Richard Lion

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Richard Lion

Libertarian Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 6, 2018

Education

High school

Smethport High School, 1975

Military

Service / branch

U.S. Air Force

Years of service

1975 - 1995

Personal

Profession

Photographer

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Richard Lion (Libertarian Party) ran for election to the U.S. Senate to represent Connecticut. Lion lost in the general election on November 6, 2018.

Lion was an unsuccessful 2016 Libertarian candidate who sought election to the U.S. Senate from Connecticut.

Lion was an unsuccessful 2014 Libertarian candidate for District 9 of the Connecticut House of Representatives. He also ran unsuccessfully for District 29 of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 2010 as a Connecticut for Lieberman candidate.

Biography

Email editor@ballotpedia.org to notify us of updates to this biography.

Lion's professional experience includes working as a self-employed photographer. He served in the United States Air Force from 1975 to 1995.

Elections

2018

See also: United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2018

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Connecticut

Incumbent Christopher S. Murphy defeated Matthew Corey, Richard Lion, and Jeffery Russell in the general election for U.S. Senate Connecticut on November 6, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Christopher S. Murphy (D)	59.5	825,579
		Matthew Corey (R)	39.3	545,717
		Richard Lion (L)	0.6	8,838
		Jeffery Russell (G)	0.5	6,618
		Other/Write-in votes	0.0	88

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 1,386,840
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Fred Linck (Socialist Action Party)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Connecticut

Incumbent Christopher S. Murphy advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Connecticut on August 14, 2018.

		Candidate
✔		Christopher S. Murphy

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Ann-Marie Adams (D)

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Connecticut

Matthew Corey defeated Dominic Rapini in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Connecticut on August 14, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Matthew Corey	76.5	99,899
		Dominic Rapini	23.5	30,624

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 130,523
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

2016

See also: United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2016

Heading into the election, Ballotpedia rated Connecticut's U.S. Senate race as safely Democratic. Incumbent Richard Blumenthal (D) defeated Dan Carter (R), Richard Lion (L), Jeffery David Russell (G), and John Price (I) in the general election on November 8, 2016. No candidate faced a primary election in August. Carter defeated August Wolf at the Republican convention. Blumenthal won re-election in the November 8 election.

U.S. Senate, Connecticut General Election, 2016

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Richard Blumenthal Incumbent	63.2%	1,008,714
	Republican	Dan Carter	34.6%	552,621
	Libertarian	Richard Lion	1.1%	18,190
	Green	Jeffery Russell	1%	16,713
	N/A	Write-in	0%	38
Total Votes				1,596,276
Source: Connecticut Secretary of State

2014

See also: Connecticut House of Representatives elections, 2014

Elections for the Connecticut House of Representatives consisted of a primary election on August 12, 2014, and a general election on November 4, 2014. The signature filing deadline for candidates wishing to run in this election was June 10, 2014. Incumbent Jason Rojas was unopposed in the Democratic primary and defeated Richard Lion (L) in the general election.

Connecticut House of Representatives District 9, General Election, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Jason Rojas Incumbent	85.9%	5,054
	Libertarian	Richard Lion	14.1%	830
Total Votes				5,884

2010

See also: Connecticut House of Representatives elections, 2010

Lion was uncontested in the August 10 primary. He was defeated by incumbent Antonio Guerrera (D) in the November 2 general election.

