Chuck Moulton

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Chuck Moulton
Chuck-Moulton-1.jpg
Vice-Chair
Libertarian National Committee
2006—2008
Predecessor: Lee Wrights
Successor: Mike Jingozian
Personal Details
Birth: (1979-03-05) March 5, 1979 (age 44)
Education: Ph.D., economics (2018)
M.A., economics (2008)
J.D., law (2006)
B.S., mathematics (2001)
Occupation: seeking academic job, attorney, Twitch streamer
Residence: Blue Bell, PA
Party: Libertarian Party
Media
Website: http://www.chuckmoulton.org/
Facebook: Facebook
Twitter: Twitter
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Dr. Chuck Moulton (b. March 5, 1979) is a libertarian activist, attorney, economist, old school gamer, and geek from Pennsylvania. He was Vice-Chair of the LNC from 2006 to 2008. He also was Chair of the Pennsylvania LP, the Virginia LP, the national LP Bylaws Committee, and the national LP Judicial Committee. He created the LP Facebook page, which currently has over 700,000 likes. Recently Dr. Moulton conceived and spearheaded the Moulton manuveur, which elected over 175 Libertarians to local partisan office in Pennsylvania the 2021 general election.

Early Life and Education

summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro

High School

Chuck Moulton was born on March 5, 1979 in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Wissahickon High School[1], where he was active in debate club, won numerous gold medals in academic decathlon's statewide competition, and developed a novel mathematics formula published in The Mathematics Teacher[2]. In high school he was campaign manager for a nerdy friend successfully elected junior and senior class president, overcoming the usual popularity contest with catchy slogans and bold promises. As a Boy Scout in Ambler's Troop 3[3], he enjoyed hiking and camping, was elected senior patrol leader, attained the rank of Life, and was a member of Order of the Arrow.

College

Dr. Moulton attended Rochester Institute of Technology[4] in upstate New York. In 2001 he earned a B.S. in computational mathematics (a mix of mathematics and computer science) and was president of the chess club. While at RIT, Moulton immersed himself in computer science, gaining proficiency in numerous programming languages and attending the DefCon[5] and HOPE[6] hacking conferences. For the next year he took computer networking classes, then certified in Novell, Cisco, and Microsoft.

Law School

Next Dr. Moulton attended Villanova University School of Law[7] in suburban Philadelphia, earning his J.D. in 2006. While at Villanova, he was elected 1L representative to the student bar association (student government) and was active in the Federalist Society. Dr. Moulton interned at the Cato Institute[8] during his final semester of law school. He was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania (2006), New Jersey (2006), and California (2007). He became a Professional Registered Parliamentarian (PRP)[9] in 2009.

Graduate School

Due in part to his libertarian activism, Dr. Moulton became interested in economics. He had not taken a single economics course in university, so he moved to Alabama to take introductory courses at Auburn University[10] and frequently attend lectures at the Mises Institute[11]. He continued his education in California, earning a M.A. in economics from San Jose State University[12] (a very Austrian economics / free market department). While there he served as a teaching assistant for Jeffrey Rogers Hummel and was active in the Saturday Night Anarchy Club (run by Ed Stringham). Dr. Moulton then earned a Ph.D. student in economics at George Mason University[13], where he again was president of the chess club. His dissertation research focused on money without government (bitcoin, free banking, financial privacy, etc.), under the direction of his advisor Larry White.

playing bughouse

Teaching, Writing, and Blogging

While a graduate student at GMU, Dr. Moulton taught undergraduate classes in Money & Banking, International Economics, and Mathematical Economics. Cato Unbound featured him as a bitcoin expert in its July 2013 issue[14]. He started a group blog with free banking / sound money experts at freebanking.org[15], which was later merged into the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives (CMFA)[16] and re-branded as alt-m.org[17].

Intelligence

Dr. Moulton is a life member of MENSA[18] and the Triple Nine Society[19]. He enjoys math problems, logic puzzles, and deep conversations about ideas or futuristic technology.

