Moving California Forward with the Common Sense Party
2023-03-06 · Guest: Tom Campbell (Founder of the Common Sense Party) · 52:22
The Common Sense Party and California political reform
Bob Zadek interviews Tom Campbell about the “Common Sense Party,” a third-party movement in California aimed at breaking the Democratic-Republican duopoly. They discuss the institutional barriers to third parties, such as campaign finance laws and ballot access, and explore Campbell’s vision for a more centrist, independent-minded political landscape.
Topics: Two-party system, California politics, Common Sense Party, education reform, campaign finance, Forward Party, third parties, political polarization
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Tom Campbell
The Failure of the Two-Party System [00:28]
Bob Zadek: Hello friends, I’m Bob Zadek, host of the country’s longest-running libertarian broadcast, nationally streamed at 8:00 AM Pacific Time Sundays on the 860 AM app. The archives of my Bob Zadek Show podcast hold 15 years of major issue discussion, and it’s the ideal resource to revisit our prior missteps, since so many seem to reappear. I promise you in-depth content on social, political, and economic issues that really matter, always with the ideal guest, accessible and entertaining. Our standard: ideas, not attitudes.
Today’s returning guest, Tom Campbell, exceeds those standards. Our country has been governed since its existence by a two-party system. A two-party system was not mentioned in the Constitution, and political parties were feared by the founders. And our history shows they were not paranoid; they were prescient. James Madison hoped that parties, which he referred to as factions, would neutralize each other’s power, as “ambition offset ambition”—the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. Rather, one hand simply washes the other, leaving us citizens with the resulting dirty, soapy water.
We all learned that in 1776, pamphleteer Thomas Paine offered the colonies 47 pages of Common Sense, which became the most widely read book of the times. Today, our guest Tom Campbell offers us “Common Sense,” the political party. Tom served five terms in the US Congress and two terms in the California State Senate. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago and a JD magna cum laude from Harvard. He was a White House Fellow and a US Supreme Court law clerk. Tom, welcome back to the show.
Tom Campbell: Bob, it’s a pleasure to be with you. I look forward to a fascinating hour.
Polarization and the Education Example [02:58]
Bob Zadek: Now, Tom, you are a founder of the Common Sense Party, a third or fifth or tenth, but certainly above two, a political party in addition to the two dominant political parties. Now, let’s start with the core issue. What’s the problem with a two-party system? Isn’t two enough? Why do we need more?
Tom Campbell: The system we have in California is two parties which have gone to their extremes. The Democrats have shifted more and more leftward under the influence of the public employee unions and identity politics. The Republicans have shifted to the right under the support of former President Trump, almost a cult status. What that does is leaves us in the middle with folks who cannot talk with each other. And in the state of California, because the Democratic Party has a supermajority, there’s no need for them to talk to anybody else.
So parties go off to their edges and the rest of us get left behind. We can illustrate it in a number of different policy issues. You could choose any number, and I imagine you will, Bob, during the course of our discussion. Education is a good, very good one. We know that our quality of education in public schools up to the end of high school is not good; it’s way below where it should be. And we know that in order to get the nomination for legislature on the Democratic side, you’ve got to be supported by the California Teachers Union. And they oppose charter schools; they oppose the opportunity of parents to select a school that might be better as a competitor to the public school.
On the Republican side, they’re now below one-third of each of the two houses, so they have become irrelevant. The possible middle ground is this: give more money to school teachers who teach in more difficult schools. Call it merit pay. The CTA union won’t allow its Democratic legislators to support that. They are 100% behind seniority, strict seniority, as a typical labor union might. But that prevents the opportunity of a teacher who’s a good teacher and wants to go into a more difficult environment being able to get paid more for it. Instead, you’ve got good teachers migrating into administration so that we are top-heavy with administrators and good teachers getting out of the profession where their talent is most needed. On the Republican side, they’re hesitant to put any more money into teacher salaries because that goes into union dues, which goes to defeat Republican candidates. So the middle ground: expand charter schools, give parents a chance to send their children to charter schools if that’s a better proposition for their children to learn, and pay teachers more—pay teachers more who go into difficult areas for pay-for-performance. Now, with that platform, I wouldn’t get nominated by the Democrats or by the Republicans. And there’s a dozen other subjects we could choose, but that’s illustrative of the problem.