Campaign themes

2018

Lion’s campaign website stated the following:

“	I'm Libertarian, I'm violet, a smart blend of red and blue. ​ Issue 1: Unalienable Rights. Unalienable Rights do not come from government. Unalienable Rights are endowed by our Creator, whoever each individual’s Creator may be. Therefore, everybody on the entire planet have the exact same Unalienable Rights. Among these, but not limited to, are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Governments are instituted to secure these rights. Our Government, like others, often becomes destructive of these ends. I will work to ensure our Government functions to secure and not to oppress our Unalienable Rights. Issue 2: Ending the war on drugs. The war on drugs has not had any success in eliminating drugs. Drugs are common and extremely available. The war on drugs has succeeded in funding terrorism, creating crime on the streets, consuming millions of tax dollars and oppressing the American people. I will work to legalize all drugs, even the bad ones. The war on drugs is much more destructive than the worst drugs. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Silas Deane were hemp farmers. The Spanish word for hemp is marijuana. Today's laws would make them all criminals. Issue 3: Eliminate gun laws. Whether it is Columbine, Virginia Tech, New Town or 9/11, we have our most horrendous murders in gun free zones. We have few or no murders at our nation's many gun shows. It’s simple math: Zero guns equals many murders. Many guns equals near zero murders. Americans have the right to protect themselves from any threat, not just in their homes, but also on the streets. You don’t need a religion permit to practice religion. You don’t need a speech permit to speak. You should not be required to have a gun permit to hold and bear arms. The criminals don’t have gun permits, yet they carry guns. Gun control supporters, you are puppets for the ruling class. The ruling class, A.K.A. the 1% control the most powerful politicians in the world. They profit from war, and keep us at war. They keep themselves surrounded with high powered guns because they know guns save lives. They want that safety for themselves. They support the drug war for corrupt profiteering and oppression of the masses. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that is their quest. They use the media to misinform and scare you. They want you to support gun control. They want more power over you. Thousands of unarmed people at Occupy Wall Street, and the government sprayed them in the face with tear gas. That's power to the state. A handful of armed people at the Bundy Ranch, and the government backed down. That's power to the people. What law could have stopped the attack on Paris? There is none. Most of our gun violence is a result of the war on drugs, a product of the 1%. You live on a dangers planet. If danger finds you, you may have to fight for your life. Guns save lives. You better hope you have one to save your life, or another's life. The media is trying, and with some people succeeding, to brainwash you into having an irrational fear of guns. Guns are not as dangerous as the media propagates. Heed Benjamin Franklin's warning about giving up liberty for security. You are giving up your liberty to protect yourself. Support gun rights for the people, not gun control for the ruling class. Issue 4: Gays in the Military. Would George Washington allow a gay to serve in the Continental Army? He did! Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin Ludolf Gerhard (Frederick William Augustus Henry Ferdinand) von Steuben also referred to as the Baron von Steuben was a Prussian aristocrat and military officer. Steuben's Prussian army career ended in scandal when he was alleged to be gay. No other European army would take him. He came to America and joined the Continental Army. He served as inspector general and Major general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline. He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, the book that became the standard United States drill manual until the War of 1812. He served as General George Washington's chief of staff in the final years of the war. If gays in the military is OK with George Washington, it's OK with me. Don't ask, don't tell; is an oppression of freedom of speech. Issue 5: Abortion. I’m glad I wasn’t aborted. I believe very few people wish they were aborted. A pregnant woman may not want to have a baby, especially if she is pregnant because she was raped. However, the baby should not be given the death penalty because its father committed a crime. Making abortion illegal would not make abortion go away. It would make it more dangerous. I am pro choice, and I would like pregnant women to have more choices when they have an unwanted pregnancy. I once saw a show on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channelor other educational television network. This show had to do with zebras having low population. To increase zebra population, female zebras were allowed to get pregnant by male zebras. Because zebra is a breed of horse, veterinarians wereable to remove the fetus from the zebra and put it in another breed of female horse, such as Arabian. The Arabian horse would then be pregnant with the zebra’s baby and the