Below is a statement
by IndependentVoting.org President JacquelineSalit following the announcement by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of his
intention to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent for President
in 2024.
Salit:
Mr. Kennedy is
sounding many of the themes that the independent movement and independent
voters have been speaking of for decades - most notably the unchecked power of
the Democratic and Republican Parties. He says he is calling forth a movement
to challenge that power around his independent candidacy. The whiplash from
both parties will be extreme and the media on both sides will echo and amplify
the denunciations. Their aim is to shut down any public discussion of an
independent option. Whatever individual Americans decide about his positions on
vaccines, fossil fuels and the war in Ukraine, he deserves a level playing
field and an opportunity to make his case. So does Dr. Cornel West. And so do
the candidates of other independent parties.
With nearly half the
country identifying themselves as independents, we can no longer impose a
quarantine on these voices.
If you're looking for states where open primaries is on the legislative docket, look what's happening in Pennsylvania:
[PA State Senator] Boscola has introduced bills that would allow Independents to vote in primary elections. In a recent statement, she said there are 1.2 million voters in Pennsylvania – more than 14% – who are not affiliated with the Democratic or Republican Party.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today is primary day and 3.5 million Floridians are shut out of primaries their tax dollars pay for because they are independents! We can change it this November by passing Amendment 3. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LetAllVotersVote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LetAllVotersVote</a> <a href="https://t.co/isd5ib5bGI">https://t.co/isd5ib5bGI</a></p>— Florida Open Primaries (@FLOpenPrimaries) <a href="https://twitter.com/FLOpenPrimaries/status/1295719568590200832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 18, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I am looking forward to seeing this film, which includes interviews with people
who were there: Dr. Lenora Fulani, the New Alliance Party and founder of the All Stars Project; Rev. Al Sharpton,
National Action Network; Yusuf Hawkins' parents; David Dinkins…
Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklynpremieres August
12, 2020 at 9:00 P.M. on HBO. I hope HBO will allow anyone who wants to see
this film to view free of charge. How about a Free Pass for Opening Day?
I hope Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn
is not and will not become another anniversary
exploitation of the
lynching of a black man in America.
This is not 1989. It’s not 1969. Nor is the grassroots movement
exploitable in the way it was then.
The Hankster conducted an informal, small, and very unscientific exit poll this afternoon at my polling place and am pleased to report that 4 out of 4 voters think closed primaries that exclude independents in New York are bad and should be changed. Three of those voters voted for Bernie Sanders, and one voted for Donald Trump.
Here's one of them:
And here's a clip of the protest at City Hall last Thursday calling for open primaries:
Please join independent voters and open primary advocates on the steps of City Hall tomorrow, Thursday, April 14th at 12:00 pm to protest the lock out of independent voters from the New York presidential primary.
3.2 million voters will be denied the right to cast ballots in the New York Presidential Primary on April 19th !
The NYC Independence Clubs, IndependentVoting.org, OpenPrimaries.org, independent voters and advocates of open primaries will gather on the steps of City Hall on Thursday, April 14th at 12:00 pm to address the glaring shortcomings in New York's election system that will exclude millions of voters in the state - close to one million in NYC - from casting ballots in the primary.
We will be joined by Assemblyman Fred Thiele who is an advocate for opening up New York's primary election process. Assemblyman Thiele is the author of a bill to open the Presidential Primary to independents and a bill for Top Two nonpartisan elections in New York State.
Independents are playing an important role in shaping the Presidential Primary contests in those states with open primaries and caucuses. For example, fresh off victory in the Wisconsin primary, Senators Sanders won 72% of the independent vote. Independents made up 27% of the turnout in Wisconsin.
"This is a fundamental issue of democracy and voting rights," said Jackie Salit, President of IndependentVoting.org. "Independents should not be required to join a political party in order to vote."
Salit was quoted in the Atlantic magazine today stating "The political parties in New York have the state on lock down, and they're very committed to protecting that."
Yesterday PIX TV did a segment on NY's closed primary and interviewed John Opdycke for the piece.
* * *
Tomorrow evening (Thursday, April 14th) CNN and NY1 will host a debate in New York City where Democratic Party candidates Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders will face off.
Let's get a question asked at the NY debate about this voter suppression!
Please take a moment to email the debate moderators our question (below). Be sure to add your name and city (or borough) at the bottom and let me know by "cc'ing" me on your email (slyons@cuip.org)
Dear Hanksteristas, Please join independent voters and open primary advocates on the steps of City Hall on Thursday, April 14th at 12:00 pm to protest the lock out of independent voters from the New York presidential primary.
