Monthly Archives: August 2017

The post-World War II period between the 1950s and 1970s was an era of great sociopolitical contrast. The civil rights movement, Marshall Plan, Peace Corps and Lyndon Johnsons Great Society juxtaposed heavily against the Cold War, Vietnam War, segregation, war on drugs and perceived enlargement of federal powers. Amidst the idealistic baby boomers-powered counterculture struggle across major cities and college grounds, libertarianism experienced a minor renaissance in American politics. Described by Ayn Rand as hippies of the right," they began to converge in small groups to explore and expound on the ideals of liberty, individual rights, limited government, laissez-faire economics, and the evils of coercive taxation and imperialism.

One such group appeared at the home of David F. Nolan. However, unlike other informal libertarian gatherings, Nolans group-of-five (featuring his then-wife Susan, Luke Zell, Hue Futch and Dale Nelson) was focused on establishing a formal political structure to espouse the merits of libertarianism to the nation. Although the majority of their meetings were held in Nolans home in Westminster, Colorado, the Libertarian Party was formally established in Zells home in Colorado Springs on December 11, 1971. Interestingly, the decision was only made after over a 100 people on Nolans bumper-sticker sales mailing list, whom theyve written to, responded positively to the idea of joining the new party. A month later, Nolan held a press conference to introduce the party to the nation.

However, the new party wasnt warmly received by the libertarian community initially. In fact, Murray Rothbard, the godfather of the modern American libertarian movement, was downright critical of the party. But the Libertarian Party slowly gained the trust of the community, even as the leadership fought a bitter identity war in its early days. Less than ten years later, it fielded a libertarian presidential candidate against Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. Ed Crane and his running mate, David Koch (the younger brother of Charles Koch) received an admirable 921,128 votes in the election.

Although the partys electoral success was rather limited during its first few decades, it managed to create a platform which allowed the dissemination of libertarian ideas to a broader audience on a wide range of issues. It also gave a home to Americans disillusioned by the big two political parties. In a 2001 interview, Nolan stated that our greatest success is that we have created the only viable mechanism now existing to offer a reasonable hope of stopping the imposition of a very authoritarian system in this country that might last for generations.

In terms of ballot access and number of registered party members, the Libertarian Party is arguably the biggest third-party in the country for the last three decades. With the high unfavorability ratings of the candidates of the two major parties and rising anti-establishment sentiment, many Libertarians are quietly confident that the partys presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, will perform strongly this November.

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Libertarian Party Presidential Candidates 2016

Washington Times

Libertarian health care: Repeal and deregulate Washington Times A third combatant has entered the fray, however: The Libertarians now are weighing in on the challenge to create a workable, healthy health care system out of the loose ends and leftovers of Trumpcare and Obamacare. Although Libertarians might ... For first time, Libertarians to run for countywide officesDelco News Network all 2 news articles »

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Libertarian health care: Repeal and deregulate - Washington Times

Public DomainWhen President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987, he praised his nominee for being "widely regarded as the most prominent and intellectually powerful advocate of judicial restraint."

It was no exaggeration. During his decades-long career as a law professor, federal judge, and legal commentator, Bork routinely preached the virtues of a deferential judiciary, arguing that in the vast majority of cases "the only course for a principled Court is to let the majority have its way."

Where Bork led, most legal conservatives were ready to follow. Judicial deference, or restraint, became a rallying cry on the legal right.

Borkean deference still holds sway today in many quarters. But it is also increasingly under fire from libertarian-minded legal thinkers who want the courts to play a more aggressive role in defense of individual liberty and against overreaching majorities.

Case in point: The new issue of Governing magazine profiles Don Willett, the Texas Supreme Court justice who recently appeared on Donald Trump's shortlist of potential U.S. Supreme Court candidates. Willett "is witty and approachable, and he's huge on Twitter," writes journalist Alan Greenblatt. "He's also one of the most influential jurists in the country right now."