female zebra could get pregnant again in a short time. If this can be done with horses, then maybe it can be done with humans. The fetus in the woman with an unwanted pregnancy may be able to be put into a woman who wants to have a baby. It would require medical science and social services to make this choice a reality. Issue 6: Government bailouts and corporate welfare. The concept of "too big to fail" is ridiculous because it is small businesses that provides most of the jobs. The money for the bailout must come from somewhere. If it comes from taxing businesses that make a profit, many of them small businesses, then their profits may be reduced and jeopardize more jobs than were saved with the bailout of a "too big to fail" business. Issue 7: Gay and unorthodox marriage. I support anybody's right to marry as they see fit. Whether someone wants a spouse of the same sex or multiple spouses, it's not the government's business. Clergy have a right to refuse to provide service. Issue 8: Balancing the budget. Deep spending cuts is the only way. Over taxing anyone, including the rich, is immoral. Spending benefits whoever is the recipient of the spending. For example, building Rentschler Stadium for UCONN football benefitted whoever got the contract to build the stadium. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, therefore, by law, I am a football fan. However, I would have opposed public money being used to build the stadium. If somebody wanted to spend their own money to build a stadium, that's fine, but it is not the state's job to fund such endeavors. I will only support spending that I deem to be proper and necessary. I will also work to simplify the tax code, for within the complexity hide the tax breaks for the few. Issue 9: Health Care IS a right. Health care is one of the Unalienable Rights not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Some people believe that having a right to something means that you get it for free or that the Government pays for it. If this were true, then we would get free guns because of the fact that gun ownership is a right. Because freedom of the press is also a right, we would get a free printing press. The government neither owes us free guns, nor free printing presses, nor free health care. A right to something means that the government may not stand in the way of us acquiring these things in an honest, non violent way, even if it means medical marijuana. The fact is, that the government does stand in the way of us using medical marijuana. This is an oppression of our Unalienable Right to Health Care. Issue 10: Defending America from foreign military invasion. On September 25, 2012, China launched their first aircraft carrier ever in their history. That is ninety-eight years after the British had their first aircraft carrier. Of the 196 countries in the world, only nine have aircraft carriers, and most of them are considered our friends, like England, France, and Australia. Of the nine countries that have aircraft carriers, only one has more than two. That country is the United States. We have twelve in service and one in reserve. We got two brand new aircraft carriers under Obama, at thirteen billion dollars each. We are expecting to spend $1.5 trillion for the F-35 multirole fighter plane over the 55-year life of the program, despite the fact that the Air Force has more airplanes than they can fly, and park hundreds of extra in the desert. This excessive military spending that the United States is obsessed with is not making us safer, and it may be putting us in greater danger. Consider the very beginning of World War II. France had the largest standing army in Western Europe, at great expense to the French taxpayer. Germany didn't care and invaded them. England had the largest navy in the world, at great expense to the British taxpayer. Germany didn't care and bombed them, and planned on invading them. Switzerland had a very small military, saving the Swiss taxpayers a fortune. To defend their country, they had, and still have today, a well regulated militia. Despite Switzerland having a common border with Germany, Germany refused to invade them. Excessive military spending doesn't make us safer, it makes a handful of people incredibly rich, and the masses much poorer. We do it because most elected politicians serve the incredibly rich. The politicians fabricate reasons for war overseas and war on Americans with the war on drugs. They get reelected, and the incredibly rich get incredible richer, and the poor get poorer, and many people suffer from the wars, especially the poor, but seldom the rich. We need to recall most of our overseas military and redeploy them in the United States. This would beef-up the economies of the communities in the area of the bases. If need be, military personnel could be assigned duties in the United States such as border patrol, customs support, road construction, along with conducting military training exercises. The largest military in the world is China's with 2,300,000 troops. Not that they could get them all over here to invade us, but if they did, the number of gun owners in just the State of Pennsylvania would outnumber them by more than two to one. Throw in the rest of the country and we crush them. We need to organize the well regulated militia