Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Unanimously Endorses Elizabeth Fitzgibbon for Congress

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

May 19, 2026

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Unanimously Endorses Elizabeth Fitzgibbon for Congress

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Executive Committee voted unanimously at its recent meeting to endorse independent congressional candidate Elizabeth Fitzgibbon in Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District race.

The endorsement reflects the LPWI’s continued commitment to supporting candidates willing to challenge entrenched party politics, defend individual liberty, and restore accountability to government institutions.

“Elizabeth Fitzgibbon is speaking directly to frustrations that millions of Americans feel every day,” said LPWI Chair Reese Wood. “People are tired of rising costs, insider politics, unaccountable government agencies, and a political system that increasingly serves party interests over the public. Elizabeth is willing to confront those issues head-on as an independent voice.”

Fitzgibbon’s campaign focuses heavily on affordability, government accountability, and transparency. Her platform calls for exposing wasteful federal spending, reducing the burden inflation and rising costs place on working families, protecting constitutional rights, and increasing oversight of federal institutions and agencies.

According to her campaign website, Fitzgibbon is running independently because she believes both major political parties have become more focused on partisan conflict than solving problems affecting everyday Americans. Her campaign emphasizes “people over parties” and advocates for constitutional limits on government power.

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin noted that independent and third-party candidates continue to play an increasingly important role in Wisconsin politics, particularly among voters dissatisfied with the Republican and Democratic establishments.

“Whether voters agree with every position or not, Elizabeth is bringing needed conversations into this race about transparency, constitutional government, and the growing disconnect between Washington and working families,” Wood said. “That willingness to challenge the status quo deserves recognition.”

More information about the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, and its endorsements, please visit www.lpwi.org .

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Condemns Wisconsin Petition Circulator Ban--Letter to the Editor, by Reese Wood, Chair, LPWI

May 19, 2026

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Condemns Wisconsin Petition Circulator Ban

Dear editor,

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin strongly opposes the recent federal court decision allowing Wisconsin’s out-of-state petition circulator ban to remain in place. Measures like this do not strengthen democracy, they weaken voter choice and make it harder for grassroots candidates, independent candidates, and third parties to compete in Wisconsin elections.

While supporters of these restrictions often frame them as protections for election integrity, the practical reality is very different. Republicans and Democrats are the least affected by these barriers because they already possess large fundraising networks, institutional support, and ballot access infrastructure. The people harmed most are independent voices, grassroots movements, and smaller political organizations attempting to challenge the political establishment.

Whether it is this measure or other ballot access restrictions, traditional party representatives continue dismissing third-party and independent candidates as “non-viable” while simultaneously supporting systems designed to keep competition out of the political process. These actions reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of Wisconsin’s political landscape and reinforce misconceptions that are passed on to voters and supporters across the state.

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin joined the legal challenge against this ban because we believe voters deserve more choices, not fewer. Democracy functions best when competition is encouraged, not suppressed through regulatory barriers that favor entrenched political interests.

Wisconsin voters are increasingly frustrated with a two-party system that often prioritizes party loyalty over genuine representation. Restrictive ballot access laws only deepen public distrust and discourage political participation from everyday citizens who want to become involved in the democratic process.

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin will continue advocating for fair ballot access, equal treatment for candidates regardless of party affiliation, and a political system that welcomes competition instead of fearing it.

Reese Wood

Chair

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin

Governor Evers: Call the Legislature into Special Session Today. Suspend the Gas Tax and Repeal the Unfair Sales Act

 

Governor Evers: Call the Legislature into Special Session Today. Suspend the Gas Tax and Repeal the Unfair Sales Act

By Lucas Peters

LPWI Contributor

Gas prices have spiked to painful levels for working families, small businesses, and farmers across the state. The root causes are not mysterious. Trump’s disastrous Iranian War along with government interventions that distort markets, inflate costs, and transfer wealth from producers and consumers to government coffers and protected insiders. Governor Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Legislature have two powerful, ready-to-deploy tools to deliver genuine relief right now: the elimination of the state’s 32.9-cent-per-gallon motor fuel excise tax and the immediate repeal of the Unfair Sales Act’s minimum-markup requirement on gasoline. These are not radical experiments; they are simple acts of rolling back the state’s artificial burdens on the free market.