Willett's rising influence signals Bork's declining favor. It shows that libertarian legal ideas are gaining ground.

To be sure, Bork and Willett are both "conservative" and both have ties to the Republican Party. But they differ in important ways. Bork wanted judicial minimalism; Willett wants judicial engagement. "The State would have us wield a rubber stamp rather than a gavel," Willett complained in the 2015 case of Patel v. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, "but a written constitution is mere meringue if courts rotely exalt majoritarianism over constitutionalism."

Texas Supreme CourtAs Greenblatt notes in his profile, "Willett is pretty blunt about his overall intent. He's a champion of individual rights, claiming a central role for the judiciary in protecting those rights against state encroachment." Bork, by contrast, was obsessed with limiting the judiciary's role. If Bork's great enemy was judicial activism, Willett's great enemy is judicial pacifism.

The differences don't stop there. According to Bork's interpretation, the 14th Amendment offers zero constitutional protection for economic liberty, which means that the courts have no business striking down government regulations on 14th Amendment grounds. Since the amendment does not explicitly refer to economic liberty, Bork reasoned, it does not protect it. When "the Constitution does not speak," he insisted, we are "all at the mercy of legislative majorities."

Willett takes a different view. "The Fourteenth Amendment's legislative record," he has pointed out, "is replete with indications that 'privileges or immunities' encompassed the right to earn a living free from unreasonable government intrusion."

Willett has even thrown shade in Bork's direction: "A conservative luminary, Bork is heir to a Progressive luminary, Justice Holmes, who also espoused judicial minimalism. Both men believed the foremost principle of American government was not individual liberty but majoritarianism." Willett clearly ranks individual liberty first.

Thirty years ago, when Borkian judicial deference was in its heyday, the conservative legal mainstream was largely hostile to libertarian legal ideas. That Don Willett is now championing those same ideas and is at the same time under possible consideration for a Supreme Court seat demonstrates just how far the dial has moved in a libertarian direction.

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From Bork to Willett: Is the Conservative Legal Movement Going Libertarian? - Reason (blog)

The Senate unanimously approved a bill Thursday that would allow people facing life-threatening diseases access to unapproved experimental drugs, providing a victory for libertarian advocates who see government regulators thwarting patients rights.

The bill, S. 204 (115), passed swiftly and easily in a Senate bitterly divided over health care. The powerful pharmaceutical lobby, which had quietly opposed an earlier version, kept an unusually low profile. The industry has been focused on fighting off any efforts to go after drug pricing, which President Donald Trump has said he would tackle.

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The bills chief champion, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), declared it a victory for individual liberty over government, and for the right to hope. Its also been championed by the libertarian Goldwater Institute, and Vice President Mike Pence, who tweeted that it gives patients hope & a chance.

The legislation would allow patients with serious diseases anything from a late-stage cancer to multiple sclerosis to request access to experimental drugs directly from drug companies without having to go through the FDA, which has its own compassionate use program that approves 99 percent of requests.

But the right-to-try bill doesnt require drugmakers to make the experimental treatments available. In the 37 states that have similar laws on the books, Goldwater can point to only one doctor who says he has utilized a state right-to-try law for a patient and that medicine was being made available to certain patients by the FDA anyway.

Thats led some critics to call it right-to-ask and it may give desperately ill people false hopes.

This bill is inherently deceptive, Alison Bateman-House, a medical ethicist at New York University who led the charge against Johnsons bills, wrote in an email. What [patients] have a right to (and did long before this bill) is to ask drug companies for permission to use their experimental drugs outside of clinical trials. If the drug company says no, both before and after this legislation, that's the final word: neither the FDA nor the courts have to power to make companies provide access to their experimental drugs-in-development.

And if the experimental drugs do become widely used outside the standard clinical trial system, it could undermine some of the rigorous science needed to know whether medicines are safe and effective. Many drugs that start the clinical trial process flop. Some are harmful.

