Michael Badnarik

Sunday afternoon, January 10, 2010, Badnarik posted a message to his friends and supporters stating that he was improving rapidly and would soon be released from the hospital.

In October 2008, he began hosting a talk radio program, by the same title, on the Genesis Communications Network. His final program aired on March 20, 2009.

In November 2009, Badnarik was elected as one of three delegates from the State of Texas to attend the 2009 Continental Congress sponsored by the We The People Foundation, and subsequently elected parliamentary president of that body.

Badnarik suffered a heart attack on the morning of December 21, 2009, while in Viroqua, Wisconsin attending a hearing regarding a raw milk case. After the hearing he boarded a car to go to lunch with friends, then slumped over. His friends attempted CPR and contacted the paramedics. They attempted CPR to revive him three times with no success. Upon the fourth attempt his heart was revived yet with erratic behavior. He was taken by helicopter to Gundersen Lutheran Hospital CCU in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

In April 2007, he began hosting a talk radio program, Lighting the Fires of Liberty, on the We the People radio network. His final program aired on October 3, 2008.

Badnarik delivered a keynote speech at the 2007 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, where he announced his endorsement for Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman from Texas 14th district, in the 2008 presidential election.

A December 2006 letter from his campaign manager, Alan Hacker, states that Badnarik has "retired from political candidacy" and is now working as an account representative for a political and novelty bumper sticker mail-order business.

In August 2005, Badnarik announced that he would run for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2006 election. He ran for the 10th Congressional District of Texas, which is currently represented by Republican Michael McCaul.

Badnarik was viewed as unlikely to win the Libertarian presidential nomination, facing challenges from talk-show host Gary Nolan and Hollywood producer Aaron Russo. At the 2004 Libertarian National Convention, Badnarik gained substantial support following the candidates' debate (broadcast live on C-SPAN). In the closest presidential nomination race in the Libertarian Party's 32-year history, all three candidates polled within 12 votes of each other on the first ballot (Russo 258, Badnarik 256, Nolan 246). When the second ballot placed the candidates in the same order, Gary Nolan was eliminated and threw his support to Badnarik; Badnarik won the nomination on the third ballot 417 to 348, with None of the Above receiving six votes. Richard Campagna of Iowa City, Iowa, was elected separately by convention delegates as his vice-presidential nominee.

Badnarik and Green Party candidate David Cobb were arrested in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 8, 2004, for an act of civil disobedience. Badnarik and Cobb were protesting their exclusion from the presidential debates of the 2004 presidential election campaign. They were arrested after crossing a police barricade in an attempt to serve an Order to Show Cause to the Commission on Presidential Debates.

No national polls including Badnarik had put him above 1.5%, though one poll put him at 5% in New Mexico and another at three percent in Nevada. A Rasmussen poll on October 26, 2004 put Badnarik at 3% in Arizona.

Badnarik received 397,265 votes nationwide in the November 2, 2004 election, taking 0.32 percent of the popular vote and placing fourth, 68,385 votes behind Ralph Nader but 12,834 vote better than the party's 2000 election results. Badnarik spent most of early 2005 touring the nation and giving speeches. He also taught a class on the U.S. Constitution, using his experiences on the campaign trail to develop his lesson plan.

One of his key statements on income tax is that the United States grew to be the most powerful nation in the Universe without requiring such a tax, and that it began to falter when the government began to intervene in the economy and individuals' lives. In the past, he has stated that refusing to file a tax return is justifiable until the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides a legal reason for doing so (see Federal statutes imposing obligations to pay income taxes and file returns). However, in his book Good to Be King he writes, "I do not know if Americans are liable to pay income taxes." In an August 2004 interview with the journal Liberty, Badnarik stated that he had not filed tax returns for approximately the previous three years as he was unemployed. However, he said he had contacted the IRS to find out his tax liability and to settle up on any taxes he owed. This was an effort to make his then-campaign to be the President of the United States go more smoothly.

After the 2004 election, Badnarik, working with Green Party candidate David Cobb, sought a recount of the Ohio vote. This caused a great deal of controversy within the Libertarian Party, as second place candidate John Kerry had not contested the vote in Ohio, and a recount would cost the state an estimated $1.5 million of tax-payer money. Some party members were concerned that a recount would damage the public perception of the Libertarian party.

In February 2003, Badnarik announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination and spent the following 18 months traveling the country, teaching a course on the United States Constitution to dozens of libertarian groups. He has written a book, Good To Be King: The Foundation of our Constitutional Freedom (ISBN 1-59411-096-4) on the subject of constitutional law; the book was first self-published by Badnarik, but was released in hardcover in October 2004.

Badnarik first ran for public office in 2000 as a Libertarian, earning 15,221 votes (16.88%) in a race for the Texas legislature district 47. In 2002 he ran for the district 48 seat receiving 1,084 votes, or 2.24%.

Badnarik has also posed the tax protester argument that the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as "non-positive law," applies to only certain groups, and argues that the only types of income susceptible to taxation are "the domestic income of foreigners, certain foreign income of Americans, income of certain possessions corporations, and income of international and foreign sales corporations" He has also cited the Supreme Court decision Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, in which the Court indicated that the Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution did not give Congress any power that it did not have already. He also argues that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified, citing the two-volume work The Law that Never Was, co-authored by William J. Benson.

Michael J. Badnarik (/b æ d ˈ n ɑː r ɪ k / bad-NAR -ik; born August 1, 1954) is an American software engineer, political figure, and former radio talk show host. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 elections, and placed fourth in the race, behind independent candidate Ralph Nader and the two major party candidates, George W. Bush and John Kerry. Two years later Badnarik ran as a Libertarian Party candidate in the 2006 congressional elections for Texas's 10th congressional district seat near Austin. In a three candidate field, Badnarik came in third, receiving 7,603 votes for 4.3% of the vote.

He raised nearly $450,000 for his campaign and received the Libertarian Party of Texas nomination for its 10th district Congressional candidate.