3.2 million voters will be denied the right to cast ballots in the New York Presidential Primary on April 19th !
The NYC Independence Clubs, IndependentVoting.org, OpenPrimaries.org, independent voters and advocates of open primaries will gather on the steps of City Hall on Thursday, April 14th at 12:00 pm to address the glaring shortcomings in New York's election system that will exclude millions of voters in the state - close to one million in NYC - from casting ballots in the primary.
We will be joined by Assemblyman Fred Thiele who is an advocate for opening up New York's primary election process. Assemblyman Thiele is the author of a bill to open the Presidential Primary to independents and a bill for Top Two nonpartisan elections in New York State.
Independents are playing an important role in shaping the Presidential Primary contests in those states with open primaries and caucuses. For example, fresh off victory in the Wisconsin primary, Senators Sanders won 72% of the independent vote. Independents made up 27% of the turnout in Wisconsin.
"This is a fundamental issue of democracy and voting rights," said Jackie Salit, President of IndependentVoting.org. "Independents should not be required to join a political party in order to vote."
That evening (Thursday, April 19th) CNN and NY1 will host a debate in New York City where Democratic Party candidates Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders will face off.
Let's get a question asked at the NY debate about this voter suppression!
Please take a moment to email the debate moderators our question (below). Be sure to add your name and city (or borough) at the bottom and let us know by "cc'ing" Sarah Lyons on your email (slyons@cuip.org)
MC Browneyes and Gabrielle Kurlander knocked it out of the park at the Humanitarian Innovation Conference in Oxford -- #HIP2015. World premiere of "Who Made All the Lies Fit" vocal-rap version! https://www.facebook.com/Chris.H.Street/videos/10206447289914579/?pnref=story
While I've been away, traveling the backwoods of NY Penn Station and New Jersey Transit, I've recently begun to mull over my clown history.
I recently discovered that Patch Adams (whom I know from Performing the World) -- Patch and I were on the same campus in 1970-1971 (my first year, his last year) in Richmond VA. We may have crossed the street together in The Fan, grabbed a sub at The Village, who knows? Turns out that Patch and I have traveled a common path -- a humanist path. I highly recommend you visit him.
My friend Marian reminded me today of my very first clown love -- Emmett Kelly. Tattered and torn, poor and forlorn, our sad-sack, our silent but prescient conscientious objector.
No More Fergusons Means No More Partisan
Manipulation
By Dr. Lenora Fulani
Sept. 5, 2014, 6 p.m. - Grief
can be a terrible blinder. Tears of rage and sorrow can fill
our eyes and make it hard to see, even though we have the
experience that we have become more lucid, more knowing and more
capable in the face of tragedy. My fear is that the death of
Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York
will make us, will make black people blind and will foster
illusions about the political actions we must take. We should
not allow that to happen.
Election Day is two months away. The
messengers of the political status quo, known to us as the
Democratic Party, are knocking on our doors, ringing us on our
cell phones, texting us and stuffing our mailboxes with fliers.
Remember Ferguson, they say. We must make things right in
America, so be sure to come out and vote in record numbers in
Georgia, in North Carolina, in Arkansas and Louisiana, and vote
for Democratic candidates for the US Senate. At all costs, we
are told, preserve the Democratic majority in the Senate. Read more of Redding News Review here
Congressman
John Lewis, whom I deeply admire and whose service to the cause
of civil rights and voting rights is legendary, is among those
now on the stump. "Ferguson has made it crystal clear to the
African-American community and others that we've got to go to
the polls," he said. Rev. Al Sharpton, with whom I just marched
in Staten Island and who had me speak at his rally there,
observed, "People feel like they would be betraying the spirit
of what happened in Ferguson, as well as enabling this
impeachment rhetoric, if there's a low turnout.” We are truly
caught in the crossfire. How? Because we, who have been
victimized by a profound and never-ending racial violence, are
to be blamed if we do not turn out in record numbers to prevent
the Democratic Party from losing seats in the US Senate. Who
made up those rules? Not us, that's for sure.
It is well known in the Black
community and in political circles that I am an independent. I
ran for president twice as an independent in 1988 and 1992. In
the first run I became the only African American and only woman
to access the ballot in all 50 states. In the second, I used my
candidacy to forge an alliance with the Perot movement and
through the founding of the Reform Party propelled the earliest
development of a new movement for political reform, one aimed at
opening the electoral process to include independent voters of
all racial backgrounds and political persuasions. This was based
on the belief that the political parties - Democrat and
Republican - were becoming completely vested in their own
self-preservation and less willing or able to address the crisis
of rising poverty, the breakdown of social infrastructure, and
to reverse an interventionist foreign policy that undermines
peace. Read more of Redding News Review here Today 42 percent of Americans are independents and that
includes many, many Black, Latino and Asian voters, especially young people.
