Ten Questions with Reform Party Chairman Nicholas Hensley
March 2023
Nicholas Hensley is the current chairman of the Reform Party of the United States. His term ends in December of 2024. Before serving as the Chairman of the Reform Party, he was the Reform Party’s longest-serving secretary, serving from 2014 to 2020. He was elected to the chairmanship with over 70 percent of the vote from delegates. He was born at Seattle University Hospital in February of 1989. His family moved to North Carolina, where his paternal family originates, in 1995. He grew up on the outskirts of Raleigh, North Carolina near Falls Lake. Chairman Hensley is an avid outdoorsman that likes camping, hiking and fishing. It is not uncommon for Mr. Hensley to host online meetings and make calls while sitting on a lake shore.
What is the Reform Party and why did you join the Reform Party?
In North Carolina, since it has a semi-open primary system, I was always registered as an Independent. Unless you are actively involved in a party, there’s no need to register for a party in my state. That is a big reason that I am against Open Primaries, it allows people to sabotage opposing parties by forcing the nomination of bad candidates when their party has a clear front runner, or take over small parties like the Reform Party. Primaries are also a party function, and the taxpayers should not be paying for party activities.
Back to the main point, I identified as a Blue Dog Democrat through most of my youth, which is not uncommon in this area of the Southeast – especially at that time. I was a vocal support of Congressman like Heath Shuler, Larry Kissel and Mike McIntyre. These were great, centrist candidates that were moderate on most issues.
Over time, however, the Democratic Party moved further and further towards the left. Those that are not socially driven voters and politicos have been shunned by the Democratic Party. Right now only eight Blue Dog Democrats remain in the US House of Representatives, that’s down from its sixty four in 2008. There’s no room for anyone that is even socially liberal but economically conservative in the Democratic Party anymore, much less socially moderate and fiscally moderate.
Unlike a lot of moderate voters, I saw this early. I knew in about 2010 that the Democratic Party was becoming more liberal and pushing out supporters like me. I was active in several parties that no longer exist and ended up in the Reform Party when I was about 21. I am now 34.
The Reform Party is a moderate, centrist party founded by the followers of Ross Perot in 1996. It has a moderate stance on economic issues, believing in a balance in economic regulation and a balanced budget, but takes no stance on social issues. The internal membership over recent years, however, has become socially libertarian – these are people that don’t care about what consenting, responsible adults do in their own lives, but understand that everyone has a duty to their community. This is not a party stance, just a good plurality of the members.
The Reform Party talks about Ross Perot. Who was he and why is he important?
Ross Perot was a Texas billionaire that ran for President in 1992. He received nineteen percent of the vote, and was the most successful independent candidate for President since Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose run. I like both Ross and Teddy them both equally.
Perot founded both Electric Control Systems and Perot Systems back in the 1970s and 80s. At the time, you could view him as socially liberal and economically as a moderate conservative. He was staunchly against trickle down economics and brought to the forefront the fight for congressional term limits, voting reform, a balance budget, the belief that weak dollar is a sign of a weak country and reforming government by controlling lobbyist influence.
What a lot of people don’t understand about Ross Perot was that he was a social liberal. If you do research, you will find that he supported gay rights, was pro-choice, etc.
Is there anywhere that you disagree with Ross Perot?
There are many subtle differences between some of his viewpoints and mine. I think the biggest thing I disagree with Ross Perot with, is that he was for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as a steppingstone to the legalization of gay marriage. I would have wanted outright legalization. He was also against recreational and medical marijuana, and I am for usage by those over 21. These, however, are social issues, and the Reform Party takes no stance on social issues.
What is the current state of the Reform Party?
