Lindstedt gets funds to file for gubernatorial bid

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By Jim Burrows
Daily News staff writer
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The chairman of the Newton County Libertarian Party has come up with the money to file for election as that party's nominee for governor, having borrowed the money. But at the same time he attempted to sue his own political party and the State of Missouri over election laws which required that he pay a $200 filing fee.

Monday Martin F. Lindstedt attempted to file for governor in Jefferson City. He was rejected by the Secretary of State's Office because he didn't have the filing fee. He attempted to file as a pauper and was told in order to appear on the ballot he would have to obtain signatures equal to .5 percent of the of the total voters in the last election.

Also this week, Lindstedt filed for reelection as Libertarian committeeman for the Granby Precinct. He requested his name be printed on the ballot as Martin "Lawsuit" Lindstedt.

Lindstedt wanted to challenge that election law and filed a "Petition for Judicial Review of Election Law" with the Missouri Supreme Court. That petition was returned to Lindstedt, who acts as his own attorney, because it did not cite a lower court decision that the higher court was supposed to review.

According to the Missouri Constitution, the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction in cases involving state statutes, Lindstedt's petition notes.

"All political parties on the Missouri ballot use a filing fee paid to them as a means of screening out political and ideological undesirables," wrote Lindstedt in his petition.

Lindstedt's petition says the Missouri Libertarian Party "is primarily at fault for this action," and that party's "official ideology is supposed to be in favor of personal freedom and responsibility."

"There are two factions within the Missouri Libertarian Party," Lindstedt wrote in his petition. "One consists of a militant faction, nicknamed the 'Shooters,' who want to take back individual rights away from the government by any means necessary, preferably through political and peaceful means first. There is another faction, called the '(deleted as offensive)' who wish to do nothing more than to sit around a restaurant beer-table, argue economics, politics, whine about how bad the government is and otherwise treat the state of Missouri as an extension of their own personal" playground.

Lindstedt, of Granby, will be vying for the Libertarian Party nomination for governor at the Aug. 6 Primary Election. J. Mark Oglesby, of Springfield, filed earlier.

The Neosho Daily News, Page 1
March 22, 1996.

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