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You have a situation where patients think they want to take a risk and dont necessarily understand what risk they are taking," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, which lobbied against the bill.

And while the revised bill would require annual reports on whether the drugs used by these patients helped or potentially harmed them, patient safety experts are concerned it may not be enough.

But its hard for lawmakers to say no to hope.

Opposing right-to-try laws is akin to opposing motherhood, apple pie, and the American flag; you just dont do it and expect to be re-elected, David Gorski, an oncologist at Wayne State University, wrote in his blog on science-based medicine. Its easier for a senator to vote for the bill than to explain to constituents the nuances of why the new law might not help them and might even harm them.

PhRMA issued a statement but declined to say whether it now supported the bill, which must still be approved by the House after the summer recess. We appreciated the opportunity to work with Sen. Johnson and look forward to continuing to work with his office, it said. The revised Right to Try legislation that passed the Senate includes important protections for patient safety and the clinical trial process.

Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking Democrat Patty Murray (D-Wash.) the same duo who are about to embark on bipartisan Obamacare stabilization" hearings played a role in helping Johnson work out a compromise. Alexander told POLITICO after the vote that Johnson tried to run it by everyone who was affected, including the pharmaceutical industry, trial lawyers and patients. Im very happy for him and the patients around the country who will benefit from it.

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), one of the few Democrats who had been in favor of it all along, said more liberal members all wanted to step up once the revised bill was explained to them.

FDA also worked behind the scenes to push for changes to make the bill safer for patients.

Not every senator endorses the libertarian rhetoric about getting federal regulators out of patients' way that propelled right-to-try a key theme of the message the Goldwater Institute took through the states and to Washington.

Theres no more fundamental freedom than the right to save your own life. Right to Try guarantees that freedom by ensuring that patients, along with their doctors, are in control of the treatments they receive when facing a terminal diagnosis, Goldwater's president and CEO Victor Riches said in a statement after passage.

But more liberal lawmakers faced significant lobbying, featuring heartbreaking stories of young children or newlyweds facing shortened lives. Meanwhile, the most powerful opposition, the drug industry and doctors groups, kept their disagreement very low-profile. Their soft voices gave lawmakers little political protection for a "no" vote.

Theres no doubt about it there are a lot of patients out there that think this is the answer to their prayers. They certainly believed that, and they pushed their members of Congress to support a bill that in many cases the members of Congress thought was not a good idea, said Zuckerman.

PhRMAs low-profile on right-to-try hurt detractors from the outset. The industry group never took a formal position on the state right-to-try laws or earlier federal proposals. But it consistently reiterated its concerns about any approach to experimental medicines that sought to bypass the FDA and the clinical trial process. Of the major drug makers, only Merck formally came out against the earlier Johnson bill.

Its huge, NYUs Bateman-House said of PhRMAs reluctance to take a stronger public stance. When I speak with legislators, they say, Well if its that bad, why isnt pharma speaking against it?

Critics of right-to-try concede the final Senate bill is much improved from earlier versions. It adds crucial safeguards that should help protect patients' safety and their pocketbooks, as they can no longer be charged excessive amounts for unproven drugs.

But the critics, including bioethicists, safety advocates and researchers, still worry about the risk of undermining an agency like the FDA an important safety regulator that has ensured that drugs are studied in controlled settings so FDA can make informed decisions to approve or disapprove them.

The bill looks to be an "improvement," said Patti Zettler, a professor at Georgia State University and former associate chief counsel at FDA. "However, the fundamental problem with the bill is not resolved in that it still envisions removing, or drastically reducing, FDA's role in expanded access."

And it may fall short an example of Congress checking a box, but not really solving a problem.

Its something where your reluctant representative can claim they are taking action but does not effectively address root problems, said Ameet Sarpatwari of Harvard Medical School. Weve seen this with rising drug prices, and now we see it with experimental treatment. It is a show, but it is also dangerous in the sense that it furthers this sort of attack on FDA as somehow being antithetical to the interest of patients.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Patti Zettler's affiliation. She is a professor at Georgia State University.

