From the Archives: LP ballot-access expert Bill Redpath talks about petition gathering

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 6, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

LP ballot-access expert Bill Redpath talks about petition gathering
April 6, 2012 1:06 PM MST

Bill Redpath has been a candidate for Virginia Governor (2001), the U.S. Senate (2008), and the U.S. House of Representatives (10th District, 2010). He is also national treasurer of the Libertarian Party and a veteran of more than two decades as a ballot-access coordinator and collector of petition signatures.

At a Northern Virginia fundraising event this week for Gary Johnson, a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner caught up with Redpath to ask him questions about ballot-access laws, the challenge faced by third-party and independent candidates to put their names on the ballot, and his own experience as a petitioner.

To put the LP’s presidential ticket on the ballot in 2012, Redpath said, will take “a lot of petitioning,” ranging from about 1,500 signatures in Iowa that can be collected by volunteers to as many as “51,739 valid signatures on a new party petition” in Oklahoma, where the Libertarian effort fell short and the party has turned to litigation to challenge the state’s ballot-access requirements.

’50 states and D.C.’
Despite these challenges and setbacks, Redpath explained, “we’re still hopeful that we’ll have our presidential ticket on the ballot in all 50 states and D.C.,” although the “Libertarian National Committee is probably going to spend about a quarter of a million dollars on ballot access,” in addition to expenditures for that purpose by individual state parties and the presidential campaign.

Ballot access, said Redpath, “is a major undertaking.”

Virginia’s ballot-access laws came to national attention recently when only two candidates, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, were able to qualify for the Republican presidential primary ballot. Redpath has some suggestions for fixing Virginia’s requirements.

Until about 1968, he explained, Virginia required only 1,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot for president and other statewide offices.

Virginia reforms
Redpath suggests that “it would be good to reduce the number of signatures to get on the ballot for a given office to one-tenth of one percent of the number of registered voters for that office.”

For statewide office in Virginia, in that case, he calculated, “we’re probably talking about 3,000 signatures to get on the ballot.”

Redpath considers one-tenth of one percent to be “a sufficiently high hurdle that people have to go out and work” to get their candidates on the ballot. It is, he added, “a hurdle that is fair” because it is “not overly taxing but at the same time it will be enough of a deterrent to keep completely frivolous candidates off the ballot.”

Worst and best
Asked to name the best and the worst states for ballot-access requirement, Redpath immediately responded that Colorado is among the easiest because “there is just paperwork that needs to be filed.”

Florida, he noted, “used to be one of the hardest, now it’s one of the easiest.”

Ballot access requirements, he continued, have “improved over the last 20 to 25 years.”

There are still “bad states,” however, and one of them is Wyoming.

While the Libertarian Party currently has ballot status in Wyoming “because we get, time and again, over two percent for U.S. House so we can remain on the ballot,” other third-party and independent candidates need to get 8,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot in Wyoming and, as Redpath pointed out, “that’s a lot of sigs in Wyoming!”

Another difficult state is Oklahoma, which Redpath identified as “about the worst. To get on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate takes about 45,000 signatures in Oklahoma.”

North Carolina is also difficult for presidential ballot access, but Redpath also pointed to states where “it’s tougher to get on the ballot for U.S. House or for non-statewide offices.”

He noted that in general elections in Georgia, that state has only “had one non-R, non-D candidate for U.S. House in several decades.”

That has also been the case in North Carolina, where it is “extremely difficult to get on the ballot for U.S. House as a third-party candidate or independent.”

Petitioning experience
Ironically, North Carolina proved to be the place where Redpath has had some of his most successful efforts at collecting signatures.

He estimates that, over the years, he has collected more than 10,000 signatures, but his personal best one-day effort was at the North Carolina State University precinct in Raleigh on election day in 1996.

“I hold the record for the most number of signatures gathered in a single day,” he explained.

“It was an extremely fortunate situation where they had a polling place that was too small for the horde of college students that descended on it,” he said, “and a theater line formed outside that didn’t go away for hours. The acceptance rate was 80 or 90 percent. I got 1,179 [signatures] in one day.”

Redpath said that the reactions he gets from members of the public when he is out petitioning are generally good.

