Independent Parties Join Forces to End Two-Party Hold on Presidential Elections

The United Independent Party of Massachusetts has reached an agreement in principle to join with the Independent Party of Oregon and the Independence Party of Minnesota as a Co-Founder of a coalition of moderate and centrist Third Parties. The parties will convene a national conference or teleconference in August to discuss the joint nomination of a candidate for President.

The focus on Presidential politics represents a significant shift for all three parties, which have tended to focus on Local and State-level elections. “People are tired of being snookered by the two party system and shocked by the depths to which political conversation has sunk,” said UIP Founder and Chairman Evan Falchuk. “Now more than ever, we need a strong national movement for a sensible alternative to the endless nonsense. We are proud to join our friends in Oregon and Minnesota in this common cause and look forward to giving voters across the country real choices and serious alternatives.”

“We are delighted to add the United Independent Party of Massachusetts to the coalition,” noted Phil Fuehrer, State Chair of the Minnesota Independence Party. “Over the summer, we will continue to add member states and provide voters a competitive option to the two party duopoly.”

“We are working hard to build a national coalition of parties to support a national Independent reform movement as an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. The addition of the Massachusetts United Independent Party to the coalition is a significant step in the evolution of independent transpartisan politics that is starting to shake up our political system,” said Rob Harris. “We are going to see more parties joining this movement as we move forward.”

These three states together account for 28 electoral votes. The coalition now includes parties from the East coast, the West coast and the Midwest. The coalition partners are all moderate political parties who share a focus on local good Government and Election and Campaign Finance reform.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Independent Party of Oregon and Fusion Voting

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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Independent Party of Oregon Fights for Legality

The House Rules Committee of the Oregon legislature will consider a bill to abolish the Independent Party of Oregon (IPO).

The bill bans using the word "independent" in the name of any political party, thus forcing the Independent Party to change its name by the end of the year or be disbanded.

“The free speech and free association implications of this bill are stunning, particularly when you consider that no legislator has listed their name as a sponsor,” said Party Chair, Linda Williams. “This as a transparent partisan attempt by a handful of legislators to strangle the Independent Party of Oregon in its infancy."

This is such an important issue that you need to understand what the implications are. So please use the above link to The Hankster's blog to get all the details.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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