By Sara Adams, 350 Madison
In November 2018, Wisconsinites will vote for a governor. This post is the tenth in a series on the environmental views of the candidates. This series is for information only. 350 Madison does not officially support any candidate.
Phillip Anderson is the Libertarian candidate for governor of Wisconsin. He is the chair of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin. Anderson is a realtor, and served as a combat medic in the United States Army.
What are the most important issues you would take on if you were elected governor?
“The most important issue to me is criminal justice reform.”
Anderson is opposed to the War on Drugs. He supports legalizing marijuana, getting rid of mandatory minimum sentencing, and pardoning people incarcerated for victimless crimes.
Anderson also wants to end Wisconsin’s practice of barring convicted felons from voting. “It’s ridiculous that people should be deprived of their right to participate in democracy, and have representation, for committing a crime that’s not related to that,” he said.
“We also want to get rid of the state income tax because that leads to a lot of corruption, and mismanagement of funds in Madison by the state government. We also want to try to get as much government back to local control as we possibly can.“
Where would you rate environmental issues on your priority list?
“It’s right up there. It’s not one of our key issues, but it’s very important to us. That, to me, goes to the local control issue. The current administration has let the DNR take over permitting, basically eroding property rights and local government rights.
“People that actually live on the land, and breathe the air and drink the water in a particular place, have a much better idea of how things should happen, and have a much bigger stake in the outcome.
Property rights Is a foundational principle in libertarianism, which is not one normally applied to the environment, but it should be and can be. We can have more protection [for the environment] If we have the right people making the decisions, people with skin in the game.”
Where would you rate climate change on your priority list?
As with environmental issues, Anderson said libertarians approach climate change with a strong understanding of property rights, and support for local control.
“It really is the idea of property rights,” he said.
“We like to support the idea that people have the right to be unpolluted, and to have respect for the idea that people actually have ownership rights in the environment,” he said.
Do you know what Line 61 is?
Anderson was not familiar with Line 61, the Enbridge pipeline running from Superior to Delavan. However, he said he is opposed to private corporations using eminent domain for oil pipelines, because it violates individual property rights.