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Libertarians score big victory in 'right-to-try' drug bill - Politico

Dennis Fusaro, a libertarian activist, and Steve Waters were found not guilty by a jury of their own peers for illegal free speech. The men had sent a robocall back in 2014 to 5,000 people in Anne Arundel County, Maryland on the weekend before an important election. The robocall congratulated Democratic County Council candidate Patrick Armstrong for his bravery in coming out of the closet after he supported a transgender bathroom mandate.

Transgenders can now openly and freely go into any bathroom of their choice based on their confused gender identity, the obviously satirical script for the robocall read. Tell Patrick to continue to stand loud and proud in support for transgenders equal rights. While our opponent argued that children could be at risk by sexual predators with this new law, we celebrate the rights of transgenders and what this does for equality for transgenders in Maryland.

Armstrongs Republican opponent, Michael Anthony Peroutka, employed Fusaro but denied any knowledge of the robocall. He won the election, but Fusaros tactics were deemed illegal by the state and he was brought up on charges.

The call in question failed to identify Fusaro and Waters as the persons responsible for the call, and failed to state whether it was authorized by any candidate, prosecutors said in a statement. Instead, the call falsely stated that it was Paid for and authorized by Marylanders for Transgenders.' Additionally, the men used burner phones for the robocall which was said to be an underhanded attempt to conceal their identity.

Fusaro and Waters were charged with violating and conspiring to violate the authority line requirements of Maryland election laws. Each charge carried up to one year in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000. Despite the facts of the case being rather clear, the jury made the decision to acquit both men. It is believed that the jury nullified the Draconian restrictions against political free speech on the books in the state of Maryland.

The Office of the Maryland Special Prosecutor decides which procedural mistakes are hammered and which are not. That gives them substative message control by using their procedural power, Fusaro said in a statement released to Target Liberty. Taxpayers in Maryland who are concerned with their first amendment rights should rise up and have that office shut down by petitioning their legislature for redress of grievances.

Fusaro, always the libertarian rabble-rouser, is best known for releasing embarrassing audio of former Ron Paul campaign manager Jesse Benton talking about holding his nose to support Sen. Mitch McConnell after joining his campaign. Because of the concept of jury nullification, Fusaro will be unabated in his activist work stirring up trouble for politicians.

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Jury Nullification Used To Free Libertarian Activist In Maryland - The Liberty Conservative

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The abandoned cop cars sat in Trina Reyes yard for eight months. She wanted them gone, but there were no police to come get them. Last September, the police department in Von Ormy a town of 1,300 people just southwest of San Antonio lost its accreditation after it failed to meet basic standards. Reyes was mayor at the time, so the three patrol cars, as well as the squads police radios and its computers, ended up at her home. It was just another low point in a two-year saga that she now counts as one of the most difficult experiences of her life.

This is one of the worst things Ive ever done, she said of being mayor. Ive never dealt with such angry people. Im washing my hands of everything. Im going to travel. Im going as far away from Von Ormy as I can.

For the last few years, Von Ormy has been in near-constant turmoil over basic issues of governance: what form of municipal government to adopt, whether to tax its residents, and how to pay for services such as sewer, police, firefighters and animal control. Along the way, three City Council members were arrested for allegedly violating the Open Meetings Act, and the volunteer fire department collapsed for lack of funds. Nearly everyone in town has an opinion on whos to blame. But its probably safe to say that the vision of the citys founder, a libertarian lawyer whose family traces its roots in Von Ormy back six generations, has curdled into something that is part comedy, part tragedy.

