Lily Wu—a 39-year-old immigrant, political novice, and registered member of the Libertarian Party—has just been elected mayor of Wichita, Kansas, one of the 50 largest cities in the United States.
Wu, who will become the first Asian-American mayor in Wichita’s 153-year history, arrived in the United States from Guatemala when she was just 8 years old. The first person in her family to attend college, she graduated from Wichita State University with international business and marketing degrees. For the past 12 years, she’s been a local television reporter, a career she says was inspired by the fact that she learned English by watching the news.
In her first foray into politics, Wu defeated incumbent Mayor Brandon Whipple by more than 10,000 votes and 16 percentage points. In her victory speech on Tuesday night, Wu stressed the importance of making the government “more responsible with the money that is being sorted to us for taxpayers”—a message that will sound familiar to many libertarians.
Other aspects of her campaign, however, have drawn criticism from the Kansas Libertarian Party, notably her plan to hire more cops in Wichita. “Make no mistake: Lily Wu is not associated or engaged with this party,” the state party tweeted on Wednesday, even as the national Libertarian Party celebrated her success. (Wu was also backed by a political action committee connected to the free market group Americans for Prosperity.)
In a more diplomatic statement, Tim Giblin, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Kansas, said Wu was a “registered libertarian, but not a recognized candidate” of the state party. While acknowledging that Wu’s victory brought more public attention to the party, Giblin also said his group “will be watching closely and loudly. Lily had no problem using our banner as a stepping stone throughout her campaign. We intend to hold her to that.”
Wichita’s mayoral elections are nonpartisan, so Wu didn’t need the nomination of the Libertarian Party to get on the ballot. She certainly isn’t the first former Republican to flee that party. And these internecine fights over who counts as a real libertarian are nothing new, of course.
Still, we wanted to get to the bottom of it. So Reason caught up with Wu on Thursday evening to ask about her political views, why she decided to run for mayor, and what she plans to do now that she’s won.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Reason: What was your message to voters—the “elevator pitch” when you have just 30 seconds to meet someone and convince them to support you?
Lily Wu: I always say that it’s important to get back to some basics in Wichita and really talk about the core services that local government should focus on. It’s about ensuring public safety, growing our economy, restoring trust in city hall, and building a united community. The mayor’s race is nonpartisan, so I really believe that you need to be a bridge builder and consensus builder to try to bring folks together on an agenda that can move forward to become the best place to live, work, and raise a family.
Reason: You’ve taken some heat from the Kansas Libertarian Party over whether that message makes you a real libertarian. Are you?
Wu: I am a libertarian. I believe in freedom, and I believe in personal responsibility.
For many years, I’ve heard a lot of dissatisfaction with the hyperpolarization that has happened in America. It has seeped into local politics where we’ve become very divided So, I chose to become a registered Libertarian, because I believe that speaks to my personal beliefs and the freedoms of America.
But I didn’t speak about being a Libertarian throughout the race, because it is a nonpartisan race. Oftentimes people would just ask, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” And I would proudly say, “I’m a citizen, because I would love to serve all of Wichita.” And I believe that that is the role of being a mayor of the largest city in the state of Kansas is really representing all communities.
Reason: Can you spell out what being a libertarian means to you?
Wu: Being a classical liberal. Believing in personal freedom. I believe in empowering the individual and limited government. I chose to become a Libertarian on my registration because it spoke to who I was.
Reason: Even though this was technically a nonpartisan race, do you think your success says something about voters’ willingness to see past the duopoly of Republicans and Democrats?
Wu: I’ve heard it throughout this campaign: People are tired of the partisan bickering and the hyper-division. In Wichita, I’m an independent voice. That speaks to a lot of, especially, young professionals in our community. We can think for ourselves.
Reason: What do you want to accomplish as mayor? Are there a few big goals you have?
Wu: At the top is the workforce. We have economic opportunities right now within our community. We have a wonderful aerospace industry, but we also are looking for additional industries that can be strengthened. So the very first thing that I would like to do is bring more folks together on those economic opportunities—bringing local government, education, and the business sector together to provide those job opportunities, and that talent pipeline that we need.
And then, above everything else, we as a local government have to provide the core services for our community. Those include police, fire, and infrastructure. Make sure that we do a good job with those, so that people will want to continue staying in Wichita and choosing to come to Wichita.
Public safety has to be the number one thing that we work on together. And I say that the very first thing that we can do is focus on rebuilding some of the relationships that have been fractured between the mayor’s office, the police department, and the community.
Reason: There are certainly some libertarians who would say that a focus on policing, and on hiring more police officers, is not a limited-government message. Tell me why you think it is.
Wu: Currently the Wichita Police Department faces a 110-officer shortage. We also have another 100 officers who will be eligible for retirement. In addition, there was a survey of over 400 officers, and 70 percent have looked at another job in the last 12 months. So we have a recruitment and retention crisis within our police department. I believe that what needs to happen is making sure that the police department we currently have, the officers that we want to fill those positions, know that they have a mayor who is supportive of them in terms of respect and resources.
Reason: What about making sure police officers are held accountable when they violate the law or someone’s rights? Is there anything you’ll look to do in that regard?
Wu: As a reporter for the past 12 years, I’ve had the opportunity to share not just stories that were positive in our community, but also the challenges in our community—including holding public officials accountable and officers accountable. I believe that accountability has to be something that we focus on.
One of my three pillars is restoring trust in city hall. We need to do a better job of helping our community understand how local government works, and how public servants are helping our community. When there are officers, if they have violated the due process of individuals, they also have due process. But also we need to hold them accountable.
Reason: You grew up in Wichita as an immigrant and as a child of immigrants. How has that shaped the way you see the world and your politics?
Wu: I’m just so grateful that my parents had this dream of one day coming to America. I was born and raised in Guatemala, but my parents are from China. They had that dream, even before my brother and I were born, that they wanted to come to America. And once we were born, they knew that they wanted to come to America to provide their kids with better opportunities—specifically, educational opportunities.
I’m really grateful that we were able to come to America. I’m proud to be an immigrant. I believe that what we have that is truly what makes Wichita so special are individuals in our community—people who are teachers and mentors who want to help. Helping an immigrant family like ours get on their feet and be able to find opportunities, and then we ran with them. In Witchita, anything is possible.
Reason: I doubt that many of our readers are that familiar with Wichita, so here’s my final question. Fill in the blank: “The best ______ in Wichita is…”
Wu: The best festival in Wichita is the Wichita Asian Festival. Asian Americans in our community come from anywhere—from Lebanon to India to China to Japan—and our festival has been going on for more than 40 years. We bring people together every single year to showcase the diversity of culinary arts and performing arts, so that people can enjoy Asia right here in the heartland.
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