Articles by Cathy Stewart

Last week in Staten Island, the NYC Charter Revision Commission held its next-to-last public hearing. As Commissioner Diane Savino commented, addressing NYC's closed primary system “is the single biggest issue we’ve heard this year.”...

Since the New Year, I have been reading a steady diet of memoirs. The genre has captivated me since working with my 93-year-old father to finish his memoir, Hilltop Echoes, about growing up on a farm in rural Massachusetts. His book explores family secrets, the joys of a secret trout fishing spot, the loss of his beloved father, moving off the farm and entering the Marines... all told against the backdrop of the New England countryside. ‍ On the memoir road these last two months, I have met Ta...

Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal is a journalist, author, and former medical practitioner. She was kind enough to join Independent Voting’s Vice President for National Development, Cathy Stewart, for her Politics for the People Book Club in December to discuss her book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. Dr. Rosenthal’s expansive experience in the medical field — both as a doctor and as New York Times journalist and Editor-in-Chief at Kaiser Health New...

Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal is a journalist, author, and former medical practitioner. She was kind enough to join Independent Voting’s Vice President for National Development, Cathy Stewart, for her Politics for the People Book Club in December to discuss her book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. Dr. Rosenthal’s expansive experience in the medical field — both as a doctor and as New York Times journalist and Editor-in-Chief at Kaiser Health New...

Elisabeth Rosenthal accomplishes the seemingly impossible: she’s created a digestible and oftentimes heartfelt guide to the American health care system. Statistical analyses, facts, and financial data litter the book, but with Rosenthal’s ability to seamlessly weave personal accounts and her sharply written “Economic Rules of the Dysfunctional Medical Market” throughout the book, readers can feel emotionally invested in the political football that is our country’s health system. Health care is ...

I am writing from a spot nestled in the woods in Washington County in rural New York, listening to the chatter of the morning birds and looking forward to a walk along the Battenkill River later today. It is summer vacation and that means summer reading, somehow especially delicious done by the sea, or in a hammock, or a shady spot under a tree. How did reading become so identified with the summer lexicon? In a 2012 Boston Globe article, author Craig Fehrman posits that the idea of summer readi...

This month, I invited Frank Fear to review the book, Independents Rising: Outside Movements, Third Parties, and the Struggle for a Post-Partisan America. Jacqueline Salit, the president of Independent Voting and author of the popular IVN column "The Neo-Independent" wrote the book in 2012. After the Politics for the People Book Club read Greg Orman’s book, A Declaration of Independents: How We Can Break the Two-Party Stranglehold and Restore the American Dream, I was struck by how the two books...

Editor's note: this article was co-authored by Cathy Stewart (introduction) and Caroline Donnola (main article). The Politics for the People (P4P) Book Club brings together independent-minded Americans to read a wide range of books—both fiction and non-fiction—of interest to independents.  With each selection, we have a lively dialogue on the P4P blog culminating in an hour conference call conversation with our author. We just finished reading Greg Orman’s book, A Declaration of Independents: ...

Independents and the political establishment are keeping a close eye on what is happening in Kansas this year. Greg Orman, a successful business leader and entrepreneur, is running as an independent for governor of Kansas in one of the highest profile independent gubernatorial races in the country. In 2014, Greg made national political headlines in his first independent run. He challenged incumbent Senator Pat Roberts in a race that was neck and neck. The Democratic challenger, Chad Taylor, dro...