what steps must one take to form a political party in the US?

[pork medley]

yes, i've googled around, i couldn't find anything. i would appreciate any and all advice.

thanks in advance!

[Deep13]

1. Sign up 50 million of your friends.

Seriously, ain't gonna happen.

[pork medley]

5. thanks for the encouragement

i had no idea the democratic party had a monopoly on democracy

[Deep13]

9. If they did, you would not be thinking of making a 3rd party.

Sorry, but not every idea is worthy of encouragement. There are minor parties already and none of them amounts to much. Our all-or-nothing presidential system of government allows for a divide and conquor approach. If splinter groups want to have any input at all, they align themselves with a major party. If not, then they are ignored and become irrelevant. More powerful or influential people than you have tried to create new parties and always with marginal effect at best. At worst, you get Dubya taking Florida and starting WW III. The only time a new party succeeds is when it replaces an existing party such as the Republicans replacing the Whigs.

[Bluebear]

2. Are you leaving the Democratic party? nt

[BuyingThyme]

3. 1. Come up with a name for your party.

That's it.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Uh... no.

Speaking as someone who has worked to do just this.

Washington State make a distinction between major parties and minor parties. Candidates may run as major party candidates, minor party candidates or independents. A candidate who runs under the banner of a minor party is actually running as an independent unless the party is recognized by the state as a political party (the election rules governing minor party and independent candidates are essentially identical.) For a party to be registered, they must be incorporated under the laws of Washington State as a non-profit political organization, and they must be registered with the state's Public Disclosure Commission as a political party. These two requirements create a vast amount of paperwork that must be filed with the state, requiring the party to have a full time treasurer and secretary, and often times certified accountant.

Major parties get a lot of additional perqs, including the right to participate in the primary election (and receive contributions up to the maximum allowed for the primary, effectively doubling the amount of money major party candidates may raise) and the right to pick their own candidates. Minor parties must hold "conventions" open to all voters and where the public can override the party's choice of candidate, and are allowed to raise half the money of a major party candidate. To become a major party, a minor party must first be registered with the state, run a candidate for state-wide vote (ie president, governor, secretary of state, Congressional senator, etc.) and then have that candidate receive at least 10% of all votes cast for that office. Major party status lasts only through the end of the year of the next governor's election and must be requalified after that.

And Washington is one of the easiest states to organize.

[BuyingThyme]

8. Uh... yes.

States can recognize whatever they want, but people can associate with whomever they choose.

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. You can create an assocation that easily, but not a political party

If you do not want ballot access, if you do not want to run candidates under a partisan banner, then you are correct. But even then, if you want to get the perqs of a political party, every state requires that you jump through a lot of hoops.

Let's pick another state, California (if I get anything wrong, I'm sure folks will jump right in :hi:)

Suppose you want to create the California Third Party. To run a candidate, you must first register with the Secretary of State as a political party, with various limitations, conditions and requirements. Then you must get a minimum number of people to register as members of the California Third Party on their voter registration form. Your candidate may run under the California Third Party banner only after the party has met the minimum number of registered voters. She may run as an independent endorsed by the California Third Party before being recognized, but she will be missing out on a lot of perqs given to political party candidates. (As hard as most states are on minor parties, they are usually harder on independents.)

States might have other requirements. Some states also require that a candidate must run in a minimum number of races, or in certain races, or receive a minimum allotment of votes in order to be considered a political party. I believe Louisiana has a Catch-22 clause: your party must be recognized in an election as a political party before your group can be recognized as a political party with ballot access.

I dearly wish things were as simplistic as you think they are; maybe we could have actual political choice at the polls rather than the perennial lesser of two great evils. Alas, it is not the case.

[BuyingThyme]

12. Political parties need not run candidates to be political parties.

Most simply endorse candidates of other parties. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Other_current_national_parties_.28that_have_endorsed_candidates.29

Anybody can start a party. All you need is a name, and you don't even need that.

[TechBear_Seattle]

13. Apologies, I thought I had made that clear

... with phrases like "to get ballot access." :hi:

I would say that there is very little point in forming a political party if you are not going to run candidates, though. If all you want to do is endorse political candidates, you are better off organizing yourself as a non-partisan civic organization such as a the League of Women Voters or as a special-interest ratings board like the http://www.seamec.org/index.php">Seattle Municipal Elections Committee. Describing your group as a party means that you are taking steps to run candidates in partisan races under your own banner; if that is not your plan, you can avoid a lot of misunderstanding and public assumptions by not being a political party in the first place.

