PROLOGLast revision 11/04/98
The phones of Republican Party members in Prince George's County Maryland were buzzing. The subject of all the calls was an article in the previous day's Prince George's Journal newspaper. In a full color picture stood James C. (Christopher) McLaughlin standing in front of a Libertarian Party booth at the County Fair. The caption below the photo identified McLaughlin as the Chairman of the Prince George's County Libertarian Party. One of the phones that rang was that of Prince George's County Republican Party Precinct coordinator Chuck Thompson for whom I had been working as an assistant.
What caused all the interest was that McLaughlin was the Treasurer of the Joseph Neal Whittington III School Board campaign. Whittington had approached the Republican Party and sought their support. He was to running for this non-partisan seat as a Republican.
So what was a Libertarian Party Chairman doing in the campaign of a Republican Party candidate? For that matter, what the heck was a Libertarian Party member?
Prior to the Journal article people had questioned Chuck about some of the community organizations in which Whittington had claimed membership or affiliation. In some of these organizations people had remarked they could not remember Whittington being involved. So Chuck had begun an investigation to determine the validity of Whittington's claims. The intent of Chuck's investigation was to determine what, if anything, needed to be done to assist Whittington in the preparation of his campaign material. This would protect the Republican Party and assist a candidate. The revelation that McLaughlin was a Libertarian Party Chairman changed the entire nature of the investigation. Now it became a matter of an in depth check into the activities of these two people and the Libertarian Party.
Chuck's investigation had been leisurely, there seemed time to do the few things needed. The broadening of the investigation would eat heavily into the time needed for his other activities for the Republican Party. Also his information collected to date was undocumented and unusable. I was given the task of conducting the investigation and for the most part I was self directed in this area. I did all the field work and Chuck would handle what needed to be done with my results.
So that's how it all started and brings me to the focus
of this article. One of the first things I found out about the Libertarian
Party is what Dr. Stephen Zeigler, DDS had done the previous year in Charles
Co. The next section is the findings and result of my investigation.
THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN
The first evidence I found of Zeigler's journey into lunatic fringe politics begins with his changing his voter registration from Democrat to Libertarian on November 6th, 1991.
Six months after registering as a Libertarian Zeigler founded the Charles County Libertarian Party and became it's first Chairman on May 4, 1992.
Remarkably only eighteen months later Zeigler registered the Charles County Libertarian Party with SABEL (State Administrative Board of Election Laws) as no longer in operation on November the 8th of 1993. In an unnecessary letter attached to the needed forms he sent to SABEL he stated that the reason he was closing the Party was because the Treasurer resigned. From a group that advertises it's self as the fastest growing third party in the US it seemed impossible that another Treasurer could not be found in a county of 110,000 people.
With the Libertarian Party now supposedly closed in Charles County Zeigler's Chairmanship position technically ended. These events did not cause him to leave the Libertarian Party and he continued to maintain his voter registration card as Libertarian. The events that began to unfold three and one half months later show a more plausible explanation as to why the Charles County Libertarian Party was closed.
Three and one half months later on February the 25th of 1994 Zeigler changed his voter registration card from Libertarian to Independent. This very day he filed his School Board candidacy papers with his Party affiliation also marked as Independent. With his new voter registration now matching his candidacy papers the only the only information released to the news media from the Charles County Board of Elections was that Zeigler was an Independent. While he was no longer registered to vote as a member of the Libertarian Party he maintained an active membership in the Libertarian Party. But with the Charles County Libertarian Party closed any inquiry would result in the answer that there was not a Libertarian Party affiliate in that county. Zeigler's still current membership and duties in the Libertarian Party were now well hidden from casual public view.
But Libertarian Party publications now listed him as the
"contact" for Charles Co. "chapter" and all of Southern Maryland, and do
so to this day. Two full years after the Charles County Libertarian
Party was officially closed he will still be billed as Chairman of the
Charles County Libertarian Party when he was the headline speaker for the
College Park Libertarians at the University of Md. on Oct. 11, 1995.
He continues most of the Chairman's functions without the title or officially
required disclosure.
Now that Zeigler's membership and position within the Libertarian Party have been shrouded from easy public view it raises the question: What specifically was it that needed to be kept from the voters? The answer was that two specific planks of the Libertarian Party Platform applied to a School Board candidate. Zeigler could not possibly answer any questions on these two planks without destroying any chance of being elected.
