In order to insulate themselves from growing voter dissatisfaction, in 2006 Oregon Democrats and Republicans passed a law banning the ballot label "Independent" by unaffiliated candidates who went out and petitioned their neighbors to stand for election to public office.
In response, Oregonians collected signatures to form the Independent Party of Oregon (IPO).
The IPO, Oregon’s third largest political party with 98,359 members as of October, 2013, is nearing major party status.
The IPO has added more members than any other party since it was founded in 2007. During that time, the Republican Party has lost more than 38,000 members while Democrats have added approximately 80,000 members.
“It’s a sign of just how frustrated voters have become with the major parties that we are growing at such a rate,” said IPO Secretary, Sal Peralta. “We get a lot of disaffected voters who just want to see government working better and working for the people.”
Who are IPO members? A common denominator is a sense of deep frustration with Democrats and Republicans and their inability to work collaboratively on policies that will improve the lives of average citizens. Instead, the major parties’ agendas are often dominated by issues that benefit narrow special interests, often to the detriment of the rest of us.
Rather than focusing on controversial hot button issues to attract hyper-partisans and money, they set out to learn what their members agree on. Six years and nine member surveys later, the party has found broad agreement on common sense solutions that include:
- Reducing special interest influence over our legislative process.
- Increasing transparency in government, particularly with how, tax dollars are spent and how the public’s business is conducted in Salem, with emphasis on campaign finance reform.
- Protecting Oregon consumers, particularly with respect to banks, insurance companies and private utilities.
- Providing incentives for small businesses to thrive and for larger businesses to expand in a way that returns more benefits to the public than it costs.
This was the agenda agreed upon by most IPO members and the 500,000 unaffiliated voters who together make up 30 percent of the Oregon electorate.
The IPO has had successes. The party has helped to:
- Increase ballot access.
- Block legislative efforts to water down Oregon’s campaign finance laws.
- Blocked efforts to gut Oregon’s open meetings law.
- Fought for consumer protections.
Politically, the party hopes to promote greater collaboration between the major political parties. To that end, in 2010 and 2012 they opened their nominating process to candidates, regardless of party, and nominated more than 100 statewide officeholders and sitting legislators through fair, membership-wide, secure online voting.
While they were successful at finding Democrats and Republicans who wanted the label “Independent” on the ballot, they were less successful at getting these nominees to actually work collaboratively in service to the IPO membership’s common sense goals.
A handful of legislators have worked with them to promote portions of their IPO agenda, but most accepted the IPO nomination then toed their party line once elected.
STATE COUNCIL
Linda Williams, Chair
Dan Meek, Co-chair
Sal Peralta, Secretary
OTHER OFFICERS
Joan Horton (treasurer, nominating caucus)
Travis Diskin ( nominating caucus)
Their goal is to elect a few Independents to the Legislature. These representatives would form an Independent caucus and demand effective non-partisan policies. Such a caucus could have an immensely positive impact on policy debate and legislation.
Fusion voting is still legal in Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont.
Fusion tickets are most commonly used in New York, Connecticut and now Oregon, signed into law Apirl 3, 2013.
CLICK HERE for more information about the Independent Party of Oregon.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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