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New Independent Party Qualifies For Oregon Ballot
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/28/2007 - 10:14am.
By Colin Fogarty, OPB News
PORTLAND, OR 2007-01-25 Oregon voters count themselves as an independent lot. People who are not affiliated with either major party make up more than 20% of the voting population. Now, there is an actual Independent Party. Organizers collected the 19,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, as Colin Fogarty reports.
The spark that ignited the Independent Party was a bill the 2005 legislature. The bill made it much harder for candidates who are not tied to the two big parties to get a place on the ballot. The law made it difficult for State Senator Ben Westlund to mount an independent run for governor last year. Now attorney Linda Williams and others have formally established a party bearing the label claimed by so many.
Linda Williams: "'Independent' seemed to capture the spirit that it was not going to try to be another Democratic Party. It was not going to try to be a right wing party. It was going to try to evaluate ideas and be solution oriented. That would be the goal and therefore independent in that sense."
At this point, the Independent Party's platform is limited to a few ideas campaign finance limits, a non-partisan Secretary of State. Williams says a more detailed platform will come later after input with the new members. So far the major parties haven't paid much attention . But Oregon Republican Party director Any Langdon wonders whether some voters might be confused.
Amy Langdon: There is a quote, unquote growing party called the independent party. We talk about that just to describe. But now there actually, on record, a group called the Independent Party.
...Independent with a capital "I." Mary Conley, who speaks for Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, points out this is the second minor party to win ballot access in Oregon in the last year. The labor-oriented Working Families Party qualified last June. And Conley says more could be coming.
Mary Conley: "You know I think Oregon is such a state that values its independent thought of voters, I don't think we that surprised at all."
It may be some time before the new Party begins getting new members. The Secretary of State's office won't begin listing it on voter registration cards until it prints new ones. Conley doesn't know when the state will run out of the old ones. But she says the box labeled "other" includes a line, in which voters can list Independent Party, with a capital "I."
