Darian Drake
Darian Drake (Libertarian Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Idaho's 1st Congressional District. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Drake completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2022
See also: Idaho's 1st Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House Idaho District 1
Incumbent Russ Fulcher defeated Kaylee Peterson and Darian Drake in the general election for U.S. House Idaho District 1 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Russ Fulcher (R) | 71.3 | 222,901 |
 | Kaylee Peterson (D) | 26.3 | 82,261 | |
 | Darian Drake (L)  | 2.3 | 7,280 | |
| Total votes: 312,442 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Joe Evans (L)
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Idaho District 1
Kaylee Peterson advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. House Idaho District 1 on May 17, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kaylee Peterson | 100.0 | 15,057 |
| Total votes: 15,057 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Michael Banner (D)
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House Idaho District 1
Incumbent Russ Fulcher advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House Idaho District 1 on May 17, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Russ Fulcher | 100.0 | 126,528 |
| Total votes: 126,528 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Brian Lenney (R)
Libertarian primary election
Libertarian primary for U.S. House Idaho District 1
Joe Evans advanced from the Libertarian primary for U.S. House Idaho District 1 on May 17, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Joe Evans | 100.0 | 489 |
| Total votes: 489 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Darian Drake completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Drake's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- Individual Rights - Every person in these United States has natural rights that are acknowledged by the Constitution. Collectivism of any variety infringes on the rights of the smallest minority - the individual. Our differences in race, religion, sex, etc. can be overcome by focusing on the individual rights.
- National Defense - The best way to defend our nation is to stop involving ourselves in the affairs of others. Bringing our soldiers home, exiting any entangling alliances, and promoting free trade will protect us better than bombing countries that have different beliefs. War should be the last option on the table.
- Sound Money - The Federal Reserve is neither federal nor has any reserves. The reckless printing of money drives inflation and devalues your own savings. I support an independent audit of the Federal Reserve with a return to backed currency notes, and encourage states to adopt the Constitutional Tender Act.
Your rights are not "granted" to you by the Constitution, and the Second Amendment acknowledges your natural right to defend your self and property. I support all your natural rights and oppose any further infringements promoted by both Democrats and Republicans.
Education
Education is a $1.1 TRILLION industry here in the United States, so why are our students falling behind compared to other nations? School choice will allow parents to make their own decision as to which school and education program is better for their child, and stop throwing good money after bad.
Law Enforcement
In a nation of laws, there is a need for law enforcement - however the means to that end can be accomplished many ways. For now, we have police forces whose overreach needs to be reined in, and ending qualified immunity would be a good start. If they aren't doing wrong, why do they object?
Drug War
Joint Economic Committee
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Drake's campaign website stated the following:
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Individual Rights Every person in these United States has natural rights that are acknowledged by the Constitution. Collectivism of any variety infringes on the rights of the smallest minority – the individual. Our differences in race, religion, sex, etc. can be overcome by focusing on the individual rights. Much of the conflict in modern American culture is focused intensely on identity groups. White people are this, homosexual people are that, men are to blame for this problem, and Catholics are aggrieved because of that problem. The divisions in our culture cannot be overcome until we reject this identity class analysis, and return to the American tradition of treating people as individuals, with their own rights, their own responsibilities, their own strengths and weaknesses, and their own individual situations. If this is to be one nation, indivisible, we must get rid of the parts of the law that intentionally divide us. The government cannot solve the problems that collectivism has introduced into our culture, but it can stop making it worse. Laws that require people to pay attention to irrelevant details about a person's background, such as their ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion, to receive different benefits, taxes, or criminal punishments, should be abolished. I will support the repeal of any law that discriminates on the basis of race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation, and I will oppose any new law that tries to do the same.
Your rights are not granted to you by the Constitution. The Second Amendment merely acknowledges your natural right to defend your self and property. I support all your natural rights and oppose any further infringements promoted by both Democrats and Republicans. “Shall not be infringed" is the clearest language in the US Constitution. No organ of any government has been granted the authority to restrict your right to own the means of self defense. However, that didn't stop Ronald Reagan from instituting gun control in California to go after the Black Panthers; it didn't stop Joe Biden from putting forward the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban; it didn't stop Donald Trump from instituting a ban on Bump Stocks, saying that the government should take the guns first and worry about due process later. You cannot trust either the Republicans or the Democrats to respect your natural rights. In Idaho, we know all too well the consequences of getting on the wrong side of the ATF. Sammy and Vicki Weaver were murdered by the US government in 1992, because Randy Weaver made the mistake of trusting an undercover ATF agent to accurately measure the length of a shotgun barrel. This serves as a reminder for all of us that government agents cannot be trusted with the decision of how you should defend yourself. If elected, I will work to abolish the National Firearms Act of 1934, abolish all restrictions on firearm ownership, remove all red tape that sits between you and the purchase of any means of self defense, and convert the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives into a convenience store.
