Q&A with Libertarian Party of North Carolina director Jason Melehani

Jason Melehani, 25, a UNC-CH Ph.D. and M.D. student at the UNC School of Medicine, was recently appointed executive director of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina.

State & National Editor Madeline Will spoke to Melehani about his new job.

DAILY TAR HEEL: Tell me about your background.

JASON MELEHANI: I did my undergrad at UCLA. I actually studied microbiology immunology and graduated in 2010, moved out here to start medical school at UNC and I got involved with the Libertarian Party shortly after coming here. But I’ve always been very libertarian and very interested in politics, so I just started getting deeper and deeper into it as time passed.

DTH: What are your responsibilities as executive director? JM: The primary reason they created this position and put me into it was to have a more serious fundraising strategy. That’s kind of my top goal — start getting in touch with people who’ve been supportive over the years and get them to make financial contributions.

It also includes pretty much everything across the board from political strategy and candidate training to election research and identifying target districts to run, as well as organizational duties.

DTH: What are your personal goals in this position?

JM: Ideally, I’d like to see the Libertarian Party be put on the map here in North Carolina. There’s a lot of opportunities here — there’s recently been an election law change which got rid of straight-ticket voting, and that’s something we believed hampered us tremendously in the past.

Now, as a person goes through the ballot, they’ll see the races and it’s maybe a Republican versus a Libertarian and there’s no Democrat, or the other way around, and I think that will provide us a more level playing field to start from.

This year, we’re focusing on the municipal races, city councils, town councils. Next year, we’re looking at the state house and we’re going to try to make a big push for that.

DTH: I saw that the Libertarian Party in North Carolina has grown?

JM: The state of North Carolina keeps track of the total number of registered voters for each party, and our numbers since January of 2012 have gone up 70 percent.

DTH: What do you think is the reason for this growth?

JM: I think people are just really getting fed up with the two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.

I think a lot of people are kind of disheartened, disillusioned with the two main parties and are looking to us as an opportunity to change the system.

DTH: North Carolina has been known as a purple state. Where do Libertarians fit in?

JM: If you look at the number of registered Democrats and Republicans and the unaffiliated voters, the unaffiliated has been going up while the other two are going down. We believe very strongly that if people knew about us, they would likely identify with us.

DTH: Do you think 2014 and 2016 could be the years for Libertarians?

JM: I don’t know, I hope to God it is.

Every time, particularly for presidential elections, it seems like a lot of people don’t have a choice they’re happy with, but they just vote against the choice they’re more unhappy with. I’m hoping with the right candidates and the right places and the right races with the right volunteer support — I don’t think we’re going to elect a Libertarian president in 2016 or a governor in 2016, but if we can get four or five people in the state house, that would be a tremendous change.

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