The Reform Party is a party that has been in a deep slumber for several years. We have a large network of members, but they are not active. The reason why there’s little activity, is that there are a lot of gaps in leadership and within core workers. Leadership exists at every level. You have leaders on the national level, the state level, the county level, the precinct level and even at the neighborhood or city block level. You also must have non-leadership workers on those levels too, but they need leaders to help them stay organized. We need to improve the activity by rebuilding our leadership and core membership on every level. Most leaders are like Eagles, and to quote Ross Perot “Eagles don’t flock, you have to find them one at a time”.
The initiative we are looking to kick off is “Activity and Leadership at every level”. This initiative will focus on recruiting, developing, and maintaining good leaders at every level of the organization, and tasking them with focusing the energy of the members around them towards activity that builds the Reform Party. The largest factor for an organization’s growth is its activity. An organization with a high activity level will grow.
What do you mean about “activity” and how does it affect the Reform Party?
“Activity” does not just affect the Reform Party, activity is crucial for any organization to succeed. Activity can be measured by anything that has a positive effect on an organization. Activity comes in many forms and on many levels. Everyone contributes in a different way and within their own means.
If someone can give the party a thousand dollars a year and spend twenty hours a week in a leadership role, that’s activity. The guy that spends a couple hours on a Saturday organizing Reformers in his neighborhood or subdivision, that’s activity.
Most activity in organizations is small. If a supporter casts a vote for a Reform Party candidate, that’s activity. If someone gives ten dollars a year, that’s activity, if someone is good at interacting with social media posts that’s also activity.
Everyone’s contributions, no matter how large or small, is activity. All contributors together are the driving force behind a successful political organization. You need every single one of those people and the activity they contribute to succeed. When it comes to growth, there is no positive interaction – no matter how tiny, that isn’t important and necessary. Even the tiny things are important.
What are you looking for in new leaders and workers?
The Reform Party is open to any rational thinker with moderate ideas. We are looking for people that can handle certain tasks, some large and others small, that can help us with work tasks. We need people that can be points of contact in their community, lead efforts in their sphere of influence or handle simple niche tasks like helping us put together fundraising raffles, maintaining the website, writing press releases, or putting together information for a newsletter. Even a good proofreader would be a big help to us.
Anyone with a skill that can be used for an hour or two a week to improve the party is welcome to help us. Of course, people are free to contribute much more.
What major issues are the Reform Party focused on?
When the Reform Party goes to convention in 2023, we will be talking about five major issues.
The Reform Party believes in a balanced approach to the economy. We understand that an economic environment with no regulation is market anarchy, but one with too much regulation is unproductive. That we need to do a full audit of the United States’ economic regulation, some that hasn’t been changed since the 1800s, and put together a modern regulatory framework to improve production and decrease corruption. We need to focus on small businesses and improve wages for the working and middle class. Home ownership is not accessible to the masses anymore, the price of rent was high before inflation hit us, and people are struggling. We need to get to the root of these issues.
The Reform Party wants a balanced budget amendment and a blueprint towards fiscal solvency. Right now, the United States is deeply in the red. We owe 31.6 trillion dollars as of today, and we use 640 billion dollars to pay the interest on that debt this year alone. We need a top to bottom reorganization and thorough audit of all our spending and programs. Due to fraud and inefficiency in our system, we can do much more with a lot less. We need to look at how we are spending money and do better.
Voting Reform is a must. The Democrats and Republicans have done everything they can to fortify themselves and created a two-party system artificially. Through many times in history, there were multiple parties represented in the US House of Representatives, but not in recent memory. We have to instate Instant Run Off voting or a like voting method, end single representative districts, institute the Wyoming rule and do many other things to improve representation in this country. We can’t continue to be represented by the left and right fringes of the political spectrum.
Healthcare is its own issue within the economy. Most people are shut out of basic care by rising costs. Reform Party Vicechairman Shawn Storm is going to address this at the 2023 Convention at length. We are going to have a plan for patient care, drug prices, etc.