Hobbies

Chuck Moulton is an avid chess player. He mostly plays a chess variant called bughouse[20] (2 boards and 4 players) on chess.com[21], which he streams on Twitch[22] (partnered on both platforms). He also plays bridge[23], poker, Among Us, Resistance[24], and Diplomacy. Moulton juggles (balls and clubs), unicycles, camps, and hikes. In 2012 he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

State LP Activism

settling a bylaws debate with Angela Keaton

Pennsylvania LP

Dr. Moulton was Chair of the Pennsylvania LP in 2006. Previously he served as Secretary, Election Committee Chair, and Montgomery County Representative. In 2005 he sent out a candidate recruitment letter mail merged with local offices up for election by precinct; several Libertarians were elected to partisan office as a result. He left Pennsylvania in 2007 for educational opportunities in Alabama, California, and Virginia, then returned in late 2016. Moulton now again serves as Election Committee Chair. Dr. Moulton conceived and spearheaded the "Moulton manuveur", which elected over 175 Libertarians to local partisan office in the 2021 general election and over 40 Libertarians in the 2019 general election. He is currently overseeing the petition drive to get over 50 candidates on the ballot for state and federal offices in 2022.

California LP

When Dr. Moulton lived in San Jose attending SJSU, he served as an At-Large member of the California LP Executive Committee.

Virginia LP

Dr. Moulton was Chair of the Virginia LP from 2012 to 2014. He also served as 10th CD representative and 11th CD representative to the state central committee (his apartment flipped during redistricting) and as Secretary to the Northern Virginia LP. He created the Virginia LP's Facebook page[25], which was the largest state LP page for several years. Dr. Moulton wrote a program[26] to populate the database with election districts from U.S. Congress down to precinct (including school board, town council, etc.) for free and leveraged it to recruit the most active slate of general assembly candidates in a decade.

National LP Activism

chairing part of the 2008 LP National Convention

Libertarian National Committee

Chuck Moulton was elected Vice-Chair of the LNC in 2006, defeating M Carling and Tony Ryan. While Vice-Chair (2006-2008), he chaired one full LNC meeting (Chair Bill Redpath away on his honeymoon) and one half LNC meeting (Redpath left early post-convention to catch his flight). He was Chair of the LNC's IT Committee that term. Dr. Moulton ran for Vice-Chair again in 2008, but was beat by Michael Jingozian. In 2014 he ran for Secretary of the LNC, losing to Alicia Mattson. In 2021 he sought appointment as Chair of the LNC to fill the vacancy created by Joe Bishop-Henchman, losing to Whitney Bilyeu. Before his term as Vice-Chair, he served a term (2004-2006) as Region 5 East Alternate (under Representative Dr. James Lark) -- elected by the members of his region at his first national convention. Dr. Moulton is known for the LNC vote charts he distributes to national convention delegates to increase transparency.

Other Committees

Bylaws and Rules Committee

Dr. Moulton served on the LP Bylaws and Rules Committee for the 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2012, and 2010 conventions. He was elected Chair of the Bylaws and Rules Committee for the 2014 convention and Secretary of the Bylaws and Rules Committee for the 2022 and 2020 conventions.

Judicial Committee

Portland sticker: keep the pledge
Portland sticker: change the pledge

He served as Chair of the LP Judicial Committee in the 2016-2018 and 2018-2020 terms. He is a currently member of the 2020-2022 Judicial Committee, which has decided a record number of cases.

Libertarian National Congressional Committee

Dr. Moulton was the founding Secretary of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee (LNCC) and originally conceived of the idea. He is no longer involved with the organization.

Miscellaneous Achievements

Conventioneering

Largely responsible for the "Portland Purge" in 2006, Dr. Moulton developed and printed all the stickers and literature for the Reform Caucus that advocated a big tent LP open to everyone in the libertarian quadrant of the Nolan Chart. They were unsuccessful in removing the membership pledge, but nonetheless convinced delegates to vote against retaining all of the platform planks.

