Constitution Party candidate to speak at Shadle High tonight

Another presidential candidate is coming to Spokane today but without the motorcade and Secret Service entourage.

Constitution Party nominee Michael Peroutka will speak at 7 p.m. this evening at Shadle Park High School as part of a swing through Washington state.

Peroutka, who received his party’s nomination last week, will share the stage with a more recognizable newsmaker, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Moore is probably best known for refusing a federal court order to remove a 2 1/2- ton granite representation of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama state courthouse rotunda. The other justices of the Alabama high court overruled Moore, and a judicial ethics panel later ordered him removed from office for “putting himself above the law.”

Peroutka and Moore appear to be on the same political wavelength. The candidate sums up his platform as “God, family, the Republic,” and in a recent press release said government should be limited by God’s law and the Constitution. “Judges that rule otherwise must be impeached,” he added.

The Constitution Party’s presidential candidate in 2000, Howard Phillips, received just under 2,000 votes in Washington state, or about .07 percent of those cast. Formerly known as the U.S. Taxpayers Party, its members are strict conservatives who oppose abortion, the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve, and support the Second Amendment and “Pro-family policies.”