Every cent of excise tax at the state level on motor fuel is a direct seizure of resources that would otherwise remain in private hands, where entrepreneurs and consumers could allocate them according to real economic needs. That 32.9 cents per gallon is not “paid by oil companies” or magically absorbed; it is passed straight through to Wisconsin drivers at the pump. Eliminating it, with the road fund backfilled from existing surplus revenue (money the state never should have taken in the first place), would immediately lower the effective price by nearly that full amount. Other states, Indiana and Georgia among them have already demonstrated in 2026 how swiftly this can be done through emergency legislation. Markets adjust fast when the government gets out of the way. It proves the state can return money to the people without pretending it creates prosperity through spending.

The Unfair Sales Act is even more insidious. This relic forces every gas station in Wisconsin to sell fuel at a price no lower than cost plus a rigid 9.18 percent markup. This is textbook price-control folly: a government-mandated price floor that prevents the market from clearing at the true marginal cost of supply. It does not protect “small” retailers or consumers; it cartelizes the industry, shields inefficient operators, and adds an estimated 20–30 cents per gallon to the price every Wisconsin driver pays. Libertarians have always recognized such regulations for what they are, cronyist barriers erected by the political class to favor connected players over genuine competition. The result is higher costs for everyone, reduced innovation at the pump, and a quiet transfer of wealth from families filling up their trucks to regulatory beneficiaries who never have to compete on pure market merit. Critics from across the political spectrum have long acknowledged this law’s harms; it has sat on the books for decades not because it serves the public, but because inertia and special interests prefer the status quo. Repealing it in a special session would let stations compete freely, driving prices down through the only mechanism that has ever reliably lowered costs: voluntary exchange and entrepreneurial discovery.

The moment is ripe. The governor can call the Legislature into special session today with no waiting, no endless committee hearings, no excuses about divided government. The constitutional authority exists; the fiscal surplus exists; the precedent from other states exists. What is missing is the political will to put principle over process.

The state has no business skimming 32.9 cents from every gallon or dictating a minimum profit margin on a commodity as basic as fuel. Every day of delay is another day Wisconsinites pay more than the market demands so that politicians can maintain their illusions of control. Governor Evers, call the session. Suspend the tax. Repeal the markup law. Let the market work. Wisconsin families and businesses deserve nothing less than the freedom to keep more of what they earn and to buy fuel at prices set by supply, demand, and honest competition. The time for half-measures and inaction is over. Act now.

Lucas Peters CD4 Alt Rep, LPWI Executive Committee

Police State Camera Systems: "Those who would give up essential Liberty..."

 

Police State Camera Systems and ALPRs

By Jeff Kortsch

LPWI Contributor 

 

Benjamin Franklin, in a 1755 letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly, famously said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Local governments and makers of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) believe you should give up some of your liberty for the possibility of a little safety. They say the devices help police solve crimes. That may be true but at what cost? Should the government be able to track your movements around the country by reading your license plate, storing identifying information about the make, model, color, and distinguishing features like political bumper stickers and keeping that information in a database where anyone with access can see it? What is done with that information and who has access to it? What government entities is that information shared with?

In the case United States v. Jones, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government’s installation of a GPS tracking device on the vehicle of Antoine Jones to track his movements for 28 days constituted an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment.

Today, ALPRs can track your vehicle without coming anywhere near it and you get to pay for it. Where did you go today? How long were you there? Did you pass a place where a crime was committed several times even though you had nothing to do with the crime?

