State Leadership

David Chiodo is an independent activist, researcher and entrepreneur dedicated to promoting the principles of limited government, individual liberty and free markets. He is the founder of End The Fed Arkansas and serves on the national leadership team for the ETF movement.

David holds Bachelor of Business Administration degree and has worked in the Information Technology field for over 17 years.

As an “Oath Keeper”, David is committed to upholding and defending the Constitution.

Debrah Standiford is Chair of the Pulaski County Libertarian Party of Arkansas and a 2012 Libertarian Candidate for State Representative.

She is also a freelance graphic artist and founder of dooDLStudio.

She lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband and two beautiful children.

Greg Deckelman is a graduate of Little Rock Central High School and attended the University of Central Arkansas as music major. He is a political activist and a media and public relations team member for Occupy Little Rock. He makes his living as a musician, traveling the world playing everywhere from local gigs to sharing the stage with Grammy-nominated artists.

Greg also writes and produces music for film and television and he considers himself politically independent.

Dugan King is a former investment banker where he was introduced to the operations of the Federal Reserve while helping to market federal, state and municipal debts to private banks.

He has been a political activist since 1985 and introduced the “Fair Tax Plan” in a guest editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in July 1993.

Dugan also drafted the ArBuck plan, an alternative, parallel currency for the State of Arkansas.

Whitney Davis is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. However, she has also studied at the Baja California Language College Spanish Immersion Program, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, and the Service Learning Project (Study Abroad Program) in Belize.

She is the founder of the Faulkner County Campaign for Liberty and presently, the co-founder and president of Young Americans For Liberty, Fayetteville, AR. She works as the Electrical Engineering Recruiter for the College of Engineering at UA and has also been fortunate enough to intern for IEEE under the WISE program (wise-intern.org) as a Policy Research Associate and for Texas Instruments as an Applications Engineer.

Brian Shank is a member of the Libertarian and Republican Parties of Pulaski County in central Arkansas, and has been active with the Campaign for Liberty and the Pulaski County Tea Party.

He is an ardent supporter of voting method reform, and works to bring awareness to citizens about the tremendous importance of this issue. He is a biology major who works in a basic research laboratory in Little Rock, AR.

He Enjoys hiking, bicycling, working out, reading, and book clubs.

Jacob Holloway is a free lance political activist and U.S. Congressional candidate for the Arkansas Green Party in 2012. Jacob received his Bachelors in agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and a Masters in agricultural science and economics at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

He is currently pursuing a PhD in aquaculture and fisheries at the University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff. Jacob is firmly committed to revitalizing local food markets and community agriculture and has written numerous essays and lectures citing the need for agricultural policy and Farm Bill reform. He has worked on various state-wide and local campaigns in Arkansas and is a seasoned political organizer.

Kenneth Wallis has been a conservative activist who was part of the effort in defeating Arkansas House Bill HB1525 an in-state tuition for illegal aliens bill that was supported by the leadership of both parties. During the 2011 Arkansas Legislative Session, Wallis led the effort in defeating the bi-partisan bill HB1450, The Carbon Dioxide Storage Act as well as the North Little Rock Sales Tax of 2011.

Presently, Wallis does videotaping, photographing, writing, speaking, blogging, & other conservative activism in Arkansas state, county, & city politics.

Eileen Walton is the At-Large Representative for the Libertarian Party of Arkansas and served as Arkansas State Director for the 2012 Gary Johnson presidential campaign.

A graduate of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, she has experience in human resource management and college career services and is currently employed in the software industry.

Richard Winger is the leading advocate for reforming restrictive ballot access laws across the nation. Winger is the editor and publisher of Ballot Access News, a newsletter covering Independent and Third Parties, as well as developments in election law reform. Ballot Access News is published monthly and is available online at www.ballot-access.org.

John Mertens is active in Connecticut independent politics, and has helped many third party candidates get on the ballot in that state. He believes the single biggest threat to our democratic process is the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” ruling, which continues to increase the huge influence that money and international corporations have on our governance. He is a Professor of Engineering at Trinity College (Hartford) who also teaches courses related to public policy and environmental science.

Christina Tobin is the Founder of Free & Equal Elections Foundation. As Ralph Nader’s national ballot access coordinator in 2008, she helped gather over 500,000 signatures to ensure that voters had a choice in who they cast their vote for. She has secured ballot lines for numerous independent candidates and alternative political parties including the Constitution, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Republican and Socialist Equality parties. Christina is also CEO of Free & Equal Inc.