The “Top Two” Primary Advantage [06:30]
Bob Zadek: Now, but the issue is, and you picked California, a remarkably politically dysfunctional state. It has raised political dysfunction to high art. So California is obviously dysfunctional, and you mentioned the fact that the Republicans are in a minority to the point of irrelevance. But one might observe that that happened as a result of political malpractice, which we’re not going to get into on this show—it’s a total other topic—political malpractice going back to Republican Pete Wilson, what he did with immigration bill Prop 187 in the distant past. So Republicans committed political suicide; they just blew it.
So let’s distinguish political dysfunction where one party made political decisions that destroyed itself—it committed political suicide—let’s distinguish that from the structural issue of, in general, the country. Let’s start with the concept of another political party and let’s understand that from the standpoint of, let’s say, the entire country, even though you are starting in California—rather fertile ground, I dare say. And let’s take the thesis of “we need a third party” because of the behavior and the structure of the two existing parties, and let’s make the case first for a third party and then show how, having done that, the Common Sense Party, which recently has expanded by joining forces with another third party which you can share with us, make the case in general, nationwide, for a third party, unless the belief is this is a California-specific and California-only problem.
Tom Campbell: It’s a California-specific solution, Bob, because California is one of only four states that have the “top two” primary selection process. If you don’t have the top two runoff process in March to determine who runs in November (or June if it’s not a presidential year), then what happens is in November you’ve got the Democrat, the Republican, the Libertarian, the Peace and Freedom, the Green—they all run at the same time and the winner is the one who has the plurality. And the result is it’s a Democrat or a Republican.
But in California and three other states—but that’s it, only in California and these other three states—you’ve got the chance to get to November with only one opponent. If you’ve got a qualified independent-minded candidate who gets out to the November finals, there’s only one other candidate. And then you’ve got a very good chance of winning. It happened in the Coachella Valley with Chad Mayes. He ran as an independent; he had been a Republican. He made it to the finals and then he beat his Democratic opponent. Every Democrat who does not have a candidate in the finals will be interested in supporting the independent. Every Republican who doesn’t have a candidate in the final will be interested in supporting the independent. So that’s why I’m focusing on California, because a candidate who is able to make it to the November finals will have a good chance of winning, unlike a case where you’re running against four or five others.
Institutional Barriers and Campaign Finance [08:52]
Bob Zadek: Now, the Common Sense Party could have as its mission breaking the one-party monopoly and even extending that, removing the possibility of ever having a two-party monopoly. Or the Common Sense Party could have as its mission a specific platform where it lists a platform that it believes will capture a substantial portion of the voters who feel disaffected and unrepresented by the existing parties. And you mentioned education and you explained to us why the party in control, the Democratic Party, takes a position that is well known—it’s virtually not disputed—that on education (and we’ll discuss other issues), they being captive of the California Teachers Union and related education unions, their allegiance is not to the voters and their children but rather to their benefactors, the union. And that is a process that has to result in bad policy for the voters because the voters don’t matter; it’s only the source of the funding. So in education, your position is not simply that we need another party, but that other party will have a position that is the right decision and no other party has. So is it a forum for a home for disaffected voters, or is it improving the entire political process?
