Election 2018

Justin Amash and Thomas Massie, Two of the Most Libertarian Members of Congress, Re-Elected

Amash and Massie are both members of the House Liberty Caucus and provide some of the few Congressional glimmers of hope for libertarians.

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Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

More good news from tonight's election results: it looks like Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash will be back for another term. A.P. and other outlets are calling the race for Amash, and the candidate himself has tweeted out his thanks.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie—like Amash, a member of the House Liberty Caucus* and one of a few routine bright spots in Congress for libertarians—will also be back, after winning re-election in Kentucky.

Finding sympathetic souls in Congress is largely a losing proposition for libertarians, but more so than almost any other current member of Congress, Amash has stood out as a principled defender of civil liberties and restrained government.

Elected in 2011 as part of the Tea Party wave, Amash has outlasted many of his contemporaries in terms of staying true to that movement's early anti-establishment and libertarian ethos, rather than adopting a politically expedient Trump strain of populism.

"While many Republicans have used Trumpian language to message to voters in the upcoming election, the libertarian-leaning incumbent, Justin Amash, has spent the better part of the Trump presidency tweeting his unadulterated critiques of the administration," as Eric Boehm and Zuri Davis noted here yesterday.

Amash has recently rallied against President Donald Trump's potential plans to end birthright citizenship, co-sponsored a bill to stop U.S. sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia, slammed Trump and other Republicans for hypocrisy on spending, and spoken out against "human trafficking" legislation that strengthens Patriot Act protections. And Amash is willing to vote against harmful but nice-sounding legislation, even when he's one of only a few—or even the only one—against it.

CORRECTION: Massie and Amash are both members of the House Liberty Caucus. Amash is also a member of the House Freedom Caucus.