| Bill Shearer | |
| Birth Date: | 21 January 1931 |
| Birth Place: | Marysville, California, U.S. |
| Death Place: | San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Known For: | Founder of the American Independent Party |
| Alma Mater: | San Diego State College |
William Kennedy Shearer (January 21, 1931 – March 3, 2007) was an American attorney and political activist who founded the American Independent Party. Shearer went on to lead the party for most of his life. He was active in minor party ballot access issues in California.
William K. Shearer was born in Marysville, California on January 21, 1931, and graduated from Grossmont High School and San Diego State College.[1]
Shearer served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and worked on the staff of United States Representative James B. Utt and, later, for Assemblyman E. Richard Barnes.[2] In 1957, Shearer was hired as executive director of the Central Committee of the Republican Party of San Diego County, California.[3]
Running as a Republican, Shearer unsuccessfully stood for election to the California Assembly from California's 77th State Assembly district in 1952, 1956 and 1958, before founding and publishing the monthly conservative newspaper The California Statesman.[2] He later became an organizer of the Citizens' Councils in California.[4]
Between his political activism, Shearer worked as an attorney, growing a successful, 70-person law firm in San Diego.[5]
In 1967, Shearer was hired by the George Wallace 1968 presidential campaign to help establish the American Independent Party (AIP) as a vehicle for Wallace's political ambitions.[6] Shearer went on to co-found the AIP that year in California with his wife, Eileen Knowland Shearer, with the party rapidly consolidating minor parties in other states under the umbrella of a National Committee of Autonomous State Parties to provide Wallace with cross-country ballot lines.[7] The decision by Wallace to start organizing his campaign in California has never been entirely explained. Because the Wallace campaign had no West Coast contacts, Wallace aide Seymore Trammell called Bill Simmons – a leader of the Citizens' Council of Jackson, Mississippi – for a recommendation for someone in California.[8] Simmons advised the campaign to retain Shearer.[8] Wallace went on to win 46 votes in the United States Electoral College; as of 2023, he was the last minor party candidate to win electoral votes in a U.S. presidential election.[9]
After the 1968 election, Shearer continued to lead the American Independent Party and was its candidate for Governor of California in 1970.[10] A long-simmering dispute between Wallace and Shearer led to a 1973 split in the party, with it bifurcating into the American Independent Party and the American Party, Shearer continuing to lead the former.[11] In 1976, the New York Times characterized the AIP as "a party that is practically his [Shearer's] own".[12]
Shearer subsequently led the AIP into becoming the California state affiliate of the Populist Party, from which it later withdrew, and then the Constitution Party.
In 1951, as a university student, Shearer was the subject of a profile in the San Diego newsweekly Point Magazine which described his support for readoption of the gold standard and his opposition to United States foreign policy as having "all the earmarks of a zealot".[13] Addressing the matter of segregation, in 1967 Shearer stated that he was "not an avowed segregationist, but I do favor a pattern of life which has some degree of segregation".[14] In 1970, Shearer called for the fairness doctrine to be extended to newspapers and for limits to be placed on political campaign spending.[10] During his life, Shearer advocated for ballot access for minor parties and candidates from a variety of political orientations.[15] In 1973, for instance, he submitted an affidavit in support of the Socialist Workers Party in Socialist Workers Party v Eu.[15]
Shearer kept framed photos of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in both his office and his home.[16] According to Eileen Shearer, Zapata was one of Bill Shearer's heroes.[16]
Shearer had a daughter who served as the AIP's chair from 2004 to 2006, and several stepchildren.[15] He died on March 3, 2007, in San Diego at the age of 76.[15] [1]