Scott Avery Boman (born April 14, 1962) is an American Libertarian politician from Michigan. He has consistently earned among the top votes of any third-party candidate in every Michigan election from 2000 through 2018. He was chair of the Libertarian Party of Michigan in 2006. Described by MIRS as a Libertarian Party standard-bearer, he has been a candidate in every state-wide partisan election since 1994, until successfully running for the Detroit office of Community Advisory Council (district 4) in 2020.
He became the second Libertarian to be endorsed by The Detroit News when he competed in the 1997 Detroit City Council general election on the non-partisan ballot. He was also the only Lieutenant Governor candidate to support the successful Michigan Civil Rights Initiative as the running mate of Gregory Creswell in the 2006 Michigan gubernatorial election.
Boman moved the Libertarian Party of Michigan from fifth to third place on the 2012 and 2014 general election ballots, by placing third in the 2010 general election when he ran for Secretary of State. In 2019 he created a Community Advisory Council for Detroit
He was the Michigan Director of Our America Initiative from 2015 through 2019, and served as Michigan Director of Gary Johnson's 2016 presidential campaign.
He currently serves on the Community Advisory Council of Detroit’s District 4 after being re-elected to it in 2022.
Early life
Boman was son of Democratic politician, and precinct delegate, Ray Howard Boman. His mother was artist and educator Sylvia Anna Boman. He went to grade school at the Detroit Waldorf School, and graduated from Grosse Pointe South High School in 1980.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Philosophy (with a minor in Mathematics) from Western Michigan University in 1985. While a student there, he became a contributing columnist for the Western Herald college newspaper. According to Boman, his columns took on a libertarian viewpoint after he read Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand. He returned to Western Michigan University where he earned his Master of Arts in Physics, and participated in scholarly atomic physics research. His work was published in Physical Review A. In 1999 he earned an MAT in Secondary Education at Wayne State University.
Political activities prior to 2006
Scott Boman has run for several public offices, and has been elected to leadership positions in a few organizations:
Before running for public office Boman was involved in organizing at the university level. He was the founding President of a student social organization at Western Michigan University called "Fellowship of the Purple Cube" in 1984. The organization also organized a protest in support of students who wished to hold an outlawed street party. Boman also wrote for the Western Herald on this issue and other topics.
Boman began running for public office in 1994 when he ran for 7th District State Representative to the Michigan Legislature. In the same year Boman (along with Emily Salvette and Barb Vozenilek) headed a successful effort to collect 40,700 signatures to restore the Libertarian Party of Michigan's ballot access.
Two years later, in 1996, he pursued a Federal office and ran for the United States House of Representatives 14th District. He received 1,705 votes for 0.9% of the vote. In 1997 Boman became the second Libertarian to be endorsed by The Detroit News, when he ran for member of the Detroit City Council.
He made two unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the Wayne State University Board of Governors. His first attempt was in 1998 Boman received 2.6% of the vote. Then he ran again for the Wayne State University Board of Governors in 2000, earning more votes than any other minor party candidate, in that election, for any office. His vote total was 130,176 (1.9%). This was 46,000 votes more than those cast for the well-known Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, whose vote total was 84,165 votes (but since fewer votes were cast for president Nader had a higher percentage of the vote).
In 1999 Boman was elected to the Wayne State University Student Council.
Boman made two unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the State Board of Education. The first being in 2002 receiving 1.6% of the vote. The second attempt was in 2004
Boman was elected to leadership positions in his party. In 2005 he was Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of Michigan. The following year, in 2006, he was elected to be Chair of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.