Biography - PoliticalRandy Waving Constitution

Randall C. Stufflebeam

  

 

Having children and grandchildren sometimes makes one consider the legacy and the world that they are leaving to their posterity. During my 22 years in the Marine Corps and having traveled the globe, I developed a deep abiding respect and gratitude for our country and the system of government that our Founding Fathers made great personal sacrifices to give us.

After retirement and coming back to “civilian life,” I was shocked to discover how much our elected officials have blatantly violated our state and federal constitutions and have squandered the freedoms and American way of life that I was so willing to give my life to protect and defend.

For over 22 years, I made an oath not just verbally, but also with my heart also “to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”   I consider my years of service on active duty to be defending our Constitution (and of course our country and my family) against “the foreign enemy.”  However, it didn't take long after I retired in 2003 to discover that "the domestic enemy" is a far more evil, vile, and dangerous enemy than any foreign enemy we have ever faced.  Consequently, as a retired veteran, my oath to protect and defend the Constitution means far more to me now than ever before.  I consider the service that I do now on behalf of my country to be even more important than those 22 years on active duty.   Because of my love for this great nation that was handed down to me, the oath that I swore is more binding on my heart than chains.  Not only must I upon the Constitution, but also the principles upon which it was founded.  There has never been a greater need for veterans to once more take hold of the oath that they swore and rise in defense of the country they were willing to lay down their lives in defense of.

What brought me to this discovery of betrayal?

For me, the most important right that I have, that is guaranteed to be protected by the Constitution, is the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion (and especially the "free exercise thereof").  This has ALWAYS been my hot-button issue.  I grew up with the knowledge that I am privileged to be growing up in a country that protects these most important of freedoms.  This is among the reasons why I joined the Marine Corps.

As I said, it didn't take me long after my retirement (within 6 months) to discover the betrayal of my 22 years of service.  Within a few months of retiring, I began hearing about the situation down in Alabama where the Alabama Supreme Court Justice, Chief Justice Roy Moore, had placed a granite monument of the 10 commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.  I began looking into what was going on, as it concerned "Religious Freedom."

I was living in Greenville, IL at the time when an article had come out in the Greenville newspaper about the upcoming elections in 2004 and that if you wanted to run for office, come up to the County Clerk's office to get the paperwork to fill out and a copy of the petitions to get signed.  So I went up there and got the paperwork for every office, except "States Attorney" to try to figure out what office I should run for.  I finally settled on the county board and within a couple of weeks got all the requisite signatures to qualify.

All the while, the situation with Roy Moore was unfolding.  In October 2003, a month before Chief Justice Roy Moore's removal from office, the political action committee known as Citizen Alert (associated with "Focus on the Family), sent out an "Alert" email advertising that there were going to be rallies in support of Roy Moore and that they were going to be held on the steps of every State Capitol throughout the United States and that these rallies were being sponsored by the Constitution Party.  Up to this point, I had never heard of the Constitution Party.

I followed the link that was provided and went to the Constitution Party website.  I read through the platform and found I was VERY interested in this new party.  I clicked on the link asking for more information and was contacted by a person who was looking to organize the party here in Illinois.  After meeting with a couple of gentlemen involved in the party, I realized that it was the Republicans as well as (or maybe even more so than) the Democrats who were responsible for this horrendous violation of the Constitution in removing Chief Justice Roy Moore from his post as the Alabama Supreme Court Justice.  It didn't take me long to realize that I no longer had a home in the Republican Party.  I decided that I needed to get involved in this new organization and help them organize the party here in Illinois.

On November 13, 2003, (in violation of the 1st, 9th, 10th, and 11th Amendments to the Constitution) Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office.  It was at this point, that like Ronald Reagan, I realized, I didn't leave the [Republican] party, it left me.  So, I took my petitions up to the Bond County Republican Chairman (Doug Marti), tore them up and threw them on his desk, and told him that because of the betrayal that I recognized by the Republican Party to the oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, I found a new home in the Constitution Party.  I found that the platform of the Constitution Party defined the very values that I and my family had always embraced and believed in.

After many more conversations with the people who were organizing the Constitution Party here in Illinois, I agreed I would help to organize the party.  On January 30, 2004, I was elected as the Vice-Chairman.  In January 2005, I became the Chairman of the state party and filled that role until March 13, 2010.  From July 2006 until April 2012, I have served as Chairman of the Constitution Party's Midwestern United States Region, which includes 12 states.

In 2006, after being denied ballot access, I ran for Governor of Illinois as a write-in candidate. On November 7, 2006, I received 19,020 officially recorded votes, smashing the previous record set by Ralph Nader in 2004.

In 2010, I ran for the U.S. Senate.  We delivered over 34,000 signatures covering a requirement of 25,000 signatures. The Republicans objected to over 17,000 signatures. In the end, the Republican Party spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars and kept us off the ballot by 65 signatures. We actually could have taken it to the Illinois Supreme Court, but at this point, there was only about two weeks before the election, so it would be a moot point.

In 2012, I ran for Chairman of the National Constitution Party. I was not elected as Chairman but was elected as Vice-Chairman of the party.

I was also elected as the 2nd vice-chairman of the Constitution Party of Illinois in 2012.

I am a charter member as well as a member of the board of the Veteran’s Coalition, which is an official extension of the Constitution Party focused on bringing veterans on board to help us save our nation.

I am also a member of the board of directors of FREE (Free and Equal Elections). FREE is an organization that was founded by Christina Tobin and is dedicated to leveling the playing field for all political parties within the nation to be able to have an equal opportunity to provide candidates that people can vote for.