Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a US political party founded in 2006 as an offshoot of the Libertarian Party and dissolved in 2012. Founder Thomas L. Knapp cited dissatisfaction with platform changes at the 2006 Libertarian National Convention as the rationale for a new libertarian political party.
Party Conventions
The Boston Tea Party's organizational convention in August of 2006 was the first national political party convention held entirely online, as were its subsequent conventions. The party's members ratified bylaws and a permanent one sentence platform based on the model World's Smallest Political Platform: "The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope or power of government at any level or for any purpose." It also ratified its first biennial party program of specific policy proposals, and elected a national committee. Knapp moved that the party re-constitute itself as a caucus within the Libertarian Party, but the motion was defeated.
At its 2008 convention, the Boston Tea Party nominated Charles Jay for president and Thomas L. Knapp as its national vice-presidential candidate. Knapp appeared on the ballot in Tennessee but was replaced, as allowed for in the party's bylaws, by "favorite son" candidates in Florida (John Wayne Smith) and Colorado (Dan Sallis, Jr.). In other states Jay was listed as a write-in candidate with various running mates. The ticket placed 15th in the 2008 presidential election with 2,422 votes.
In 2012, national committee chair Darryl W. Perry announced the party's disbandment after an abortive presidential nomination process in which the presidential candidate, Tiffany Briscoe, was quickly removed by the membership after suspect self-characterizations came to light and was replaced by Jim Duensing. Duensing and the party's vice-presidential nominee, Kimberly Johnson Barrick, appeared on no ballots.
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