3 Libertarians compete in party’s first gubernatorial primary
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the seventh in an occasional series about the candidates for Oklahoma governor.
CHICKASHA — Oklahoma Libertarians don’t give up.
They have fought many battles in this state to get their party on the ballot and keep it there. They’ve gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their victories have been few and short-lived.
But the party is on the Oklahoma ballot this year for the first time in a gubernatorial race. There is even a primary June 26 with three gubernatorial candidates.
“It’s doing wonders for us as a party,” Chris Powell, one of those candidates, said at a forum last week on the Chickasha campus of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
Voters, he said, now can choose “individual liberty and personal responsibility” instead of one of the two “big government establishment” parties.
Rex Lawhorn, one of Powell’s rivals, said, “The Republican Party long ago left behind any pretense of being individual liberty, of being fiscal responsibility, of being small government.
“They’ve spent almost two decades taking money from the poor and giving it to special interests.”
The Libertarian Party
fielded 17 primary and general election candidates in 2016, its first year on Oklahoma ballots since 2000. Robert T. Murphy, the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, got 43,421 votes, which was good for 3 percent and third place.
The party’s registration in mid-January was 4,897, which was almost 1,000 more voters than in 2017. The party just needs 15,000 more voters to have 1 percent of the state electorate.
Lawhorn, 46, a consultant from Broken Arrow, isn’t discouraged. He’s convinced that “most of Oklahomans are Libertarians.”
He said, “Most Oklahomans want to live their lives. Most Oklahomans don’t care what their neighbor does, as long as their neighbor’s not doing anything to harm them or their property.”
Powell, 46, who works for the Oklahoma City Police Department, has been chairman of the state Libertarian Party. The third candidate is Joe Maldonado, better known as Joe Exotic, who owns an animal park in Wynnewood.
The party has decided to limit participation in its primary to registered Libertarians, shutting out even Independent voters. If there is a runoff between two of the Libertarians running for governor, there likely will be very few voters picking the nominee.
More critical of GOP
At forums, the candidates explain their party’s philosophy as one of minimal government intrusion into business and personal lives. Asked at the forum here to name the tax that is least objectionable to them, they struggled.
Maldonado said he even hates the Social Security tax.
“If I want to open a savings account, I’ll open a damn savings account when I’m 65 years old,’’ said Maldonado, who is 55.
Powell said he particularly dislikes the income tax. He said most Libertarians don’t like the property tax. He finally settled on user fees and consumption taxes.
An issue that really animates them is criminal justice reform.
Responding in January to a question about the state’s incarceration rate, Lawhorn said, “The key is not putting people in jail that shouldn't be there to begin with. If they don't take somebody's property, if they don't hurt someone, they don't belong in jail.”
Former Texas congressman Ron Paul, who ran for president as a Libertarian and as a Republican, helped build a following for Libertarians in the 2008 and 2012 presidential cycles. In 2012, Oklahoma supporters of Paul won several delegate slots at the Republican National Convention, where they booed Gov. Mary Fallin and some of the GOP leaders.
Despite the previous alignment between Libertarians and Republicans, the gubernatorial candidates this year are far more critical of the GOP, which controls state government, than of Democrats.
"The people who have been running this state have run it into the ground," Maldonado said.
Lawhorn and Powell criticized the $474 million tax package approved last week to give teachers a pay raise.
Powell said it gave lawmakers even more leverage over teachers and more control in the classroom. Lawhorn called it a $400 million tax on the poor and said, "Is that small government? I don't think so."
Powell and Lawhorn said they plan to join up with a group launched last week with the help of former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn. The group, Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! has vowed to attempt a repeal of the tax package.
The Libertarians sound more like Republicans on gun control.
"You ain't taking my AR (Armalite rifle)," Maldonado said. "And raising the (age) limit (to buy one) isn't going to keep anyone alive."
But more like Democrats on abortion.
"I'm pro-choice all the way," Maldonado said.
"Prohibition does not work," Powell said in response to a question about abortion. When abortion was prohibited, "back alley" abortions were performed, he said. Under the U.S. Constitution, laws should be left to the states, he said.
"I know what this state would decide,'' he said. "I can't say I would like that very much."