The best way to defend our nation is to stop involving ourselves in the affairs of others. Bringing our soldiers home, exiting any entangling alliances, and promoting free trade will protect us better than bombing countries that have different beliefs. War should be the last option on the table. Thomas Jefferson laid down in the Declaration of Independence, how we should regard the peoples of other nations: “Enemies in War, in Peace Friends." George Washington put this notion into practice, and warned the American people against entering into alliances across the ocean: “Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?" Sadly, since the days of Theodore Roosevelt, the US Government has not heeded the advice of the founders. Roosevelt used the sinking of the USS Maine as an excuse to attack the Spanish Empire and seize many territories around the globe which the US still holds today. Woodrow Wilson involved the United States in the first World War, breaking the stalemate which had almost ended the war and leading to the Treaty of Versailles, the birth of the Soviet Union, the League of Nations, the Weimar Republic, and ultimately, the rise of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden worked together to spend twenty years, more than $2 trillion, the lives of more than 2,000 American soldiers, the physical health of another 20,000, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians, and what remained of the United States' reputation around the globe, in order to replace the Taliban with the Taliban. The US Government has spent itself into $30 trillion of debt, acting as the world's police force. The only benefits to anyone in America to come from this strategy have been windfalls for the Military-Industrial Complex which President Eisenhower warned us about. The Global American Empire is an expensive, failed, un-American project which must end. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1992 under the weight of military adventurism and failed economic central planning. China's Belt and Road Initiative will fail, for the same reasons. America must turn back from that same path, and return to the foreign policy which brought us prosperity in the 1870's and 1880's: ready and able to defend ourselves, but uninterested in controlling the world through military might. Our troops should come home immediately. Our treaties with other nations should consist only in securing free trade with their peoples. America should only deploy any military might in defense of the American people, and only send troops overseas as a result of a formal declaration of war. I will vote against any funding or authorization of military force, except as part of a declared war in defense of America.
The Federal Reserve is neither federal nor has any reserves. The reckless printing of money drives inflation and devalues your own savings. I support an independent audit of the Federal Reserve with a return to backed currency notes, and encourage states to adopt the Constitutional Tender Act. In 1792, Congress passed the Mint Act, which defined the US Dollar’s value relative to gold. One troy ounce of gold cost $19.39. Between then and 1879, this remained relatively consistent, except for some periods of wartime when the dollar was temporarily inflated. By 1913, when Congress established the Federal Reserve, the value of the dollar had been fixed at a slightly higher value: One troy ounce of pure gold cost $20.67. In 2022, the spot price of one troy ounce of gold has fluctuated between $1,600.00 and $2,050.00; almost 99% of the dollar’s value has been obliterated. How did this happen? The US Federal Reserve has free rein to make unbacked loans to banks and the US Treasury and to purchase assets on the open market with unbacked, freshly printed currency. Since the US officially abandoned the gold standard in 1971 when Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods sytem, the Fed has used this power to finance any amount of government largesse that Congress has seen fit to request. They fueled the bubble of the Nifty Fifty in the 70's, the Dot Com boom of the 90's, and the Mortgage bubble in the 00's. The Fed's invention of “Quantitative Easing" during the Obama administration helped fuel the transfer of American wealth from working families and small business owners to large banks, international corporations, and politically connected billionaires. In the past two years, the Federal Reserve has printed more money than was printed between 1971 and 2004. Is it any wonder that prices are increasing across the board? The Federal Reserve has also started talking about creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CDBC). This would put control of all of your savings and purchases in the hands of a group of bureaucrats working at an institution owned by banking megacorporations and run by the US Government. It is the fast path to a China-style Social Credit System, where all of your economic activity is subject to the permission of the government. This cannot be allowed to happen. The US Dollar has ceased to be a reasonable currency. It is now a political tool used by the goverment to try to control the economy. States should pass the Constitutional Tender Act, and go back to using the historical norms of gold and silver for transactions. Money is the way that we coordinate the division of labor and make it possible to have a complex economy with all of the interesting gadgets and fun experiences we love to make. Money should not be a government program.
Education is a $1.1 TRILLION industry here in the United States, so why are our students falling behind compared to other nations? School choice will allow parents to make their own decision as to which school and education program is better for their child, and stop throwing good money after bad. Idaho is one of the better states in the country with regard to parental control of their children’s education. Parents are free to homeschool their children here, and there are no restrictions on how they can educate their child. However, economic realities force many parents to place their children in public schools so that they can keep food on the table, and though the State of Idaho does not regulate private schools, other options are all sadly under the purview of the US Department of Education. I support any efforts within Idaho to expand the choices that Idaho parents have for how to educate their children, especially if they are funded voluntarily. However, I oppose any involvement of the US Government and encourage Idaho to expand school choice programs. The Department of Education has never made education better. Its function has been to “standardize" education across the US, which really means that it has inserted propaganda into school curricula for the government's agenda of the day, test out whatever new theories of education have just been dreamed up in the halls of universities without regard to whether or not they help children learn, and build a massive bureaucracy that is very good at spending your money, but terrible at helping children grow up to be productive, happy, and healthy. Their regulations are burdensome, their methods are questionable, and the funding comes with way too many strings attached. The US Constitution did not grant the Congress or the President the right to decide what or how your children should learn. If parents in Idaho decide they want the state government to run taxpayer-funded schools, that is between them and the government of Idaho. The US Government should not be involved. I would vote to abolish the Department of Education and end all involvement of the US Federal Government in the education of children.
