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A wise man once said, “Those who make the rules, rule.” Today, we wonder whether the current rules of voting and governing can deliver any kind of progress. An important rules question was on the ballot in Maine yesterday and the voters delivered a clear message. After a hard-fought campaign against a brutal opposition, the voters passed Question 1 by a margin of 55% to 45%. This was a mass veto of the state legislature’s attempt to turn back the will of the voters. In 2016, Maine voters enact

It’s been a while! However, no matter how little we’ve written about independent candidates and organizations over the past month, actions continue to be taken by those who look to change the two-party system. Let’s start with Unite America and the candidates that fall under their umbrella. Neal Simon, running for U.S. Senate in Maryland, had a fantastic month while opening his new campaign office. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.170783426893078.1073741830.126383201333101&type=1&l=15

Former Republican Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld has endorsed Libertarian Kevin McCormick for Governor of Arizona. The announcement comes as McCormick is on the campaign trail, driving home his message of fiscal responsibility, the need for better teacher pay, preservation of gun owner’s rights and the need to scrap cumbersome and expensive marijuana laws. According to Weld, the former 2016 Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate, McCormick’s efforts to work across the aisle make hi

Too much of a good thing can easily be a bad thing. Too much water leads to water intoxication. Too much working out leads to rhabdomyolysis. Too many antibiotics lead to drug-resistant superbugs. And finally, too high of a signature requirement keeps good candidates off ballots. Signature requirements to make a ballot make sense. Go search social media for “independent candidates” and you’ll see a wide array of highly unqualified individuals running for public office. If we let all these

Voter suppression is a strategy to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing people from voting and is different from political campaigning. Campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion. Voter suppression attempts to reduce the number of voters who might vote against a candidate or proposition through other means, such as legal hurdles or physical intimidation. Although one can argue voter suppre

Several Arizona teachers are set to walkout of their classrooms Thursday in protest of low teacher salaries and in-classroom spending that put Arizona below nearly every state. School districts are even closing hundreds of schools in anticipation of how many teachers will participate. It's a topic that has educators, voters, and some candidates riled up as Republican and Democratic policymakers fail to do anything about it. Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Kevin McCormick has put forth a so

"Hollywood for ugly people." It is not a phrase coined by Michigan independent congressional candidate Cooper Nye. However, Nye says he can see why some people have come to view Washington, DC this way after working in the nation's capital. And the phrase -- from Nye's point of view -- is not a personal attack against individual policymakers on Capitol Hill, but rather a statement on how DC is run and the ugly, partisan, sometimes corrupt culture that has taken hold in Washington. Cooper Nye

Welcome to our weekly post, Independent Action, where we let you know the important moves independent candidates and organizations made over the past week. Nathan Altman, a 30-year old “scrappy entrepreneur who’s built a career on being a maker and builder of things,” has entered the race for U.S. Senate for Indiana. He’s been featured quite a bit this past week through organizations and publications such as Unite America and the Indianapolis Business Journal. During his interview with the Ind

Welcome to our weekly post, Independent Action, where we let you know the important moves Independent candidates and organizations made over the past week. Governor Bill Walker of Alaska passed HB339, a bill “that gives parents and teachers certainty that Alaska schools will be funded every year.” You can find his full statement on the passing of the bill below. https://twitter.com/AkGovBillWalker/status/985316287243931648 Craig O’Dear, an Independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, re

I lost a friend last week, Bonnie Reiss. She died of lung cancer at 62. The disease spread quietly until it emerged full force a year ago. Its grip was relentless. And it would not let go. Bonnie was a political woman, with a long resume of remarkable accomplishments. Most recently, she’d architected and led a new policy institute at the University of Southern California, named for its benefactor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the swashbuckling movie star and former governor of California. Bonnie ser