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Paul, a self-professed libertarian, has been loudly opposing the stabilization funding in the Republican bill for weeks. He told me a month ago he would oppose a bill with that kind of money directed to health insurers.

"If you told me I couldn't repeal everything and some of Obamacare would remain, I would vote for that as an imperfect bill," he said then. "But I'm not voting for one that has new Republican entitlement programs like that stabilization fund they're talking about is a Republican entitlement program for a billion-dollar insurance industry."

He hasn't softened at all on that position, even though most Republicans believe stabilization funding is necessary to keep the Obamacare markets functioning for a few years before they transition to a new health care system.

There have been no indications that the money will be removed in the revised bill.

"I personally believe that all of the pork that's being added to the bill is not a conservative notion," Paul told reporters on the conference call, repeatedly referring to the stabilization money as an "insurance bailout superfund."

Paul's fixation on the insurance funding separates him from Cruz and Lee, the conservatives who he is otherwise allied with. The other two are conditioning their support on a Cruz proposal that would allow health insurers to sell non-Obamacare insurance as long as they also sold plans that complied with the health care law. The policy is currently being reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office and is expected to be included in one of the two versions of the revised Senate bill released Thursday.

But Paul actually said Wednesday that the Cruz amendment could make his problems with the Senate bill worse. The policy could drive up costs for people in the Obamacare markets, as Vox's Sarah Kliff detailed, which the federal government would then have to step in and subsidize to prevent a death spiral.

"The impressions and the rumors that we're hearing is that's gonna mean a lot more money in insurance bailout fund and ultimately also mean some sort of price controls," Paul said on the conference call, adding that was "foreign to any notion of capitalism."

Paul's solution, if next week's vote fails, is to scrap any replacement provisions and focus on the parts of Obamacare that Republicans can agree to repeal. Even Collins, for example, has said some taxes on the health care industry should be scrapped because they drive up the cost of health insurance.

"I guarantee that, on repeal, Susan Collins and I have common ground," Paul said.

Then, the other Senate Republicans could work with Democrats on a different bill with other policies, like stabilization funding, that Paul opposes. The senator left it to his GOP colleagues to pass "big government spending priorities" with Democratic votes.

"Conservatives won't come onboard, or at least this conservative won't, if the bill includes an insurance bailout superfund," Paul said on his conference call.

That promise will be put to the test soon.

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Rand Paul sounds ready to kill the Senate health-care bill - CNBC

The Libertarian Republic

Rand Paul to Jeff Sessions: Uphold the Law for Industrial Hemp The Libertarian Republic In a press release published on Friday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reassure industrial hemp farmers that he would uphold the law.Paul's fellow Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Franken (D-MN), ...

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Rand Paul to Jeff Sessions: Uphold the Law for Industrial Hemp - The Libertarian Republic

PHOENIX A federal judge has rebuffed a bid by the Libertarian Party to kill an Arizona law even its sponsors concede was designed to make it harder for minor party candidates to get on the general election ballot.

Judge David Campbell acknowledged Monday the 2015 law sharply increases the number of signatures that Libertarian candidates need to qualify for ballot status. In some cases, the difference is more than 20 times the old requirement.

The result was that only one Libertarian candidate qualified for the ballot in 2016, and none made it to the general election. By contrast, there were 25 in 2004, 19 in 2008 and 18 in 2012.

But Campbell said the new hurdle is not unconstitutionally burdensome. And the judge accepted the arguments that the higher signature requirements ensure that candidates who reach the November ballot have some threshold of support.

But Libertarian Party Chairman Michael Kielsky said the judge ignored not just the higher burden but the games that the Republican-controlled legislature played in making 2015 the change for their own political purposes.

The Republicans set out to get the Libertarians off the ballot and the Republicans succeeded, Kielsky said. And now, Judge Campbell has said, That's OK.

Kielsky is not just spouting party rhetoric.

In pushing for the change, GOP lawmakers made no secret they do not want Libertarian Party candidates in the race, contending that a vote for a Libertarian is a vote that would otherwise go to a Republican. As proof, some cited the 2012 congressional race.

Republican Jonathan Paton lost the CD 1 race to Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick by 9,180 votes. But Libertarian Kim Allen picked up 15,227 votes votes that Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, argued during floor debate likely would have gone to Paton.

And in CD 9, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema defeated Republican Vernon Parker by 10,251 votes, with Libertarian Powell Gammill tallying 16,620.

And if the point was lost, Mesnard made the issue more personal for colleagues, warning them that they, too, could find themselves aced out of a seat if they don't change the signature requirements.

I can't believe we wouldn't see the benefit of this, he said during a floor speech.

The way the legislature accomplished this was to change the rules.

Prior to 2015, would-be candidates qualified for the ballot by getting the signatures of one-half of one percent of all party members within a given area. So for a Republican seeking statewide office, that translated out to 5,660 signatures.