The political system is very hostile to these voters, locking us out of
primary voting in many states, forcing us into a second class status as
participants in the political process. I have appealed to the Black
community on many occasions to use its power to be independent as a means of
leveraging our interests.
Recently, when Black voters cast ballots in the
Republican primary runoff in Mississippi against the far right Tea Party
candidate and for a moderate Republican, the whole world took notice.
Mississippi is a state with an open primary, where all voters can choose
which primary to vote in. Through this system Black voters were able to slam
the door on right wing extremists.
In New York City in 2005, through the NYC
Independence Party, I led a powerful coalition of Black and Latino
independents and Democrats to pull 47 percent of black voters away from the
Democratic Party and for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Democratic Party bigwigs
from Hillary Clinton to Eliot Spitzer (remember him?) went on a rampage to
undercut the independent movement. We survived, but the message to the
Black community was clear. Stay put, politically speaking, or you will pay a
serious price. For the most part, we have stayed put. And we continue to
pay a heavy price for that immobility, do we not?
These instances of exercising independent
political power were just the faintest beginnings of what can and should be
a tool for Black empowerment. It's old news that we are taken for granted
by the Democrats and that our political power is greatly diminished by being
entirely predictable. Need I mention that the Governor of Missouri and the
Mayor of New York City are both Democrats? Missouri and New York are where
the two recent episodes of the excessive use of force by police took place.
And yet we are being asked, some would say coerced, to buy the idea that
the Democratic Party is our savior and the Republican Party is evil
incarnate. Neither is true.
Each party represents a segment of the American
public and both want to prevent new forces and new alignments from changing
the game. This is why the growing movement for political reform - in
particular that wing which is focused on reforming the primary system to
downgrade the power of the parties and upgrade the power of the voters - is
so important. I am a strong supporter of that movement and I want the Black
community to join me in doing that. That is how we build our political
power. We need to be part of new coalitions, with diverse interests that
develop our capacity to grow our political strength. We need a system that
encourages—rather than represses—new coalitions.
Barack Obama, who was elected president by
winning the support of independent voters in the Democratic Primary in
sufficient numbers to defeat Hillary Clinton, will be leaving office in two
years. Electing him was a great accomplishment for the nation and for Black
America. His ability to lead, however, was greatly impaired by the demands
the Democratic Party placed on him to re-enforce its power. He turned down
many overtures from the progressive wing of the independent movement to
develop a new majority coalition and this has greatly weakened the country
and, ironically, the Black community. Sadly enough, the legacy of America's
first black president may be to leave the Black community more isolated,
deprived and underdeveloped than it has been for 60 years. Black people
feel very protective of Barack Obama. He is Black, and he has come under
vicious attack from the Right Wing. But the Democratic Party opportunizes
off of that and tries to extend it to require loyalty to the party above all
else. Promoting the idea that justice for Ferguson means voting for
Democrats is one more manipulation in that game.
As far as the upcoming Senate races are
concerned, my message to the black community is this. Make sure the
candidate you support gives their support to all forms of voter mobility -
open primaries, nonpartisan primaries, nonpartisan redistricting, etc. No
voter, regardless of race, political creed or color, should be required to
join a political party in order to participate in an election. That is a
violation of the most fundamental of voting rights!
Nothing can bring Michael Brown or Eric Garner
back to life. Both were poor Black males, like millions of others, for whom
this country cannot find a place, other than in jail or in the grave. We
must be willing to make real and significant changes in the way our
political process works if we mean to take these deaths seriously. The same
slogans, the same funeral grief, and the same voting patterns simply are not
enough.
Recently, in response to pressure from
independents and the nonpartisan reform movement, New York Senator Charles
Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
responsible for electing Democrats to the US Senate, reversed his prior
position and publicly endorsed a Top Two nonpartisan election system in
which all voters - Independents, Democrats, Republicans, third party members
- get to vote in every round of every election. This is a sign of the
growing strength of that movement, a movement in which my very dear friend
and colleague Jacqueline Salit is a major leader.
