Ronald Ernest “Ron” Paul (born 20 August 1935) is an American physician, congressman and presidential candidate from the U.S. state of Texas. A Republican, he has represented Texas’s 14th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997, and had previously served as the representative from Texas’s 22nd district in 1976 and from 1979 to 1985.

In 1984, Paul ran in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Tower, but the nomination went to Phil Gramm. Paul also supported term limits for members of Congress at the time and likened himself to the famous Senator Robert A. Taft. Paul was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in the 1988 election. After his failed presidential bid, Paul returned to Congress in 1997. He was again elected as a Republican, but against the wishes of the party leadership, which had backed Paul’s primary opponent. His opponent in the primary was the incumbent representative. On 11 January 2007, Paul announced the formation of an exploratory committee for a 2008 presidential campaign. He formally declared his candidacy 12 March 2007 as a guest on Washington Journal on C-SPAN.

Early Life and Education

Paul was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Howard Caspar Paul and Margaret Paul. He graduated from Dormont High School in Dormont, Pennsylvania, in 1953. Paul attended Gettysburg College, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1957, and the Duke University School of Medicine, receiving M.D. in 1961. He did his internship and residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit from 1961 to 1962, and was a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1963 to 1968. Paul completed obstetrics and gynecology training at the University of Pittsburgh while in the Air Force from 1965 1968, and in 1968 he and his wife Carol moved to Surfside Beach, Texas.

Early Political Career

He became a delegate to the Texas state Republican convention in 1974. He was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for election to Congress in 1974 against the incumbent Democrat Robert R. Casey. When President Gerald R. Ford appointed Casey as head of the Federal Maritime Commission, a special election was held in April 1976 to replace him. Paul won that election but lost six months later in the general election to Democrat Robert A. Gammage. He then defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch. Paul won new terms in 1980 and 1982. He was the first congressman to propose term limit legislation for the House of Representatives. Paul was an unsuccessful candidate for US Senate in the 1984 GOP primary. In 1985, Paul returned to medical practice. He was succeeded by Tom DeLay.

In 1988, Paul won the nomination of the Libertarian Party for the U.S. Presidency. He placed third in the popular vote (with 431,750 votes - 0.47%), behind George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis.

Return to Congress

In 1996, Paul was again elected to the House as a Republican. Mainstream Republican Party figures backed the incumbent, Greg Laughlin, a conservative Democrat representative who had switched parties in the wake of the Republican takeover of Congress. Laughlin attempted to portray Paul’s views as extreme and eccentric, but Paul won the primary and went on to win the general election.

Leaders of the Texas Republican Party made similar efforts to defeat him in 1998, but he again won the primary and the election. The Republican congressional leadership then agreed to a compromise: Paul votes with the Republicans on procedural matters and remains nominally Republican in exchange for the committee assignments normally due according to his seniority. This is arguably similar to the deal that Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont had with the Democratic Party (though Jeffords was elected as a Republican and was officially an independent until his retirement in January 2007). Paul was convincingly re-elected in 2000 and 2002. He was elected unopposed in 2004 to his ninth term in the Congress, and was re-elected again in 2006 by a 20-point margin. He is a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Political Affiliations and Support

Ron Paul joined the Libertarian Party in 1987 as a lifetime member, a status which he appears never to have renounced. Though only elected to Congress as a Republican, Paul remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and has addressed its national convention as recently as 2004.

Libertarian Party spokesman George Getz said that thousands of libertarians across the United States donated money to Ron Paul’s campaign funds. Campaign disclosures reveal that 71.4 percent of contributions to Paul’s coffers come from outside his home state of Texas. Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions (92.5% in 2004 and 96.8% in 2006) from individuals.

Paul is also a former national chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus, the libertarian wing of the Republican Party.

Political Positions

Ron Paul professes a Constitutionalist (limited government), libertarian ideology, and opposes presidential and judicial autonomy. He regularly votes against almost all proposals for government spending, initiatives, or taxes, and his frequent dissents in otherwise unanimous votes have irritated some of his Republican colleagues and have earned him the nickname “Dr. No” (an example being his dissenting vote in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act where he was one of three Representatives voting against it). Ron Paul has voiced support for re-opening the 9/11 investigation and has called the 9/11 Commission Report a “charade.”

Congressman Paul advocates a strict non-interventionist foreign policy that avoids entangling alliances. He voted against the Iraq War Resolution, which authorized the war, and continues to condemn the US presence in Iraq, and what he charges is the use of the war on terror to curtail civil liberties. He is currently speaking against the “dangerous military confrontation approaching with Iran and supported by many in leadership on both sides of the aisle”. He has also broken with his party by voting against the Patriot Act in 2001 and again in 2005, and is opposed to reintroduction of the military draft. He opposes political organizations that override U.S. sovereignty such as the International Criminal Court, United Nations, and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. He thus supports withdrawal of funds and the end of participation in such organizations.