The new formula changed that to one-quarter of a percent but for all people who could sign a candidate's petition. That adds political independents, who outnumber Democrats and are running neck-in-neck with Republicans, to the equation.

Under the new formula, a Republican statewide candidate in 2016 needed 5,790 signatures.

But the effect on minor parties is more profound,

Using that pre-2016 formula, a Libertarian could run for statewide office with petitions bearing just 134 names, one-half percent of all those registered with the party. But the new formula, which takes into account all the independents, required a Libertarian trying to get on a statewide ballot to get 3,023 signatures.

To put that in perspective, that is closed to 12 percent of all registered Libertarians. By contrast, the statewide burden for a GOP candidate, based on the number of registered Republicans, remains close to that one-half of one percent of all adherents.

It's B.S., Kielsky said. It's completely perverse.

But Campbell said there is nothing unconstitutional about the higher requirement to limit the field to bona fide candidates who had some chance of actually winning.

If a candidate was not required to show any threshold of support through votes or petition signatures, she could win her primary and reach the general ballot with no significant modicum of support at all, Campbell continued. And in the case of Libertarians, who often run unopposed in their party's primary, a candidate could win a spot on the general election ballot with only one vote in such a primary.

Anyway, the judge said, Libertarian candidates can now seek out support to get on the ballot from independents, a pool totaling more than one million voters in Arizona.

Kielsky said that misses the point.

That means we have to appeal to things that the independents care about but not necessarily the Libertarians care about to be a Libertarian candidate, he said. The distinction of being a Libertarian is diluted, if not lost.

And Kielsky called the requirement for a modicum of support a red herring. He said if Libertarians were not picking up significant votes, the GOP-controlled legislature would not have changed the law to keep them off the ballot.

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Law requiring more signatures for Libertarian candidates remains - Arizona Daily Sun

For the fourth election cycle in a row, the Libertarian Party of Arkansas has been officially recognized as a new political party. It needed 10,000 signatures to be able to put its candidates on the 2018 ballot. The Arkansas Secretary of States office has certified that 12,749 out of 15,108 signatures were determined valid.

The party had 90 days to collect signatures. Libertarians submitted them on June 12th. In a statement, LPA Treasurer Stephen Wait said it came at a cost of over $25,000 in addition a lot of volunteer hours.

Political parties in Arkansas need to garner at least 3-percent of the vote in either the governors race or a presidential election to retain automatic ballot access for the next election. In 2016, Presidential candidate Gary Jonson garnered 2.6 percent and in 2014 gubernatorial hopeful Frank Gilbert received 1.9 percent support.

Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson has declared he will run for the states top office again in 2018. No Democrats have announced at this juncture. Libertarian Mark West is seeking his partys nomination. West took in 23.7 percent of the 2016 vote for the U.S. House seat for District 1 in east Arkansas.

The rest is here:
Libertarian Party of Arkansas Gets 2018 Ballot Access | KUAR - KUAR

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Larry Sharpe, the 2nd place runner-up 2016 vice presidential candidate, announced that he was running for Governor of New York in 2018. He did this as a birthday announcement and confirmed he was running as a member of the Libertarian Party, instead of Republican like some libertarians have done, such as Ron Paul and recently Austin Petersen.

In the live stream, he said that he wanted his campaign to be a model for future Libertarian campaigns and stressed that he was in it to win.

I will run as a Libertarian and Libertarian only. I will show the nation that you can win as a Libertarian, that you can run a campaign as a Libertarian, and you can be taken seriously as a Libertarian, he said.

Sharpe is a relative newcomer to the Libertarian Party, having risen from obscurity to almost snatching the vice presidential nominee spot from Bill Weld.

Elliot Axellman, the chairman of the Queens, New York Libertarian Party, wrote last month about Larry Sharpes qualifications:

He is exceptionally kindhearted, a fantastic speaker, and bi-racial. He is experienced and patient and possesses a scholarly type of wisdom; yet he is also young, energetic, and cool enough to easily relate to nearly every type of millennial. Sharpe is a strong advocate in the battle to end drugprohibition, arguing that it is no more effective than alcohol prohibition was, and imprisoning people for smoking it should have stopped decades ago.

Sharpe faces an uphill battle in a state that has elected Democrats to the governorship since 2008. However, he is helped that Cuomo approval rating has dropped recently to 46 percent according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

Only Cuomo and Sharpe have announced their intentions to run for governor. No Republicans or Democrats have entered the race yet, as of this publication.

WATCH HIS ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW:

andrew cuomoaustin petersenLarry Sharpelibertarian partyNew Yorkrepublican party

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Larry Sharpe Announces Run For NY Governorship As a Libertarian - The Libertarian Republic