Monday, April 25, 2022

Libertarian Party of California Runs No Candidates for June Primary Election

I've been inactive in the Libertarian Party for a while now. And it seems I'm not alone.

I recently received the California Voters Guide for the upcoming June 7, 2022 primary election. I was surprised to see that not a single Libertarian candidate bothered to run for office throughout the state, or in my area -- Los Angeles County.

Take a look at the list of candidates. Apart from plenty of Democratic and Republican candidates, the Green Party is running several candidates, as is the Peace & Freedom Party. Also many candidates listed as "No Party Preference" and "No Qualified Party Preference."

But not a single Libertarian.

Also no one from the American Independent Party, but that's no surprise. They rarely run candidates.

However, Don J. Grundmann is running as "No Qualified Party Preference." In his candidate statement, he says he belongs to the Constitution Party, which is not ballot qualified in California.

So the Constitution Party, which is so tiny that it does not qualify as a legal political party in California, managed to field a candidate. While the Libertarian Party, with all its greater resources and membership numbers, failed to run any candidates.

Now, it's possible that the LP is running candidates in other parts of California. Or not. But definitely no one at the state level. And no one in Los Angeles, the state's most populous region.

I wonder how this happened? I know Top Two has hurt all third parties. But the Green, Peace and Freedom, and even Constitution parties managed to rise to the challenge, while the LP is MIA.

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