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Hannah Grover , hgrover@daily-times.com Published 4:30 p.m. MT May 26, 2017 | Updated 22 hours ago

San Juan County(Photo: The Daily Times stock image)

FARMINGTON For the first time in nearly a decade, the Libertarian Party of New Mexico has a San Juan County chapter.

The chapter was organized earlier this month andwill meet weekly. Meeting information will be posted on its Facebook page.

"We're trying to create some growth," chapter chairwoman Ranota Banks said. "We experienced quite a bit during the Johnson-Weld campaign."

The Libertarian Party has traditionally been the largest of the third parties in the state. Elizabeth Hanes, the chairwoman of the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, said the western ethos of working hard and minding your own business contributes to the success of the Libertarian Party in New Mexico.

"That's very much what Libertarianism is about," she said.

Hanes said the Libertarian Party hopes to run about half a dozen candidates in state and federal races in 2018. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's campaign in 2016 led to an increase in registered Libertarian voters.

Johnson received about 9 percent of the votes in New Mexico, or more than 74,000 votes. The number of registered voters and the percentage who voted for Johnson qualified the party to hold primary elections during 2018.There are approximately 6,000 Libertarians registered to vote statewide. Hanes said there are about 400 registered Libertarians in San Juan County.

"This past general election, we had a lot of people switch their affiliation to the Libertarian Party," Banks said.

Hanes said some Republicans identify with the Libertarian stance regarding smaller government. She said the party also aligns with Democratic views on social issues and civil rights, such as same-sex marriage.

Drew Degner, chairman of San Juan County's Republican Party, said there may be some voters who switch affiliation because of the similar stance on smaller government. He said he has seen frustration on both sides nationwide.

Degner said he wishes the Libertarians luck in their endeavor.

"If it is able to gain traction, it might be a good thing for everybody," Degner said.

While the Libertarian Party supports social issues and civil rights, it does not believe in government-funded charities, such as Planned Parenthood.

"We believe that personal giving is preferable to government giving," Hanes said.

She said the Libertarian Party believes in slashing taxes, which would give people more money to donate to charitable organizations.

While San Juan County Democratic Party chairwoman MP Schildmeyer said she wishes the Libertarian Party well, she said she does not agree with the party's stance regarding cutting back Social Security.

"To me, the Libertarian Party is a dangerous party," she said.

Banks said while the party does not believe in forced charity, it does believe in "people taking care of people."

Banks said twice a month the San Juan County chapter will have picnics or trash cleanups.

Hannah Grover covers government for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4652.

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Libertarian Party forms San Juan County chapter - Farmington Daily Times

When I recently spoke with the Libertarian Partys chairman, Nicholas Sarwark, about his organizations unique perspective onthe presidency of Donald Trump, he highlighted a very important issue: the war on drugs.

Sarwark also argued that Congress needs tosay, Look, these penalties that we have for people having drugs or selling drugs or using drugs they need to be brought down into the area of reality. And stop locking people up for decades oversubstances people voluntarily consume and ingest.

Indeed many people onthe left might agree: What right does the government have to tell people what they can do with their bodies? Not to mention the fact thatsuch a crusade should be denounced for its racism,expenseand mass incarceration. Yet while those problems are horrific, the war on drugs could theoretically be reformed withoutdoing away with it altogether.

To me, though, the last part of Sarwarksphrasing perfectly captures whythe war on drugscannot be justified: Stop locking people up for decades over substances people voluntarily consume and ingest.

Do you want to claim that people who use drugs are more likely to commit crimes? Perhaps, but then outlaw the crimes themselves, not the substances that may make them more likely.

Sarwarksaid that anti-drug laws need to be brought down into the area of reality.

In my view, they shouldnt exist at all.

Watch our conversationto better understand libertarians argument aboutour governments drug policies.

Go here to see the original:
WATCH: Libertarian Party chair on the war on drugs: Stop locking people up - Salon

In the wake of Maxime Berniers loss to Andrew Scheer in the federal Conservative leadership race, another party has offered the Quebec MP its leadership: the Libertarian Party of Canada.