Tom Campbell: It starts with improving the entire political process and then individual candidates will come forward who will get elected, God willing. And the individual candidates, in the case that I just gave of education, are likely to be supporters of those centrist common-sense approaches. The institutions, however, have to be changed first, and here’s why. It’s a pretty important point, but it’s also pretty obscure. California has campaign finance laws that favor the established parties. So if you’re running for the state legislature and you’ve got a wealthy person or a couple of people who are willing to help you, you can go to that person and get $4,900. That’s it. If, however, you go to that person and say, “Please give $45,000 to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, and that party will promise to turn it over to me the next day,” that’s legal. And so what you have is, if you’re running with the support of a party, you’ve got $45,000 in addition to the $4,900. If you’re running without a party, you only have the $4,900. Have I explained why no independents can win?
Bob Zadek: You sure did. And what you’re really—minutes into the show—but what you have really, or the point you have made in both examples of campaign finance laws and in the allegiance, the fealty of the Democratic Party to the teachers unions, both of those had as their subtext influence of money. And what you seem to be railing against—maybe that’s too dramatic—what you are railing against is a system which allows wealthy donors to have what appears to be undue influence. Is part of your goal to reduce the influence of money? Because that’s a big challenge in America today and in California specifically.
Tom Campbell: It sure is my goal to reduce the influence of money in American politics, Bob. If I could do nothing else, I would consider that a successful career in public policy. And the difficulty in doing so is pretty straightforward: the folks who are in charge like the present system. They got into office because of the present system. They are the least likely people to change the present system. That’s why we’ve got to have a third party with the opportunity for people to get elected, get to Sacramento, bring the Democratic plurality below two-thirds so that they need to talk to somebody in the middle, and then maybe you can get some improvements in campaign finance.
Now, what I would like to do if I were in charge is have a very simple rule: if you can’t vote for me, you can’t contribute to me. So just think how that would work out. If you’re running for United States Senate from California, no money from Nevada. You’re running for Attorney General of California, the gambling interests of Nevada couldn’t give. If you’re running for assembly in Los Angeles, you couldn’t draw money from the Bay Area up north. You only can get the money from the people who you’re going to represent. Now, that seems to me easy to explain, utterly fair, everybody goes after the same pot, and the same kind of responsibility is imposed on somebody who’s raising money as when they are voting in the legislature.
Why the Common Sense Party is Different [14:12]
Bob Zadek: You might be running afoul of the Constitution and the First Amendment. We have Supreme Court case law that recognizes that giving money to a political campaign is a form of free speech, it’s a form of expression, and one might have constitutional rights. But this is not a show dealing with constitutional issues; we are trying to point out to our listeners areas where the political process has failed us. So the point is, at that level, quite well taken.
The part of your argument is we need another political party. It is obviously the case that we have lots of political parties in addition to the Democrats or the Republicans. Indeed, we’re getting to the point that the Republican Party is a fringe party lumped in there with all the others, but not quite there yet. But they’re getting there; they’re doing their best, but not succeeding just yet. But put that snide comment aside for the moment, and with apologies to the audience and with apologies to Tom, we have lots of existing non-Democrat and Republican parties. So explain to our listeners why we need another non-Democrat and Republican political party. There are lots right now.
Tom Campbell: The reason is because every one of those other, call them third parties—they may not like the phrase—but every one of them restricts who they help financially to members of their own party. I was surprised to learn that when I checked the Libertarian Party bylaws. They are prohibited from giving a dime to any candidate who’s not a Libertarian. And the Greens, they’re not going to go anywhere outside of their comfort zone, or the Peace and Freedom Party, or any of the other third parties. They are wedded to the ideology around which the party was created.
By contrast, the Common Sense Party, right in its foundational document, says we’ll support independent-minded people. We’ll support common-sense Republicans, common-sense Democrats, common-sense independents, common-sense Libertarians, and common-sense party candidates when we get some of those too. The key is to support the candidate. And going back to what I said before about top two, if one of those two in November is independent-minded—let’s say it’s a strong Democratic district and you’ve got one Democrat running against another Democrat—well, Bob, you and I know one of them is going to be supported by the Democratic Party chieftains and the other is going to be the outsider. We’ll support the outsider. No other third party will do that. No other third party will support a candidate except in their own party. So our goal is to get good people into the legislature, think for themselves, aren’t intimidated by the party leaders who insist that they sign on to an entire menu, and we don’t really insist that you even be a member of our party for us to help you.