In 2006, fearing annexation by rapidly encroaching San Antonio, some in Von Ormy proposed incorporating as a town. But in government-averse rural Texas, incorporation can be a hard sell. Unincorporated areas are governed mainly by counties, which have few rules about what you can do on private property and tend to only lightly tax. Theres no going back from what municipal government brings: taxes, ordinances, elections and tedious city council meetings. Still, the fear of being absorbed by San Antonio with its big-city taxes and regulations was too much for most Von Ormians.

Enter Art Martinez de Vara. At the time, Martinez de Vara was an ambitious third-year law student at St. Marys University in San Antonio, a local boy with a penchant for Texas history and right-wing politics.

Martinez de Vara suggested a compromise of sorts. Von Ormy could become a liberty city a stripped-down, low-tax, low-government version of municipal government thats currently en vogue among the tea party in Texas.

Initially, the city would impose property and sales taxes, but the property tax would ratchet down to zero over time. The business-friendly environment would draw new economic activity to Von Ormy, and eventually the town would cruise along on sales taxes alone.

There would be no charge for building permits, which Martinez de Vara said would be hand-delivered by city staff. The nanny state would be kept at bay, too. Want to shoot off fireworks? Blast away. Want to smoke in a bar? Light up. Teens wandering around at night? No curfew, no problem.

Martinez de Vara and his mother, Sally Martinez, along with other prominent residents, started the Commission to Incorporate Von Ormy. He gave Von Ormy a motto: The Freest Little City in Texas.

Folks in Von Ormy liked what they heard and in May 2008 voted to incorporate. Martinez de Vara was elected mayor that November.

In a 2015 presentation he gave at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, Martinez de Vara said that a group of people with no political experience took it upon themselves to do everything a large city like San Antonio does but at a lower cost. He touted Von Ormys ability to provide animal control services, a 20-officer police department a mix of paid officers and volunteers and an online city hall.

We were blessed with this unique opportunity to experiment with democracy, he said.

Today, there is no city animal control program and stray dogs roam the streets. The Bexar County Sheriffs Office patrols the town instead of city police, and City Hall resides in a mobile home with one full-time staffer though thats a step up from the dive bar where City Council met until the owner bounced them out. If you go to the citys website, youll be informed that its still under construction.

If Von Ormy is a libertarian experiment with democracy, its one that hasnt turned out as expected.

The crisis of government in Von Ormy doesnt present itself at first glance. The town is located on I-35 just south of the Medina River, where San Antonios impressive sprawl gives way to the scrub brush of South Texas. Theres a post office, of course, plus some gas stations, a diner, a trailer home dealer and the MGM Cabaret strip club. A giant oak tree in town is believed by some local historians, including Martinez de Vara, to have been the encampment for Santa Anna before he laid siege to the Alamo.

Reyes lives near I-35 in a distinct two-story blue house. A retired buyer for a beauty supply company, she moved from San Antonio to Von Ormy in 1982. When Martinez de Vara stepped down as mayor in 2015, he tapped Reyes to run. She had been an early supporter of the liberty city idea. But when I visited her this spring, she was counting down the days till her term expired in May.

From the beginning, she said, the town had been divided.

Some really liked it, Reyes said. They liked the possibility of getting street lights, sewage, better roads and all of the stuff that comes with incorporating. There was quite a bit promised and people bought into it, including myself.

Others thought that the process would lead to unnecessary fights and power grabs.

A lot of people that did not want to incorporate were saying that once you become a political entity you start with the corruption, the infighting and all of the stuff that comes with having public figures, she said. They said it was going to divide the city, which it did. The majority of the people that spoke up against [incorporating] were right then about whats happening now.

As mayor, Martinez de Varas first priority was to lure chain stores with the towns low-tax, low-regulation branding. But there was a problem: Von Ormy lacked a sewer system and it would be expensive to connect to San Antonios main wastewater system. The San Antonio Water System, which services most of Bexar County, told town officials that the connection would cost $4 million to $5 million.

