and support GOP candidates, or only fund Libertarian candidates or only fund candidates running on the Democratic party ticket. When you donate to a PAC you have no guarantee the PAC will fund and support any candidate you prefer, as PAC will fund only the candidates, (and then any candidate), their executive actors select and target for support, (or maintain efforts to oppose), using the funds, (potentially your bitcoin private keys), the PAC has collected through donations.
Donating to a PAC results in the support of a political agenda that a completely private, autonomous, centralized group of persons espouses, and they mean to effect their political agenda in any measure that they might by donating to any candidate running for office on any ticket that might support the political agenda of the boards of directors and executive actors of some PAC. An example for study is the Mayday.us PAC as they demonstrate some registered PAC having actually solicited and collected donations in bitcoin.
When we reference the Mayday.us PAC’s website at this time we can see they are not supporting any candidate who supports bitcoin in a public manner. And Mayday.us PAC is not supporting any candidate that accepts donations directly to their campaign in bitcoin. So we can determine that even though Mayday.us PAC solicited and continues to solicit bitcoin donations, they display no intention of supporting some candidate that supports bitcoin through that candidate’s use of bitcoin. So if you donated bitcoin to Mayday.us PAC in the hopes they would support some candidate for office that understands bitcoin, uses bitcoin, or supports bitcoin, well … you lost your bitcoin and that is demonstrative of the risk you take when donating to a PAC.
When you donate to the LAGOP they will only provide funding for and provide support for candidates running on the GOP ticket, and the same is true of Democratic party executive committees with respect to candidates that run on their party’s ticket. There are Libertarian party executive committees at State levels and at the national levels, and they only donate to and support candidates that are running on the Libertarian ticket. Among the actions of political party executive committees there is very little variance from this standard political procedural action, they support the candidates that are running on their party’s ticket.
PAC’s may, will and do support any candidate for office they deem supportive of the PAC’s political agenda whether that agenda includes support for bitcoin, or not.
The greatest significance of the LAGOP accepting donations in bitcoin, using bitcoin, is that the LAGOP has been in existence for many decades and will remain in existence for many more decades into the foreseeable future.
The LAGOP and other State level GOP executive committees are bedrock fixtures in the political landscape. Political campaigns, (candidates running for office), the candidates are the ebb and flow of the tides lapping at the shores of the campaign finance industry’s oceans of money; candidates for office come, and they go, they sink or they swim. One can donate directly to a political candidate’s campaign and nearly be assured the candidate’s campaign will use those funds to support that candidate specifically. But donating directly to a candidate running for office is somewhat limited in scope of time and availability, it’s a seasonal activity. PAC, political action committees are like large waves, or perhaps like the large container ships plying the waters of the campaign finance ocean of money. PAC last longer, evoking more political energy, but in comparison to party executive committees they are still transitory, coming and going albeit at a slower rate than political campaigns. PAC’s tend to stay in existence for some time, changing perhaps in some years, amending their characteristics on the whim of agenda.
Political party executive committees are the large land masses in the campaign finance money industry’s oceans, they are nearly the sea in total of the campaign finance industry and all political entities sail upon their seas. Political campaigns ply the waters of both party executive committees and PAC, and while PAC’s might be the larger freighters on the seas of campaign finance, political campaigns are then the faster, more agile but less durable speed boats.
Both political campaigns and PAC can sink. The major party’s political committees are always afloat, they are the greater ocean of political action and influence and they act politically with fairly strict and consistent guidelines.
The LAGOP will accept bitcoin donations and use bitcoin as a political campaign finance device throughout each year, every day, year after year over year, and will only do so on behalf of GOP candidates running for office. Bitcoin has now entered into the bedrock of political campaign finance with the LAGOP’s adoption of the use of bitcoin, and by doing so with some fanfare at a time when a major election cycle in the United States nears and begins to heat up. Bitcoin has officially entered into the highest levels of political campaign finance with the LAGOP leading the way among the two major political parties in the United States.
We bitcoiners might find some appreciation that Mr. Doré is taking a real personal and political risk and Jason risks his relationship with the bitcoin community as well. Mr. Doré certainly might be seen at this time as a champion of bitcoin technology however controversial his statements and actions might seem to both those involved in the political power processes and then to bitcoiners as well. Mr. Doré might be seen as squeezed between some rock and some hard place but nevertheless, he uses bitcoin and understands bitcoin at expert levels. And like Marco Santori and Patrick Murck, Mr. Doré is an attorney as well. Bitcoin expert, political expert and attorney championing bitcoin, maybe you can take your hat off now.
We bitcoin users and supporters can certainly laud the Libertarian Party as the first mover and early adopter of bitcoin for political campaign finance as their national executive committee has been taking donations in bitcoin for some time, for more than a year, a feature which neither the Democratic party nor the Republican party have yet to achieve at the national levels. As well, more and more State level and municipal level Libertarian executive committees accept bitcoin donations, among them are the State level Libertarian executive committees in Louisiana, Texas and Nevada.
The Louisiana Libertarian Party, using their own, internal information technology resources is unquestionably the first State level political party executive committee to solicit donations in bitcoin, a fact of which they should be and are proud, they love bitcoin.
Grant Bourque, acting as leadership in the Libertarian party structure at the time, lead efforts, (at that time), to encourage and drive the adoption of bitcoin by the Louisiana Libertarian Party. Grant is also the lead for BitPolitic.com in consulting with, and developing for the LAGOP as they embrace bitcoin technology.
