Gail Lightfoot is a widow and retired professional nurse
United States SenateCandidate for Senator
Gail K. Lightfoot
Retired Registered Nurse
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My Top 3 Priorities
- My first priority is bringing together the issues of sustainability, local action and social justice to relieve groups denied the basic requirements for life, promised to them as a trust by the nation they served. Among the most eggregious examples
- My second priority is to hold the oil companies accountable for long term damage to the health of people and the Earth, this often focused in minority areas. The missing links that have allowed oil companies to evade being held responsible include t
- My third priority, though it is close to my heart, is the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. It is simple justice long over due.
Experience
Experience
Profession:Retired professional nurse
RN, Hospitals and Agencies in the Los Angeles area (1961–1997)
Home Health Care and Home IV Therapy, Arroyo Grande Hospital (1995–1996)
ICU, MICU, ER RN, San Dimas Hospital (1979–1980)
Education
California community colleges — Political Science, Early Childhood Education (1988)
Los Angeles County Hospital School of Nursing 3 year Diploma program — Nursing (1959)
Community Activities
Leadeship, Libertarian Party of California (1980–current)
Membership Chair, Basin Street Regulars - Dixiland Jazz Associatin (2015–current)
Local President, American Associatin of Critical Care Nurses AACN (1976–1976)
Biography
Who supports this candidate?
Featured Endorsements
Individuals (1)
Questions & Answers
Questions from The League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and California Counts, a public media collaboration. (6)
Do you support the use of a federal carbon tax on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the use of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil and natural gas) as a means to both slow climate change and to reduce the deficit? Why or why not?
Answer from Gail K. Lightfoot:
Taxes are simply another way to use force for compliance to some standard set by others. I prefer to see the business world study and develop new technologies that benefit everyone over time. I trust inquiring minds to come up with solutions for good practical reasons that improve our standard of living while protecting the environment without federal mandates.
What is your stand on gun control laws at the federal level? Please explain the reasoning behind your position.
Answer from Gail K. Lightfoot:
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to Individuals. That Right is inviolate! It is impossible to prevent any harm to others by regulating ownership of guns. Danger exists so, as individuals, we must have the ability to defend ourselves against danger.
Is the Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement good for California? Would you vote to support it? Please explain why or why not.
Answer from Gail K. Lightfoot:
This Treaty is a very long complicated document with the potential for a huge impact on our country. Careful study is needed to determine if this treaty is what we need and want. I would rely on experts as well as my personal study of each word and phrase in order to make an informed decision.
At the federal level, should recreational marijuana be legalized? Why or why not?
Answer from Gail K. Lightfoot:
Yes! In fact, cannabis and Hemp [for its uses as fiber] should be legal along with many other controlled substances. The government should not be in the business of telling Americans what to plant, harvest, eat, drink, smoke, ingest in any other way or sell to others. Those choices are up to the individual with the help of personal research, educators, counselors and physicians.
The Federal Government plays a part in California water allocation and use through a variety of laws. What, if any, legislation would you support in an effort to handle water shortages caused by the current and any future drought?
Answer from Gail K. Lightfoot:
1: The Federal Government plays a part in California water allocation and use through a variety of laws. What, if any, legislation would you support in an effort to handle water shortages caused by the current and any future drought?
The history of government water projects in the State of California is one of taxation to finance dams, canals, and pipelines. This is exactly why California is currently facing a severe shortage of water for its residents and farmers.
California has postponed converting to a more sustainable water policy. There will be costs involved but California cannot avoid embracing every possible solution. Adopting the latest technology reducing water use in every way possible can ensure the survival of the smallest water dependent animal or plant, each resident and farmer on up to the largest company or corporation operating in the state.
Congress will have to take a step back so that California can solve its water problems according to the needs and wishes of Californians. I will ask my fellow Senators to allow California to solve its water and other problems in its own way with the cooperation of neighboring states.
Should immigration laws be changed? What changes would you support? Please explain why.
Answer from Gail K. Lightfoot:
I support more open immigration. Our goal should be a system that allows us to know who is here, why they are here and what they are really doing here. It should not be based on where an individual is from, what religion the individual accepts or some number per country or skill. We are a nation of immigrants known for welcoming those seeking to be free. We must continue to be that nation!
Who gave money to this candidate?
Contributions
More information about contributions
Source: MapLight analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission.