“Overall,” he said, “people are pretty nice when it comes to petitioning. Some people actually thank me for being out there. I think people know how few people will actually go out and solicit signatures from strangers and [that not] very many people want to do that [so] they appreciate it when somebody is out there. Even some people who refuse to sign actually thank me for being there.”

He singled out Giant Foods for its civic-mindedness in allowing petitioners to stand in front of their stores to collect signatures (with advance permission). Giant customers, he said, “appreciate it.”

From the Archives: Gary Johnson presidential campaign racks up endorsements

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 26, 2016, during the Libertarian Party's national convention in Orlando, Florida.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued Friday, July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Gary Johnson presidential campaign racks up endorsements

In a bare-bones press release distributed on May 25, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson's campaign for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination unveiled a list of endorsements by celebrities, political activists, and Libertarian notables.

The list includes Nirvana bass guitarist Krist Novaselic, magician and TV personality Teller, professional football player Rudy Carpenter, podcaster Ben Kissel, and former CIA analyst John Kiriakou.

Other endorsers are 1980 Libertarian presidential nominee Ed Clark, Cato Institute founder and former president Ed Crane, 2014 Florida gubernatorial candidate Adrian Wyllie, 2012 Michigan congressional candidate Emily Salvette, and former Harris County (Texas) LP chairman Guy McLendon.

Duke University political scientist Mike Munger is also on the endorsement list, as is Tom Palmer, author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.

From Virginia, Robert Sarvis, who in 2013 earned more votes in his campaign for governor (against Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe) than any other statewide Libertarian candidate, endorsed Johnson, as did former LP national chairman and 2008 Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Bill Redpath.

In his endorsement statement, Sarvis said:

"Only Gary Johnson has the resume, the experience, and the credibility to combine with our party’s inspiring message of peace, prosperity, and freedom."

Johnson, he continued, "has a fundamentally libertarian outlook and a track record of furthering libertarian goals in office. He has a realistic and likeable approach to politics that attracts open-minded voters to a libertarian message. And he has the kind of credibility that cannot be bought or faked, that can only be earned through admirable personal and professional achievements."

Redpath, who has also served as chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, said in endorsing Johnson:

"2016 presents the greatest opportunity nationally for the Libertarian Party in many years. For us to seize this opportunity, it is essential that our presidential candidate be credible, serious and a widely-recognized champion of small government and greater freedom. We are fortunate to have such a candidate in Governor Johnson. I am proud to support him, and look forward to working with him toward historic success in November."

Redpath also added that he is "grateful for Governor Johnson’s work, often behind-the-scenes, to help ensure that Libertarian candidates are not unfairly denied ballot access. The fight against those who try to keep us off the ballot never ends, and Governor Johnson has been and continues to be a great supporter of our efforts."

In an interview with The Libertarian Vindicator, Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, pointed out that a Johnson presidential candidacy would enhance the Libertarian Party's efforts at gaining ballot status in several states. "With 2%, we could be a qualified party for the first time in Iowa and Kentucky," Winger said, "and with 1% in Connecticut (but for president only for the 2020 election). We have never done that in any of those 3 states." (Winger had put himself on record as endorsing the Johnson campaign.)

With Gary Johnson's naming of former Massachusetts Governor William Weld as his running mate last week, the campaign has won unprecedented attention from the mainstream media, with interviews on CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC, and stories in POLITICO, The Hill, The Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, and other news outlets.

(Full disclosure: Writing in a personal capacity, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner also endorsed Gary Johnson for President.)

Suggested Links

Examiner.com exclusive: Gary Johnson reflects on his first visit to Jefferson's Monticello
LP presidential hopeful Gary Johnson calls two-party debates a 'waste of time'
Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on health care, marriage, and Colbert
Libertarian author Brian Doherty compares Ron Paul and Gary Johnson
LP gubernatorial hopeful Robert Sarvis aims for marriage equality in Virginia

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/gary-johnson-presidential-campaign-racks-up-endorsements

Redpath Launches Radio Ads

The Libertarian Party's candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, William Redpath, has launched a series of radio ads around the state, urging voters to cast their ballots for him on November 4.

There are three ads in the series: one addresses badly needed reforms in the tax code, another calls for liberalizing foreign trade policy, and a third urges an overhaul of entitlements programs.