American’s institutions are failing. A lot of people are calling for justice reform, because too many people are going to prison and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. People without money feel like they are shut out of the system because they are. Justice Reform however is just a small piece of how our institutions are inefficient at dealing with American needs. We need to reform the system from the top down and from the bottom up. We need to reform the courts, the legislature, the executive branch and all government agencies and processes. We will have a plan for this on July 15th.
What has the Reform Party done to address its internal problems?
The Reform Party of the United States has had a lot of issues since 2000. During the 2000 Presidential Elections, Pat Buchanan and his far right allies successfully took over the Reform Party. Many of the early leaders, and most competent organizers, left the party in droves. This led to a multiyear battle to retake the Reform Party and several battles afterwards. The Reform Party was successfully retaken after the McKay vs Crews Ruling in the Second New York District Superior Court. We had a brief period of strength afterwards, but over time a poor set of rules and procedures allowed for the election of officers that did nothing – and there was no way to remove them. The 2016 to 2020 era had a period where the party only existed nominally. During the 2020 officer elections, 70 percent of the party voted to force out most of the executive committee. Only two members of the Reform Party Executive Committee were allowed to stay on. I was one of them.
As soon as the 2020 Presidential election ended, we went to work rebuilding the party. We were able to staff every standing committee and work group, and even created one. We had issues with the FEC we were able to fix, and have subsequently raised more money than any time since 2000. We have secured four local offices through election and appointment and have been able to field candidates to a degree of success. We are going to finalize a new set of bylaws, a comprehensive platform, and plans for fundraising, operations and ballot access this year.
To finalize these tasks, we are going to have an off-year convention in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this year on July 15th.
Why is the Reform Party holding a convention in Baton Rouge on July 15th?
The Reform Party National Convention is the highest authorizing body in the Reform Party. It has three main tasks. It nominates a national presidential candidate, which is something we will be doing in 2024 – not at this convention, it approves bylaws and it approves the platform. The bylaws have been the major issue in the Reform Party. The bylaws were written in 2008 during a court ordered convention, and were supposed to get us to the next convention. The bylaws state that there will be five officers, but does not give them a scope of responsibility, there is no way to remove an officer for any reason. Another issue the bylaws had until 2021, is that it didn’t define what an affiliate was or what rights a Reform Party state affiliate had. I would like to say that it was a partially formed set of rules, but that would be giving it to much credit.
Our platform has been a disaster since 2000. We never removed the far-right language from the principles or the platform, and we kept adding things to it. I describe it as a patchwork quilt of ideas. We needed to come up with a comprehensive centrist platform that properly reflected the members’ ideas and principles. We have a good proposal that just needs to be approved.
We also haven’t had an in-person convention in ten years. A lot of the leaders have never had the experience of organizing this kind of event. We wanted to make a test run before the 2024 nominating convention and learn our hardest lessons now.
We want to approve these changes between 9am and 11am.
Baton Rouge was picked as a strategic choice. To gain ballot access as a party, we need to get 5 percent of the vote in any statewide race. Since it is the only party having statewide elections in 2023, it supports that effort. Mississippi needs to organize a party committee to gain ballot access there, and it is next door. This area is also close to our ballot qualifying affiliate in Florida, so having a convention next door also supports them.
The public part of the convention is going to be a soft relaunch of the Reform Party. We want to present, in detail, five issues and our solutions to them. We want to present a fundraising and messaging plan, a ballot access plan and an operations plan.
Is there anything you would like to add?
The two party system has failed and is contributing little of value to the United States and the future of The People. It is time for change. The Reform Party is the best vehicle for change, because it seeks moderate solutions from the middle of the political spectrum and not the fringes. While the Democrats and Republicans sling mud and battle it out with manufactured crisis and issues that don’t matter, we stay focused on the issues that matter to the daily life of all Americans.
The Reform Party needs support if it is to succeed. That support comes from both volunteers and donors. If you wish to get involved, it is possible to find out more at www.reformparty.org. I also invite everyone to attend our political convention in Baton Rouge, Louisana on June 15th.