According to Reyes, City Administrator James Massey recommended floating a bond, standard practice for most cities. But Martinez de Vara rejected the recommendation. Liberty cities arent supposed to take on debt, after all. (Martinez de Vara didnt respond to numerous requests for comment.)

Reyes said most people in Von Ormy agreed with Martinez de Varas position but that it put the town in a bind. You want to be a liberty city? No taxes, she said. We could only afford to put in $500,000, if that, but where would we get the rest from? The sewer system was never installed, and the town still relies on septic.

The lack of a centralized wastewater system made it more difficult to recruit businesses. But the oil boom in the Eagle Ford Shale the vast shale play that stretches from Laredo into East Texas helped juice the businesses along the I-35 strip in Von Ormy. Martinez de Vara and the City Council stuck to the plan of ratcheting the property tax rate down every year. In 2009, the rate stood at a modest 39 cents per $100 of value less than neighboring San Antonio or Somerset, a small town to the south. By 2014, theyd cut it to 25.5 cents enough to generate $79,000 in revenue. Meanwhile, the sales tax brought in about $215,000 that year.

Martinez de Vara promised that the property tax would be eliminated altogether by 2015, the bold step hed envisioned at the towns inception.

Many of our residents are on fixed incomes and property taxation is the single greatest threat to continued home ownership and the ability to pass the fruits of a lifetime of work onto the next generation, he told theSan Antonio Express-Newsin 2014.

But two things happened around this time: First, the bottom fell out of the oil economy. With oil prices in free-fall in 2014 and 2015, the drilling rigs in the Eagle Ford Shale started packing up, as did many of the workers, trucks and ancillary oil field services.

Second, some were beginning to sour on the liberty city model. On the five-member City Council, three council members Jacqueline Goede, Verna Hernandez and Carmina Aguilar had banded together in a bloc that was increasingly at odds with Martinez de Vara and the two other council members, one of whom was Sally Martinez. The most explosive issue was property taxes. The three women thought it was foolish to eliminate property taxes altogether. Sales taxes rise and fall with the economy, and few cities rely on them alone.

As new as we are and as small as we are, to grow we need those taxes, Goede told theExpress-News. We need them desperately.

What ensued was a confusing series of boycotted meetings, obscure loopholes and eventually a possibly illegal hearing that landed the three women briefly in jail. In September 2014, Martinez de Vara had formally proposed zeroing out the property tax, but Goede, Hernandez and Aguilar voted it down 3-2 and, at least for five days, kept the property tax in place. However, to formally ratify the rate, per state law, at least four council members needed to hold another meeting to vote, but Sally Martinez and Debra Ivy refused to show up to any hearing with ratification on the agenda. The result: Martinez de Vara got his way and the property tax rate was eliminated.

Frustrated, Goede, Hernandez and Aguilar took a radical, and possibly illegal, step: They formed a kind of brief shadow government, holding their own City Council hearing at the Von Ormy fire station without Martinez de Vara and the two other council members. At the hearing, they elected Goede mayor pro tem, established a property tax and fired the head of the police department.

Martinez de Vara caught wind of the meeting and got a judge to nullify the actions taken in it. Soon, the Texas Rangers opened a criminal investigation into possible violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act, resulting in misdemeanor charges. In May 2015, the three council members turned themselves in to the Bexar County Sheriffs Office. Though the charges were eventually dropped and the women continued serving on City Council, the incident only inflamed tensions in the community.

After that, there was a lack of authority, lack of direction and a lack of enthusiasm, said Michael Suarez, the former animal control worker for the city and a Martinez de Vara supporter. Everyone started acting like children and nothing got done.

Even as Von Ormy descended into chaos, Martinez de Varas own profile had been rising. Folks from around the state had started calling him with questions about how to form a liberty city. Martinez de Vara found himself with a niche law practice. He says he has helped four or five Texas towns incorporate as liberty cities, about half the state total in the last decade.

