I just turned 74. I'm still dreaming the same dream inspired in me by Martin Luther King. At age 12, I was living in one of the most segregated cities in America, Miami, Florida. I acted out my MLK dream to question authority, to question orthodoxy, and to take a risk. The risk was a life's work to get America out of the two-party stranglehold on electoral competition. Dr. King's greatest risk is barely remembered or even known by most Americans. He risked losing his stature as our country's most important civil rights leader as he considered an independent presidential run with Ben Spock. This would have united two mass movements underway: the civil rights movement and the movement to end the Vietnam War. It was a revolutionary break with two-partyism. And, it died with Dr. King. It was replaced with a reform movement for civil, women's, and gay rights, environmentalism, and consumer protection that was coopted into the Democratic Party and a long era of identity politics. Fast forward to 1992 when a most unlikely revolutionary stepped forward to run as an independent for President. Ross Perot rose up from the mass movement for the most popular voter initiative in U.S. history -- term limits. He sent a shock wave across the political and media establishment, showing 45% in the polls. That's right. Perot could have won the presidency.* His issue was prescient -- the federal deficit was the ticking time bomb on the American economy's decline.
Fast forward again to this extraordinary 1999 press conference with the then newly elected Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura together with Donald Trump. It was not long after Ventura's stunning victory on the Perot-founded Reform Party line that was just 3 years old. Donald Trump came to Ventura looking for a way around the "swamp" to run for president in 2000.
But in February 2000, the Reform Party fractured into pieces as the cameras rolled at a national press conference. The party died at this embarrassing event in front of the national media, as several fought over the microphone. See "Reform Party Ousts Chairman at Raucous Meeting."
In short four years, the Reform Party died.
What did we learn that's relevant today as Donald Trump steps back in for a second term?
What if Donald Trump ran in 2000 as an independent in a three-way race? Might that have helped shape him as a political moderate, a so-called RINO in today's world of hyper-partisan poisoning?
I don't regret a moment of the last 45 years of my life having taken the risk of failure to help get America out of its two-party monopolistic bind. But if you believe, like I do, that failure is our best teacher, we should be able to figure this out.
In Texas, we have been to the courts and the Legislature -- many times -- to ease ballot access requirements and to ease restrictions on parties and petitions. We have repeatedly failed, yet the numbers of Texas independents keep growing.
What else can we -- independents not aligned with a party or ideology -- do to break through? I have some ideas that we've been working on to share with you. This is why I want to see you at our first online forum for 2025 -- on Monday, January 27 at 7 pm. Sign up at our Events page here and feel free to email us at contact@livtx.org.
Linda Curtis was the state organizer for the Reform Party of Texas and served on the national committee of the Reform Party USA. In 2000 she co-founded Independent Texans PAC. In 2013, she co-founded the nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c4 League of Independent Voters of Texas.
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*You may not know or remember, that Perot blew through the ballot access petition requirements with thousands of activated volunteers, but abruptly dropped out for a few months. His volunteers kept petitioning and pulled him back into the race.
This morning, January 20, MLK & Inauguration Day, I added this clarification: In 2019, political scientist, historian, ahd Democrat, Lee Drutman, in his book, "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop," argued that since the 1980s the U.S. party system has become a "doom loop."* He said, "America is divided over two competing visions of national identity. Politics is now all about winning and losing. Government is breaking down.” Furthermore, Drutman wrote, "When loyalty is absolute, parties can mislead voters they supposedly represent into supporting policies that in fact, make their lives worse off. “ Is anyone in the two-party establishment or in the factions that exist today, capable of being more than tone-deaf about party and ideology? For more, see Rich Winger's (Ballot Access News) book review at LIV of, "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop," and join us discuss the organizing problems that need addressing to get to Drutman's main thesis for a multi-party system in America. * LIV Note: 1980 is when Congressman John Anderson bolted from the GOP to run as an independent for President, receiving 6.6%. Anderson's ballot access litigation, to this day, was important to the continued efforts to open up the ballot.
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