Gene,
If the People’s Party is “far left,” why would it be behind a center-rightist like Bernie Sanders for president?
Yes I understand, but they framed themselves as this party of the left pushing for what me as a Libertarian perceived as well-meaning government reforms. That was the exact same things vaguely or more detailed promised by the likes of the Forward Party and the Alliance Party, so all of these entities were trying to grab the same voters.
It’s definitely more egregious with the Forward and Alliance Parties: someone tell me what the difference between the two of them is if anything? On an issues basis, they’re the same party.
The difference is organization, which has nothing to deal with garnering votes. Organizationally, the Forward Party are going to be what Andrew Yang tells them to be (top-down, what the Ross Perot-led Reform Party pretty much was) and the Alliance Party believe in being a federation of state parties (bottom-up). They should merge to create a stronger unit, but the issues with that as with all 3rd parties are “what am I merging with to give up power?” What is the Forward or Alliance or Reform or People’s Parties really? Talking cold hard numbers of dollars, workers, activists, dedicated voters, leaders, etc.
Ryan – The Movement for a People’s Party is not center-left – it is far left, self-described “progressives” who wanted Bernie Sanders to run a third party campaign for President.
Now called The People’s Party, this group joined with the “Libertarian” Party to organize the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally, to oppose aid to Ukraine for its resistance to Russian aggression. At the rally people waved Russian flags and speakers clearly indicated they were on the side of Russia.
The strongest libertarian argument against aid to Ukraine, or any foreign aid, is the cost to American taxpayers. The People’s Party platform says “we will restore higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy,” and they pledge to ban “the use of offshore tax havens that cost our country more than $150 billion in annual tax revenue.”
Peoople’s Party speakers saying they support Russia undermines the LNC claim that they oppose both sides in the war. The People’s Party call for tax hikes undermines the argument that the LNC might have made against taxpayer funding of aid to Ukraine.
Re Forward Party/Reform Party, there’s a lot of “vaguely center-left reform-minded movements” out there. Let’s count:
-Movement for a People’s Party (appears to have fizzled and died, probably best seen as now Marianne Williamson’s Democratic Party presidential campaign)
-Forward Party (Andrew Yang project, intentionally not running a presidential candidate in 2024)
-Alliance Party (a loose confederation of a handful of state parties that had no national connection, the strongest one being the Independence Party of Minnesota, also where any of the Rocky De La Fuente vehicle American Delta state parties went)
-Reform Party (discussed in this article)
-No Labels (I’d remove them from this group as they are well-funded and have certain motives they’ve yet to share)
These entities are all pretty much on the same real estate/chasing the same group of voters. Throw in the common criticism of third parties (at least left wing ones) of how they need to cooperate instead of splinter into a hundred entities all promising the same thing. Just look at the above group and consider ballot access for all of them or lack thereof.
The forward party is a vanity project of Andrew Yang. The reform party is a multi Half-Life aftershock of what Perot was doing 30 years ago. No labels is its own thing. They seem superficially similar, but that misses the fact that the ideology is just window dressing, much as with all the “socialist” parties. The sordid truth is that all these parties are really about power and control, only in theory of government, but in reality more of whatever their leaders can actually physically get control of, that is their own followers and money, or in the case of no labels it’s political consultants getting the money of very rich people and getting to dole it out to less well connected political operatives as a control mechanism while keeping some for themselves. Of these, only no labels has even a slim shot at actual large scale government power.
Gene, no wonder Fulani and her Friends/Followers/Fellow Fred Newmanites have turned anti political party (of any sort) activist. I’m not sure what the more astute among them hope to gain, given that the increasingly powerful relatively extreme factions of the two biggest parties actually gain the most from their top two or top X schemes and plans to remove party labels from ballots if those plans come to fruition, contrary to how those plans are sold. My guess would be the usual: money, influence, young acolytes to use and abuse.