Marketing Cooperatives and Single-Issue Voters [18:24]
Bob Zadek: Will you have or do you have a platform? And let me explain my question a bit further, just with another sentence or two if I may. You derive strength from numbers, obviously. You would like to have lots of registered Common Sense Party voters. Well, one registers for a political party in part because the voter believes that this party reflects that voter’s worldview, more or less. There’ll never be complete synergy, but you try to get as close as you can to having the party mirror how you feel about political life. Now, do you expect to have a platform? For example, will you have a consistent position on—well, one can pick any one of a number of issues—on spending, taxation, foreign policy (although you’re a California party, so even though some states seem to have a foreign policy, California, I don’t think has a pronounced one), or what about the environment and things of that nature? Will you have a position that one can say, “That reflects my views, therefore that’s who I want to associate with”?
Tom Campbell: We will, and we have already begun working on it. I have an issue paper on virtually every subject that has come up in public policy, including the three that you just mentioned. And the way our party is structured is we wait to be official, then send out the bylaws to the members of our party and a draft platform at the same time. The original mailing will include both. If we get a majority of the party members to say yes, I sign on to this, then that’s our bylaws and that’s our platform. Thereafter, in order to change it, you need a three-quarters vote.
Now, the reason why that’s high is because we don’t want to exclude people, and we don’t want people to feel that, well, if I can’t agree on this point, I’ll never be able to get the party support. What each candidate then decides to do is up to herself or himself. As you correctly pointed out, no one believes all the planks of every party’s platform. But the problem in California is you have to have adherence if you’re a Democrat or Republican to the major views that the party chieftains insist upon. And I don’t want to cut out somebody from getting our support because they don’t agree with any particular party platform. But Bob, you’re right, you’ve got to stand for something. We stand for openness, we stand for getting independent-minded candidates elected. But I’ll sure as heck tell you what I believe on any of these issues, and I’ve put a ton of these already on our party website in the comment section. But it’s just me as an individual. If it’s going to be the party’s view, it’s got to get that support from the party vote, which we will get the moment we are approved by the Secretary of State.
Bob Zadek: The registered voters are the classic zero-sum game. If you, as you acquire a new, newly registered Common Sense Party registered voter, that voter probably was registered some other way before they registered as a Common Sense Party voter. And what would you say to, let’s say, the typical Democratic voter to make being registered as a Common Sense Party voter is they will feel more comfortable? And then you turn around the next day and you talk to a Republican voter. Do you say the same thing to the Republican voter? Do you tailor your presentation to whether you’re trying to persuade a Democrat or a Republican to reregister? And what about to an independent or a Libertarian? I’m kind of curious from a pure political operative standpoint. How do you go about inducing people who are probably different from each other that each of them belongs in the Common Sense Party?
Tom Campbell: Very logical question. And the common point that would appeal to the Democrat and the Republican alike is: do you think there’s a room for a candidate who doesn’t sign on to the orthodoxy of all the positions of your party? So you might find a pro-life Democrat. You might find a Republican who is very strongly interested in preserving the coastal beauty and ecology of the coast and otherwise might find more affinity on the taxation and regulation policies of the Republican Party. So the common appeal is this: do you support the opportunity for somebody who wants to serve in the legislature—and that’s our focus, the California legislature—we’re very reasonable in our aspirations. Do you favor giving that somebody a chance to serve there, that if they don’t adhere to the orthodoxy of the two major parties, they won’t get the support of those two major parties? So that is common. I say that to everybody. I don’t talk out of both sides of my mouth. Then filling in the example will be different according to which person I’m attempting to convince. A Democrat who wants to be a little bit more pro-business is a very good target for the Common Sense Party. A Republican who wants to be a little bit more pro-environment or pro-woman’s right to choose might be a good candidate for our party. It’s the willingness to tolerate, not only tolerate, to celebrate an individual standing up for his or her own views. That is common and I say to everybody.
