CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – Advocates of limited government who have organized under the Free State Project say they will begin voting next month on which state will be their home base.
The 10 candidate states are Idaho, Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
The Free State Project is trying to sign up 20,000 limited-government advocates to move to a state where they can launch a campaign to reduce the reach of government.
The effort passed the 4,000-member mark last month, prompting organizers to set a vote date. The deadline to sign up is Aug. 15, by which time the group expects to have more than 5,000 members.
The deadline to return ballots is Sept. 8 and the state chosen will be announced Sept. 15, according to Jason Sorens, the Yale doctoral student who founded and leads the project.
Once a state is chosen, members will have five years to move there. Some have already said they will move as soon as a state is chosen, according to Tom Parker, a Louisville, Colo., man who serves as the group’s liaison to Wyoming.
Parker said the movement is a reaction to the current climate in government.
“In terms of liberty we see things drifting away with the latest moves like the USA Patriot Act and the various wars – now Liberia. We feel our government is not playing by the rules of the Constitution so we’re hoping to change things,” he said.
“By concentrating our numbers in one state, we’re hoping to have more influence and move things toward liberty.”
Dennis Brossman, a Wyoming Libertarian, the idea of newcomers changing the way things are done in Wyoming is nothing new.
“In Lander and Jackson in the last 10, 15 years, we’ve had a large number of environmentalists move in, and they heavily affect the policy in these areas,” he said calling the freedom project “workable and doable. I don’t think it’s a pipe dream.”
“The freedom experiment is very alluring to me,” he said, “I’d be willing to move to Alaska.”
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On the Net:
Free State Project: http://www.freestateproject.org
AP-ES-07-08-03 1745EDT
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