The Redpath for Senate radio ads can be heard on line here. (They are available in QuickTime format.)

These radio spots are currently scheduled to air in the Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Norfolk,Richmond, Roanoke, and Virginia Beach media markets, although there is a possibility that they might be expanded to other parts of the state.




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Redpath Endorsed by Veteran Democratic Legislator

A news release from the Redpath for Senate campaign notes that Theodore V. Morrison, Jr., a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates (he represented Newport News from 1968 through 1989) and a former member of the State Corporation Commission (1989-2007), will formally endorse Bill Redpath, the Libertarian candidate facing former Governors Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner, at a meeting in Richmond this evening. As a legislator, Morrison was once considered to be one of the most powerful members of the General Assembly, culminating in the chairmanship of the House Finance Committee. His nickname was "the Bill Killer."

When Morrison was first elected to the General Assembly, Virginia still had multi-member House districts. According to the 1977 Almanac of Virginia Politics, he represented House District 49 with Lewis Archer McMurran, who had first joined the House of Delegates in 1948, and Alan A. Diamonstein who, like Morrison, was in the class of 1968. (In a stunning upset in 1977, McMurran was defeated in the Democratic primary by Robert Scott -- now known as U.S. Representative Bobby Scott of the Third Congressional District.) Let me note that, as a result of both redistricting and the application of single-member districts to the Virginia legislature, House District 49 is now in Northern Virginia (Arlington County and the City of Alexandria, where it is represented by Delegate Adam Ebbin). That is also the same district where I sought election to the House of Delegates in 1991 and 1993.

The 1977 Almanac reported:

Theodore Morrison, as a member of the Courts of Justice committee, concentrates on the law and order issues. Crime is a big issue in this district and State-wide. He introduced numerous bills dealing with criminal procedures, such as provisions for handgun reporting by dealers and penalties for felons and misdemeanants on bail or recognizance who fail to appear. Neither bill passed. Passed were provisions dealing with search warrants, appointment of counsel for indigents charged with felonies, and disorderly conduct. Morrison also sponsored a bill to create a Juvenile Justice Information System which passed.

The 1981 edition of the Almanac of Virginia Politics added this information about Morrison's record:

Morrison has introduced a number of bills pertaining to arrest procedure and courtroom procedure. A 1979 bill, which passed, gave juvenile judges the right to order the parents of children in trouble to participate in certain programs to help rehabilitate their youngsters.

In 1980, Morrison wanted to give police the authority to attach devices to phones which would record the phone numbers called. The authorization, which would have been used for criminal investigations, was not approved by the General Assembly. Also killed was a Morrison bill to grant gas-tax refunds for gas used by race cars.

Morrison introduced a bill to tighten the Freedom of Information Act and called for a limit on the amount of money each legislator could spend on postage. Both passed.

By 1987, Morrison was representing a single-member district (House District 93) within the City of Newport News. The Almanac of Virginia Politics published that year had a much more extensive profile of him, which reported:

Ted Morrison has represented the city since 1968 and is one of the most powerful members of the House. In 1983 he became Chairman of the House Finance Committee, and he has previously chaired the House Chesapeake and Its Tributaries Committee and the Virginia Code Commission. He is second in seniority on the House Courts of Justice Committee, and he is a close friend and ally of Speaker A.L. Philpott.

Morrison is a defense attorney who is very well respected for his fine tuned legal expertise and his knowledge of the state code. Known by his colleagues as "The Bill Killer," Morrison considers himself to be an independent thinker whose duty lies frequently in preventing passage of bills he considers to be abominations.

One of his proudest accomplishments was the creation of the Intermediate Court of Appeals, a ten-member court established in January of 1985 to relieve the backlog of cases before the Virginia Supreme Court.

Morrison sponsored probably the most controversial bill of the 1985 session -- a bill which would have required teenage girls considering abortions to have either the consent of their parents or the consent of a judge before undergoing the procedure. His bill passed the House, but was amended in the Senate to substitute the approval of an "independent doctor" rather than a judge. However, this version was unacceptable to Morrison, and the bill did not pass.