Marketing Cooperatives and Single-Issue Voters [26:33]
Bob Zadek: I have on prior shows in discussing this topic—and I’ve been discussing the topic of third parties for many, many years with many different guests—and I have observed, maybe because I’m an outsider, I have observed that political parties seem to be nothing other than—and this is my own phrase—marketing cooperatives. That is to say, they are a central organization that collects and dispenses lots of money and has lots of political savvy sort of in-house. And they try to develop a platform, the individual items of which have nothing to do with each other, but they develop a platform that if you add up all of the single-issue voters, you get 50.01% of the voters will vote for this political party. So it’s not—so it doesn’t—there’s no governing principle overall; there’s just a collection of issues that when tested in an election will accumulate 50.01% of the vote and giving that party control. And therefore, most voters in my observation seem to be single-issue voters. And by that I mean there’s one issue that they really care about, and that governs their vote. And if you say that’s the hand you’re dealt, how do you appeal to a majority or a reasonable plurality of voters who are single-issue voters and who feel this party, one of the Democrats or the Republicans, is their view on the issue they care about the most?
Tom Campbell: You correctly observe the system of parties as a joint marketing device. I’d also say a joint financial device, given what I just said about the campaign finance laws in California. You have a 10-to-1 advantage if you are a political party in funding campaigns. So the function of the party is to put a label on somebody that will be generally accurate for the sake of convincing the voters that this person—you don’t have to need any more research done, just vote for a D, vote for an R—and the person who wants to have the D or R nomination will get the money.
I think that’s changing, and the Common Sense Party is really in the vanguard of changing it. The reason why it’s changing is you can find out more about any individual’s positions through the internet than was ever possible when I first got into politics in 1988 or when I was growing up. It was just impossible to get the degree of detail. So the parties served this general branding function that you correctly identified. I’m not—and I’ve got to say with hopefully respect for all the candidates for judges—virtually none of us knows the candidates for judges that we vote on every time. And so we kind of look for a branding: are you endorsed by the district attorneys, are you endorsed by the defense attorneys, kind of a surrogate. That function is now being surpassed by the ability, at least at the level of candidates for the legislature, to go online and go to good services like Ballotpedia, which does a survey of all your positions on all your issues. You can find out in less than one minute what the candidate for State Senator believes on taxes, on regulation, on environment, on guns, on water, and be done and make your choice on the individual. So in a way, Bob, I don’t think I could have been doing this 20 years ago. The strength of party label to communicate sufficient information for a vote was dominant. That has been undone by immediate access to infinite amount of information which the internet provides.
Libertarian Values and the Role of Government [34:57]
Bob Zadek: It seems to me, it seems to me that the way to get registered voters to register for the Common Sense Party is simply to ask them quietly to themselves, ask them if they, when they vote for a candidate, whether they are—and I guess the expression is—holding their nose when they vote, when they are saying “lesser of two evils” or “I hate the platform on other things, but on the thing I care about the most, this party unhappily represents my views.” All you have to do is say you will never go through that unpleasantness of holding your nose as you vote. Putting it differently, you will never be angry at the Common Sense Party, at us. You might disagree, but as I almost always say to my guests—I haven’t yet said it to you, and I probably will not because I have so much respect for you—but I often will say to guests and to friends: when I hear somebody’s opinion on something, it’s boring to me, always boring. Your opinion is boring. Why you feel that way is fascinating. So I say, I don’t care what you think, tell me why you think it. You might persuade me; I might have learned something I didn’t know before. So with the Common Sense Party, the issue is when you take a position, it’s why you think it. What’s your motivation? Is your motivation fealty to a pressure group, or is your motivation that it’s the just plain the right thing to do and here’s why? And there is no party that appeals to the intellect of the voter, only to their emotions. And if that’s your core of your platform, the classic battle between the heart and the mind—Jefferson wrote about it, Socrates wrote about it—the battle between the heart and the mind, the other two appeal to your heart and we appeal to your mind.
