Going independent

By Lenora B. Fulani

In a move that rocked New York’s bipartisan political establishment,
delegates to the Independence Party State Convention decided last week
that they did not want to support either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rick
Lazio for the United State Senate. The delegates nominated two
independents — Jeff Graham, former mayor of Watertown, and an ardent
political reformer and environmentalist Jeff Beller. Mr. Graham and Mr.
Beller will square off in a statewide primary on Sept. 12 in which the
Independence Party’s 172,000 registered members are eligible to vote.
The winner will become the Independence Party’s Senate candidate in
November.

The party’s decision to run an Independent, rather than cross-endorse
a major party candidate in the country’s most high profile and hotly
contested race, was something of a bombshell in political circles. New
York’s minor parties traditionally give their ballot lines to Democrats
or Republicans (New York is one of only a handful of states which permit
political fusion). Two days before the Independence Party convention,
the Conservative Party awarded its line to Republican Lazio and the
Liberal Party cross-nominated Democrat Clinton. No surprises there. But
the big question mark was what Independence, the state’s largest and
potentially most influential minor party would do.

Congressman Lazio was still making personal phone calls to
Independence Party leaders on the Monday morning of the State Convention
in an appeal for the line. The night before, emissaries for Republican
Governor George Pataki tried to bring the state’s highest elected
official in for some 11th hour lobbying to no avail. Though ousted party
chairman Jack Essenberg (he was ousted by 94 percent of the 270 member
State Committee for refusing to distribute power to local county
organizations) had assured the Republican Party that he could deliver
the line for Lazio, the majority of the state convention was intent upon
keeping Lazio out.

Hillary Clinton had tried to secure the line six weeks earlier,
insisting that she would only run Independence if she didn’t have to
face a primary. But she was rebuffed by party leaders who declined to
“coronate” her, Democrat Party-style. Clinton then went on the attack
against the party and me — calling us extremists and attempting to
dictate to us who our presidential candidate should be — in the hopes
that it would drive the Republicans away from seeking the line. It
didn’t. In spite of the first lady’s public “I won’t go near you”
grandstanding, which she repeated to the press on the Saturday morning
(two days before the Monday convention), by Saturday afternoon she was
on the phone with one Independence Party leader apologizing for her
continued attacks. Her campaign manager attended the convention.

Neither Lazio nor Clinton are genuine political reformers and could
not campaign for the party’s agenda. Fighting corruption and reforming
the political system is a very big issue in New York State (not to
mention the whole country!). And the Independence Party wants a
candidate who not only believes in those issues, but who backs up that
belief with their actions. That means standing up to the pressure to be
a tail on the dog of the Republicans and Democrats. It means growing
into a party that can represent New York’s two and a half million
independents, and the nearly two-thirds of the electorate that is so
disgusted with politics-as-usual that they didn’t come out to vote in
the last statewide elections.

Many reporters have asked me whether we are throwing away the line by
not giving it to one of the “majors.” My answer is “not at all.” Given
that we stand for democracy and an end to corruption, if we had
supported either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Lazio, that would have been
throwing away the line. We didn’t go down this road of building a new
party and have the kinds of fights in the communities — upstate and
downstate — and in the courts that we’ve had, in order to give knee
jerk support to Democratic and Republican candidates. I know that’s what
our ousted chairman, Jack Essenberg wanted. I know that’s what both
Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio wanted. But that’s not what we’re doing.
We’re building a new political party that supports the people of the
state — not the special interests. We’re not looking to “get rich
quick” by throwing 100,000 or 200,000 votes to a Democrat or Republican.

By now, if you’ve read the title of this column, you might be
wondering who Mr. Wilson and Mr. Pakula are. In New York, when a
candidate seeks to run with the backing of a party they are not a member
of they must receive what’s called a “Wilson-Pakula” — which is an
authorization from the party to allow a non-member to run. This
practice was originated in the 1940s in order to protect the Democrats
and Republicans from incursions by independents. The American Labor
Party’s hugely popular Congressman Vito Marcantonio regularly ran in
Democratic and Republican primaries and won. So the “majors” in the
state legislature enacted a law — reportedly drafted by Mr. Wilson and
Mr. Pakula — that required candidates to get permission from the party
before running. After the American Labor Party was destroyed by
redbaiting and other political attacks (including the founding of the
Liberal Party which was a split from the ALP) the action shifted in the
opposite direction. Majors sought the lines of minor parties and the
power to give Wilson-Pakulas was vested in the hands of minor party
chairmen who single-handedly controlled access.

New York’s minor parties became totalitarian fiefdoms, controlled by
an omnipotent chair dedicated to trading the party’s line for
patronage. This is one form of corruption that the Independence Party
was absolutely committed to reforming. Thus, the Independence Party’s
Democracy Coalition (which led the ouster of Essenberg) gave the
authority to issue statewide Wilson-Pakulas to the State Convention,
rather than the chairman. This allows for a more democratic decision
making process when it comes to choosing candidates.

We are a young movement, a new movement. I’ve been around since the
days when no one knew what the words “independent politics” meant —
much less what a Wilson-Pakula is. Now people know. They know about Ross
Perot and Jesse Ventura. One political reporter covering the
Independence Party convention, Tom Precious of the Buffalo News, pointed
out that in 1998, when the Independence Party cross-endorsed Democrat
Charles Schumer for the U.S. Senate in 1998, we polled 109,000 votes for
him on our line, helping him to win. But when Ross Perot, an
independent, ran for President on the Independence Party line in 1996,
he polled over a half million votes! In other words, when you get down
to it, independents prefer to vote for independents!

Millions of Americans consider themselves independents now. It’s a
very big and very influential constituency. When you get big and
influential you attract people who want a piece of the action, they want
to compete for control. Just so long as seeking control is not equated
with transforming the character of the movement or the party, that’s
really not a problem. It’s what gives it its character and what made
independent politics so popular. If you change the character of the
movement or the party, you’re not going to prosper. The Independence
Party of New York is a model of what it means to become an influential
political force, while remaining true to your independent reform
principles.

Lenora B. Fulani

Dr. Lenora Fulani has twice run for president as an independent. She currently chairs the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, a New York-based think tank for the independent political movement. She can be reached at 225 Broadway, Suite 2010, New York, NY 10007 or on the Web at Fulani.org. Her toll free number is 1-800-288-3201. Read more of Lenora B. Fulani's articles here.