The GOP had also taken notice. In 2011 and 2012, Martinez de Vara served as chief of staff to one-term Representative John Garza, a San Antonio Republican. Then, in 2014, Senator Konni Burton, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Fort Worth, brought him on as chief of staff. That session, Burton introduced Senate Bill 710, which would codify the liberty city model as an official form of municipal government, with restrictions on regulations, debt and the implementation of taxes. The bill died in committee.

Today, hes the assistant general counsel for the Texas Republican Party and the city attorney for Kingsbury, a liberty city near Seguin in Guadalupe County.

In May 2015, Martinez de Vara stepped down as mayor but not before asking Reyes, a member of the City Council first elected in 2013, to run as his replacement. She and Martinez de Vara agreed on the top priority: getting the three women off the council.

It got to the point that the city was spending $20,000 to $30,000 a month in legal fees, she said. All three of them would pick up the phone and ask the same question and wed get charged for all of them.

Despite pressing city business, council meetings often devolved into chaos. For example, at a September 2015 meeting, Reyes angrily told Goede and Hernandez they were speaking out of turn and threatened to call the police if they kept talking. But when Hernandez persisted, Reyes ordered the police chief, who was present at the meeting, to escort Hernandez outside. Hernandez was arrested and booked into jail for disrupting a meeting, a misdemeanor. But that didnt quiet Hernandez or her supporters.

One day, Reyes said, she got a call from Martinez de Vara.

He told me that the only way that we were going to get rid of those women is to change to a commissioner-style government, she said. And at that point, I would have done anything to get rid of those three women. They were nothing but trouble.

Martinez de Vara recommended that Von Ormy switch from whats known as a Type A municipality to a Type C. Instead of the usual five council members and a mayor, Type C cities have two commissioners and a mayor. According to the Texas Municipal League, only 27 of the 1,200 municipalities in Texas are set up this way. In November 2015, voters narrowly approved the change, with 129 in favor and 115 against. The new commission started holding meetings the next month.

When I visited Reyes in Von Ormy in March, she was in despair about the arrangement. Halving the council from six to three elected officials hadnt brought unity.

She had all but stopped speaking to the two commissioners longtime City Council member Sally Martinez and Alex Quintanilla, another stalwart in the city government. Reyes simply stopped showing up for council meetings in early 2017, accusing Martinez and Quintanilla of ganging up on her.

In September, Martinez and Quintanilla voted to reclassify the mayors office as a conference room and mandated that Reyes pay for the desks relocation. They said it was too big and that I had to take it home, she said. Now I work from home.

She was also worried about violating the Open Meetings Act again, which is easy to do when there are only three people in charge of the city and two constitutes a quorum.

If two of us talk on the phone, I think that would be a violation, she said. Weve just stopped speaking to each other. And Alex lives across the alley from me. Its really sad.

She points to a February meeting between county officials and rural leaders in southern Bexar County as evidence of the precariousness of their situation.

I went to a forum with the county to talk about potential Community Development Block Grant funds in nearby Somerset, and I didnt realize until I put my glasses on that Sally and Alex were there, she said. I thought, Oh my God, were in trouble again.

In September 2016, Von Ormy made headlines when its police department was forced to shut down. For nearly a year, Reyes and the two city commissioners had been locked in a power struggle over who should be the police chief. When Reyes took over as mayor, she moved to sack Police Chief Greg Reyes (no relation), who she and others accused of harassing council members and city staff and lying about his law enforcement background. (According to a report written by a private investigator tapped by Mayor Reyes, the police chief had lied on his rsum about obtaining a degree from San Antonio College and being assigned to the Frio County Sheriffs Department Narcotics Task Force, which turned out not to exist.)

Mayor Reyes fired Chief Reyes and convinced the City Council to hire a man named Pedro Rosario. The new police chief claimed to find some serious problems left behind by his predecessor.

