Adrian Wyllie,
Florida LP Chair
and candidate for governor
With the 2012 election behind us, candidates have begun preparing for races in 2014. One of the earliest Libertarian Party candidates to declare is Adrian Wyllie, chair of the Florida LP, who announced earlier this month that he would run for governor. He plans to distinguish his campaign by focusing on his plan to combat the federal government’s encroachments on state sovereignty.
“One of my highest priorities is going to be upholding the 10th Amendment, and rejecting any unconstitutional federal mandates or laws on the state level,” Wyllie said. “I think one of our biggest problems is the assault on our economic freedom and our individual liberty coming from the federal government right now.”
He wants to go even further than resisting new federal encroachments, hoping to pass state legislation that would eliminate federal jurisdiction over goods and services made and sold within Florida.
“One of the major issues I’m going to be promoting is an intrastate commerce act in Florida,” Wyllie said. “It would mean that any good manufactured and sold within the state of Florida — and that applies to everything from food to firearms to marijuana — would be exempt from any federal oversight whatsoever.” He also plans to introduce a competing currencies act that would help protect against reckless Federal Reserve policy.
Wyllie first realized he was a libertarian after somebody handed him a “World’s Smallest Political Quiz” when he was 21 years old, and soon afterward changed his voter registration to the LP. He has prior campaign experience, having run in 1998 for a position as city commissioner in Dunedin. More recently, he served as media director for the 2010 senatorial campaign of Alex Snitker, the first Libertarian ever to appear on the ballot in Florida for that office. Wyllie has served since May 2011 as chair of the Florida LP, a two-year term that expires this May, which will give him more time to focus on the campaign.
“The way the Florida law is structured, in order to begin raising funds, you have to be a declared candidate,” Wyllie said. “We were getting to a point where we were ready to start fundraising for the campaign, so that’s why I declared when I did. My initial plan was to wait until May to coincide with the end of my term as LPF chair. But, because we really needed to begin fundraising, we had to announce the candidacy a little bit early.”
Wyllie formed an exploratory committee in November to examine his potential campaign prospects, and was officially recognized by the state as a candidate on Jan. 10.
“Our goal is to raise $30,000 by May, and that will really allow us to kick into the next level of the campaign phase, where we can do a true statewide mailing to libertarians and independents throughout Florida,” he said.
Wyllie said he looks forward to working closely with other LP activists in Florida, and insists he’ll put in all the hard work necessary to achieve his ambitious campaign goals.
“I’d just like to point out that I and my campaign team are taking this campaign extremely seriously, and we’re really going to make a very strong effort to compete as closely to a level playing field with the Republican and Democrat as possible,” Wyllie said.