[BuyingThyme]

14. Sorry, but you don't get to define political parties.

[TechBear_Seattle]

15. Can state legislatures define political parties?

From the Revised Code of Washington, Title 42, Chapter 17, Section 020:

(6) "Bona fide political party" means:

(a) An organization that has filed a valid certificate of nomination with the secretary of state under chapter 29A.20 RCW;

(b) The governing body of the state organization of a major political party, as defined in RCW 29A.04.086, that is the body authorized by the charter or bylaws of the party to exercise authority on behalf of the state party; or

(c) The county central committee or legislative district committee of a major political party. There may be only one legislative district committee for each party in each legislative district.

http://search.leg.wa.gov/pub/textsearch/ViewRoot.asp?Action=Html&Item=0&X=724120424&p=1">RCW 42.17.020

To fill in the blanks for all those pesky references, to be a "bona fide political party" your group must:

(a) Run a candidate for public office; or

(b) Be the the statewide governing body of an organization that, in the last even-year election, ran a candidate for statewide vote with that candidate receiving at least 5% of the votes cast for that office; or

(c) Be the county or district committee of an organization that, in the last even-year election, ran a candidate for statewide vote with that candidate receiving at least 5% of the votes cast for that office.

Under Washington law, no other organization is recognized as a political party, ie you must run a candidate every two years to be considered a political party. I assert that every other state has similar, and generally tighter laws.

On edit: Checked the statutes and saw that major parties require only 5% of the vote, not 10%. I also changed my language to match the language of the law. My apologies.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. It depends on the state

Technically, all political candidates are picked at the state level. Where a national convention selects candidates for President and Vice President, the state party must still file the paperwork with the state to get the candidates registered as candidates within that state. So if you are looking to build a national third party, you would need to organize in each of the fifty states and meet all of the various criteria in each of the fifty states to be classed as a political party.

There is a good reason why no viable third party has emerged in the last century: state laws have made it all but impossible for that to happen.

[pork medley]

6. thank you

i'm forming a party at the state-level and i have support from my comrades at the catholic worker houses. it's just a matter of reaching out to non-afl-cio-affiliated unions, & explaining to them that they deserve what they need, and need what they deserve

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Each state is different, but...

essentially-- you get a lot of people out with petitions, you file paperwork with your state, and you dig up some candidates.

Then you do the same thing 49 more times.

Hard work and lots of money is all it takes-- that's why it's done all the time.

[warren pease]

16. Technicalities aside....

There are four key issues that prevent third, fourth or seventeenth parties from challenging the Corporate Party and its two factions who now control the bounds of the political continuum in the US.

First, public financing of campaigns would go a long way toward eliminating the strangle-hold now enjoyed by the Twiddle party and the Twaddle party. It wouldn't eliminate "soft money," which is all the cash and perks that are funneled through the *.NCs. But it would certainly enable alternative parties to compete in the world of TV and radio ads, sound bites and such.

Second, reverse Buckley v. Valeo, the 1976 Supreme Court decision that equated corporate money with free speech. And we could also get rid of the 19th century decision that granted corporations "personhood," with all the rights of a US citizen and none of the responsibilities. This would help rein in their influence by, among other things, clarifying the difference between a bribe and an exercise of Constitutionally guaranteed free speech.

Third, eliminate the rules put in place by the Corporate party to exclude other parties from nationally televised debates unless they meet some arbitrary "standard" of popularity -- which is, of course, unattainable these days absent implementing steps one and two above.

Fourth, break up media monopolies so that the possibility can again exist for an unapproved, unorthodox idea to enter the public consciousness. For example, something like 75 to 85 percent of Americans say they want universal health care and are willing to pay for it through tax increases, but mass media is dominated by the corporate message -- which is that, despite the outrage simmering in the country over for-profit medicine and the huge numbers of uninsured and underinsured, the US system is still the best in the world (and it's amazing how we never hear of the 2000 WHO study ranking the health care systems of 192 countries, in which the US placed 37th).

There are probably a dozen more obstacles put in place by those with a vested interest in the current alleged two-party system, but it seems to me that these four are at or near the top of the list.


wp