Their centrist nonpartisanship is as situational as their Marxist revolutionary guise or any of the others they’ve used previously. Do an hour of two research or brushing up on Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani et al if it sounds like I’m speaking Martian here. Pat Buchanan was not even the most unlikely ally they have sought over the years if you were to take any of their rhetoric at face value.
Ryan – actually, Pat Choate supported Pat Buchanan in 2000. In fact, Pat Choate gave a speech at the convention in which he pointed to the issues on which Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan agreed – trade protection, immigration and other similar “populist” economic issues.
Lenora Fulani did support Pat Buchanan for the nomination until the Reform Party convention. At the convention, she walked out along with Charles Collins and others, and went to the splinter Reform Party convention that endorsed John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party. Fulani and Collins both hoped for a position on the national ticket, and went with Hagelin after Buchanan turned them down. Then Hagelin picked Nat Goldhaber, also a Transcendental Meditation practitioner.
Perot almost won Maine. Wish he had so we could have a non-major party candidate win a state more recent than 1968. The closest to it occurring since was Evan McMullin in Utah 2016.
1992 is the first election I really remember and paid attention to. Obviously didn’t realize at the time how uncommon it was.
Ryan, the he in the quote you pulled above was Trump, not Perot. Trump ran for the Reform Party nomination in 2000. Perot as you correctly point out did not.
Rtaa, that depends on your measure of choice. Perot got more popular votes than Wallace. Both were pretty successful in the policy arena; Wallace in helping shape a culturally conservative “southern strategy” which Nixon, Reagan and subsequent Republicans have used to win over the southern white vote (otherwise Goldwater could have been a one off) and what used to be called Reagan Democrats (socially conservative, fiscally liberal). A law and order war on drugs stance was a big part of that. Perot as Ryan points out helped move the big two on certain issues he found important as well.
You are correct that Wallace got electoral votes, because his support was more regional than dispersed. He could have achieved his campaign objective of throwing the election onto the House and having even more influence over Nixon had he concentrated in campaigning in “border states” (former Union states near the mason Dixon line) rather than a more national strategy, which he ignored his advisors to pursue. Perot actually led both Clinton and Bush in early polls before dropping out and then back in.
One thing I will point out for Perot’s “economic nationalism”, the current versions of the Democratic and Republican parties are both 100% on-board with that. Perot’s candidacy was dominated by him being the anti-NAFTA candidate as Clinton went right on the topic, and never have we had both major parties more anti-free trade than they are at this current point in time.
“In 2000 he was not a social conservative and lost the Reform Party nomination to social conservative Buchanan, who himself is a very intelligent man regardless of what you think of his views.”
Perot did not run for the Reform Party nomination in 2000 and actually endorsed George W. Bush that election.
The Reform Party disintegrated with their national convention that year. I remember Peter Jennings on ABC News (remember when national network news was a thing?) went to commercial and said while covering the Reform Party Convention “and when we come back, we’ll show you how politics used to be”, or this is how Democratic and Republican Party Conventions went before they became very highly managed and choreographed.
It was mostly about money but a little over control. Perot’s performance in 1996 guaranteed the party $12 million in matching funds from the federal government. So every fringe 3rd party candidate under the sun went after this money. Lenora Fulani – a New York City area far-left fringe politician whose successors I think still control the New York Independence Party – was allies with Pat Buchanan, that was a thing people. Eventually what ended up happening was Buchanan wanted the Reform nomination for the money and his network practiced wide-scale entryism to control the National Convention. What was left of the Ross Perot forces in the party ran by Pat Choate as a stop-Buchanan strategy backed John Hagelin, the only nominee the 1990s era transcendental meditation Natural Law Party ever had. Control was also something as Perot I don’t think cared for Jesse Ventura who became very prominent following winning Governor of Minnesota in 1998 and became a rival for influence inside the party. Once Perot’s leadership was challenged (he won a national primary in 1996 but I’ve read before some thoughts from Lamm and others they thought the fix was in), he withdrew from politics and like I said endorsed Bush in 2000.