Tom Campbell: You’re eloquent, Bob. I try to improve on it, I can’t. I’ll offer you my response nonetheless. Wouldn’t it be great to vote for somebody as opposed to against somebody? That’s another way of putting it. Or I call it: Common Sense Party is the party for the rest of us. How often we have said, “I wish there was another candidate.” The last two presidential elections have given us just that feeling. At least that’s how I felt the last two presidential elections. So what can we do to fix it? It’s not going to happen with the two-party system, or the one-party system actually, with an irrelevant Republican Party, the one-party system in California. If you have the opportunity for somebody who thinks for themselves, takes a different position on one view and conservative on one, liberal on another, according to their best logic, and then they apply the Bob Zadek test and explain to you why they believe that way, you might not come down agreeing with them, but you certainly have respect for that process. And if they get up to Sacramento, you’re going to be confident that they’ll vote on any issue, including the hundreds of issues you’ve never thought of that are going to come before that person. They’re going to vote for a view, a bill, a position on the basis of their best thinking, their best logic, and the evidence, as opposed to “What do I need to say, how do I need to vote in order to get the party to give me the party money to get out of the next primary election?” If that’s what we do, I think we’ve got a built-in segment of the California voter who’s going to find that very appealing.
Stacking the Deck Against Competition [39:47]
Bob Zadek: At the root of national politics, and that’s simply exaggerated in California, but it’s national, is this core issue. Why am I raising this core issue? Why? Because I’m a libertarian, that’s why. But the core issue is, as I see it, an issue that I dare say many of the listeners of our discussion will agree with me, and it’s the role, the core relationship between citizens and our government. How much should the government be in our lives? A core libertarian value. Now, on an issue like that, and I’m giving you obviously a leading question, but I know you will not—you will not because I know you well enough to know that—you will not pander to the audience, I know that. But explain, just so we can see how you approach the issue, assuming one’s core issue is, as mine often is, individual freedom and responsibility, the relationship of my life to government, how much freedom do I have? Start with that. Now, is it even possible for a third political party or any political party to appeal or to take a position on as core a value as that? Now, there is a Libertarian Party, but it is kind of irrelevant. I find it one that I can’t relate to, and I am quick to say when I describe myself as a libertarian, but I am not a member of the Libertarian Party. That doesn’t describe my affiliation; it describes my philosophy and my values. So speak to a bit, instead of a very specific issue like education or immigration or the environment, speak to that issue if you will. It’s not really relevant to the core reason for forming and promoting the Common Sense Party.
Tom Campbell: It’s a core issue for me, and the opportunity that the Common Sense Party gives to somebody like me is, if I were still running for office—and I’m not, but if I were—I could get to the finals and get elected holding the views that I do. So I’ll answer for myself, which is how you put the question, and the Common Sense Party is the vehicle that would allow me, if I were running for office, to express it. I start with the premise that the maximum amount of freedom is to be implemented in public policy for the individual. That there are nevertheless occasions when the necessity of government takes over from the individual preference. That where that line is drawn differs among people of goodwill. But a super way, the superior way of analyzing every public policy issue is to ask: do we need this government program?
When I was in Congress and when I was in the State Senate, I’ll say most of my Democratic friends and some of my Republican friends had a different starting point. They would say, “Well, is this a good idea? Would it be a good idea to have more public education? Is it a good idea to have the government subsidize the production of silicon chips in the United States?” And I would always say, “Well, you’re starting with the wrong question. It’s not ‘is it a good idea,’ it’s ‘do we need government to do it?’” I can get you more chips produced with less government involvement, and I can show you how. So we might agree that it’s a good idea to have more silicon chips produced in America so we’re not dependent upon imports from China, and that’s even more so if Taiwan’s supply becomes threatened by China. But my starting point is not “is it a good idea,” it’s “do we need the government to implement that good idea?” So Bob, I do have that shared libertarian base that you do. And I might end up saying yes, that I do need the government—for example, taking care of older folks when they haven’t put enough to one side during their working years. Yeah, Social Security was a good idea, not a perfect libertarian idea, but a good idea. Yes, we do need the government for Social Security. And people of goodwill may disagree with me on even that. But I started by asking that question: do we need it from the government?