Ginny Saville has been interested in politics since college and got involved supporting Ron Paul in 2007. Ginny is a member of Take Back Kentucky and has been working on opening primaries and restoring voting rights to felons. She became politically active years ago on her own by registering people to vote and collecting signatures for third party candidates – so Free & Equal is right up her alley

Chris Silva is a political activist and organizer from Grand Rapids Michigan.

He served as state coordinator in Michigan for the Nader/Gonzalez campaign in 2008. His interests include working to cross ideological lines and unite minor parties around common values, such as electoral reform, drug policy reform, and an end to militarism in American foreign policy.

Gigi Bowman is a Real Estate Agent, Wife, Mother and Founder of www.liberty-candidates.org.

She started the Long Island Ron Paul 2008 and Campaign For Liberty Meetups, and has served as Suffolk County Coordinator for the CFL.

She presently manages liberty-candidates.org, which which vets and endorses candidates from all parties for all offices, national and local, helping voters determine who is liberty minded, using a vetting committee of 125 liberty activists.

Gary Kutcher is a political activist who has advocated peace, social justice, civil rights, environmental protection, and electoral reform since the Vietnam War. He has worked as a magazine publisher and editor, a video producer, a musician and a community organizer.

From Gary’s earliest days as a concerned activist opposing the destructive wars in Vietnam and Southeast Asia to his recent work as Executive Director for Sustainable Forestry Network, he has been a leader in pushing for win-win solutions to social, political and environmental challenges in our communities.

Gary has worked for many years with Eugene PeaceWorks, speaking out for an end to immoral wars in Central America, Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Gary has always stood up for the oppressed, the poor and those less fortunate and has promoted practical solutions to the problems of poverty, hunger, homelessness, domestic violence and drug addiction. He enjoys gardening, photography, reading and hiking in his spare time.

North Carolina

Jordon M. Greene is the Founder and President of Free the Vote North Carolina, a non-partisan political action committee dedicated to protecting freedom of speech, association and the right of every North Carolinian to vote  through reforming ballot access laws and other legal barriers to equal political participation. He is a founding member of the Constitution Party of North Carolina and a co-chair of the Party’s Ballot Access Committee.

Greene is currently involved in challenging the constitutionality of North Carolina’s ballot access laws that restrict access to unaffiliated candidates in the Fourth Circuit of Appeals Court (Bryan E. Greene v Gary O. Bartlett). Jordon is a Political Science major at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Justin Jeffre is best known as a singer in the multiplatinum recording group 98 Degrees, but since 2005 he’s worked in both independent media and independent politics. He’s mostly focused on public policy issues in his hometown, Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2007 he helped organize the We Demand A Vote Coalition with the NAACP and groups from across the political spectrum, in order to repeal a sales tax that was imposed by Hamilton County Commissioners to build a new jail.

In 2008 he worked on the Nader for President campaign as a ballot access coordinator in Illinois, Arizona and Ohio. Jeffre has continued to work with the NAACP and the We Demand A Vote Coalition on numerous ballot initiative campaigns each year – all of which have been successful in achieving ballot access.

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Oklahoma

 Micah Gamino is a longtime civil rights activist in Oklahoma working primarily on the issue of ballot access reform. In 2004, Micah pushed for the formation of a coalition of Oklahoma’s minor political parties, Oklahomans for Ballot Access Reform, to combat what are widely considered the nation’s strictest requirements for state recognition of a new party. (Oklahoma is the only state in the union where only the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates appeared on its ballots in 2004, 2008, and 2012, while having no write-in voting option.)

Micah was Free & Equal’s national media director from 2009-2010. Since then, he’s pursued a PhD in Rhetoric & Professional Writing at Oklahoma State University where he is researching the rhetorical strategies of minor political parties and the metaphorical conceptualization of the scope, or “spectrum,” of political ideologies in America.

Kaylee Campbell Burton is Public Relations Director for the Free and Equal Elections Foundation. Her experience ranges from magazine and web editorial to non-profit public relations and activism. As president and founder of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter at the University of Oklahoma, the first student organization of its kind in the state, she led the organization of the first successful University hosted teach-in aimed at promoting political and civic involvement. Burton continues as a volunteer adviser to developing chapters at colleges across the state. Kaylee has her sights set on pursuing a Master of Public Policy and Administration, and thereafter, running for public office.

Amy Masgai is an entrenched West Coast Girl, having spent time in California and Washington, she now makes her home in Oregon. Like the state motto of Oregon, Amy flies with the Spirit of her own wings and loves the Wild Wild West.