The Libertarian Partys current leader, Tim Moen, posted a video to YouTube Sunday promising to immediately step aside and nominate Bernier as leader should he accept the offer. The party also plans to adopt Berniers platform whether or not he joins them, Moen said.

I know Max and I know hes a solid libertarian, Moen said in an interview with the National Post. He hopes Berniers supporters shift their allegiance to the Libertarians, which he says will force the Conservative Party to consider adopting libertarian policies.

He could take a lot of political market-share away from the Conservative Party, he said. I think they need to be disciplined by the market.

Bernier finished a close second to Andrew Scheer in the Conservative leadership race, taking roughly 49 per cent of the available points toScheers almost 51 per cent. He campaigned on a platform that included lowering corporate taxes from 15 to 10 per cent, eliminating the capital gains tax and abolishing Canadas supply management system for dairy, eggs and poultry.

Moen said the popularity of Berniers platform shows that voters are interested in taking baby steps towards libertarian policies.

Maxs platform offers people something that is realistic and something that a libertarian can live with and embrace, he said. Itll show that were serious about winning some votes here.

Berniers office did not respond to a request for comment before deadline Monday.

The Libertarian Party of Canada was founded in 1973 with the mission of reducing the responsibilities and expenses of the Canadian government, according to the partys website. The party today has roughly 10,000 members, according to Moen.

The partys current platform which Moen says takes a more philosophically purist approach than Berniers plan includes proposals to establish a maximum federal income tax of 15 per cent, withdraw Canadian forces from all international conflicts and repeal the Canada Health Act to make healthcare a purely provincial responsibility.

Moen, who works as a firefighter and paramedic in Fort McMurray, has been leader of the Libertarian Party since 2014. He says hes reached out to Bernier (I sent him a text, he said) and he and Bernier will speak about the invitation this week.

Hes not sure if Bernier is at all interested, but said he felt he would be remiss not to provide the option.

I hope he takes me up on the offer, but Im not holding my breath.

Here is the original post:
A second chance for Mad Max? Libertarian Party leader offers to step aside for Bernier - National Post

While the Libertarian Party doesnt have much political power in the United States, the libertarian philosophy is alive and well within the Republican Party when it comes to certain issues. When you listen to the most conservative Republicans denounce health care programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, their language is remarkably similar to that used by libertarians. Take Nicholas Sarwark, the chairman of the Libertarian Party. When I interviewedhim for Salon earlier thismonth about how a strictly free market approach to health care wouldaffect Americasmost vulnerable and cited real examples of a diabetic person, a severely depressed individualand someonewith unspecific lower back pain, Sarwark started out with a valid critique of the Affordable Care Actand then turned to more abstract issues. Sarwark began by describing a libertarian congressional candidate with diabetes, Andy Craig of Wisconsin, who he saiddesperately wants to be able to just buy the insulin he needs from a provider and use it. Right? Its the same stuff every day. He cant right now due to government regulation, both in making insulin a prescription-only product in his state even though its safe and effective and could be sold over the counter so its more expensive, and in requiring him to pay for health insurance, which is not really insurance if its something you already know youre going to buy.

This is a valid point, but it doesntdiscredit the conceptof government-run health care. To me, if anything, Sarwarkmakes a strong case for a government-run health care system, which would allow diabetics to receive the medications they need without having to worry about thecost. Of course, thiswould be anathema to a libertarian like Sarwark, which is why the second half of his response railed against the very notion of government-funded insurance:

We dont have car insurance that covers gas and oil changes because thats insane, Sarwarksaid. Youre insuring against a risk of something happening that you dont know if its going to happen. A chronic condition is not insurable. Theres a cost sharing that can be done; there are discounts that can be done. But the first step in having a real discussion about this is recognizing the difference between insurable risks, whichyou know onthe drive to work I get in a car accident and break both of my legs. Thats a risk that is insurable.

That is all well and good. But it doesnt address the issues of the individuals I cited, all employed in full-time jobs and making nowhere near enough money to be able to afford insurance for their medical conditions without the ACA to protect them.

