For the past two decades, our major political parties have continued to drift apart, thanks to increasingly bitter and divisive election campaigns that tend to reward sloganeering and attack ads rather than reasoned policy debate. The end result is an electorate that is divided by social issues and deeply skeptical of the ability of the two major parties to solve the biggest issues of the day.

Poll after poll shows that a majority of the American public does not feel well represented by the two party system, but ours is a system that yields only painfully to change.

It is into this context that the Independent Party of Oregon was born.

A recent editorial in the Argus strongly implied that the Independent Party of Oregon is tied to the American Independent Party and its segregationist past.

It is not.

The Independent Party of Oregon was formed in response to new laws adopted by the Legislature in 2005 that effectively doubled the number of signatures needed for non-affiliated candidates to qualify for the ballot. They also removed the word “independent” from the Oregon ballot and replaced it with the word “non-affiliated” to describe candidates who are not a member of a political party.

In response to these new laws, citizen activists collected 30,000 signatures to form the Independent Party of Oregon. When the party was formed, the primary goal was to provide ballot access to independent-minded candidates who were not affiliated with either major party.

The party’s approach is very different from most third party movements, which tend to involve candidates in big national elections whose impact, if any, tends to strengthen the chances of the candidate who is least similar to the third party candidate. Our preference is to run legislative candidates in districts where there is only one major party candidate running. In 2008, in 31 out of the 75 races for the Oregon Legislature there was only one major party candidate, with no opposition from the other major party. We believe that every Oregon voter deserves a credible choice on the November ballot and, where possible, strive to provide voters with that alternative.

The Independent Party of Oregon also became the first minor political party in more than 80 years to "cross-nominate" Democratic and Republican candidates. Oregon has allowed such cross-nominations for the entire history of the state. In 2008, we joined the Democrats in nominating Ben Westlund for State Treasurer and Jeff Merkley for US Senator and joined the Republicans in nominating Vicki Berger for State Representative.

The common theme among these candidates is their support for legislation to reduce special interest control over our political process, a willingness to work in a bi-partisan fashion, and an emphasis on public-interest policy rather than divisive social issues.

Our goal is to bring some gravity back to the public-interest center, to shake up the tired and static divisions that tend to characterize the debate in Salem and Washington D.C., and to help get things moving again for the people of Oregon.

In 2009, the party’s legislative agenda includes a repeal of a 2005 law that makes it more difficult for non-affiliated candidates to run for public office; legislation that will increase the accountability of state government agencies by requiring them to open their books to the general public; legislation that will expand ballot access for the state’s 100,000 members of minor political parties; and campaign finance reforms that will help to reduce the influence of special interests over our legislative process.

This limited short-term agenda is a prelude to our longer-term goal of getting government working again for the people of Oregon.

Who’s with us?

Sal Peralta is the Secretary of the Independent Party of Oregon. The Independent Party is Oregon's third-largest political party with more than 45,000 members statewide.

Guest column in Hillsboro Argus 5/26/2009