The most pertinent plank that applied to a School Board candidate was the plank labeled "Education". Below is the entire Education plank as it appeared during Zeigler's 1994 election campaign.
As an interim measure to encourage the growth of private
schools and
variety in education, including home schooling, we support
tax credits
for tuition and other expenditures related to an individual's
education.
We likewise favor tax credits for child care and oppose
nationalization
of the child-care industry. We oppose denial of tax-exempt
status to
schools because of those schools' private policies on
hiring,
admissions, and student deportment. We support the repeal
of all taxes
on the income or property of private schools, whether
for profit or
non-profit.
We condemn compulsory education laws, which spawn prison-like
schools
with many of the problems associated with prisons, and
we call for an
immediate repeal of such laws.
Until government involvement in education is ended, we
support
elimination, within the governmental school system, of
forced busing and
corporal punishment. We further support immediate reduction
of tax
support for schools, and removal of the burden of school
taxes from
those not responsible for the education of children.
Equally difficult for Zeigler to answer would be questions about the "Children's Rights" plank. Below is the planks as it appeared during Zeigler's candidacy. This is probably most convincing argument that the Libertarians represent the lunatic fringe of politics.
CHILDREN'S RIGHTS
Children are human beings and, as such, have all the
rights of human
beings.
We recognize that children who have not reached maturity
need guardians
to secure their rights and to aid in the exercise of
those rights. We
hold that guardianship belongs to those who most love
and value the
child and his or her development, normally the parents
and never the
state.
We oppose all laws that empower government officials to
seize children
and make them "wards of the state" or, by means of child
labor laws and
compulsory education, to infringe on their freedom to
work or learn as
they choose. We oppose all legally created or sanctioned
discrimination
against (or in favor of) children, just as we oppose
government
discrimination directed at any other artificially defined
sub-category
of human beings. Specifically we oppose ordinances that
outlaw
adults-only apartment housing.
We also support the repeal of all laws establishing any
category of
crimes applicable to children for which adults would
not be similarly
vulnerable, such as curfew, smoking, and alcoholic beverage
laws, and
other status offenses. Similarly, we favor the repeal
of "stubborn
child" laws and laws establishing the category of "persons
in need of
supervision." We call for an end to the practice in many
states of
jailing children not accused of any crime. We seek the
repeal of all
"children's codes" or statutes which abridge due process
protections for
young people. We further favor the abolition of the juvenile
court
system, so that juveniles will be held fully responsible
for their
crimes.
Whenever parents or other guardians are unable or unwilling
to care for
their children, those guardians have the right to seek
other persons who
are willing to assume guardianship, and children have
the right to seek
other guardians who place a higher value on their lives.
Accordingly, we
oppose all laws that impede these processes, notably
those restricting
private adoption services or those forcing children to
remain in the
custody of their parents against their will.
Children should always have the right to establish their
maturity by
assuming administration and protection of their own rights,
ending
dependency upon their parents or other guardians and
assuming all the
responsibilities of adulthood.
There was no way Zeigler would have been able to run for School Board while his Libertarian Party membership endorsed the demand to close the Charles County Public Schools. Replacing public schools with a system that did not require parents to educate a child ("We condemn compulsory education laws"). Equally difficult would be answering the questions about allowing only private schools that were to be allowed to practice discrimination ("We oppose denial of tax-exempt status to schools because of those schools' private policies on hiring, admissions, and student deportment"). Private schools means only the children of parents who could afford it would get an education as no tax money would be allowed to go to these schools. Charter schools are an "interim" measure that is scheduled to be done away with.
Children are at the heart of the public school system. It would have been impossible for Zeigler to have answered to why his party would make a world where parents would have no right to tell their children what to do. If a child did not like what their parents told them to do they would have the "right" to "establish their maturity by assuming administration and protection of their own rights, ending dependency upon their parents or other guardians and assuming all the responsibilities of adulthood". The two above planks are sufficient to stop a Libertarian Party candidate from getting voted into office, there is no need to discuss the plank that demands the end of child labor laws.
