County party takes positions on statewide props, denounces ballot measure tactic as 'blackmail'

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — The Libertarian presidential ticket of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat won the endorsement of Santa Clara County Libertarians at the party's (LPSCC's) central committee meeting held Saturday by videoconference.

Oliver, 38, ran in 2022 for U.S. Senate in Georgia and is widely credited for having caused that race's runoff election between Herschel Walker and incumbent Raphael Warnock. Ter Maat, who holds a Ph.D. in economics, served as a White House and international economist for decades, before transitioning to 11 years as a police officer in Florida.

"We are thrilled to endorse the only candidates offering a principled stand for peace, prosperity, and individual freedom," said LPSCC Vice Chair Mark Hinkle, "in this election that threatens competing versions of Big Government policy from the two dominant parties."

"Given that nearly 30 percent of today's California voters rejected the two-party system when they registered, I invite frustrated voters of every party — or no party — to choose this team of top-notch Libertarian candidates." Hinkle explained, "Given that California is not one of the few swing states in our electoral college system, conveying your dissatisfaction may be the most meaningful, least wasteful use of that ballot you get to cast only once every four years."

Of Oliver's 108 California electors and alternates, 24 hail from Santa Clara County.

LPSCC members also took positions on several statewide ballot propositions.

As advocates of drastic reductions in government's size and scope, LPSCC members handily approved motions to oppose statewide propositions imposing price controls on job providers (Prop. 32) and on housing providers (Prop. 33), as well as a permanent health services tax (Prop. 35) and the relaxing of safeguards against future tax and bond-debt measures (Prop. 5).

However, Prop. 36 (increase penalties for petty theft and drug possession), Prop. 3 (constitutional right to marriage), and Prop. 6 (remove involuntary servitude for prisoners) drew debate.

On Prop. 36, members expressed the Libertarian principle of property rights and their empathy for business owners and their customers, but also lamented this measure's embedded "blackmail."

"Voters need to recognize when they're being played," explained Bob Goodwyn, LPSCC's activities chair and 2024 candidate for State Assembly, Dist. 26, making a case for opposing Prop. 36, which combines harsher penalties for thieves victimizing retail business owners, with harsher penalties for some drug-possession "crimes." The Libertarian Party platform condemns criminalization of victimless activity, especially those laws driven by the long-failed, costly prohibition policy, i.e., the War on Drugs.

Ascribing this thorny practical problem as emotional "coercion," Goodwyn said that "lumping together a voter's opportunity to protect one group's rights with the poison pill of violating another's — that's a dirty trick. A far simpler solution to the recent scourge of retail shoplifting — and its chilling effect on formation and expansion of businesses — would be to repeal Prop. 47." Prop. 47, which passed in 2014, is often attributed as a significant factor in California's recent rise in retail crime levels.

An eventual motion to endorse Prop. 36 earned a slim majority vote, but failed to reach the two-thirds' majority needed for taking positions on ballot measures.

Objections to Prop. 3 included a concern that its proposed right not only to pursue but to obtain marriage may clash with Libertarians' antipathy to demands for "positive" rights — those which, in contrast with "natural" rights, would impose an obligation on someone else to fulfill. (Recent examples of popular such demands are a "right" to housing and a "right" to health care.) It was pointed out that the "obtain" phrasing exists already in the state constitution, so it may bear a semantic problem but not a practical one. A motion to endorse Prop. 3 fared better than a motion to oppose it, but neither achieved two-thirds.

With the Libertarian platform condemning all forms of slavery, including involuntary servitude, concerns over Prop. 6 included an acknowledgement that working, as a valuable and social activity, can aid a person's well-being and a prisoner's rehabilitation, but the measure also drew skepticism that in the involuntary prison hierarchy, even an opt-in work program would remain truly voluntary, in practice. A motion to endorse Prop. 6 failed to achieve two-thirds.

Such contorting over which infringements to tolerate or to fight will no longer be needed, once the Libertarian Party's objective of a dramatically smaller government is realized, through, in part, voters of all stripes making the choice best aligned with individual freedom, on every ballot, in every question and every choice of candidate. That is, it will almost be unneeded, according to Hinkle. "Vigilance will still be demanded," he said.

LPSCC's complete voter guide follows, and is posted on line at SCCLP.org/2024_general.

The next central committee meeting will precede the 2025 convention of the Libertarian Party of California, set for Feb. 22–23 in Walnut Creek. Anyone interested in serving as a delegate may e-mail [email protected].