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Willy Marshall, America’s first elected Libertarian mayor

By Jordan Willow Evans on December 13, 2015 7:45 PM

From Jake Shannon on youtube via Old Dominion Libertarian:

From the youtube description:

Willy Marshall became, in 2001, the first openly gay man to be elected mayor of a Utah town and he did so on the http://LPUtah.org ticket.

The Utah town of Big Water was the first town in the United States to have a Libertarian mayor when a previous mayor switched to the party in 1986.

In keeping with his Libertarian principles, Marshall repealed his salary as mayor. He also cut municipal taxes by 50% and attempted to decriminalize marijuana (the county prevented full implementation).

Jordan Willow Evans

Jordan Willow Evans is an editor and policy analyst based in Goffstown, New Hampshire. She serves as managing editor of Independent Political Report and executive director of the Outsider Media Foundation, a nonprofit news organization focused on independent and alternative political movements. She has studied third parties and political outsiders since her student years.

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10 Comments

  1. paulie December 18, 2015

    “WE’VE GOT POLYGAMISTS, WE’VE GOT STONERS, AND I’M GAY.”

    Sounds like a parody of Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar…

  2. Matt Schutter December 18, 2015

    As elected Libertarian, i agree with a lot of he said. If you want to make a difference run for office and get elected. i am also an Outright Libertarian that is elected in a small town. I would agree that the gay issue is not an issue at all.

  3. Wang Tang-Fu December 14, 2015

    I like the headline at Old Dominion Libertarian…

    “WE’VE GOT POLYGAMISTS, WE’VE GOT STONERS, AND I’M GAY.” – HOW BIG WATER, UTAH BECAME AMERICA’S FIRST LIBERTARIAN-GOVERNED TOWN.

  5. Bondurant December 13, 2015

    This is a fantastic interview. Thanks for posting.

    I met Mayor Marshall at the Vegas convention. I believe he was dressed as a cowboy. The Utah delegation was sitting next to Arizona and I ended up speaking with him about something and thought it was really cool when I found out he had been a mayor in Utah.

  6. Barry Short December 13, 2015

    Just for reference, although lputah.org still works, we use prefer to use utahlp.org now since all our Spanish speaking friends giggle when they see lputah.

  7. Andy Craig December 13, 2015

    That one was Joe’s, I didn’t post it, but I just sent you the youtube link. It’s really more of just a rough first attempt at an ad, but I did go ahead and post in on facebook.

  8. paulie December 13, 2015

    Andy C., in case my email went to an account you no longer check:

    Tried to repost your (other) article from Old Dominion and I’m not having any luck grabbing the video code from FB. Do you have it on youtube? Also noticed you have a draft that has been sitting in drafts for a while…still planning to post that?

  9. Vicki Kirkland December 13, 2015

    Willy has always been one of my favorite people. I served on the LNC with him a number of years ago.

  10. Andy Craig December 13, 2015

    Pretty interesting story, and he tells it well.

Comments are closed.