Race for Congress: Drew Sakson

Race for Congress: Drew Sakson
Libertarian wants to end drug war, education dept.

Oct. 26, 2000

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer


	Drew Sakson, the Libertarian candidate for Congress, talks to a passerby as he campaigns.

If elected to Congress, Drew Sakson says he would travel the country drumming up a "ground-swelling of support that Congress can’t ignore" to eliminate the nation’s prohibition on marijuana. It’s not that Sakson, 42, smokes the illegal weed, it’s just that he is opposed to the "phenomenal amount of money we’ve spent to fight the failed war on drugs."

A self-described "Libertarian moderate," Sakson is running on the Libertarian ticket for the 3rd Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives against incumbent Scott McInnis. His top concerns include eliminating the federal estate tax (or "death tax") and the capital-gains tax, and slimming down the size of the federal government in general.

"From my point of view, I would consider myself a moderate Libertarian. We’re so often aligned with radical concepts, and that’s not at all my point of view. I’m a businessman and I understand the challenges of doing business," he explained.

After selling his hotel in South Beach, Fla., in 1993, Sakson traveled across the country in his motor home, eventually settling with his family in Carbondale, where he set up practice as a mortgage broker.

Sakson and his wife first drove into Colorado from New Mexico, where he said they were "awed by the beauty and the climate." He credits the Four Corners area and its treasure trove of Anasazi ruins as one of the reasons they moved to the state.

A registered Libertarian since 1978, Sakson believes in the power of competition and the free market. These economic beliefs even extend to eliminating federal subsidies for grazing livestock on public lands.

"The problem is that if the federal government gives one rancher a reduced rate on their grazing fees, where does the profit go? It goes to that one rancher. It seems very unfair to me that any individual would so greatly benefit and have an uncompetitive edge in the marketplace," he explained.

"I just don’t have any faith in the federal government trying to level the playing field for one guy or another. The federal government is giving the East Coast $400 million to ease their oil bills, and I suppose they haven’t heard that it gets a little chilly in Colorado from time to time," he said.

Sakson believes Clinton’s move to declare the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in June was just one more move to give the federal government more control over public lands. "They (the federal government) had it in their left pocket and they put it in their right pocket, and they did it so they would have more control."

He advocates giving private land trusts like the Nature Conservancy more control over public lands because the federal agencies in charge have used "environmentally unsound" methods.

But what gets Sakson rolling is talk of the projected federal surplus and cutting federal spending. "There’s no Social Security fund, the money is spent," he explained. "They talk about something called a surplus, but I don’t know how you can have a surplus when you’re $6 trillion in debt. That wouldn’t be a surplus in my house."

Sakson said Republican efforts to cut back on federal spending have been laughable, at best. "In 1995, Scotty (McInnis) and the boys promised us that they were going to eliminate 95 programs, and of the 95, none have been eliminated, and 93 of them have increased their spending," he explained.

Defense and infrastructure are areas Sakson believes are legitimate programs on which to spend taxpayer dollars, but he said the Department of Education should be eliminated.

"The money is better kept in the community rather than redistributed at any level," he explained. "If the state should have any influence on education it should solely be in the arena of the physical plant."

Although Sakson agrees it’s difficult for a third-party candidate to run against a heavily favored incumbent, he has garnered an endorsement from at least one unlikely corner. The Aspen Daily News reported that "smack in the middle of (Jack) Nicholson’s West End residence yard is a red, white and blue sign in support of Sakson. The sign reads: ‘Enough is Enough. Sakson for Congress.’"