In addition to a long professional career in higher education administration, theater, and new media, she has also has an extensive background in community service.

When she was 10, she began what has been a life time of service, by volunteering with the Spokane Veterans Hospital. She has volunteered for numerous organizations, including the Red Cross, Seattle Film Festival, Henry Art Museum, Free Arts for Abused Children, German Shepherd Rescue of Los Angeles, Oregon Food Bank, Oregon Humane Shelter, and the Friendly House, she currently actively volunteers with the Friends of Tryon Creek and the Gladstone Public Library. In her professional work, she has worked for both private and community colleges, as well as Universal Studios.

Amy credits her political awakening to Governor Gary Johnson and Judge Jim Gray’s honest campaign, exclusion from the Presidential Debates, and media censorship. Through their campaign, and extensive research and study, she realizes all of us must take up the fight for Liberty. Amy is so excited to serve with Free and Equal, to help others work to reclaim an election process that supports we the people. When Amy is not looking for her next career goal and volunteering, she is practicing yoga, walking, cooking, writing, or giving back to the world around her. She shares a lovely home with her Partner and two cats just outside of Portland.

Jordan Romanus is a field organizer for Working America. He has worked on numerous political issues, some of which include Ralph Nader’s 2008 presidential run, the Ohioans for Humane Farms ballot initiative, and more recently as an organizer for SEIU. Romanus started his political ambitions with co-founding the University of Pittsburgh chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.

As the Pennsylvania State Caucus Leader, Romanus plans on restoring power back to the people and ensuring civic participation in the political arena of the commonwealth.

 Lou Jasikoff is a member of the Luzerne Campaign for Liberty and NEPA Tea Party. He is currently Chair for Pennsylvania Libertarian Party and former Chair of the New Jersey Libertarian Party.

He ran for Congress in 2006, in New Jersey’s 8th Congressional District.

Lou has a degree in Accounting from Fordham University.

Colleen McCool is a portrait artist, poet and peace activist who lives deep in the heart of Texas. The real visionaries, who laid down America’s laws, those who defined what an American patriot would be, were rebels with just cause.

Since 2006 McCool has awarded two free portraits yearly, each dedicated to the freedom philosophy or the American dream of self-government; freedom from big government tyranny and oppression. Colleen calls it the, “Rebel with Just Cause Award.” True American patriotism is a willingness to shoulder our duty, to challenge the government when it’s wrong, to be a Rebel with Just Cause!

Dan Eckam is an activist and web developer in Austin, Texas. He is Travis County Chair of the Justice Party of Texas, which he joined in 2012 to support Rocky Anderson’s candidacy for President. He has long supported the third-party movement and has written about how Americans can break free of the two-party system.

He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, with a BFA in studio art and a BS in computer sciences. He has been a Texan since the age of two, and an Austinite since 1987.

 Joseph Oddo is a professional writer and the Executive Director of the Citizens Alliance for Better Candidates. A Public Policy major from Penn State, Oddo has been on the ballot for congress as an independent three times. Over 10 years, Oddo has advocated for peace, Safe & Free Resolutions, the FairTax and the National Election Reform Platform.

He has managed political campaigns from school board to independent presidential candidates. He is currently managing the Karen Kwiatkowski for Congress campaign in Virginia’s sixth district.

 Dena Cottle has been a supporter of independent candidates since the Perot campaign in 1992. She worked as a volunteer petitioner and Virginia State Coordinator for the Nader/Camejo campaign in 2004 and the Nader/Gonzalez campaign in 2008.

Washington

 Linde Knighton was born in Upstate New York, and has gradually moved across the US to Washington (Seattle). She worked as a Title and Real Estate Tax Searcher, and then as a Fundraiser for various political and arts non-profits.

She is currently Chair of the Progressive Party of Washington, and on the Advisory Board for American Progressives United Party.

Karen Murray is an author/writer, mother of six grown children and grandmother of 14. She is a graduate of George Wythe University with a degree in Statesmanship, currently serving as Vice-chairman and Communications Director for the Constitution Party of Washington. Having lived in four states and one foreign country, she has seen the need for a Free and Equal election process for all points of view to have the opportunity to express their opinions in the public forum. She has experience with both the Washington State Tenth Amendment Coalition and Washington State 3rd Party Coalition, working to build bridges of commonality between many philosophically differing organizations. Karen looks forward to working to improve ballot access and election laws within the State of Washington.