Political Beliefs
Political Philosophy
As a high school student, Gail found politics and gov't profoundly interesting and recognized the importance of both in our everyday lives. It was perfectly natural for her to take an interest in elections beginning with casting her first vote while still a high school senior. Her last name being on the Declaration of Independence was no small influence.
Later, after completing a 3 year program for a diploma in nursing from the Los Angeles County Hospital School of Nursing, she joined the Young Americans for Freedom, the Young Republicans and the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Pasadena, CA. This would have a profound effect on her thinking later in life.
In 1964, Lightfoot was one of many young political activists who were very pleasantly surprised when Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination for president. After all, Pasadena had always been a conservative - in its most elemental form, that is to say, unchanging and unwilling to change the status quo - Republican community. The young, political conservatives were definitely outside mainstream Republican thinking. 'How dare they go against us and our money?' was the prevailing sentiment.
She spent 1964 in a solidly Republican community, Westfield New Jersey, where no household would accept a Goldwater brochure, a disillusioning experience.
Lightfoot left the Republican after the Goldwater campaign, never to return. She welcomed and joined the LP as a Charter Member in 1972 delighted to be in the first mailings of the new party advocating Individual Liberty.
Reading National Review, Lightfoot watched the ideas of free markets and individual rights be misapplied over the last forty-five years. She began to realize what is today called a Free Market is truly nothing of the kind. What we have today is a heavily regulated by gov't market that benefits some over others.
This has created the system as it is today, allowing those with money and influence to manipulate the system of gov't rules and regulations to profit both inside, and outside, of government. Real competition is now a thing of the past.
The principles of individual freedom were suborned and distorted by corporatism to misdirect what began as a grass-roots movement into a political tool for increased corporate control of the market. This has led to the a pervasive distrust of corporations manifested by numerous political groups and movements today.
Redefining words, such as took place with the word, “Conservative.” and the later adaptation of the word, Neoconservative has taken place rapidly. This misuse was augmented by the political philosophy and rationalizations justifying deceit and manipulation in the quest for power and money through the use of government.
These distortions fed into the creation of a public relations infrastructure which, today, continues to main stream these redefinitions of America's founding vision, as laid out in our vision statement, the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.
These ideas and principles are the origin and basis for the movements for social justice in the Nineteenth Century, Conservatism, and Libertarianism.
Through her candidacy Gail rejects the use of the Libertarian movement to advocate for corporate personhood and the use of government in ways which violate the original vision for America. She advocates for the return to America's original goals of individual rights, local control, and community.
Personal Note:
As the mother of three children, the grandmother of six and the great-grandmother of five, the future we leave to the next generation matters to me for many, many reasons. Working for their freedom has always been my focus.
Later, after completing a 3 year program for a diploma in nursing from the Los Angeles County Hospital School of Nursing, she joined the Young Americans for Freedom, the Young Republicans and the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Pasadena, CA. This would have a profound effect on her thinking later in life.
In 1964, Lightfoot was one of many young political activists who were very pleasantly surprised when Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination for president. After all, Pasadena had always been a conservative - in its most elemental form, that is to say, unchanging and unwilling to change the status quo - Republican community. The young, political conservatives were definitely outside mainstream Republican thinking. 'How dare they go against us and our money?' was the prevailing sentiment.
She spent 1964 in a solidly Republican community, Westfield New Jersey, where no household would accept a Goldwater brochure, a disillusioning experience.
Lightfoot left the Republican after the Goldwater campaign, never to return. She welcomed and joined the LP as a Charter Member in 1972 delighted to be in the first mailings of the new party advocating Individual Liberty.
Reading National Review, Lightfoot watched the ideas of free markets and individual rights be misapplied over the last forty-five years. She began to realize what is today called a Free Market is truly nothing of the kind. What we have today is a heavily regulated by gov't market that benefits some over others.
This has created the system as it is today, allowing those with money and influence to manipulate the system of gov't rules and regulations to profit both inside, and outside, of government. Real competition is now a thing of the past.
The principles of individual freedom were suborned and distorted by corporatism to misdirect what began as a grass-roots movement into a political tool for increased corporate control of the market. This has led to the a pervasive distrust of corporations manifested by numerous political groups and movements today.
Redefining words, such as took place with the word, “Conservative.” and the later adaptation of the word, Neoconservative has taken place rapidly. This misuse was augmented by the political philosophy and rationalizations justifying deceit and manipulation in the quest for power and money through the use of government.
