Amash has also cosponsored the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act , which would legalize the drug on a federal level. More than 1 million people are on the U. A Virginia district court judge ruled the terrorism watchlist unconstitutional in September, though the decision is being appealed.
The above list focused solely on bills for which Amash was the lead sponsor, excluding another 31 bills which Amash has cosponsored. Amash formally ended his Republican Party membership last July 4, first becoming an independent and announcing it in a Washington Post op-ed , then becoming a member of the Libertarian Party last week.
In December, he voted for all four impeachment counts against President Trump, the only non-Democrat to do so. In , Amash refused to vote for Trump in the general election, instead casting a write-in vote for Sen.
Rand Paul R-KY. Like our analyses? Want more? Support our work! Some rights reserved. A website for tracking bills in the U. Sign in. GovTrack Insider Tracking Congress. Engaging Democracy. Since then, the party has been a haven for disgruntled authoritarians and other unhappy conservatives fleeing the Republican Party.
I was theirs to lose, and they succeeded. The real spoiler in was our electoral system. Voters were either so scared of 4 more years of Trump authoritarianism or Biden socialism that they felt compelled to vote against, not for, one or the other. This is totally expected in a first past the post, winner takes all plurality voting system. The cure is Ranked Choice Voting which would have allowed voters to cast a first choice ranking for Jorgensen, or any third party candidate, while backing it up with a second ranking for whoever they viewed as the lesser of the two big evils.
If it has not been possible until now to stop the development of Socialism, how can it be possible to do so from now on? What Luca Bottazzi posted here is spot on. Had the Libertarian Party formed on the heels of the Federalist Party, we as a nation would likely not be in a state of needing restoration.
And it may well be too late for the Libertarian Party to emerge since an ethical government must consist of moral individuals — gonna be a wild ride so buckle up everyone.
Because of the nature of the US Presidential election, which naturally pushes voters towards choosing between two parties, the Presidential election is the one where the Libertarian Party will take the longest time to have an impact. Still, Dr.
Jo Jorgensen received more votes that Gary Johnson did in his first presidential run, even though she had no political pedigree and not nearly the media attention that ex-governor Johnson had. In the less visible part of the election season, the Libertarian Party had more than candidates running for state and local offices nationwide with 32 victories, including the election of state representative Marshall Burt.
The results will start at the local level and when the change comes, it will come quickly — as it did in the s when the Republicans supplanted the Whig party in Congress overnight.
Click here to cancel reply. Facebook Facebook. What Happened? Share this:. If you are interested in contributing, please contact Rob Ledger ledger em. The Libertarian Party and the election When we entertained this possibility during the primary season, plenty of signs were pointing to another strong result for the Libertarian Party.
Where will Libertarian voters go now? The need to stay small — for now Instead, Libertarian Party and independent libertarian voters will have to settle for getting creative and picking smaller strategically placed battles. December 23rd, What Happened? Previous post Next post. Those people, they got it really fast; [Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin couldn't act fast enough to help those people.
But for millions of Americans who are unemployed or struggling right now, they couldn't get relief to those people, because they have a massive convoluted system, and they doubled and tripled down on it.
They said, "Hey, how can we take our bad system and make it worse? Let's add a whole bunch of restrictions; let's add a whole bunch of qualifications; let's try to get money to small businesses but then make it so that the money is not all that useful to them.
Let's put banks in the middle of it to slow down the process. And the banks are trying; they're trying. I'm not blaming the banks. I blame Congress and the administration for creating such a system…. The Los Angeles Lakers applied for relief as a small business, and you know, under the terms of the deal that Congress put together with the White House, that's actually allowed.
But they never thought through this thing, really. Reason : So you said that you had to think about this in terms of "Can I win? Can I compete meaningfully? Because I look at the same thing, and in times of high polarization and high partisan interest, you oftentimes see a kind of Death Valley for third parties and independents trying to run for everything.
So how do you look at this thing and see a win? Amash : I look at the candidates running and I see two candidates that are not qualified for the office. The president as a reality [TV] star, and as a sometimes successful, sometimes failed businessman; and Joe Biden as a longtime member of Congress who's on his third run for president and frankly doesn't seem to be up to it. So when I look at these candidates, I think most Americans see the same thing I'm seeing, which is: These two candidates aren't up to being president of the United States, and we need an alternative.
And I'm confident that I can be that alternative. What people are really looking for is practicality. They see these two sides in Washington, Red and Blue, fighting with each other every day. When it comes to most pieces of legislation, they're highly polarized. And then when it comes to the really bad stuff that gets passed, all of a sudden they become best friends.
So they're fighting each other day and night on stuff that often doesn't impact people directly, and then when you get something that really hurts the American people, they get unified all of a sudden. This is not the system the American people want. It's not the system the Framers designed. And we need to trust the people.
We need to have humility regarding the process of government. And that means allowing legislators to legislate, and keeping the executive branch in check, and having a court that does its job interpreting and deciding cases.
We can't have this system where these two parties just run amok and hurt Americans every day. Reason : Are you getting out of the race for reelection in Congress, or are you waiting to see what happens at the Libertarian National Convention? Amash : My campaign is paused, but frankly, I'm running this campaign for president, and I don't intend to return to my congressional campaign.
It's been an honor to represent the 3rd District, and that was one of the hardest parts of this decision. When I'm looking at my polling, and fundraising, and other aspects with respect to the congressional campaign, I felt I was in the driver's seat. I felt that I was in a very strong position to win it. And as I've gone around the district, I've had tremendous support from constituents everywhere I go, and from all across the political spectrum.
So that was a very tough decision to say that I'm going to run for another office. And I do think we need someone who's going to govern with some humility, and I don't just mean personal humility. I think when people hear the word humility , they think of a person who is kind, or gracious, or whatever.
That's not the kind of humility I'm talking about. I'm talking about humility with respect to the process. Humility with respect to how much one individual knows about things. What you really have right now are two presidential candidates who think they know everything and want to run everything.
And you see the mess that's happening right now just with the coronavirus relief, where you get this one person thinking they know everything, instead of using the type of knowledge that exists out among the public, which is the knowledge of time and circumstances, things that only people on the ground know, that no one in Washington can know, or no one in the state Capitol can know. Reason : Members of the Libertarian Party who like you, and have preferred you, and in fact have wanted you to run for a long time, have expressed some irritation of, "Jesus, Hamlet, get off the fence!
We've been out here trying to build a party, and go to state conventions, and engage in debates, and this is a little bit late in the game. Amash : Well, I want to earn their support. I respect the process. I respect the delegates. If it were up to me, and everything had run smoothly, I would have made a decision earlier.
But life comes up, things come up. The COVID situation came up, for example, and there are other things that have come up over the past year. And I don't control all those things. But I took the time I needed to make a decision. I feel confident about the decision, and I want to go and earn the support of the Libertarian Party. And I don't think that any person running simply deserves the support. I think they have to go earn it. And I'll spend a lot of time over the next several weeks speaking to Libertarians, speaking to delegates, and trying to win their support.
Reason : Do you plan on, or have you thought about seeking, a vice-presidential copacetic kind of nominee? As you well know, the nominating process is kind of peculiar to the Libertarian Party in this sense.
But other candidates such as Jim Gray have reached out to Larry Sharpe, for example. Do you have an approach like that?
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