The evidence room had very little to no control measures, he told me in an April interview. It was literally an 18-wheel trailer that was unsecured. There was no cataloging. I found unmarked boxes filled with everything from weapons to narcotics and anybody could walk in, and they did. A lot of the City Council members would just walk in and want to see a file or just grab things. (Greg Reyes did not respond to numerous requests for comment.)

Then in the summer of 2016, the two commissioners, Martinez and Quintanilla, voted to fire Rosario and rehire Greg Reyes. But Mayor Reyes claimed the hiring was illegal and refused to recognize Reyes as police chief.

Then in September, the dispute was finally brought to an end when Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau wrote a letter to Mayor Reyes. Pamerleau said her department would no longer provide dispatch services because there was simply too much instability in the department. Without dispatch services, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement quickly pulled the Von Ormy PDs accreditation.

The Bexar County Sheriffs Office has been patrolling the town ever since. The three patrol cars Von Ormy had received as a donation from Bexar County ended up in Reyes yard. After her term ended in May, they were moved in front of City Hall.

Jake Galvan, a retired mechanic, says that the police department was an embarrassment to the town and the source of rumors about misconduct and other illegal behavior.

They didnt hire anybody thats a veteran, he said. They just hired a bunch of rookies with no experience.

In Galvans view, the liberty city experiment has gone all wrong.

This aint going well at all, he said. Weve got a bunch of empty buildings, a lot of [federal] grant money spent, and for what? We have a fire station that nobody wants to operate and a police station with no police. Where did all that money go?

In early May, Von Ormy elected a new mayor: Sally Martinez, the only person who has served on the council since the beginning.

We are in the process of trying to bring back our police department, she told me in a brief April interview. We just want to move forward and improve the city however we can.

David Farr, her challenger, is a mechanic who had started to attend meetings over the past year and wanted to change what he saw as stalled progress and nepotism.

The only way to make Von Ormy sustainable is to get more businesses out here, he said.

If things dont change, were going to be in trouble in, Id say, two years. Well have to start borrowing to get the roads fixed.

He pins the towns woes on Martinez de Varas crusade to establish other liberty cities, a common complaint heard in Von Ormy.

Ill give him credit, hes the one who got the city going, he said. But then, all of a sudden, he drops out. Hes up in Austin. Hes too busy.

Reyes thinks the liberty city experiment has failed. With increasing expenses, a population resistant to any taxes, and economic development dead in the water, she thinks the town is only a few years away from a fiscal crisis, when the commission will have to decide whether to take on debt.

Were halfway there, she said. Without ad valorem taxes, well be done in three to five years. If we cant attract more businesses here and provide the infrastructure, then I think were done.

But others are protective of Martinez de Varas vision and blame Reyes for the dysfunction.

Michael Suarez, the former animal control worker, was born and raised in Von Ormy. He says that Martinez de Vara was a capable leader who simply saw an opportunity to climb the political ladder.

Trina just wanted the power, but she didnt know anything, Suarez said. All she wanted to do was just scream about how shes in charge and order people around. She would scream at people, and thats not how you do things.

Suarez was one of the biggest supporters of incorporation, spending his free time block-walking to convince his neighbors that it was the right thing to do.

His wife, Amy, was on the City Council from 2011 to 2013 and was an ally of Martinez de Varas.

I think were just young, she said. Weve reached our temper tantrum stage and we just need to get past it. But a lot of the people here dont care. They want to be left alone, but if somethings not done soon then San Antonios going to annex us. Then well have to pay the taxes that Von Ormy was established to get out of in the first place.

Michael says that the election was an opportunity for things to settle down and live up to the trust given to them by county officials, but that there will be some hard work in getting the town they want back.

We worked so hard to get this far, he said. But its kind of turned into George Orwells Animal Farm. Were all equal, but some of us are more equal than others. Theres nobody competent enough to lead this city and we sure as hell cant attract anybody to come and fix us. We have to do this ourselves.

This article originally appeared on the Texas Observer.

James McCandless is a freelance writer in San Antonio.

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