If this sounds to you like Big Brother in George Orwell’s book “Nineteen Eighty-Four” or something the KGB did in the Soviet Union or the Stasi did in East Germany, it does to me too. Government should not be able to keep track of your whereabouts if you haven’t committed a crime, are not in the process of committing a crime or are not about to commit a crime.

The CEO of Flock Safety, Garrett Langley, said recently in an interview with Forbes that those who are keeping track of where ALPRs are installed, such as the website deflock.me, are “terroristic organizations”. Keeping track of how and where government is surveilling you does not make them a terrorist. After the revelations of Edward Snowden, the ship has sailed on calling those who are against mass government surveillance a “terrorist”.

Use tools like deflock.me, atlasofsurveillance.org from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and plateprivacy.com from the Institute for Justice to see where there are ALPRs installed and report new ones that have been recently installed. If your local government is considering installing ALPRs, get involved in the process if they are doing the consideration in public. If your local government already has ALPRs installed, find out more information with open records requests on what is in the contract, what the cost to taxpayers is, how the data access is granted and who the data is shared with. Don’t give up some of your liberty for the promise a little more safety.

Wisconsin Homeschooling Group Receives Libertarian Party Award

 

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin

www.lpwi.org

presslpwi@gmail.com

Contact: Reese Wood, LPWI Chair

chair@lpwi.org

May 14, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wisconsin Homeschooling Group Receives Libertarian Party Award

Madison—The Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association (WHPA), a support and advocacy group for education freedom in the state, has received the 2026 Ed Thompson Award from the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin.

The award, named for the 2002 Libertarian Party governor candidate and former Party chair, Ed Thompson, goes annually to a private person or public organization or business that promotes individual freedom, and a larger liberty for all, within Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association, a non-political and non-religious all-volunteer organization, provides a resource base and mutual help network of parents who teach their children outside of the usual government-mandated public school systems.

“Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association is a state-wide, inclusive, non-partisan, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the right and freedom of parents to provide an education to their children according to their own principles and beliefs,” the WHPA states on their website.

The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin (LPWI) delivers the award every the spring. The decision on this year’s winner reflects the Party’s principles supporting alternative answers and methods opposed to the ethical and moral corruption of government-as-usual.

The LPWI Platform plank on education specifically says, “Since private education is today outperforming public education at half the cost, we call for the phase out of all state and federal involvement in education. We therefore endorse “School Choice”.” For more info on this platform or the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, please visit www.lpwi.org .

Even Amid the Flames of War, the Market Process Endures

 

Even Amid the Flames of War, the Market Process Endures

An LPWI Press Blog Exclusive

By Lucas Peters, LPWI Contributor

April 29, 2026

In the midst of the 2026 Iran war with its blockades, naval standoffs, and artificial energy chokepoints imposed by warring states the United Arab Emirates has done what sovereign actors rarely do: it has chosen the market over the cartel. By announcing its withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+, the UAE is set to ramp up production unconstrained by quotas. From the lens of Austrian economics and libertarianism, this is no anomaly. It is the market process asserting itself against the very states that profit from destruction.

Markets are not fragile constructs easily shattered by political violence. They are living processes driven by entrepreneurial discovery, subjective value, and the ceaseless coordination of millions of individual plans. Cartels like OPEC are not “free market” institutions; they are state-enforced price-fixing schemes. They rely on coercion (quotas, threats, political favoritism) to suppress supply and inflate prices, just as any government price control does. When war compounds this through blockades of the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, and naval enforcement the state’s hand grows heavier. Yet the market does not simply submit.

The UAE’s move is entrepreneurial calculation. Abu Dhabi has recognized that its own long-term interest lies in unleashing production capacity already built (and expandable) via pipelines like Habshan-Fujairah that bypass Hormuz chokepoints. This is not altruism or geopolitics disguised as economics. It is self-interest rightly understood: profit-seeking actors responding to price signals and consumer demand. Even under the most severe interventions war, inflation, regulation the market process redirects resources toward their highest-valued uses as perceived by individuals. Higher prices from disrupted supply (the war’s “historic energy shock”) scream for more oil. The UAE hears the signal and acts; global consumers and businesses now breathe easier.

