National Chairman's Letter

October 1999

Dear Members and Friends of the Independent American Party,

On March 10 the Utah Independent American Party will hold its first IAP presidential primary ever. This may well be the only third party presidential primary for any state in the nation. The Utah Democratic and Republican parties will only allow registered members of their parties and unaffiliated voters to vote on their ballots. But the Utah IAP will allow all Utah voters, regardless of party or independent affiliation, to vote for its presidential candidates. The candidate filing deadline is January 17, the candidate filing fee is $500, and each of the three parties may restrict which candidates can be on its presidential primary ballot.

The IAP national officers and Utah state IAP Executive Committee met this month and discussed which candidates should be invited to participate in the Utah IAP presidential primary. The national party decides who can participate in the national convention, but the state party decides which candidates can participate in the state presidential primary. Our joint meeting concluded that we should invite commentator Pat Buchanan and Senator Bob Smith, both high profile candidates, to enter the primary. We also decided to invite Howard Phillips, the presidential nominee of the Constitution (formerly Taxpayers) Party; and Earl Dodge, the presidential nominee of the Prohibition Party, to participate. Several other names were also presented and agreed upon.

As national chairman, I will make the initial contact with each of these candidates or their campaigns. If they are interested, Utah IAP state chairman Will Christensen will then send a formal invitation. Not all of these candidates or individuals will be interested, but it may provide a shot of publicity for those who are -- particularly if they do well in the primary election. It should also draw attention to the national and Utah state IAP. One criteria we expect of the candidates is that they agree with the Mission and Principles of the Independent American Party!

On another note: Former Arizona Governor Evan Mecham has suggested that a Constitutionally-minded third party ought to adopt the U.S. Constitution as its platform. We discussed this idea at a recent national IAP Executive Committee meeting. The committee decided to propose this idea to the National Committee in January and to the National Convention in July. A variation of this idea is to adopt only the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the platform. We also felt that we should augment this with "position papers" to strengthen or clarify our views on various parts of the Constitution where the courts have distorted its interpretation over the years.

We invite you IAP members to write and submit short position papers to augment the Constitution-platform for the IAP. Please e-mail them to platform@usiap.org or send them via post to: IAP Platform, 793 West Green Oaks Drive, Murray, Utah 84123. Also please see the letter "Platform Papers’ Solicitation" on the www.usiap.org web site for some ideas.

Yours for Freedom!

Bruce Bangerter
IAP National Chairman