I ran for US House of Representatives as a candidate of thrid party: the Natural Law Party, in Georgia's fifth congressional district, in 1996. I received 1,008 votes, losing handily to the Republican candidate. There is no Constitutional basis for America’s current two-party system. In fact, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson specifically warned against political parties, which they feared would become entrenched as elitists and servers of special interests, unresponsive to the needs and desires of the people.Today we find ourselves in this very situation. Frustrated by political gridlock, many Americans feel that government has grown into a self-serving, self-perpetuating partisan body that neither reflects nor recognizes their desires. Recent polls indicate that 86% of Americans feel that their elected officials will never solve the nation’s problems, partly because political infighting has frozen the machinery of government. Consequently, the U.S. has the lowest voter turnout of any country in the world.Over 60% of Americans favor the formation of a new, major political party. Americans want change and are deeply frustrated with both Republican and Democratic candidates. Traditionally, third parties have introduced important new ideas, such as women’s suffrage and, as Radell said, the abolition of slavery, into our national political debate. As former Chief Justice Earl Warren commented:All political ideas cannot and should not be channeled into the programs of our two major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, which innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.Yet the Republican and Democratic parties continue to exert an effective stranglehold on the political process, preventing crucial new ideas from emerging via third parties and their candidates.Current campaign laws unfairly discriminate against independent and third-party candidates. In 1996, Republicans and Democrats received $148 million taxpayer dollars to run their general election campaigns -- including $25 million to hold meaningless presidential nominating conventions -- while independent and new-party candidates typically receive nothing. In most cases, access to the ballot is automatic for Republicans and Democrats, but independent and third-party candidates face the most rigid, discriminative, and unwieldy procedures in the world. For example, until 1998, it was more difficult for a new party to get on the ballot in Florida than in all the countries of Europe combined. In Georgia it took us 90,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Friends, that was not an easy task!The present ballot-access barriers for third parties blatantly violate the 1990 international Helsinki accords that guarantee universal and equal suffrage to all adult citizens “without discrimination,” including equal access to the ballot and the media. Ironically, the United States is the world’s foremost proponent of these accords.The SolutionThe Natural Law Party is no longer in existence, but it supported election reform that returns American democracy to the high ideals envisioned by our nation’s founders -- a democracy that fairly represent the views of all its citizens and candidates. To achieve this, the Natural Law Party supported the following initiatives:Ensure ballot access fairness. Every political party and candidate should have the same requirements in every election for getting on the ballot. Incumbents should no longer have privileges over challengers with new ideas.Promote campaign fairness. It is the right of the American people to hear the views of every candidate on the ballot. All candidates who meet ballot access requirements should have the same access to their constituencies, including equal media access through a series of publicly sponsored televised forums, debates, and infomercials, as well as publicly sponsored mailings of voter education materials. To qualify for these privileges, candidates would be required to comply with voluntary spending limits. This structure would favor voter education over privately funded media advertising and would thereby help eliminate special interest influence on the election process.Encourage all Americans to vote. Election day should be made a mandatory national holiday, as in most other nations, so that everyone has time to vote. Voter registration should be facilitated by creating uniform laws that allow same-day registration or even automatic registration.Shorten the campaign season. The campaign season should be reduced to four months -- two months for parties to choose their candidates and two months for the general election.Abolish the Electoral College. Under the current system, a presidential candidate can receive a majority of the votes and still lose the election. The President should be elected by the people through direct popular vote.Allow national initiatives. The “public initiative” process, already enacted and in operation in 23 states, should be expanded to the national level. This process allows the collective will of our citizens to initiate legislative reform and thereby shape governmental policy more directly.Reconsider proportional representation. This political system has been effective in countries around the world and more fairly represents the true will of the people than our current “winner-take-all” process.