However, the conventional wisdom is that Black
people will not rally to this cause, that we have one and only one political
home and that is in the Democratic Party, so the inclusion of non-Democrats
is of no value to us. We must defy that conventional wisdom! First of all,
many of us are independents –about 31 percent according to some polls. And
second, we need to coalesce with other Americans who share our belief that
the system is no longer working for the American people. 63% of
independents in New York, according to a recent Quinnipiac Poll, say that
thedeath of Eric Garner "was a tragic thing and there is
absolutely no excuse for how the police acted." My colleagues Dr. Jessie Fields and Alvaader
Frazier, Esq, are leading a campaign directed at Schumer demanding that he
lead the fight for nonpartisan elections in New York. Hundreds of
signatures were gathered in just a few hours at Harlem Week. The Black
community is hungry to find new ways of expressing ourselves. We must do
more than go to funerals and weep, but then turn a blind eye to the
political changes that must occur. We must free up the Black community to
become more powerful. Join me in building a national Black Reformers
Network.
Dr. Lenora Fulani
is a developmental psychologist, education innovator and the country’s
leading political independent. In 2006, she initiated Operation
Conversation: Cops and Kids, a successful, alternative approach to
addressing police / community relations.
Federal judge rejects Morristown councilwoman’s challenge to New Jersey primary system
August 19, 2014 by Kevin Coughlin
A federal judge has upheld New Jersey’s closed primary system, rejecting a legal challenge from Morristown Council President Rebecca Feldman and others who contended the taxpayer-funded primaries unfairly exclude nearly half the state’s voters, who are unaffiliated...
Community Activist Tia Williams talking to voters in Jersey City
“The Supreme Court has drawn an important distinction between casting
a ballot in a general election, which implies the ‘fundamental’ right
to vote, and nominating a candidate for general election, which does
not,” wrote Judge Chesler, granting New Jersey Secretary of State Kim Guadagno’s motion to dismiss the case.
Harry Kresky, one of the lawyers representing Feldman and eight other plaintiffs, said they are weighing an appeal.
Harry Kresky, Councel for independentvoting.org
“We think the Court misunderstood our argument. The judge addressed
this as a case of Independents wanting to participate in party politics.
That’s not what this case is about. It’s about whether the state of New
Jersey can fund and administer a system that’s for the parties and not
for anyone else,” said Kresky, adding he was surprised that no oral
arguments were heard in the case.
Morristown NJ Council President Rebecca Feldman
Photo by Kevin Coughlin
“This is only the first round,” said Feldman, an Independent on the
town council, in a statement. “The other plaintiffs and I never thought
it would be easy to get beyond the hold the major parties have on our
election system.”
Go to independenvoting.org for more information about the national movement for a fair and open -- and nonpartisan -- primary election system.
A tip -- you can read more from Harry Kresky about our current constitutional crisis here.
...“By denying over 2.6 million New Jersey voters the right to cast a vote in primary elections, the state has disenfranchised nearly half of its electorate, thereby, giving private political parties a state subsidized advantage and partisan voters greater and unequal access to the voting franchise,” the lawsuit contended.
Harry Kresky, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they were considering an appeal.
“Judge Chesler treated the case from a vantage point that the plaintiffs who were mainly independent voters were seeking to vote in the primaries,” he said. “That’s not what they’re seeking – it’s whether the state can fund and conduct an election system that gives favorable treatment to voters who are members of major parties.”...
Harry Kresky, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they were considering an appeal.
“Judge Chesler treated the case from a vantage point that the
plaintiffs who were mainly independent voters were seeking to vote in
the primaries,” he said. “That’s not what they’re seeking – it’s whether
the state can fund and conduct an election system that gives favorable
treatment to voters who are members of major parties.”
- See more
at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/federal-judge-dismisses-suit-challenging-nj-primary-election-system-1.1069358#sthash.77x0Bn8J.dpuf
Harry Kresky, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they were considering an appeal.
“Judge Chesler treated the case from a vantage point that the
plaintiffs who were mainly independent voters were seeking to vote in
the primaries,” he said. “That’s not what they’re seeking – it’s whether
the state can fund and conduct an election system that gives favorable
treatment to voters who are members of major parties.”
- See more
at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/federal-judge-dismisses-suit-challenging-nj-primary-election-system-1.1069358#sthash.77x0Bn8J.dpuf
Independent voters who challenged the constitutionality of New Jersey’s
primary election system by claiming they had a right to vote in
elections that nominate candidates for general runoffs received a blow
last week when a federal judge determined that the system will remain
intact.
Judge Stanley R. Chesler of U.S District Court in Newark wrote that
while the plaintiffs in the suit believe the fundamental right to vote
extends to primary elections conducted by political parties of which
they are not members, that is not the law established by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court has drawn an important distinction between casting a
ballot in a general election, which implicates the fundamental right to
vote and nominating a candidate for a general election, which does
not,” he wrote in his 12-page decision that dismissed the suit on
Thursday.