These distortions fed into the creation of a public relations infrastructure which, today, continues to main stream these redefinitions of America's founding vision, as laid out in our vision statement, the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.
These ideas and principles are the origin and basis for the movements for social justice in the Nineteenth Century, Conservatism, and Libertarianism.
Through her candidacy Gail rejects the use of the Libertarian movement to advocate for corporate personhood and the use of government in ways which violate the original vision for America. She advocates for the return to America's original goals of individual rights, local control, and community.
Personal Note:
As the mother of three children, the grandmother of six and the great-grandmother of five, the future we leave to the next generation matters to me for many, many reasons. Working for their freedom has always been my focus.
Position Papers
War for profit and treason.
Summary
The wars American is engaged in today are not based on defending our country.
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are resulting in more violence. Those who lied us into war have violated both the Constitution and committed Treason against our country and war crimes against other nations and people.
ISIS is populated by a remnant of the military who followed Saddam Hussein and people who grew up in the world we created for them by imposing violent war for the profit of the corporations. As is always the case, the violation of the rights of individuals, unacknowledged and therefore never healed, results in rationalizations for more of the same.
The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere were carried out for the profit of the oil companies and other participants in the Military-Industrial Complex. Assisting them in these crimes were agencies of the United States government, including the CIA. There must be accountability and restitution made - not by the American people, who are also victims, but by the corporations and individuals within government who abused the power entrusted to them.
We call for an investigation of those working within the Bush Administration, all those they engaged with to bring on the wars, and all events which lead up to the call for war against Iraq who, demonstrably, was not involved in 9/11. We further call for all of those who lied to the American people, thus profiting from the conspiracy, to be charged with treason and prosecuted to the full extend of the law for treason, murder and mayhem.
ISIS and Slavery
The The The the acts of those who brought ISIS into being, funded what is actually a war machine disguised behind a misstatement of Islam are crimes. Those who planned these acts or have participated are guilty of war crimes and must be prosecuted as such.
Enslaving women and children and exploiting them for labor or sex must stop. Those enslaved must be freed, made safe, and compensated for the atrocities they have suffered. Those guilty of setting the existence of ISIS in motion, specifically Saudi Arabia and any other participants, must pay these reparations.
National Security
Our security as a nation and our rights as individuals are both threatened by the criminal actions of those who have converted government and war as tools for their own profits. Our focus for National Security must be the prosecution of those responsible.
ISIS is populated by a remnant of the military who followed Saddam Hussein and people who grew up in the world we created for them by imposing violent war for the profit of the corporations. As is always the case, the violation of the rights of individuals, unacknowledged and therefore never healed, results in rationalizations for more of the same.
The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere were carried out for the profit of the oil companies and other participants in the Military-Industrial Complex. Assisting them in these crimes were agencies of the United States government, including the CIA. There must be accountability and restitution made - not by the American people, who are also victims, but by the corporations and individuals within government who abused the power entrusted to them.
We call for an investigation of those working within the Bush Administration, all those they engaged with to bring on the wars, and all events which lead up to the call for war against Iraq who, demonstrably, was not involved in 9/11. We further call for all of those who lied to the American people, thus profiting from the conspiracy, to be charged with treason and prosecuted to the full extend of the law for treason, murder and mayhem.
ISIS and Slavery
The The The the acts of those who brought ISIS into being, funded what is actually a war machine disguised behind a misstatement of Islam are crimes. Those who planned these acts or have participated are guilty of war crimes and must be prosecuted as such.
Enslaving women and children and exploiting them for labor or sex must stop. Those enslaved must be freed, made safe, and compensated for the atrocities they have suffered. Those guilty of setting the existence of ISIS in motion, specifically Saudi Arabia and any other participants, must pay these reparations.
National Security
Our security as a nation and our rights as individuals are both threatened by the criminal actions of those who have converted government and war as tools for their own profits. Our focus for National Security must be the prosecution of those responsible.
QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE
Summary
I believe enabling people to pick and choose between competiing health insurance plans will allow quality, accessible, affordable health care to be more available to our families, children and seniors.
To ensure that all citizens can access adequate, affordable health care, we must increase the supply of health care, remove barriers to a free market and encourage competition.
