During his heyday, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey was a major player in national politics. He was a three-term Democratic U.S. Senator, Rhodes Scholar, Olympic gold medal winner, and NBA champion. Now, he is apparently now discussing openly the idea of a minor party which would hope to win twenty or so Congressional seats.
Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley is being interviewed on various media outlets about his new book, “We Can All Do Better.” On KCBS radio in San Francisco on the morning of May 20, he said that he wishes there were a new political party that would focus on Congressional elections. He said even if that new party won twenty seats in Congress, it could change national economic policy.
Ironically, the worst ballot access laws in the nation are those for independent candidates for U.S. House. There is no state that has a truly impossible ballot access law for minor party and independent candidates for President, although Oklahoma comes close for that office. But for U.S. House, the laws are far more repressive.
Bradley’s website can be found here.
Comments removed from this thread; see archive.org to find them.
You don’t have to “join” a party to caucus with them.
The problem with focusing completely on congressional races is that if a third party does get one of their own elected to congress, that person could immediately switch to the two major parties like Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman did. They were elected either as independents or as third party candidates but then immediately joined the Democrats after the election. The way the rules of Congress are set up, you have to be a member of one of the top two parties to serve on a committee or have any real say in what happens.
That would be “needs”!
BTW Trent… the headline need the word “Senator” added to it.
I wonder why he didn’t get together with Americans Elect to promote what could have been a mutually acceptable joint venture? Perhaps it is NOT too late!