In a nation of laws, there is a need for law enforcement – however the means to that end can be accomplished many ways. For now, we have police forces whose overreach needs to be reined in, and ending qualified immunity would be a good start. If they aren’t doing wrong, why do they object? Police departments use the tagline “To Serve and Protect," but that is not their job description. Their actual job is to serve the government, and enforce its will on the people. In fact, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that police officers do not have any duty to protect at all. Nonetheless, police officers and other government agents are the only people who are allowed to enforce the law. However, police officers are human beings just like the rest of us. They have human strengths and human flaws, and they sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail. Most people who sign up to enforce the law do it because they want to maintain a peaceful and orderly society. Some sign up because they are bullies who want a badge and a gun that will let them make money bullying even more people. If police officers want the trust of the average person, they need to be on our side in getting rid of the bullies among their ranks. Qualified immunity, in practice, means that when a police officer violates a civilian's rights, they get a short paid vacation while their department launches an investigation. The result of that investigation is not determined by the actual facts involved, but on whether there has been enough public outrage about the officer's crimes that politicians benefit more from a dismissal and conviction than from sweeping it under the rug. This is what happens when the people who enforce the law are exempted from it. This exemption even extends to outright theft, under the title of “Civil Asset Forfeiture." Since so many peaceful actions have been made illegal, police departments have developed the novel strategy of charging your property with a crime, allowing them to seize it without any due process, and force you to prove your innocence in order to claim it back. This legal absurdity turns police officers into highway robbers, and punishes normal people for the horrible crime of carrying their own money. This is yet another part of modern American policing that rewards the corrupt and punishes the honest cop. Police officers lose the respect of the community when they enforce unjust laws, and when they are immune from consequences for their crimes. I will vote to end qualified immunity, civil asset forfeiture, and all the unjust laws that the police are ordered to enforce.
The drug war has failed, and harm reduction works better than prohibition. The government is not capable of solving addiction; Addicts cannot be forced to stop being addicted. The black market just gives cover to bad actors – decriminalization lets adults make their own choices. Between 1919 and 1933, alcohol was prohibited in the United States by a Constitutional amendment. In that time, people didn’t stop drinking, but America saw the rise of the Mob as the black market met the demand for alcohol that never went away. Unfortunately, America didn’t learn the lesson. The US Federal Government continues to spend billions every year protecting the monopoly that criminal organizations have on the drug trade. The Drug War empowers gangs by making sure that the only people willing to sell drugs are people willing to break the law. Gangs use that money to recruit young boys living in poverty, putting them in danger of physical harm and destroying the very families that most need a stable home life in order to survive the difficult lives they lead. In their desperation, gangs set these young men on the pipeline to prison, to join America's insanely large population living in cages. None of this solves the problems that drugs cause in communities. If all drugs were legal today, would you decide to go buy some heroin? Or, would it just mean that people who have become addicted to heroin would be able to buy it in a bottle from store, without risking being given a fatal dose of Chinese fentanyl? The Drug Enforcement Agency spends more than $3 Billion each year, and nearly 10,000 employees spend their time making everyone's lives more dangerous: addicts trying to avoid the pain of withdrawal, poor people trying to make use of any opportunity they can to keep food on the table, and innocent people who are killed or maimed in drug raids. The government knows that it cannot solve addiction. First-time drug offenders are forced into non-government programs, but if the addict doesn't want to change their habits, no amount of beatings will improve their morale. Drug addiction is not solved by throwing people in cages. It is solved when communities voluntarily come together to help the addict overcome the problems that keep them using. I support the complete abolition of all drug prohibition laws. Individuals have the right to decide which substances they want to smoke, eat, or inject. When people lose control of themselves, it is the duty of their family, friends, and community to help them back to health. The government cannot and will not improve the situation with force. End the Drug War.
Decisions made about your health should be between you and your doctor. No one should have the authority to force an individual to take or do something they do not agree with. Medical mandates are an overreach and infringe on an individual’s right to choose what is best for themselves. You own your body and your mind. It is your responsibility to make the right medical decisions for your life. A doctor or a nurse can give advice to help you make decisions, and they often offer valuable services to improve your life. However, that choice should be in your own hands. No one in the government has any right to say that you must take a medical treatment, no matter how much bureaucrats think it will benefit either society at large or the stock prices of pharmaceutical companies. It is equally wrong for the government to pressure private companies to require their employees to prove that they've had a treatment in order to keep their job. The government also has no business telling you that you can't try a treatment unless the FDA thinks it will work. The only people to benefit from laws against trying an unapproved treatment are the pharmaceutical companies that profit from the lack of competition. As we have seen with CBD decriminalization in Idaho, Pfizer is not the only company that can offer you effective pain relief. I stand for repealing every aspect of the COVID regime, as well as every law and regulation which makes it illegal for the ordinary citizen to try treatments without government permission. You are responsible for your own health. You should be free to make the best decision you can.[1] |
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| —Darian Drake's campaign website (2022)[2] | ||
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Darian for Congress, “Policies,” accessed October 10, 2022