His base of support has been among conservative and libertarian Republicans, but after 9/11 he has gained some strong support from liberal Democrats in central Texas because of his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq. As an example of this shift, the Austin Chronicle newspaper, a liberal alternative weekly newspaper in Austin, Texas, described his views as erratic in 2000. After 9/11 though, the Chronicle took a much more favorable view of Paul, praising him for his strong principled opposition to the Iraq War.

He has spoken out against torture, and the abuse of executive authority in the Iraq War to override human rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

In a recent speech before the House of Representatives, Paul expressed his concern about the possibility of an Iran War. He claimed that the current circumstances with Iran are similar to those under which the Iraq War began, and urged Congress not to authorize a war with Iran.

He is a proponent of free trade, although he has opposed some “free trade agreements”. He opposes these agreements as being “managed trade” controlled by an international trade organization. He voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), claiming that it increased the size of government, eroded US sovereignty and was unconstitutional.

Ron Paul believes that the federal government has been neglecting its constitutional responsibility to protect its own borders, and concentrating instead on unconstitutionally policing foreign countries.

He has taken some positions on foreign policy issues that some libertarians do not commonly hold. He opposes illegal immigration, and has called for an amendment to end a constitutional loophole that grants automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants. He has expressed concerns that welfare and other aid programs have made the US a magnet for illegals, and that uncontrolled immigration is increasing welfare payments and exacerbating the strain on an already highly unbalanced federal budget.

Paul believes that all immigrants should be treated fairly and equally under the law. He has spoken strongly against amnesty for illegal immigrants because it undermines the rule of law and grants pardons to lawbreakers.

Paul opposes virtually all federal interference with the market process. He supports the abolition of the income tax, most Cabinet departments and the Federal Reserve. His opposition to the Federal Reserve is supported by an economic theory known as Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which holds that instead of containing inflation, the Federal Reserve, in theory and in practice, is responsible for causing inflation. In addition to eroding the value of individual savings, this creation of inflation leads to booms and busts in the economy. Thus Paul argues that government, via a central bank (the Federal Reserve), is the primary cause of economic recessions and depressions. He has stated in numerous speeches that most of his colleagues in Congress are unwilling to abolish the central bank because it funds many government activities. He says that to compensate for eliminating the “hidden tax” of inflation, Congress and the president would instead have to raise taxes or cut government services, either of which could be politically damaging to their reputations. He also endorses defederalization of the healthcare system. Paul’s campaign slogan for 2004 was “The Taxpayers’ Best Friend!”.

John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, an organization that promotes lower tax rates, has said, “Ron Paul has always proven himself to be a leader in the fight for taxpayer rights and fiscal responsibility… No one can match his record on behalf of taxpayers.” He is frequently considered an advocate of small business. Jack Farris, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, has said, “Congressman Ron Paul is a true friend of small business….He is committed to a pro-small-business agenda of affordable health insurance, lower taxes, tort reform, and the elimination of burdensome mandates.”

In many public speeches Paul has called for the return to hard currency through re-introduction of the gold standard, the effect of which would result in the United States Government making large purchases of gold and issuing currency only to the extent of its ownership of gold. Ron Paul supports the gold standard to prevent inflation.

He has also called for the removal of all taxes on gold transactions. In 2002 he proposed legislation abolishing the Federal Reserve Board, enabling “America to return to the type of monetary system envisioned by our Nation’s founders: one where the value of money is consistent because it is tied to a commodity such as gold.” Paul’s personal financial disclosures reveal extensive private investments in gold and silver, through equities and warrants in companies including Newmont, IAM Gold, Barrick Gold, Golden Star Resources, Golden Cycle Gold Corp, Pan American Silver, Great Basin Gold, Eldorado Gold, Freeport McMoran Gold & Copper, Apollo Gold Corp and Placer Dome.

Paul suggests that current efforts to sustain Dollar hegemony, especially since collapse of the Bretton Woods system following the United States’ suspension of the dollar’s conversion to gold in 1971, exacerbate a rationale for war. Consequently, when petroleum producing nations like Iraq, Iran, or Venezuela elect to trade in Petroeuro instead of Petrodollar, it devalues an already overly inflated dollar, further eroding its supremacy as a global currency. According to Paul, along with vested American interests in oil and plans to “remake the Middle East”, this scenario has proven a contributing factor for the war against Iraq and diplomatic tensions with Iran.

As a former Libertarian Party candidate for President, Congressman Paul has been a proponent of ballot access law reform, and spoken out on numerous election law reform issues.

In 2003, he introduced H. R. 1941, the Voter Freedom Act of 2003, that would have created fairer and uniform ballot access laws for independent and third political party candidates in Congressional elections. He supported this bill in a speech before Congress in 2004.