When caught with questions about their goals the Libertarians have a logic that justifies lying to the voters. Their reasoning (for this example I will use a School Board race) is that they cannot close the public schools in the four year term they are being elected to. So they set interim goals such as vouchers and charter schools to set the stage for closing all the public schools at a later time. Now when challenged about their ultimate goal of closing the public schools they "truthfully" answer that these are not their goals, that their goals are to make the best possible public schools they can by their stated "stands on the issues" which are really just Libertarian Party interim measures. For the Libertarians the lie of omission does not exist.
Twenty one days after filing as an "Independent" , March 18, 1994, he again changed his party affiliation on his voter registration card. Now he has changed it to "DECLINED", which means he now has a party affiliation and refuses to disclose it * . While not uncommon for a citizen to do so, this is not common for a candidate to do during their campaign.
* (NOTE: I thought DECLINED meant that the person declined to affiliate with any political party. The explanation I got from an employee at the Charles County Board of Elections was that the person has a political party affiliation that they refuse to disclose.)
Two months later on April 24th of 1994 Libertarian Party records show "Independent" candidate Zeigler paying $30.00 to renew his membership in the Maryland and National Libertarian Party. By paying these membership dues Zeigler secured his position within the Maryland Libertarian Party. Zeigler was serving as the Assistant - Secretary to the Maryland Libertarian Party Central Committee and needed to keep his membership current to hold this position.
During these times Zeigler had been seeking endorsements and support of the Republican Party and it's voters in Charles County . On October the 17 of 1994 he changed his voter registration to Republican, but I found no record of his updating his candidacy filing papers. The change in his voter registration appears to me to be part of his efforts to gain the support of local Republicans. Yet two & one half weeks previously (Oct. 1st, '95) the newsletter of the National Libertarian Party listed him under "Libertarian Candidates".
Having placed only seventh in his self managed primary race Zeigler brought in Mr. Dean Ahmed to be campaign manager for the final election. Mr. Ahmed has served in the past as both Chairman and Treasurer of the Maryland State Libertarian Party Central Committee, is a longtime Libertarian Party activist at the national level and his home is used for the Maryland Libertarian Party headquarters.
Mr. Ahmed outlined the Zeigler campaign in the smoking gun article "How a LP candidate in Maryland won last election" featured in the February, 1995 issue of the National Libertarian Party newsletter. The title of the article says it all, "LP candidate" says Libertarian Party candidate. The first rock solid evidence of Zeigler being a candidate of the Libertarian Party and given by an irrefutable source, the campaign manager. Not a Libertarian Party member acting on his own, not an Independent, not a Republican but a Libertarian Party candidate supported by and representing the Libertarian Party.
Mr. Ahmed stated in his article that "On top of all this we had some help from God. First, a Republican club distributed a sample ballot with three recommendations for school board (incumbent Sharon Caniglia, Collins Bailey, and Steve) influencing the huge turnout of Republicans supporting gubernatorial candidate Ellen Sauerbrey". Mr. Ahmed's home is the mailing address for a mosque and nothing in the Islamic faith invoked God to present Zeigler as other than the Libertarian Party candidate he was to the people of Charles County. If there was any supernatural intervention that helped Zeigler get elected it came from a mailing address far south of Heaven.
Among the campaign workers recognized in Mr. Ahmed's article who helped in the Zeigler campaign were seven Libertarian Party officials. Assisting him was the Libertarian Party Treasurer of Baltimore Co. Md., two (Not counting Zeigler) Maryland State Libertarian Party Central Committee members and four Libertarian Party county level Chairmen from Harford Co., Montgomery Co., Frederick Co. and the Libertarian Party Chairman of Prince George's Co. James C. McLaughlin. Other rank and file Libertarian Party members participated that were not named, allowing them to have campaign workers with signs and pamphlets at seventeen voting precincts. On election day it must have appeared to the voters that Mr. Zeigler was greatly supported by their neighbors rather than Libertarian Party officers and members from every corner of the State.
After being elected Mr. Zeigler was listed in the publication "Libertarians in Elected and Appointed Public Office" issued in December of 1994 one month after the election.
By May the 8th of 1995 Mr. Zeigler had finished using the good image of the Republican Party. On that day he went to the voter registration office and quietly changed his voter registration card to from Republican to "Declined".
Mr. Zeigler is currently the Libertarian Party "contact" for Party business in Southern Maryland.
