In an interview with 71 Republic, Caleb Dyer, Libertarian New Hampshire State Representative who switched from the Republican party in February, announced that a third House representative would be switching to the Libertarian Party (the second being former Democrat Joseph Stallcop who switched in May).
The member, who is switching from the Republican party, will announce it on June 27 at New Hampshire’s state capitol building.
Rep. Dyer stated in his interview that the newly proposed budget was the deciding factor for this member explaining “[…] Representatives are willing to leave the Republican Party over this budget squabble that the opposition to the budget has only grown among the fiscally conservative coalition. Ultimately, House Republicans will be losing another seat, bringing them closer to losing an outright majority in the House.”
Dyer joined the party after most of his proposed bills were struck down for not following the Republican party platform. Stallcop switched after personally seeing the situation at the Standing Rock Sioux camp in protest of the Keystone pipeline, stating that it “showed me the danger of relinquishing power and authority into an institution.”
This is very exciting for the party to see so many standing state congressmen switching to the party recently due to the distrust and misrepresentation of the major parties. Perhaps, libertarianism will finally be able to make some headway in 2018 and 2020.