Bob Zadek: As the builder, the creator, and the builder and the growing of a third party, give our audience a bit of insight into how the deck is stacked against third parties. And the reason I want to do that is when any organization, whether it’s a business, a union, or a political party, gets, obtains protection of their monopoly by governmental action as opposed to exposing itself to the freedom of the voter, that explains it must be an inferior product because this organization, union, political party, doesn’t want to be tested in an open election, if you will, even if the election is the pocketbook as opposed to the ballot box. Therefore, the two political parties have profound governmental, statutory protection against anybody crowding their turf. It’s the same monopoly that governments gave to the railroads and they gave to utilities to the detriment of the consumers. In this case, the consumers are voters. So help the audience understand issues such as ballot access, such as control of the debate stage, and things of that nature. Explain to our audience how the deck is stacked by the monopolists, Democrats and Republicans, to the detriment of other ideas such as the Common Sense Party.
Tom Campbell: A couple examples are pretty powerful. The first is what you just mentioned: access to the debate stage. The Presidential Debates Commission is a private foundation run by the Democratic and Republican parties, and they kept the Libertarian candidate out of the presidential debates the last three cycles. This is not to the benefit of America. But when people say, “Oh well, the presidential debates are on, I’ll watch them,” thinking that it is somehow fair and gives us an exposure to different views—no, it’s run by the Democratic and Republican parties and that’s who gets invited. Ross Perot broke in because of his high standing in the polls and his ability, frankly, to spend the money to get that high standing in the polls. But if you’re not independently very, very, very wealthy, you don’t get onto the debate stage. That’s a very good example and you raised it.
Number two: access to the ballot by signatures. There is a very good newsletter you probably get, published by Richard Winger in the Bay Area, and he monitors the activities of what it takes to get on the ballot in all 50 states. And Bob, it’s state after state, example after example, where it’s easier for the two major parties to retain their position on the ballot than it is for a new party to get onto the ballot. So once you cross the threshold, you’re grandfathered in. And then in power, those agencies of the Democratic and Republican party—it’s in our state the Democratic Party, in some other states it’s the Republican Party—they lift the threshold. So the second big example I’d give you is the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. Once you’re in, you stay in. But if you’re trying to get in, the folks who are already up in the treehouse have pulled the ladder up.
Third, I should perhaps have emphasized it even more: money. So you had correctly identified the Supreme Court opinion of 1976, Buckley v. Valeo, that struck down an attempt to limit how much an individual can spend. But the court in that opinion was careful to say a reasonable limit would be okay. So what you have now in the state of California is a 10-to-1 advantage for funds for somebody running for the legislature if they get help from the registered party. If you don’t have help from a registered party, if you’re running as a non-party preference person, good luck if you’re not independently wealthy. So those laws are passed by the Democrats and Republicans in coordination with each other in Sacramento. I believe that the Supreme Court opinion allows for my rule, which was if you can’t vote for me, you can’t contribute to me. But that’s a simplification of it. I think in order to get it past the Supreme Court, you’d have to say if you can’t vote for me, you can give me $100, but if you can vote for me, then use the other limits like $4,500 if you’re running for the legislature. So those are the three examples I’ll give you: access to the ballot, who gets to debate, and the 10-to-1 advantage in fundraising availability for candidates for the legislature.
