TACOMA – They don’t get as much attention as Democrats and Republicans, but Libertarians are the third “major” political party in Washington, rating a separate primary ballot along with the other two.
That privilege is on the line in Tuesday’s election.
The Libertarian Party of Washington State has 46 candidates on the ballot: two for governor, one for each of the other statewide elective offices, three for Congress and 32 for the Legislature.
“If we can get our candidates to the general election, we think we will easily maintain our major party status,” Larey McLaren, the party’s state chairman, told The News Tribune.
“We see that as the first step toward getting to the table and trying to affect policy from the inside,” he said. “That’s why we worked hard to get it and are working hard to keep it.”
Libertarians secured major-party status – requiring 5 percent of the vote in a statewide race – in the state’s 2000 election. Libertarians cleared the 5 percent hurdle in three races: for lieutenant governor, state auditor and commissioner of public lands.
That won them the same privileges awarded the Democratic and Republican parties: a taxpayer-financed primary election in which individual candidates can file for office without the blessing of a party convention and have a right to observe ballot counting.
But getting to the general election could be tougher for Libertarians this year. State voters must choose only one party’s ballot and slate of candidates.
To advance to the November general election, major party candidates must win at least 1 percent of all votes cast for the offices they seek.
How many voters will choose the Libertarian ballot? Jocelyn Langlois, party vice chairwoman and Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor, said it’s difficult to predict.
In the past, Libertarian candidates have often gotten votes from independents or disaffected Democrats and Republicans. But that was under the blanket primary system, which allowed voters to cross party lines at will.
If they had remained minor-party candidates, Libertarian office-seekers could have been nominated by collecting signatures at a convention, and then gone directly to the general election.
Libertarians tried to get rid of the 1 percent minimum threshold in the primary, McLaren said, but their efforts were thwarted by legislators.
The new law does give Libertarians the option of reverting back to minor-party status, but they declined to do so.
“We worked our rear ends off in 2000 to get it,” Langlois said. “Being a major party has a psychological advantage. It means we have advanced. We’re up there with the big boys.”
The new primary law also gave Libertarians a higher profile through a $1.7 million voter-education campaign by Secretary of State Sam Reed. The party symbol, Lady Liberty, got equal time in state radio and TV ads with the Democrats’ donkey and the GOP’s elephant.
Libertarians are an eclectic group. Gubernatorial candidate Ruth Bennett is a lesbian and staunch believer in same-sex marriage. Some party members want to pull out of Iraq. Others want to legalize marijuana and end the war on drugs. Some want to slash government spending.
But there’s a unifying theme, McLaren said.
“Libertarians want to live their lives and be left alone as long as they don’t harm or hinder anyone else’s right to do the same,” he said.
“Sometimes we’re characterized as ‘those wackos who want to legalize dope.’ … We’re not advocating the use of drugs,” McLaren said. “We object to a law that tries to regulate an adult who is making decisions about what they put into their own body. Libertarians think we’ve got to be very circumspect about efforts by government to intrude on our privacy.”
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