Libertarians Succeed Without Winning Offices

Seldom able to make a credible showing with its candidates, the Libertarian Party remains at the fringe of American politics 20 years after it was founded and ran its first presidential candidate--John Hospers, a USC professor emeritus.

Hospers received a mere 2,648 votes nationally. Two decades later, Libertarian candidate Andre Marrou received 44,449 votes in California, still an anemic 0.4% of the state total. Party registration fares little better, only 71,150 statewide, one-third the size of the American Independent Party.

But the libertarian movement is more than the Libertarian Party. As it pushes its anti-government views, the cause can claim major success in this its platinum anniversary. From early indications, 1994 could be another good one.

Though of no short-term help to their candidates, libertarian activists helped mastermind and finance initiatives to limit congressional terms. By limiting terms, libertarians say they seek to weaken centralized government and make it harder for career politicians to exist. On Nov. 3, congressional term limit measures passed in all 14 states where voters could choose, including California. In all, yes votes on term limits numbered 21 million--more than President-elect Bill Clinton got in those states.

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In 1994, libertarians will be pushing another idea with wide appeal--school vouchers. A review of campaign finance statements at the secretary of state’s office shows that many of the people who donated to term limit measures are funding the Parental Choice Initiative, which will be on the June, 1994, ballot.

The 1994 ballot measure would set up a system by which parents could obtain $2,600 in tax money for tuition at the private schools of their choice. Public schools would continue to exist but would face more competition. Party loyalists see vouchers as a step toward the larger goal--ending compulsory education and government involvement in schools.

The choice initiative had its genesis at the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit libertarian institute in Los Angeles. Libertarians are not the only ones who support it, but they are a “key element of the coalition,” said Robert Poole, Reason Foundation director. “It’s one of the few areas where libertarians have put forth a potentially winning idea for change.”

The school choice campaign is run by Kevin Teasley, former spokesman at the Reason Foundation. Poole said he and Teasley helped persuade Joseph Alibrandi of the Whittaker Corp., in Los Angeles, to become the proponent of the ballot measure. Alibrandi and his company have given $244,000 to the school measure. Although Alibrandi was not associated with the term limit measures, several other major donors to the school voucher idea were.

One is Everett Berg, chairman of another libertarian think tank, the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. Berg gave more than $1,000 to term limit campaigns this year, and $10,000 to the 1990 measure limiting legislative terms in California. He and his firm, EBCO Enterprises of Emeryville, Calif., gave the school choice effort cash and in-kind contributions totaling $145,000 in 1992.

Another backer of term limits and school choice is David Koch, a billionaire who ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980. Koch, a New Yorker, donated $50,000 to California’s school choice measure in May, and is a major donor to the Reason Foundation. He and his older brother, Charles, run Koch Industries, a major oil and gas company in Wichita, Kan.

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Both Koch brothers have given big money to the term limit movement, forming Citizens for Congressional Reform, which gave $280,000 to the 1990 measure that limited terms of California’s state legislators.

When Citizens for Congressional Reform folded this year, U.S. Term Limits, a group based in Washington, emerged as the largest single financial supporter of term limits in this election.

It spread $1.6 million over all 14 states where term limits were before voters, including $655,000 in California, $364,000 in Michigan, $145,000 in Arkansas and $100,000 in Ohio. U. S. Term Limits President Howard Rich is a New York businessman who, although no longer active in the party, has long been involved in the libertarian movement.

Orange County lawyer Dave Bergland, a party loyalist, received 250,000 votes when he ran for President on the Libertarian ticket in 1984, not much less than the 281,805 Marrou received nationally this time. But what libertarians lack in electoral victories, they make up for in the direct democracy of initiatives.

With a congressional pay raise and corruption in Sacramento fresh in mind, voters backed term limits. With some schools failing and teachers threatening to strike in Los Angeles, the prospects of school choice plans no doubt will improve. Libertarians decided to “strike while the iron is hot,” Bergland said. “That’s not a dumb thing to do.”