Facebook and LinkedIn

Very active on Facebook and computer savvy, Dr. Moulton created the national Libertarian Party Facebook page[27], which now has over 700,000 likes. He administered it for the first year, then turned it over to LPHQ. Staff members Mark Meranta, then Kyle Hartz, then Wes Benedict managed the page. Later LNC members Arvin Vohra and John Jay Myers took over administration from staff and developed the extensive volunteer network that now works like a well-oiled machine. Dr. Moulton chose the Facebook URL "libertarians". He worked with Arvin behind the scenes to build armies of specialized LP volunteers through Facebook groups, including attorneys, programmers, and more. He also started the LP LinkedIn group.

Candidate

2004 U.S. Congress debate, PA district 13

U.S. Congress in 2004

Chuck Moulton ran for U.S. Congress (Pennsylvania district 13) as a Libertarian in 2004 (then 25 years old). He participated in 5 televised debates with his Republican and Democrat opponents, set up hundreds of yard signs, and spread the libertarian message in numerous newspaper, radio, and television interviews.

Election Results

Candidate Votes Percent
Allyson Schwartz (D) 171,763 55.7%
Melissa Brown (R) 127,205 41.3%
John McDermott (C) 5,291 1.7%
Chuck Moulton (L) 3,865 1.3%

Judge of Election in 2017

Dr. Moulton was elected Judge of Election of Whitpain 2, Montgomery County, PA in 2017. A Judge of Election is the head poll worker of a precinct, who administers elections on primary day and election day for a 4 year term.[28] All elections in Pennsylvania are partisan.

Election Results

Candidate Votes Percent
Charles E. Moulton, Jr. (L) (write-in) 1 100%

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Wissahickon High School
  2. ↑ Stu Schwartz, Charles E. Moulton and John O'Hara. "Constructing Radical Equations with Two Roots - a Student-Generated Algorithm" The Mathematics Teacher Vol. 90, No. 9 (DECEMBER 1997), pp. 742-744.
  3. ↑ Boy Scout Troop 3
  4. ↑ Rochester Institute of Technology
  5. ↑ DefCon
  6. ↑ Hackers on Planet Earth
  7. ↑ Villanova University School of Law
  8. ↑ Cato Institute
  9. ↑ Professional Registered Parliamentarian
  10. ↑ Auburn University
  11. ↑ Mises Institute
  12. ↑ San Jose State University
  13. ↑ George Mason University
  14. ↑ Chuck Moulton "It's a Sound-Money Alternative to the Dollar" Cato Unbound July 2013.
  15. ↑ freebanking.org
  16. ↑ Cato Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives
  17. ↑ Alt-M
  18. ↑ MENSA
  19. ↑ Triple Nine Society
  20. ↑ Bughouse
  21. ↑ chess.com
  22. ↑ twitch.tv/chuckmoulton
  23. ↑ Bridge Base Online
  24. ↑ Resistance
  25. ↑ LPVA Facebook page
  26. ↑ Github: LP address to districts Python script
  27. ↑ LP Facebook page
  28. ↑ Poll Workers

Social Media

Contact Info

  • 215-768-6812
  • chuck@moulton.org
  • Skype: chuckmoulton

Party Positions


Preceded by:
Lee Wrights		 Libertarian Party National Vice-Chair
2004-2006		 Succeeded by:
Michael P. Jingozian
Preceded by:
David Jahn		 Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania State Chair
2006-2006		 Succeeded by:
Mik Robertson
Preceded by:
Bill Wood		 Libertarian Party of Virginia State Chair
2012-2014		 Succeeded by:
Bill Redpath
Preceded by:
Dan Karlan		 Bylaws and Rules Committee Chair
2014 Libertarian National Convention		 Succeeded by:
M Carling
Preceded by:
M Carling		 Judicial Committee Chair
2016-2020		 Succeeded by:
Mary Ruwart


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