The lawsuit was filed in March by seven registered voters – four
unaffiliated, including one from Bergen County, and three registered
with a party – and two non-profit organizations that represent
independent voters. Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who serves as the acting
secretary of state, was named as the defendant because she administers
the state election system.
The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of New Jersey’s primary
election system that allows political parties the right to use taxpayer
money to pay for the elections. By appropriating public money for
private purposes, it forces unaffiliated voters to pay for an election
process that denies them full participation, according to the lawsuit.
“By denying over 2.6 million New Jersey voters the right to cast a vote
in primary elections, the state has disenfranchised nearly half of its
electorate, thereby, giving private political parties a state subsidized
advantage and partisan voters greater and unequal access to the voting
franchise,” the lawsuit contended.
Harry Kresky, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they were considering an appeal.
“Judge Chesler treated the case from a vantage point that the
plaintiffs who were mainly independent voters were seeking to vote in
the primaries,” he said. “That’s not what they’re seeking – it’s whether
the state can fund and conduct an election system that gives favorable
treatment to voters who are members of major parties.”
Representatives of the governor’s office could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday evening.
- See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/federal-judge-dismisses-suit-challenging-nj-primary-election-system-1.1069358#sthash.77x0Bn8J.dpuf
Independent voters who challenged the constitutionality of New Jersey’s
primary election system by claiming they had a right to vote in
elections that nominate candidates for general runoffs received a blow
last week when a federal judge determined that the system will remain
intact.
Judge Stanley R. Chesler of U.S District Court in Newark wrote that
while the plaintiffs in the suit believe the fundamental right to vote
extends to primary elections conducted by political parties of which
they are not members, that is not the law established by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court has drawn an important distinction between casting a
ballot in a general election, which implicates the fundamental right to
vote and nominating a candidate for a general election, which does
not,” he wrote in his 12-page decision that dismissed the suit on
Thursday.
The lawsuit was filed in March by seven registered voters – four
unaffiliated, including one from Bergen County, and three registered
with a party – and two non-profit organizations that represent
independent voters. Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who serves as the acting
secretary of state, was named as the defendant because she administers
the state election system.
The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of New Jersey’s primary
election system that allows political parties the right to use taxpayer
money to pay for the elections. By appropriating public money for
private purposes, it forces unaffiliated voters to pay for an election
process that denies them full participation, according to the lawsuit.
“By denying over 2.6 million New Jersey voters the right to cast a vote
in primary elections, the state has disenfranchised nearly half of its
electorate, thereby, giving private political parties a state subsidized
advantage and partisan voters greater and unequal access to the voting
franchise,” the lawsuit contended.
Harry Kresky, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they were considering an appeal.
“Judge Chesler treated the case from a vantage point that the
plaintiffs who were mainly independent voters were seeking to vote in
the primaries,” he said. “That’s not what they’re seeking – it’s whether
the state can fund and conduct an election system that gives favorable
treatment to voters who are members of major parties.”
Representatives of the governor’s office could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday evening.
- See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/federal-judge-dismisses-suit-challenging-nj-primary-election-system-1.1069358#sthash.77x0Bn8J.dpuf
Thank you for writing “End Partisan Primaries, Save America” in the July 21st edition of The New York Times. You are right---closed party primaries do “poison the health” of our democracy, and we need to move to Top Two Open Primaries all across the country, including here in New York. As you described, in a Top Two open primary system, all voters can vote and choose from all the candidates. The top two vote getters would then appear on the November ballot.
In your oped, you call for the formation of a national movement to bring this reform to all the states in the country. There is one, led by forces such as IndependentVoting.org, Endpartisanship.org, and many others across the country. This fall, a Top Two Open primary initiative will be on the ballot in Oregon. Plans are underway to put it back on the ballot in Arizona in 2016.
Here in NYC, the NYC Independence Party, former Mayor Bloomberg, and the Citizen’s Union have championed this reform. Right now in NYC, there are more than a million voters independent of the two major parties who are locked out of our primaries, where most elected officials are actually chosen. In New York State that number is over 4 million.
We applaud and welcome you to the movement for nonpartisan primary reform, Sen. Schumer. Yours is an important voice. We call on you to help make Top Two nonpartisan primaries a reality here in New York.
Independent voters across the country are protesting exclusion from party-run private primaries.
In Ohio check out their website at http://independentohio.org/ or email Cynthia Carpathios at ccarpathios@independentohio.org
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2014/05/independent_voters_protest_ohi.html