The Duopoly and the Need for Competition [45:57]
Bob Zadek: And the reason I mentioned, the reason I brought up this topic is, as I said in my introduction of a second ago, these laws, federal and state laws, were enacted by the legislature populated by one or the other of two parties. It is natural, although infuriating, that the two parties which collectively enjoy all the political power in our country, it is understandable but frightful that they have enacted legislation to make sure nobody ruins it for them, nobody ruins their duopoly. And as voters, we must be offended. We have to ask ourselves: why are these two parties so afraid of allowing the voters access to other candidates and other points of view? The only reason you need statutory protection is because you know that your product is awful and you fear competition, in this case, ballot box competition. So all of these statutes—ballot access, where you can’t even get on the ballot unless you go through absurd hoops that serve no valid public purpose—it’s simply a way to make sure nobody ruins the party for the Democrats and the Republicans. And if you want no other reason other than to open the doors to other points of view, you should support in general third parties, or at least their access, and in this case, the Common Sense Party, which simply says: give us access to the same voters that Democrats and Republicans have and let us make our case. If we are selling a bad product, punish us at the polls. If we’re selling a good product, then vote for us. What could be more small-d democratic than that?
Alliance with the Forward Party [47:46]
Bob Zadek: Now, Tom, with respect to the Common Sense Party, where are you? Tell us about your recent experience with Andrew Yang and the Forward Party. Tell us what’s going on with the Common Sense Party and how could our listeners learn a bit more about it and perhaps give themselves access to more points of view.
Tom Campbell: The opportunity to go to our website is available at cacommonsense.org. So you have to remember CA for California, commonsense.org. The Common Sense Party formed an alliance with the Forward Party, which is chaired by Andrew Yang and former Governor Christie Todd Whitman. I mention both because Andrew Yang is a former Democrat and Christie Todd Whitman is a former Republican. And the purpose of our joint venture is to get the Common Sense Party recognized in California because our principles, particularly access to the political process, are close to identical, if not identical. The Forward Party in California has decided it makes sense not to try to recreate all of the work that we’ve already started. They’d have to start from scratch. If instead they help us, they go to their Forward Party members and say, “Please register in the Common Sense Party in California,” we’ll get over the line and then a Forward Party candidate can choose to run in California. If the majority of the people in the Common Sense Party choose, we can even change the name of the party. But it made more sense to the Forward group—it’s a party in some states, it’s a group in California—not to try to replicate the work that we’d done. And we found that it has been a wonderful coalition. They have a lot of energetic volunteers and we’ve got a lot of experience, and the two together makes a good match. I emphasize, though, we’re in California; Forward is nationwide.
Bob Zadek: As we run out of time, I found it so interesting that you identified Christie Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey, and Andrew Yang, a presidential candidate—he ran in the primaries as a Democrat from New York. The reason I mentioned that, even after you did, was I admired Christie Todd Whitman simply as a public figure. I don’t necessarily support Republicans as a party because there is no such thing; there’s no philosophy. But I identified her a long time ago as a candidate that I just plain admired. I thought she was—I liked her position. And then we go to Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang as a Democrat, and he was running in the primary, he had a duty to pander a bit to, as political primaries go, to an extreme wing. I put that aside. I found I just plain liked the guy. He was smart, I felt comfortable with him. I probably disagreed with him on a bunch of issues, but putting issues aside and looking only at the human being, I’m comfortable with him. So if this is any indication of the quality of public figures who are drawn to the concept as well as the party, it’s a ringing endorsement for the Common Sense Party. So Tom, I think your—whatever you did to draw that quality of supporters and proponents of the Common Sense Party, you’re on the right track. So Tom, thank you so much for your work. I am a registered Common Sense Party voter right now. I don’t expect to be voting in juicy primaries, Tom, so I’ve given up the fun of primary voting, but I’ll sacrifice that in support of the right thing to do politically. So thank you so much, Tom, for your time this hour. And thank you so much to my friends out there who have given Tom and myself an hour of your valuable time. I hope you’ve found it to be worthwhile.