He very quietly created a storm of controversy in Newport News right after the 1986 session ended. During the session he sponsored and passed a bill requiring all cities in Virginia (except Virginia Beach) to own their courthouses rather than lease them. His actions thwarted plans of the Republican-dominated City Council to lease a courthouse from a developer as part of the Newport Centre downtown development plan and saved the city's taxpayers a great deal of money. The city had planned to lease a building for one million dollars a year for seven years, with an option to buy at the end of that time, yet the building would cost only $6 million to build.

Morrison was a key budget negotiator during the special Transportation session of the General Assembly. Although he was not a supporter of increasing the sales tax, he worked closely with the Commission and the Governor to put together the revenue package. Hampton and Newport News will benefit greatly from the completion of Highway 664, an express connector which will give these two cities more direct linkage to Suffolk.

Here is the news release from Bill Redpath's campaign about Morrison's endorsement of the Libertarian Senate candidate:

Former 20-year Member of Virginia House of Delegates to Endorse William Redpath, Libertarian for US Senate

William Redpath, the Libertarian Party nominee for US Senate in Virginia in 2008, will be endorsed for that office by Theodore V. Morrison, Jr., a 20-year former conservative Democratic Party member of the Virginia House of Delegates and former Chairman of the Virginia State Corporation Commission.

The endorsement will occur on Monday, October 20, at 7:30PM, at the meeting of the Libertarian Party of Richmond, at the Legend Brewing Company, 321 W. Seventh St. in Richmond. A business meeting at 7PM will precede the endorsement.

Mr. Morrison will be endorsing Mr. Redpath due primarily to the candidate’s proposal for a Flat Tax to replace the complicated and deduction & credit-riddled individual and corporate income taxes in the United States. A Flat Tax would likely increase savings and stimulate entrepreneurism and economic growth in the United States.

Other positions of Mr. Redpath can be seen on his website, www.redpath2008.com.

(Click the graphic above to see the snapshot profile of Theodore Morrison from the 1987 Almanac of Virginia Politics.)



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Bill Redpath Visits Charlottesville - Part II

As I noted previously, U.S. Senate candidate Bill Redpath made two appearances in Charlottesville on October 16. In the afternoon, he was a guest on "The Schilling Show" on WINA-AM. In the evening, he was a guest of University Libertarians at the University of Virginia, speaking in Newcomb Hall to an audience of students and Charlottesville residents.

Redpath has been traveling around the state, meeting with groups of voters and with journalists. While he has not been permitted to participate in debates with his principal opponents, former governors Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner, he has been able to get some press attention.

For instance, last week Redpath had an op-ed piece in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, which addressed the current economic situation. He began his article by drawing an analogy to a popular movie of the 1970s:

Driving from campaign event to campaign event--when I was the Libertarian candidate for governor in 2001, I drove 7,000 miles in the last five weeks of the campaign, and I never left Virginia--these days, sometimes I think about the movie, "Smokey and the Bandit." Maybe it's because of the passing earlier this year of my father, a quiet, stoic, Midwestern electrical engineer, who was a tightly closeted Burt Reynolds fan.

But, in particular, I think of one segment, in which (unless my memory fails me) Sheriff Buford T. Justice deems the pursuit of The Bandit (Burt Reynolds) insufficiently important to skip a meal. The sheriff runs into a roadside diner and orders a meatloaf sandwich, which he gobbles down while talking to the man seated next to him, who, unbeknownst to him, is the subject of his pursuit.

The Bandit eggs Sheriff Justice on to describe the ostensibly unlawful exploits of The Bandit. When The Bandit suggests the possible misconduct is insufficiently egregious, the sheriff turns to The Bandit and says, "Son, that's baby [poop] compared to what this guy's done."

The reason that I think of this scene is that for all of the (very valid) recent concern about high gasoline prices, the "credit crunch," the woes on Wall Street, and the resulting bailout bill (which I would have voted against), I think these problems are small potatoes when compared to this nation's main economic problem of the 21st century: our aging population and the coming entitlement spending explosion.

Entitlement spending is a major theme of Redpath's campaign. He addressed it on the radio with Rob Schilling, during an address at Virginia Commonwealth University last week, and again at the University of Virginia last night. He is concerned about the coming bankruptcy of both Social Security and Medicare. (See the video, below, for more details about Redpath's views on this issue.)

