Carla Howell (born 1955) is an American politician, small government advocate and activist. She was the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts candidate for Massachusetts State Auditor in 1998, U.S. Senate in 2000, and Governor in 2002. She then served in multiple leadership positions in the U.S. Libertarian Party. She has also organized tax-cut initiative ballot measures in Massachusetts and worked for the Libertarian National Committee.
Early life and education
Howell is the daughter of Carla (Winsor) Howell and Charles Howell, the third of their five children. She is a great-granddaughter of William Eustis Russell, a former Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Political career
In 1994, Howell joined the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts and she was elected chair of the state party in 1997. She received 102,198 votes, 5.3 percent of the total, which according to the Associated Press, "guarantee[d] the party's official status." and by October, had raised almost $700,000, while the Republican candidate had raised about $20,000. At the time of her campaign, she was the chair of the Committee For Small Government. She was excluded along with other minor candidates from a gubernatorial candidate debate, and their requests for an injunction were denied.
By 2012, Howell was the executive director of the U.S. Libertarian Party. In 2016, she worked as the political director for the national party.
She was a staff member in the Libertarian National Committee from December 2011 until June 2017.
Ballot initiatives
Howell spearheaded initiatives to repeal the Massachusetts state personal income tax in 2002 and 2008. In 2002, she sponsored 2002 Statewide Ballot Question 1, an initiative petition to end the income tax in Massachusetts. The measure received 45% of the vote, which Peter DeMarco, writing for the Boston Globe, described as "eye-popping". as Statewide Ballot Question 1. The 2008 initiative differed from the 2002 initiative in that it provided a one-year transition period with a tax rate of 2.65% before the tax rate would drop to zero. This measure received a higher vote total than in 2002, but lost with 30% of the vote.
In 2010, Howell filed four petitions to create ballot measures to reduce sales taxes, and Republican Christy Mihos, who was running for Massachusetts governor at the time, also sponsored the initiatives. Her group collected and submitted 74,131 approved voter signatures in the fall of 2009, and another 14,023 signatures in the spring-summer of 2010 to qualify the measure. The measure reached as high as 56% in the polls but was unsuccessful.
See also
- 2008 Massachusetts Question 1
- Tax revolt, political struggle to repeal, limit, or roll back a government-imposed tax
- Tax resistance