Libertarianism adds moral and historical clarity. Wars are not “market failures”; they are the state’s signature failure. They are the ultimate rent-seeking enterprise: governments conscript resources, inflate currencies to fund destruction, and impose embargoes that crush civilian prosperity while enriching connected insiders. Libertarians have long warned against the American empire’s entanglements and the bipartisan addiction to foreign adventurism. The Iran conflict blockades, dual chokepoints, and the predictable blowback exemplifies the pattern Rothbard decried in For a New Liberty: the state creates problems (energy scarcity, volatility) then poses as the solution through more controls. Yet even here, the free market mitigates the damage the state inflicts.

This is the beauty of the “invisible hand” in wartime: it does not require central planning, patriotic appeals, or international summits. It requires only the freedom to act. Entrepreneurs and producers, guided by profit and loss, discover ways around the wreckage. No cartel bureaucrat possesses the dispersed knowledge of local geology, pipeline capacity, investment timelines, or shifting demand. Only on-the-ground actors do. By defecting, the UAE accelerates the cartel’s unraveling, a classic example of how voluntary association and exit (the ultimate market discipline) undermine coercive monopoly.

Libertarians understand the true instability is the state system itself: cartels propped by force, wars launched under false pretenses of security, and consumers left footing the bill through higher pump prices and distorted supply chains. The market’s response here is proof that peace and prosperity are not opposites of self-interest; they are its natural outgrowth when individuals are left free. Lower oil prices mean lower costs for food, transport, manufacturing, easing the very burdens states impose through their wars.

The state cannot abolish economic law; it can only distort it, at enormous human cost. The UAE’s bold step reminds us that even in 2026’s Middle Eastern conflict, the market process endures. It alleviates the suffering. And proves the libertarian truth: the freer the people, the less the state can make us pay for its follies.

A Sweet Swearing Into Office Tuesday

 

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin member Brian Defferding (pictured) will get sworn onto the Neenah City Council, Tuesday, April 21st.

April 17, 2026

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin

www.lpwi.org  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Sweet Swearing Into Office Tuesday

Neenah, WI—OnTuesday, April 21^st, the City of Neenah, Wisconsin, will swear in their newest city council member, Mr. Brian Defferding, age 49, a member of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin.

Running for a non-partisan office, Defferding based his campaign on door knocking, listening to people, and sharing their concerns. “When you talk to people, meet them where they are at [in viewpoint]. And then, tailor your response in a Libertarian way,” he said. Enough voters saw the reasonableness of his message. He beat his single opponent by 24 votes.

His opponent, a long-term city council incumbent, told Defferding several years ago that if he did not like the rules of the city, he should “move out to the country.” Instead of heeding her ridicule, Defferding got elected in 2018 as a county board supervisor, where he served a few terms and became a watch-dog against unreasonable government regulations, and an advocate to protect taxpayer money from frivolous spending.

His motivation to run this spring for city council had to do with Neenah’s 6% property tax increase, and its increase of fees by 10-15%. His opponent had always consistently voted for the numerous spending increases, and new borrowing, and tax and fees increases

Defferding also sharply criticized the city government for massive use of taxpayer money to prepare Arrowhead Park for private development.

A notoriously polluted area in the city, the park had suffered decades of chemical runoff from area paper mills. According to Defferding, Neenah’s government has spent $3.5 MILLION in various tests, legal costs etc. etc. since 2010 to try and get the area certified by the Wisconsin DNR as a safe zone for sales and developments to proceed.

Defferding’s opponent, who told him to move out of the city over its refusal to allow him to build a privacy fence several years ago, consistently voted for that spending. Calling Defferding simply an “extremist Libertarian” on her social media, the people replied to her. Defferding says that “Residents want the city to stop spending money” so unreasonably. As a Libertarian, and a new city council member, he can do a lot to protect taxpayer money.