As the LAGOP is now clearly a leading bitcoin first mover and early adopter among the two major political parties in the United States, albeit only at the State level at this time, we can certainly see the potential for the national level executive committees of the two major political parties in the United States begin to find themselves considering the unquestionably legally compliant implementation of bitcoin political fundraising strategies.
Members of the Louisiana GOP executive committees are and have been, year after year, members of the GOP national level executive committees.
Let’s turn around and take a look at the history of bitcoin in politics. The earliest movers and the first adopters of bitcoin as a political campaign finance device have been the candidates themselves that accept and use bitcoin. The bitcoin candidates are neither PAC involved in bitcoin politics nor executive committee entities. Bitcoin candidates are the most important entities of all in the political landscape. Political candidates throughout political history tend to exercise first mover status in nearly all things that concern the political championing of innovative technologies.
What is there in the fields of technology for political candidates to champion at this juncture in history? What is the most significant technological innovation on the table at this time. It’s in your hat.
Let us always remember those candidates that broke ground using bitcoin in the sphere of “bitcoin politics”, those who pioneered bitcoin political campaign finance, the original bitcoin candidates. And let us watch this first crop of bitcoin candidates who are now firmly on the ballots and will be in the general, US midterm elections.
Let us bitcoiners watch our candidates closely, and let us hope the political power structures follow the lead of the LAGOP and engage with both bitcoin candidates, and the bitcoin community and ecosystem.
Of note especially during the LAGOP bitcoin donations portal launch is that the LAGOP uses bitcoin to remunerate BitPolitic.com for their services rendered as BitPolitic.com supports and consults with the LAGOP on matters of bitcoin and bitcoin campaign finance procedures and processes. The LAGOP does not pay BitPolitic.com for their services integrating the bitcoin campaign donations system for the LAGOP website, the LAGOP executive committee does not pay BitPolitic.com in fiat monies, they remunerate BitPolitic.com in bitcoin. Is this illegal? Is this in violation of some law, or is this bitcoin? Is this politics featuring the use of bitcoin more so than in any other method save the candidate level, albeit affording a much greater potential reach?
Does the LAGOP accepting bitcoin, does that then give the green light to all GOP political candidates, or at least encourage GOP candidates to begin exploring the use of bitcoin as a political finance device? Perhaps, but certainly the LAGOP makes available some tacit approval for all candidates from Louisiana running for both State level offices and national level offices to consider and explore the use of bitcoin for campaign and political finance, and we know they will do just that.
Because bitcoin is money.
Let us now consider some more quotes, some recent statements regarding bitcoin, that Jason Doré, executive director of the Louisiana Republican Party, the LAGOP, has made:
Mr. Doré recently told CoinDesk.com:
“I think the rise of bitcoin’s popularity and use is forcing many public officials to learn about it. Still, many elected officials are not aware of it. If the bitcoin community embraces the use of bitcoin to support and oppose political campaigns, the role of bitcoin will only grow.”
And here we can see Mr. Doré clearly understands that competition, the great sport of political competition plays a role in the refinement of technology especially with respect to widespread awareness of new technologies. We see again from Mr. Doré’s continuing comments that the use of bitcoin by the LAGOP, he believes, will force public officials, (and then those involved in the political arena at every level), to learn about bitcoin. Is not then the LAGOP providing a potential viral mechanism to spread the news about bitcoin to the very people we bitcoiners fear will make laws and regulations that damage our startup efforts and damage the growth of bitcoin in these early stages? Is not the LAGOP by accepting bitcoin giving bitcoiners a voice and access to the very places we fear from which we are being “Blacked Out”, and potentially destroyed?
Would the LAGOP encourage public and regulatory policy that then damages their ability to raise funds using bitcoin? Or would the LAGOP now have a reason to champion bitcoin and protect bitcoin from potential legislation which might turn the LAGOP into bitcoin outlaws? This last series of questions to ponder might have some humorous value, and perhaps we can see the LAGOP has an interest in maintaining a healthy political landscape for bitcoin and the growth of bitcoin development, and that is a powerful ally compared to what bitcoin now draws upon for support in the political sphere. The LAGOP is not just a single political entity, or group of political candidates for office endorsing and using bitcoin, the LAGOP is a bedrock political institution with a long and rich political history that now endorses the use of bitcoin and takes great risk in doing so. And what did it cost us bitcoiners to begin to generate this powerful political meme in support of bitcoin awareness and adoption? Isn’t this a big account, a continuing and huge free advertisement for bitcoin that potentially spans a massive segment of the US population?
Historically, the political campaign, (and those involved in the greater entity of politics), the political campaign in cycles both great and small, (at the local level, the State level and at national levels), the political actors in the arena of politics are great messengers to the body politic, to the general populations of a nation. There is no greater advertising medium that any innovative, new technology might hope to be championed by, championed by the “Body Politic”, as the messaging organs of the political machine are great and powerful and sweeping, such is the nature of politics. We, the bitcoin ecosystem, we are now in earshot of the most powerful organs of political affect that might choose to champion bitcoin technology and take on our community’s challenges. It’s all good and the hat fits well.
Technologies that politics champions, (of which they must take interest), especially the technologies of finance and money benefit from competition in the political space. Bitcoin is money and money is speech, political speech protected by the Constitution of The United States of America and then protected by the very first amendment to our Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, to use money as speech, political speech, to use bitcoin as political speech. We have entered firmly into the bitcoin 1.0 version of bitcoin as political speech at a level which is now reaching towards the most powerful levels attainable.
And sooner now — the rest — of the story.