During a speech in New Hampshire in February of 2007 Paul called for a repeal of the 17th amendment, the same that allows for direct election of U.S. Senators. Instead Paul would have members of state legislatures vote for congressional senators as they had done before. Paul believes the purpose was to increase representation of State interests at the federal level, an effect Paul believes encourages greater sharing of power between state and federal government. Paul believes greater state participation would act as a check against a powerful federal government.

In 2004, he spoke out against efforts to abolish the Electoral College, stating that such a reform would weaken the “voting power of pro-liberty states”.

In 2002, he spoke before the Congress in opposition to campaign finance reforms that place any restrictions on citizens and businesses making campaign contributions to the candidate of their choice on First Amendment grounds.

Paul is pro-life. However, Paul holds that the United States Constitution does not grant the federal government any authority to legalize or ban abortion. “Under the 9th and 10th amendments, all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures.” Nevertheless, in order to offset the effects of Roe v. Wade, he voted in favour of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. He has also introduced H.R. 4379 that would prohibit the Supreme Court from ruling on issues relating to abortion, birth control, the definition of marriage and homosexuality and states that the court’s precedent in these areas would no longer be binding. He once said, “The best solution, of course, is not now available to us. That would be a Supreme Court that recognizes that for all criminal laws, the several states retain jurisdiction.”

Congressman Paul adheres to the consistent life ethic, and therefore opposes all forms of killing not done in self-defense. His pro-life views factor into his support for non-interventionism, and are the reason he opposes capital punishment. Paul introduced The Sanctity of Life Act of 2005, which would remove jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in cases involving abortion laws in individual States. This would effectively freeze the current law established by Roe v. Wade, and would allow states to pass laws contrary to Roe v. Wade with little fear of them being overturned through the Federal court system.

Congressman Paul’s position on gay marriage is that defining and recognizing marriages is not a federal or constitutional matter, but should be left as the States’ right. In 1999 he voted for H.R. 2587 which contained an amendment that sought to prevent the use of Federal funding for the promotion of adoptions of foster children being used to promote joint adoptions by unrelated, unmarried people. There was no mention of gay adoptions in the bill, but the amendment could have been construed to act negatively upon gay couples adopting children in the District of Columbia, and in any event was not present in the final bill.

He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004. In a 2004 speech before Congress he expressed support for the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and expressed his support for the Marriage Protection Act as an alternative to the FMA.

Dr. Paul was Co-Sponsor of H.R. 2592, the States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana and is affirmative to the question “Should marijuana be a medical option?” The federal government’s involvement in this industry has led to regulatory conflict with the states that have made it an option, such as California after passage of Proposition 215.

In 2005 he introduced H.R. 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005, “to amend the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana, and for other purposes”. This bill would have given the states the power to regulate farming of hemp. The measure would be a first since the national prohibition of industrial hemp farming in the United States.

On February 13, 2007 Rep. Ron Paul introduced H.R. 1009, the “Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007,” with nine original co-sponsors: Representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Barney Frank (D-MA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Jim McDermott (D-WA), George Miller (D-CA), Pete Stark (D-CA), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

Since the Constitution does not enumerate or delegate to Congress the authority to ban or regulate drugs in general, he opposes federal participation in the drug war. He does not advocate a constitutional amendment banning any type of drugs, because he sees prohibition attempts as counterproductive.

In 2006, a “Technology voter guide” by CNET awarded Paul a score of 80%, the highest score out of both houses of Congress. Paul has been criticized for voting against legislation to help catch online child predators, one of the votes used in the CNET guide. In response to critics, Paul said, “I have a personal belief that the responsibility of raising kids, educating kids and training kids is up to the parents and not the state. Once the state gets involved, it becomes too arbitrary.” He also believed that the proposed law was unconstitutional.

In order to restrict the federal government to its constitutionally authorized functions, Paul takes positions that tend to be unpopular among his colleagues.

He has been criticized at times for his voting record, being the only dissenting vote against giving Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. According to Texas Monthly, “When he was criticized for voting against the medal [for Parks], he chided his colleagues by challenging them to personally contribute $100 to mint the medal. No one did. At the time, Paul observed, ‘It’s easier to be generous with other people’s money.’”

In a speech on 25 June 2003, criticizing giving Tony Blair a Gold Medal of Honor, Paul said, “These medals generally have been proposed to recognize a life of service and leadership, and not for political reasons as evidenced by the overwhelming bipartisan support for awarding President Reagan, a Republican, a gold medal. These awards normally go to deserving individuals, which is why I have many times offered to contribute $100 of my own money, to be matched by other members, to finance these medals.” Texas Monthly awarded him the “Bum Steer” award for voting against a congressional honor for cartoonist Charles Schulz.

He views the new American Community Survey questions as “both ludicrous and insulting”, viewing that the information is simply none of the government’s business.

On January 22, 2007, Paul was the lone member out of 415 voting to oppose a House measure to create a National Archives exhibit on slavery and Reconstruction.

Biography Source: Wikipedia

Official Site: Ron Paul 2008