Senate candidate Dreher hosts “For Liberty” rally

“If you’re newer to the ‘freedom train,’ don’t think you’re beating a dead horse. Keep it up,” Williams said. “You will find like-minded people.

“The great thing about a libertarian is they can work on both sides of the aisle on social and fiscal issues, if they’re a true libertarian – and I think Catherine Dreher is a true libertarian.”

In what might become one of the hot-button issues of the general election, strategist Eapen Thampy of Great State Strategies described what he thought was the “overwhelming corruption in the licensing process” that dominates Amendment 3, the marijuana legalization act that will be on the ballot in November, and why voters should say “no” to it.

Thampy said Amendment 3, which is 40 pages long, would create a monopoly for medical marijuana businesses to enter the recreational market, which discouraged minority ownership from the beginning. It would also allow law enforcement to stop and cite consumers for smoking in public, set felony possession limits and create government databases for those who want to home grow.

“These are the same people who lobbied against legalization in any form altogether – and now they’re lobbying to corner the market,” Thampy said. “We shouldn’t be excluding people from this market. We should be including and cultivating and protecting this market.”

Dreher said marijuana legalization will eventually happen, but it shouldn’t happen with Amendment 3.

“I’m all for legalizing marijuana, but not this way,” she said. “We need to do things a better way than this. How many people are going to read 40 pages of material?”

Tom Martz of the Locke and Smith Foundation said voters need a representative who actually knows the laws in the Missouri Constitution, for the leaders in Jefferson City have violated it too many times.

“If you don’t know what’s in (the Missouri Constitution), how do you know what to complain about?” Martz said. “(Our representatives) don’t read it. You don’t read it, so how you can hold them accountable when they violate the state constitution?”

Former House District 109 Representative Paul Curtman delivered a fiery speech about staying true to one’s beliefs, drawing from his experiences in Jefferson City.

“If you are contending for liberty, you are a philosopher. You are contending for what you believe,” said Curtman, who served in the General Assembly from 2011 to 2019. “There are people both in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. who are pretending to believe in something, but they really don’t know what they believe.”

Curtman said libertarians like Dreher have a shot at winning the election, but the cause for liberty cannot move forward if people waver in their beliefs.

“We can win election after election, but we cannot move the needle for liberty if we cannot win the argument,” Curtman said.

Dreher said her case is a simple one against Republican Travis Fitzwater.

“My principles don’t waver,” she said. “My principles are based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and they’re so simple, it’s stupid.

“You have to ask: how have we botched this up?”