Consitution Party Becomes Officially Recognized Party In South Dakota
The official recognition means the Constitution Party can have its own column on election ballots, have primaries and hold conventions.South Dakota's other two parties, the Republican and Democratic parties, have strayed too far from constitutional principles and have become too much alike, Scott Bartlett of Sioux Falls, chairman of the new party, said Thursday.Republicans and Democrats have failed to cut taxes or the size of government, said Bartlett, 53, general manager of a company that puts up communications towers.
"We just believe in traditional values. We think America is great and just want to change it through the political process and bring it back to its constitutional form and shrink our federal government a bit," Bartlett said."Our basic premise, I guess, is we want to run candidates who are God-fearing, who honor the Constitution and will respect the basic unit of society, which is the family," Bartlett said.
The Libertarian Party has been an official South Dakota political party in recent years, but it lost its official status when its candidate for governor failed to get at least 2.5 percent of the vote in 2002.The Constitution Party probably has only about 300 active members in South Dakota, but it is growing, Bartlett said.
More and more people are interested since the party gained official recognition in the state earlier this week, he said.Congressional and legislative candidates have to turn in their nominating petitions by April 6, so the party is frantically seeking candidates, Bartlett said.
The Constitution Party is unlikely to find a U.S. Senate candidate this year, but it plans to run a candidate for South Dakota's lone seat in the U.S. House in the November election, he said.The party also will seek candidates for some state legislative seats."Maybe not this election, but perhaps next election we'll become a viable force in South Dakota," Bartlett said.
The Constitution Party grew out of the U.S. Taxpayers Party, which was formed by a coalition of independent parties in 1992. In the 2000 elections, the Constitution Party was on the presidential ballot in 41 states.The national party's Internet site says its mission is to secure liberty by electing candidates at all levels of government who will uphold the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
"It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations," according to the Internet site."The Constitution Party is the only party which is completely pro-life, anti-homosexual rights, pro-American sovereignty, anti-globalist, anti-free trade, anti-deindustrialization, anti-unchecked immigration, pro-second amendment, and against the constantly increasing expansion of unlawful police laws, in favor of a strong national defense and opposed to unconstitutional interventionism," according to the Web site.
Bartlett said members of the Constitution Party believe the two major parties have both become more liberal in recent decades. Republicans and Democrats have become more worried about what's good for their parties than about what's good for the nation, he said.The recently passed campaign reform law takes away free-speech rights from some groups, the right to bear arms is under assault, and government is growing bigger and bigger, Bartlett said.
"I don't think that's what our founding fathers had in mind," he said.Bartlett, 53, grew up in Minnesota and was a Democrat for many years. He said he later moved to the Republican Party, but then decided neither of the major parties was doing enough to limit government.He said he moved to South Dakota 10 years ago. He and his wife have five children
http://www.constitutionparty.com/
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