|  As
mayor of Providence, Utah, Randy T. Simmons has one overriding goal:
"To promote liberty and efficiency-enhancing public policies."
For those who know him, it's no surprise that Simmons puts "liberty"
at the top of his to-do list. Mayor Simmons is a libertarian -- and
liberty is what got him involved in politics.
As Simmons told the Utah Policy Daily (November 21, 2005),
"I have a passion for liberty. Philosophically, I am libertarian
in the same sense that Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were. My guiding
principle is that we should unleash capitalism and let people run their
private lives without interference from government."
Simmons was elected mayor of Providence in November 2005. It was his
second campaign for that office; in 2001, he lost in a photo-finish
by just six votes. Previously, Simmons served six years on the Providence
City Council. He also chaired the Cache County Recreation, Arts, Parks,
and Zoo Tax Committee, and was a member of the Utah League of Cities
and Towns Legislative Policy Committee.
Although Providence -- located in the northeast corner of the state,
about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City -- is a small town (population:
4,377), it has many of the same political concerns as any other American
community. That's why, in his campaign for mayor, Simmons focused on
bread-and-butter issues like safe neighborhoods, improved streets, creation
of parks, and zoning. Now that he's in office, he says he will work
to encourage "user fees for private services provided by government,
such as parks, public lands, and golf courses," and to restrict
"people's ability to take their neighbors' property through zoning."
When not on the job as mayor, Simmons is a professor of Political Science
at Utah State University -- where he makes no secret of his libertarianism.
In a 2003 lecture to faculty and staff, Simmons said, "We are no
longer a country based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We are becoming Canadians -- their version of 'Life, Liberty, and the
Pursuit of Happiness' is 'Peace, Order, and Good Government.' Please
remember that freedom is our scarcest and most precious resource. We
must not continue to sacrifice it to good intentions. Please remember
that we are a free people, heirs to Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Washington,
and others. Are we working for that tradition or against it?"
With William C. Mitchell, Simmons is the author of Beyond Politics:
Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy (Westview Press,
1994). The book disputes the notion that most problems in society are
caused by the failure of free markets, and argues against the idea that
government can efficiently fix those "market failures." The
authors write: "We reject this simplistic political view and contend
that market failure is seriously misunderstood. Further, we maintain
that normal political responses to alleged market failures usually make
things worse. In fact, we think that our nation's chief problems stem
not from market difficulties but from political intervention in otherwise
robust markets." Simmons is working on another book, Political
Ecology: Politics, Economics and the Endangered Species Act. He
has published papers in Policy Review, the American Political
Science Review, Regulation, the Journal of Contemporary Studies,
and others.
Simmons is a Senior Fellow at the free-market environmental organization
PERC (Property & Environment Research Center); the director of the
Utah State University Institute of Political Economy; a faculty member
at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University; and
a senior scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington,
DC. In 1986, 1991, and 1994, he was named Social Science Researcher
of the Year at Utah State University.
Married with three children, Simmons lists his hobbies as "reading
science fiction; backpacking; cooking beer-can chicken and turkey, brisket,
pulled pork, and ribs on the grill; and searching for good chocolate."
For guidance (spiritual and political), he reads the books of Moses,
the Book of Job, Adam Smith, F.A. Hayek, and Robert Heinlein, among
others.
-- Bill Winter |