ONE YEAR LATER
I found out about Zeigler getting elected as an "Independent" / registered Republican about a year after his election. I contacted the Chair of the Charles County Republican Party Mrs. Schuster in November of 1995. Chair Schuster was surprised to find out that Zeigler had changed his voter registration from Republican to Declined back on May 8th. and had thought he was still an active member of the Republican Party. She did say that during these events Zeigler had mentioned to her that he had previously been a Libertarian. She was surprised when I told he was previously a Libertarian Party Chairman. She was shocked to find that during the election he was an officer serving on the Maryland Libertarian Party Central Committee.
Republican Party Chair Schuster also related to me a conversation she had with Zeigler prior to his election. She remembered he had said that he had been (past tense) a Libertarian but made no mention of still actively being an officer on the Maryland Libertarian Party Central Committee. She also remembered him saying that he thought he could not be elected if he ran as a Libertarian.
I also sent information on Zeigler and the goals of the Libertarian Party to the Charles County Schools Administration.
The Zeigler for school board is a classic example of a Libertarian Party effort to sneak one of their candidates past the scrutiny of the voters. The only error they made was not running a slate of candidates. Getting a slate of candidates elected would have given them the needed majority votes needed to chip away at public education from within. This tactic of running a slate of Libertarian Party candidates for non-partisan races, with their Libertarian Party membership hidden, is something you can expect to find more of in the future.
AFTERMATH
Now that Zeigler was elected to the School Board he was
in position to start implementing the ultimate goal of the Libertarian
Party for our public schools, to close them all. But his carefully
maneuvered position would be undermined by an unexpected source,
the author of this article.
My exposure of Zeigler one year after election removed the Republican Party mask and he could not gather the support needed implement Libertarian Party goals for our schools from within the system. Cutoff from the support he needed to destroy the Charles County Public Schools from within he sought to expand his influence to a statewide level.
Zeigler began to expand on his efforts to close the public schools at an April 13th. 1996 meeting with Marshall Fritz, the Director of the Separation of School and State Alliance. Zeigler had signed the "Proclamation" of the Separation of School and State Alliance about about three months after his election. It reads as follows;
Proclamation for the Separation of School and State
Whereas parents have both the responsibility and the right to provide for an education for their children, and
Whereas a state-financed school system—even one that is well funded and staffed with talented, caring teachers—cannot address the differing expectations parents hold for their children, and
Whereas assumption by government of parents' financial responsibility and consequent undermining of their authority leads to weaker families and social decline, and
Whereas the politically strongest factions inevitably use schools to shape attitudes and control the content of children's minds,
Thus, it is clear that reform of state schooling will not solve the education crisis.
Therefore, we must end government compulsion in education funding, attendance, and content. Separation of school and state is essential to restore parental responsibility and create an environment of educational freedom in which students and teachers can flourish.
By my signature below,
I proclaim publicly that I favor the
Separation of School and State.
Sign name ______________________
Zeigler's endorsement of closing the public schools was in line with the Libertarian Party Platform Plank on education and not generally announced to the parents of the children in the Charles County Schools.
Charles County is in the southern end of the state and not close to the mainstream of events. This southern location would be a poor location to build a power base for closing the Maryland public schools. The Maryland chapter of the Separation of School and Sate Alliance was opened in Baltimore, founded and officered by Maryland Libertarian Party officials.
As of this writing Zeigler's term ends in about one week. Frustrated that he cannot push his Libertarian Party views onto the other members of the School Board he is no longer seeking re-election.
EPILOG
In the PROLOG I laid down the events that started my investigation of the Libertarian Party in general. The tip of the iceberg for me was the Whittington for School Board campaign of 1996.
I delivered copies of much of the material I had assembled on Whittington to Laural Leader newspaper in Laural and reviewed them with a reporter for almost an hour.
The next day Chuck Thompson came in and was interviewed about Whittington by the reporter. This way the reporter would mention Chuck in the newspaper article and my name would not appear.
A couple of days after the newspaper article was published Chairman of the Prince George's County Libertarian Party James C. McLaughlin rushed into Chuck's house and began beating Chuck and his wife..........
But that will be another report, watch this website for the Joseph Neal Whittington III for School Board campaign at a later date.
Kevin O'Connell