New Mexico Libertarians Vindicated

A follow-up to "New Mexico Squeezed": the U.S. District Court for New Mexico has ruled in favor of the LNC's motion for preliminary injunction.

On Wednesday evening, LNC Region 1 Representative and LPHI Chair Austin Martin forwarded the news to the full LNC board and the public list:

Aloha, Chair and Members of the Board,

I'm glad to share a favorable result from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. It appears the court has granted the LNC's motion for a preliminary injunction in Libertarian National Committee v. Libertarian Party of New Mexico, et al., Civ. No. 1:26-cv-01562-MIS-KK.

According to the order, the court found the LNC substantially likely to succeed on the merits of its trademark claim, with all four equitable factors (likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of hardships, and the public interest) weighing in the LNC's favor. The Liberal Party defendants, meaning Chris Luchini and the Liberal Party USA network, are now enjoined from using the LIBERTARIAN PARTY® mark, including the name "Libertarian Party of New Mexico," for the duration of the litigation. The injunction's reach is broad, covering the LPNM website, all interactions with members and voters, public communications, and dealings with candidates.

The court also declined the Liberal Party defendants' request for expedited discovery, finding the LNC's evidence already sufficient to decide the motion for preliminary injunction. The LNC has been ordered to post a $20,000 bond, standard practice for preliminary injunctive relief of this kind.

Readers may recall Chris Luchini's own recorded remarks on LPA Live / After Dark, where he told viewers that he expected to win, and that a former vice chair had spent his entire career as a patent and trademark lawyer. "We're going to burn a cubic mile of money…"

The court has found the LNC substantially likely to win, on all four factors, with the discovery request rejected as unnecessary, a serious blow to Luccini's boastful narrative.

The Michigan Precedent

It is a rehashing of an already decided issue. When the LNC sued dissenting Michigan officers in LNC v. Saliba for continuing to call themselves "the Libertarian Party of Michigan" after a valid leadership change, the district court granted a preliminary injunction, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed it in 2024, treating the LNC's decision as controlling and the first trademark factor as effectively dispositive.

Luccini's faction argued their use of "Libertarian Party of New Mexico" was mere self-identification, not an affiliation claim, and that this was protected under the Taubman parody-site precedent. The court rejected that framing and found their use designated affiliation with the LNC. The court then cited Saliba's 2024, holding that this kind of affiliation claim implicates trademark law's core concerns and makes Taubman inapplicable. It also added a separate finding that there is no evidence the affiliation signal was ever interrupted from 1972–2022, and the 2022 disaffiliation doesn't change the analysis.

Just in Time

Consider what almost happened in the days immediately before this ruling came down. On June 9 and on June 11, Alex Flores, Amanda Griffiths, Richard Longstreth, and Bill Redpath voted to halt all legal action against LPNM and pursue "unification" based on a settlement offer from Luchini's side. Both motions failed 4-4. The June 11 meeting was to consider a second, revised offer that explicitly called for their own recognized affiliate to be disbanded or otherwise merged into the fraudulent faction. If passed, it would have left Derek Scott installed as a co-chair of the very organization infringing the LNC's mark all along. (Third Party Watch — full settlement text).

Had either of those votes gone differently, the LNC's own recognized affiliate could have been folded out of existence in a privately negotiated settlement before the court had the chance to rule in their favor. The four Executive Committee members who voted to pause the suit were asking the national party to walk away from a case it was going to decisively win. The Luccini faction was puzzled why a settlement offer "originally dictated by LNC Chair Evan McMahon himself" was then voted down, which looks rather different in light of this ruling. The offer would have traded a winning hand for a negotiated merger that erased the distinction between the legitimate affiliate and the trademark infringer before the court could touch it.

On June 16, the LNC had just filed its reply brief in support of the motion for preliminary injunction, along with two supporting exhibits, and formally notified the court that briefing was complete. The full docket remains publicly viewable on CourtListener and PacerMonitor.

New Mexico Libertarians

For Derek Scott and the New Mexico affiliate, this is the vindication that four years of disaffiliation, a forced rebrand, lost major-party status, and a treasury drained by litigation costs was leading to all along. A federal court has finally been able to look at the merits and conclude that the LNC's trademark claim is substantially likely to succeed. Voters, candidates, and the public should not be exposed to continued confusion from an organization using the "Libertarian" name without authorization.

It reframes the Executive Committee's recent maneuvering in a much harsher light as the LNC's own retained counsel was simultaneously winning the legal argument they were trying to make disappear. Members who spent the last two weeks trying to negotiate away their affiliate's exclusive status now have to explain why they were prepared to hand a legal victory to the side a federal judge just ruled against.

Once the court-ordered bond has been paid in the seven-day window, the injunction is immediately enforceable.

"This injunction includes, but it not limited to, removing the Mark from their website, use of the Mark when interacting with members, voters, and the public, or when endorsing or otherwise interacting with candidates, and use of the Mark in any other forum that would create confusion as to whether they are affiliated with the Libertarian National Committee or the national Libertarian Party;"

As of today, Luccini's faction is still running their website under the title, "Libertarian Party of New Mexico" despite the ruling and are raising funds for the lawsuit under that name.

This is only a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment, and the underlying case continues. But "substantially likely to succeed on the merits," on every equitable factor, is the strongest signal a federal court can give at this stage of a case. The Free New Mexico Party can now rightfully and solely pick up the Libertarian Party of New Mexico name.

We will continue to follow the story.