into the fighting force our founding fathers intended it to be. We should give tax deductions to people who buy guns that have military applications, and tax deductions for money spent on ammo and training. I am convinced that we can phase our military spending down by about 75% in about four years, without jeopardizing our security. Issue 11. Change the name of Columbus Day. Let's face it, the Vikings got to North America long before Columbus, so why should it be called Columbus day in the first place? I think we should change the name of Columbus Day to Canadian Thanksgiving. This will force Canada to celebrate Thanksgiving on that day, rather then when it is supposed to be celebrated. This will punish Canada, and they need to be punished. Look at a map, they're always sitting on top of us. Like excuse me? I don't really like a lot of Canadians. I don't like Justin Bieber, I don't like Ted Cruz, I don't like Private School Jewel. I take that back. I do like Private School Jewel. But the rest of the Canadians must celebrate Thanksgiving early! Issue 12. Some people can't tell when I am joking and when I'm not. Take Issue 11 for example, some people thought I was serious. Issue 13: Dealing with isolated threats and violence such as rape, terrorism, home invasion, robbery, battery, and the like. Non-isolated violence would be war, which I discussed in issue 10. The ruling class have several body guards following them around. This makes them safer. Common people can not afford to hire body guards. These people must be their own body guard. We need to encourage gun safety and use training, starting as young as kindergarten (not necessarily with guns). This will help people overcome their irrational fear of guns. People on a daily basie handle things more dangerous than guns. Gasoline for example. One gallon of gasoline has the explosive power of fourteen sticks of dynamite. We have no restrictions on buying gasoline. You can be any age, and you don't need a background check. Gasoline fumes can be inhaled to get high. Gasoline is a bomb and a dangerous drug, but we let anybody buy all they want. Despite how dangerous gasoline is, we do not have an irrational fear of it. Watch this video, see how guns, when used properly save lives. When faced with a dangerous threat, calling 911, will not always get help on time. By becoming trained to more safely use guns, people have a better chance to protect themselves. Government needs to encourage gun use, not restrict guns to good people. Nobody wants violent people to have guns. Most criminals buy their guns on the black market, not through some gun show loophole. I will support efforts to stop black market gun sales. I will support laws to force gun wholesalers to keep records of gun sales. Are they selling to legitimate gun stores and dealers, or are they selling to the black market? While the gun grabbers fight to close the imaginary gun-show loophole, I will work to close the real black market loopholes. Issue 14: Provide for the general Welfare. Some of my Libertarian friends will cringe when they read this one, but here goes. I am not a huge fan of raising the minimum wage, however I am not staunchly opposed to it. I want salaries of the masses to go up. Prices are controlled by supply and demand. The supply of labour jumped dramatically when women entered the workforce. This helped to push the price for labour down. The demand for labour drops with every technological breakthrough. Think about a car company having engineers drawing plans on paper using T squares and compasses rather than computer aided design (CAD) and the factory building cars with no robots. Imagine stores having to put price tags on every item, with no cash register adjusting inventory with each sale. Imagine banks keeping track of your account by writing it in a book with no computer and then they mailed your cashed cheques back to you. Supply of labour has risen and demand for labour has dropped, therefore the price of labour is too low for many people to live on what they make. To raise the price of labour, we must increase demand. We can do this by changing the 40 hour workweek to 30 hours. After 30 hours you would be paid overtime. To avoid paying overtime, employers would have to hire more people, increasing demand for labour, thus raising wages. Rather than eight hours a day five days a week, the standard may be six hours a day. Issue 15: Free College. I am happy about your privilege to take advantage of free college at https://www.khanacademy.org/ You may also find other free college opportunities if you search the internet.	”
—Richard Lion’s campaign website (2018)

See also

Suggest a link

• United States Senate
• United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2018
• United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2016
• Connecticut House of Representatives elections, 2014

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• Campaign website
• Campaign Facebook page

Footnotes

[show]

Connecticut's current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Richard Blumenthal (D)

Christopher Murphy (D)

Representatives

District 1

John Larson (D)

District 2

Joe Courtney (D)

District 3

Rosa DeLauro (D)

District 4

Jim Himes (D)

District 5

Jahana Hayes (D)

Democratic Party (7)