The Libertarian Party of Colorado has released a candidate pledge and is urging Republican candidates in the state to sign it, formalizing expectations tied to a previously announced agreement between the two organizations.
On June 13, the Libertarian Party of Colorado and the Colorado Republican Party first publicly disclosed what they called a “gentleman’s agreement,” under which the Libertarians would intentionally refrain from fielding candidates in certain races. In return, the Republican Party said it would nominate candidates who are more closely aligned with libertarian principles in those districts.
“We negotiated an unprecedented deal with [Libertarian Party of Colorado] that if we run more limited-government & pro-liberty nominees they won’t run spoiler candidates,” the Colorado Republican Party stated at the time, “Together we can break the stranglehold of Democrats’ one-party rule over Colorado.”
The pledge, introduced this week in a series of X posts, is divided into federal and state-level sections, each of which details more than a dozen essential viewpoints that Republicans would need to commit to upholding. The “Federal Candidate Pledge for Liberty” outlines the following policy positions:
1.) I will immediately work to pull funding for Ukrainian aid and push aggressively for peace negotiations with Russia.
2.) I will oppose a military draft, should the Ukraine-Russia conflict escalate.
3.) I will audit and reduce foreign aid spending.
4.) I will work to remove the presidential war powers and return those powers back to Congress.
5.) I will recognize the egregious abuses by the US intelligence agencies, and work towards reducing their power with the end goal of abolishing them entirely.
6.) I will include auditing the Federal Reserve in your two-year congressional plan.
7.) I will prioritize reducing the size of government and funding of all three letter agencies.
8.) I will abolish the Department of Education, returning education back to local control.
9.) I will uphold freedom of the press by not objecting to the incoming president pardoning Julian Assange.
10.) I will protect whistleblowers by not objecting to the incoming president pardoning Edward Snowden.
11.) I will protect internet freedom by not objecting to the incoming president pardoning Ross Ulbricht.
12.) I will vote to always protect and uphold the right to bear arms. I will move to abolish all unconstitutional gun laws, including the NFA.
13.) I will support and uphold the freedoms afforded to the American people as set forth by our Founding Fathers in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
For statewide candidates, the “State Candidate Pledge for Liberty” requires the following commitments:
1.) I will vote against any new restrictions on our Right to Keep and Bear Arms and repeal existing restrictions.
2.) I will support and defend the right of direct ballot access by citizen initiative.
3.) I will fully defend the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and do everything in my power to protect it, including voting against any legislation that would use refunds for buying votes.
4.) I will vote against tax increases, and will vote to eliminate the income tax.
5.) I will vote to lower mill levy rates to provide property tax relief.
6.) I will support an audit of the State Government and its use of tax money.
7.) I will support increasing government transparency, including the expansion of the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA).
8.) I will stand up for parents by voting to protect their right to teach and raise their children by their own standards and beliefs.
9.) I will stand up for Colorado students by promoting educational freedom including expanding school choice.
10.) I would support legislation to limit the Emergency Powers of the Governor.
11.) I will support deregulating the medical marketplace in order to provide better and more affordable healthcare.
12.) I will defend medical freedom by opposing any mandatory vaccine program or vaccine passports.
13.) I will support an amendment in the Colorado constitution to protect citizens’ medical freedom from unelected public health departments
14.) I will support ending Civil Asset Forfeiture to ensure that only individuals convicted of a crime should have their property confiscated.
15.) I will introduce or support a version of the Defend the Guard Act.
16.) I will support food freedom, such as raw milk and local meat processing.
17.) I will vote to ban red light cameras, speed cameras and other surveillance devices.
18.) I will support the ability of peaceful people to live their lives freely without government interference.
19.) I will support and uphold the rights of individuals afforded in the Colorado and US Constitution.
As of this article, the Libertarian Party of Colorado has yet to release a municipal version of the liberty pledge. State Republicans also tried enacting a similar agreement with the American Constitution Party of Colorado; however, Constitution members expressed reservations and chose not to pursue it further.
Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 3rd Congress district said she won’t sign the pledge and neither will her primary opponent. Boebert said she’ll stand on her record.
There was no Libertarian candidate in the 3rd Congress district in 2022.
The leadership of the LPCO appear to me to be Republican plants. A political party should be fielding candidates, or attempting to field candidates if the election laws restrict or make it difficult to do so.
Everything is hopelessly abstract. How are you tying performance to these standards to real legislation? The Contract with America which is in my opinion one of the greatest election items ever for setting a legislative agenda that was actually followed by Republicans in the House in 1995 when they came to power, had a list of 8 reforms and ten bills to bring to the floor to debate and vote. This would be greatly strengthened with text of bills. I know that’s significantly more work, but that’s the point. If a guy for example makes a speech in the morning in his one minute on the Department of Edcuation and how it should be dissolved, that does ultimately nothing and is not in support of item #8.
Also, were Colorado Libertarians planning on running in 100% of races? Every Republican without Libertarian opposition in the November elections can in theory claim that Libertarians should vote for them, but unless they explicitly are required to state support for this, if you don’t have a candidate running against them, they can act like it’s an alliance and then when called on voting the wrong way in June 2025, claim they never supported the pledge.
This is all a nice idea in theory, but there needs to be more time and thought put into it then coming up with a list of single-sentence items.
“1.) I will immediately work to pull funding for Ukrainian aid and push aggressively for peace negotiations with Russia.”
Here we see that the Federal Candidate Pledge for Liberty means liberty for Americans only. Instead of pursuing liberty for foreign victims of aggressor nations, they will instead push aggressively for the permanent subjugation of those foreigners under a dictatorship. Liberty for me, not for thee.