State lawmakers across US organize to promote, defend liberty

Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) recently created a coalition of state lawmakers to fight unconstitutional policies.

The Hazlitt Coalition trains state legislators who advocate for “principled policies that free markets, protect civil liberties, and promote peace.” The group currently boasts 172 legislators from 37 states.

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Among the coalition’s policy priorities is the creation of decentralized markets characterized, the deregulation of the healthcare industry, support for gun rights.

Eric Brakey, a YAL senior spokesman who also served as a Maine state senator from 2014 to 2018, spoke with Campus Reform about the Hazlitt Coalition.

”[The Hazlitt Coalition] changed the game with an army of door-knocking liberty activists and a national infrastructure to identify, train, elect and hold accountable principled candidates for the state legislators,” Brakey said. 

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State Representative Erik Mortensen (R-MN) told Campus Reform that the coalition is necessary because “despite what the vast majority of citizens may think, there are very few legislators that actually place the preservation of liberty as their highest priority.”

“Everyone knows that elected officials swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution, yet the vast majority of legislators violate that oath while in pursuit of their own self-interest,” Mortensen said.

He added, “In most state legislatures, liberty-minded lawmakers are often outcasts, due to their sincere respect for our founding principles. Therefore, the Hazlitt Coalition provides its members an opportunity to belong somewhere, while also helping to strategize methods and tactics to both overcome the political establishment as well as make liberty win.”

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