Follow this link:
WATCH: On health care, does the Libertarian Party's plan sound like ... - Salon

It wasn't ultimately surprising that a Republican candidate facing assault charges for allegedly bodyslamming a reporter the day before the election won his House race in Montana anyway. But Greg Gianforte's 6 percent win over Democrat Rob Quist was far lower than most assessments of Montana's relative preference for Republicans would indicate. And Gianforte's winning margin was exactly matched by the unprecedented 6 percent total for a Montana House race for the Libertarian Party's candidate, Mark Wicks.

Wicks for CongressWicks, a rancher and mailman in Inverness, Montana, thinks the key to his unusually good results for the L.P., for a campaign that could not afford any print, TV, or radio ads and only a few signs, was that the L.P. helped pressure the hosts of a televised debate to include Wicks along with his major party competitors.

"When people saw how I handled myself, especially compared to the other two," Wicks said in a phone interview the day after the election, it helped him nearly double the last L.P. House candidate's 3.3 percent. (In Liberty County, next door to his home county, where Wicks says he likely personally known one-quarter of the voters, he pulled 16 percent.)

He credits his good showing in the debate not so much to ideology, but to the fact that he was able "to answer questions in a straightforward and honest way. My answers were consistent but [voters] could tell they weren't memorized. I would answer the question asked and not just pivot to a talking point."

Wicks expects he'll run for office again, though not sure exactly what office or when. He'd like to have more money, sooner whenever that happens. He's like to be in a better position to hit the ground running with a decent cash pile the way major party candidates usually can.

The Libertarian National Committee (LNC) did give him a rare donation of $5,000, but it came too late in the process to do much good, Wicks says. Wicks sees the LNC faced a chicken and egg dilemma--he understands their reluctance to hand over a pile of cash to an untried candidate until after the debate showed he could comport himself well and make a decent run of it, but getting the money within the last couple of weeks before the election gave him no chance to have it serve as seed money for outreach that could have lead to more money.

His campaign was able to spend "a couple thousand" on Facebook advertising, he says, but his jobs and the vast sprawl of Montana's one-district state made in-person appearances before crowds of voters also impossible. He lives about 300 miles from any major Montana city.

Most of his volunteer support came via the Feldman Foundation, a national organization dedicated to finding and helping liberty-oriented candidates (named after Marc Feldman, a deceased former Libertarian Party activist and presidential aspirant). Wicks credits them with a "tremendous job, it took so much weight off my back." They managed his press releases and phone banks, for which he recalls one activist personally made 3,000 calls.

"I've always been a very conservative Republican, very freedom oriented," Wicks says. But "I felt the Republican Party just left me. The Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, their budgets...they run on cutting spending and don't cut spending." He won the L.P.'s nomination against seven other candidates at a state Party convention. He knows that many in the Party "are upset that I'm not hardcore libertarian enough for them. But we have to realize we have to start in increments. We can't start with hardcore libertarianism."

At least some voters thinking about him, he says, would "read the L.P. platform and decide they didn't want to vote for me because it goes too far, a little too much freedom in it for their comfort." For example, he stresses that while he campaigned on marijuana legalization, he does not support the legalization of harder drugs. "Legalizing all the drugs is not going to fly in Montana."

Wicks also thinks it's likely he got votes based on what he found as a widespread hate for Gianforte and Quist partisans attacks on each other. Given the overlap on constitutional and free-market rhetoric between Republicans and Libertarians, it's usually the GOP who insists the L.P. is "stealing" their vote. But Wicks says Democrat Quist's fans were messaging him accusing him of having stolen votes from Quist. Wicks thinks it's more likely that a would-be Libertarian voter was scared toward Gianforte for a greater fear of the Democrat winning.

What lessons does he see for the L.P. in his result? He thinks more, and more active, county affiliates are important for candidate services such as setting up events. And he thinks the Party should aim its resources and attention in general more at state or local races and less on the "pie in the sky" of national presidential runs. "That money could be put to a lot better use for other candidates."

He reminds the L.P., and himself, that given that this was a special election and another House race looms in 2018, that "we're nine months away from having to start waving signs around again, and it's hard to build up a Party in that amount of time."

Read more from the original source:
Montana Libertarian Mark Wicks, Who Got 6 Percent Against the GOP's Gianforte, Believes the LP Must Focus More on ... - Reason (blog)