When people purchase their own independent health plan covering the services they need and allowing for less out of pocket visits to their doctor, they are more secure and less dependent on others.
When an individual has more control over their own health care and is less dependent upon a third party, they become empowered to be assertive consumers of health care.
It is a proven fact that there is a greater interest in price information and demand for price transparency from consumers as their cost-sharing responsibilities increase. This results in more competition that keeps health care affordable and of high quality.
Therefore, I, as a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, support the following measures to make quality, affordable health care accessible to all citizens:
- Health insurance premiums, co-payments, deductibles and all medical expenses shall be deducted directly from income without having to meet any standard deduction.
- A Medical Savings Account shall be established to be used for medical purposes in which up to 10% of income shall be deductible but without limitation on contributions.
- Barriers to price transparency shall be removed to empower consumers and to encourage efficiency of care and competitive pricing.
I, support the following measures to increase the supply of quality affordable health care by increasing the numbers of medical professionals, facilities and medical non-profit and for-profit organizations:
- Eliminate or greatly simplify all state medical regulations and licensing standards which impede the supply of health care. Replace the state monopoly on regulation and licensing with an open market for testing and review of products and services to ensure more accurate, timely and cost-effective ratings and controls on quality.
- Provide tax credits, exclusions and above-the-line deductions (without "percentage of income" limits) for medical education, educational savings accounts, charitable contributions to medical schools, facilities, service providers, medical research and construction of medical facilities.
- Streamline permit processes and zoning variances for construction of medical facilities and schools.
- Reclaim our Tenth Amendment right to control pharmaceuticals distributed within the state. Reduce the function of the Food & Drug Association to a merely advisory capacity rather than a licensing authority. Allow drugs which have been proven to be safe to be marketed even if not yet proven effective. Allow patients access to unapproved drugs upon informed consent.
EDUCATION FOR A MODERN AGE
Summary
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance of the preservation of our Liberty,” Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
The founding fathers believed everyone should have a good education but they feared the tyranny of a central authority. For this reason, they left control of the schools to individual states/communities and made no mention of education in the Constitution.
Today the Federal government not only has a Cabinet level Department of Education, it is seriously considering mandatory taxpayer funded preschools for all children. States are handed federal dollars and required to spend more meeting federal standards than they receive. For every $13 in funding, a school has to spend $15 meeting federal guidelines. This alone is reason enough to end federal interference in education.
We, as a society, need to wake up to the opportunities we have to personalize the education of each and every child in the U.S. It is time to take the technology of the 21st century and put it to use advancing the ability of every American to live, learn and earn a living using their knowledge and skills. Such learning can continue for a lifetime allowing each of us to gain new knowledge and skills as we wish and need.
Education no longer needs to be carried out in classrooms with neat rows of polite children listening to a teacher explaining what they are expected to know. The tools for completely individualized learning are there for the using. Now is the time to make the change.
I am an advocate for private, individualized educational models. This means I support private schools, Charter schools, Independent Study, Home Schooling, Computer learning or Un-Schooling, whatever works for the individual and their family or guardian. The goal is to instill a love of learning and the tools needed to learn throughout life.
To this end, I would seek to abolish the federal Dept of Education encouraging the states to advance educational opportunities according to local needs.
As a method of transition from government schools to freedom of choice in education, I support vouchers so tax money follows each child to the choice of schools during their learning years.
For every individual, there is a learning method that works for them if not others. As a society, we must give learners freedom to find and use what works for them.
Who else is running?
- Jason Hanania
- Eleanor García
- Don J. Grundmann
- Duf Sundheim
- Pamela Elizondo
- Mike Beitiks
- Jerry J. Laws
- Massie Munroe
- Ron Unz
- Tim Gildersleeve
- Herbert G. Peters
- Gar Myers
- Ling Ling Shi
- Von Hougo
- President Cristina Grappo
- Kamala D. Harris
- Jarrell Williamson
- John Thompson Parker
- Clive Grey
- Paul Merritt
- George C. Yang
- Greg Conlon
- Mark Matthew Herd
- Jason Kraus
- Steve Stokes
- Thomas G. Del Beccaro
- Ric M. Llewellyn
- Alexis Stuart
- Phil Wyman
- Loretta L. Sanchez
- Gail K. Lightfoot
- Scott A. Vineberg
- Emory Rodgers
- Billy Falling
- Tom Palzer
- Karen Roseberry
- Don Krampe
