Greenwich Libertarian and hedge fund founder Phil Maymin is trying to petition his way onto the ballot of one of this year's most closely watched congressional races.
Republican Rep. Christopher Shays is being challenged by Democrat Diane Farrell, who hopes to better her performance of two years ago when she captured 48 percent of the vote to Shays' 52 percent.
Libertarians hope that by getting Maymin on the ballot for the 4th District, the high-profile nature of that race will help bolster the ranks of their own party, said Courtenay Hough, the chairman of the Stamford Libertarian Town Committee.
"We're hoping to grow the Libertarian Party in the 4th District," Hough said. "There's a lot of closet Libertarians."
To get on the ballot, though, Maymin, 31, of Cos Cob, has to collect 2,909 signatures from registered voters between now and Aug 9. In the past, some Libertarians have been lax in launching the requisite petition drive, Hough said.
But not Maymin. He is offering to pay petitioners an hourly wage of $20 or more to help gather enough signatures.
"We're Libertarians. We feel people should be rewarded for their efforts," Maymin said in a phone interview Monday.
A Moscow native who immigrated with his family in 1980, the Harvard-educated Maymin and his father, a former mathematics professor, operate a Greenwich hedge fund called Maymin Capital Management LLC. His family members are committed Libertarians who abhor the way the federal government collects and spends tax revenue, Maymin said.
"It's gone too far, all this stuff with the government taking money and spending it any way they want," he said. "Taxes are stealing, especially direct taxation like income tax."
On his Web site at www.mayminforcongress.com, Maymin recalls growing up in Andover, Mass.
"When my mom drove me to school, we would go past a huge, fenced IRS building and each time she would mutter 'bloodsuckers' under her breath," he said on the site.
Maymin said that taxes should be used only to protect personal property, enforce contracts or provide national security. He said the government should ban policies such as giving out foreign aid and providing services to undocumented immigrants.
At the same time, he supports limiting the reach of the government, including recalling troops from Iraq and eliminating the Patriot Act, which gives the government unprecedented powers in tracking the movement of people suspected of terrorism.
"The country is at a crossroads," Maymin said. "It's time for a change. It's time to come out with principles and say 'That's wrong.' "
Maymin, who also serves as a Greenwich justice of the peace, has lived in town for nearly five years with his wife. The couple has a baby daughter. Though he joined the Libertarian Party when he lived in Chicago while attending a doctoral program in business, Maymin was introduced to the Connecticut Libertarian Party through his younger brother, Dan, who is president of Greenwich High School's Libertarian Club.
Dan Maymin, 17, wrote a newspaper article that caught the attention of Hough, who was later introduced to Philip Maymin. The two agreed that he has good chances in this year's election.
"He looked at the numbers and said all we need is a third of the votes in Connecticut," Dan Maymin said of his brother. "That is not impossible."