It’s a shame, I’d’ve been full on Reform Party supporter if the party had not disintegrated when I came of age out of the desire for something different in politics and they had made the greatest achievement toward that since arguably the 1910s Progressives. The Libertarians for being strongest third party now have never reached the level of the Reform Party.
George – the Reform Party platform is equally content free.
https://reformparty.org/about-reform-party/platform/
A sample:
GOVERNMENT AND ETHICS
The Reform Party expects and will demand only the highest ethical practices of our candidates and all elected officials.
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Reform Party will enforce fiscal responsibility and hold legislative and executive leaders accountable for it at our national, state, and city levels.
ECONOMY AND JOB MARKET
The Reform Party will strengthen and encourage job creation and implement economic policies that hold our citizens’ best interests in the highest priority, first and foremost.
The Reform Party also has a separate “Our Solutions” page which gets slightly firmer on a few topics, but is nearly as vague as the platform on many of them. I just uses more words.
Ross Perot … was the most successful independent candidate for President since Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose run.
Well, no. George Wallace won five state’s electoral votes in 1968. So Perot was only the most successful since Wallace.
Perot was on the record favoring unconstitutional house to house searches for guns and drugs (including cannabis, which is not actually a drug) in poor and minority neighborhoods, waiving away civil rights concerns with an imperious “we’ll get a team of lawyers on it.” He was far more concerned about civil rights when it came to his own family, famously having a Dallas police officer called to his office to get chewed for having had the temerity to pull over his daughter.
Speaking of Ross Perot, Mr. Henley says “He was also against recreational and medical marijuana…”
I lived in Austin, Texas from 1977 to 1982. In 1980 or thereabouts, Governor Bill Clements appointed Ross Perot to head the “Texas War on Drugs Committee” and gave him $645,000 in taxpayers money to lobby the state legislature for harsher laws against drugs. The committee also lobbied to give the police new powers – including wiretapping – to go after “drug traffickers” which included marijuana dealers.
The Texas War on Drugs Committee provided evidence that Ross Perot favors active government to deal with “social problems”.
For starters, the Forward Party position statement appears to be all adjectives and no nouns. It is content-free.
This is an excellent interview of a political party leader. It was a pleasure to read again about a political party focused on centrist and reasonable reforms of the American government process. Best wishes and good luck to the revitalized Reform Party.
Since this interview was given, we are about to announce a fifth officeholder and have a viable candidate for a larger election. I can’t wait to announce that.
Thank you to IPR for posting this!
Correction, social conservative and economic nationalist. Economic conservative is correct in a larger sense, but Americans tend to misunderstand what that means because the country was created on classical liberalism in its foundation.
Trump isn’t necessarily less smart than Perot. He talks to the average listener, but that is itself pretty smart. In 2000 he was not a social conservative and lost the Reform Party nomination to social conservative Buchanan, who himself is a very intelligent man regardless of what you think of his views. In 2016 Trump was a social and economic conservative and was elected President, which Perot never was. In 2024 Trump could well win again.
Why does the Reform Party not merge with the Forward Party?
Perot’s Reform Party was economic nationalist. That’s part of the coalition that supports Trump. Perot was much smarter than Trump and didn’t pander to the social conservatives, but they were in roughly the same ideological space. Trump has caused a revival of interest in economic nationalism and I could see a portion of his base getting fed up with his pandering to social issues and … other problems … and peeling away toward a newly revamped Reform Party, if it was well advertised. But, I think growth will be capped at least until Trump leaves politics.
Nicholas Hensley sounds knowledgeable, energetic and good at planning. The Reform Party is fortunate to have him as Chairman.
Seems to me it would be more productive to spend your time and effort trying to rebuild the Blue Dog Democrats.