by Brian Irving
Libertarian for NC Senate 16

Common Cause asked candidates for the General Assembly to pledge to support the creation of an independent, nonpartisan redistricting process for Congressional and legislative districts in the 2019 legislative session.

The results are in. I’m proud to say Libertarians had the highest percentage of yes pledges: 33 (of 34) Libertarian candidates said yes; 120 (of 169) Democrats said yes; only 26 (of 170) Republicans said yes. One other Republican responded “Yes-Maybe.” I counted him as a yes. Also, one unaffiliated and one Constitution Party candidate said yes.

Conspicuously absent from the yes pledges, however, are the leaders of the old establishment parties, Republicans Rep. Tim Moore, current House Speaker, Sen. Phil Berger, current Senate president pro tem, and his presumptive Democratic successor Sen. Dan Blue.

For those of you who know how the legislature really works, unless the majority party leaders support on a bill, it won’t go anywhere. And it doesn’t matter what party it is.

Rep. David Lewis, House elections committee chair, who would presumably remain a major voice in that body if Republicans retain control, was openly hostile to the pledge. He responded, “It can’t be done.”

No, it cannot. So long as the establishment parties control the legislature and partisan loyalists chair committees.

Our libertarian family is devastated by the loss of Tim Jowers, his wife Linda, and their two children Brianna, 10, and Alexander Jowers, 8. The family was killed in a four-vehicle crash Wednesday on I-85. Words cannot express our grief. We offer deepest condolences to Tim and Linda's family and relatives.

Tim was a first-time candidate running for Wake County Commissioner District 1.

ABC11 News Report

North Carolina requires licenses for almost 200 occupations, including such rarely licensed professions as floor sanders, sign language interpreters, locksmiths, and even... chick dealers. “Why,” asks Travis Groo, Libertarian candidate for state House 11, “what’s a chick dealer?”

The General Assembly wants you to believe these licenses keep us safe, said Groo. “That’s not true,” he asserts. “James Madison wrote that government can never be just, and property can never be safe, if ‘arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens the free use of their faculties and free choice of their occupations.’”

“You have the right to work and earn an income without burdensome restrictions on your profession of choice, and I value your right to keep 100% of the fruits of that labor,” he said. “Help me get elected and I will work to eliminate every unjust, unnecessary state licensing requirement that really just needs to go away.”

“Vote like your freedom depends on it.” Vote People. not Politics.