Cowen Running for Georgia Attorney General on the Libertarian Ticket

Martin Cowen is running for Georgia Attorney General on the Libertarian ticket.

He is one of the many Libertarian candidates who will appear on the ballot in 2022, though he’s no stranger to politics. A lawyer by trade, Cowen began practicing law in 1975 and the State Bar of Georgia shows him as an active member in good standing. He’s a member of the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Georgia, a member of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and a graduate of UGA Law School (1975).

Cowen also has a lengthy history with the Libertarian Party. In 2013, Clayton County voters elected Cowen to serve as an associate probate judge and in the years following, he ran as a write-in candidate for Congress, thanks to Georgia’s stifling ballot access laws. More notably, Cowen was party to the 2017 lawsuit in which four individuals and the Libertarian Party of Georgia sued the state over its ballot access laws which limit who can seek public office when not a member of the Republican or Democratic parties. 

Race for Attorney General

During the January 2022 Libertarian Party convention, delegates nominated Cowen as the candidate for Attorney General. He joins Republican Chris Carr, the incumbent, and Democrat Jen Jordan, a current state senator, in the race for the state’s top legal position.

According to his website, which has a subheader that reads ‘Don’t hurt people. Don’t take their stuff,’ Cowen has four goals for the campaign trail and for elected office:

1. To follow the law;
2. To be ethical:
3. To be professional; and,
4. To be nice.

In terms of advocacy and ideology, Cowen lists:

1. Advocating an end to qualified immunity for government agents who kill or injure innocent civilians by accident or otherwise.
2. Advocating an end to no-knock warrants.
3. Advocating an end to civil asset forfeiture without trial and conviction, without due process.
4. Advocating an end to the War on Drugs.
5. Protecting Georgia medical doctors from persecution by pharmaceutical companies and their government agents for practicing medicine with informed patient consent consistent with their own well-earned professional judgment.
6. Defending Georgia citizens from the imposition of vaccine mandates and passports.
7. Ensuring that all adults have the right to make their own health care decisions free from government interference.

And, in a disclaimer of sorts, Cowen says:

Also, it must be understood, that the powers of the Georgia Attorney General are limited by the law and the Constitutions of Georgia and the United States. When I make a policy claim during the campaign understand that I am aware that the Office of the Georgia Attorney General has very limited powers and, despite what I may claim aspirationally during the campaign, no policy outside the power of the Office of the Georgia Attorney General will be proposed or implemented once I am in office.

General Election

Qualifying for all races begins March 7. If Carr and Jordan qualify for the office without any primary challengers, each will run unopposed in the May election. Cowen will continue campaigning independently for Georgia Attorney General on the Libertarian ticket before squaring off against the other two on November 6, 2022. 

He’s penned a number of articles on the LPGeorgia website if you’d like to learn more about his ideology.
Follow him on Twitter: @mlcowen
Visit his website: www.cowenforgeorgia.com 

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