Reporting on Redpath's speech at UVA, associate editor Emily Poe of the Cavalier Daily wrote:

U.S. Senate candidate William Redpath, the current Libertarian National Committee chairman, spoke yesterday about his ambitions and goals for the country if elected, primarily those regarding national security, social security and public education.

The Liberty Coalition at the University hosted the event, which provided a forum for numerous views running contrary to those espoused by Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner, the Republican and Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, respectively.

Redpath, a clear non-favorite to win the election according to the most recent polls, which show Gilmore and Warner far ahead of alternative candidates, emphasized that he is running for office just as much for the chance of succeeding as for the chance of spreading different opinions and views.

“I wanted there to be a Libertarian voice in this election,” Redpath said.

Poe added:

Less trade regulation, in conjunction with reduced government spending, a flat tax system and an emphasis on improving the value of the dollar — possibly via the implementation of a gold standard — would better help address the financial concerns facing the country and world today, Redpath said.

Among those economic concerns, Redpath identified Social Security as one of the most significant. In fact, he said he believes the nation’s biggest economic problem this year is that the first wave of baby boomers are now eligible for Social Security.
“The Social Security trust fund is a complete economic illusion,” he said.

The “6.2 percent solution” provides the best option for the Social Security problem, Redpath said, which would allow workers to waive their Social Security accounts in order to put that money into their own accounts.

Individual citizens, though, are not the only ones who should be saving, Redpath noted. Government officials also need to cut back spending in both energy and regulatory sectors, he said. In regards to energy issues Redpath said the development of new energy technologies should be left to the energy experts — not the federal government.

Redpath spoke for about an hour at UVA, including a good 30 minutes of Q&A discussion with members of the audience. Conforming to YouTube standards of length, I have divided his presentation into eight parts.

Jim Lark, a former national chairman of the Libertarian Party, introduced Redpath.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

Part VI:

Part VII:

Part VIII:

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Bill Redpath Visits Charlottesville - Part I

Bill Redpath, the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, made two appearances in Charlottesville on Thursday. The first appearance was as a guest of local talk-show host Rob Schilling on WINA-AM's "The Schilling Show" between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. Redpath used that as an opportunity to promote his speech that night at the University of Virginia, and to answer questions from Schilling -- a former member of the Charlottesville City Council -- and from the radio audience.

The night before, Redpath had been at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, participating in a forum with Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr (a former congressman from Georgia). For his part, Barr had also been a guest (by telephone) on "The Schilling Show" on Wednesday. (For a podcast of Rob Schilling's interview with Bob Barr, look here and scroll down.)

In his comments on the radio, Redpath noted that he had put about 4,000 miles on his car already this month, and that, when he ran for governor of Virginia in 2001, he traveled 7,000 miles during the last month of the campaign, without ever reading the Commonwealth.

The Cavalier Daily reported on Redpath's address at UVA, which was sponsored by the University Libertarians. CavDaily associate editor Emily Poe covered the event and wrote in today's edition:

The core of his platform, Redpath explained, focuses on reducing of the general scope of the federal government. He noted that for the nation to move forward successfully federal officials must reduce spending on a “long list of things.”

Scaled back federal involvement in areas like education, which Redpath said should be handled by state, local and private institutions, was also echoed in other aspects of Redpath’s platform, including national security.

Redpath said national security is — and will always be — one of the most vital issues facing the United States. Contrary to how some other politicians might address security concerns, however, Redpath said he believes the best way to secure the nation’s borders and take care of external military affairs is to practice “non-interventionist” foreign policy.

“I think that certainly getting the U.S. military out of Iraq is a no-brainer,” Redpath said.

Redpath said extending such a non-interventionist policy to more native concerns, such as the economy and pressing social concerns, is also needed.

“The U.S. should unilaterally drop its trade barriers, to bring other nations of the world into a great capitalist peace,” Redpath said, noting that he is a proponent of unrestrained free trade.

“Free trade is a pro-consumer policy and that’s the only thing we all are, we’re all consumers,” Redpath said.

What follows, in four segments, is Redpath's interview on "The Schilling Show" committed to video. (For an audio podcast, check out WINA's newly revamped web site.)

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

The second part of this short series on Bill Redpath's visit to Charlottesville will feature video from his speech at the University of Virginia, including about a half-hour of Q&A dialogue with audience members.