Why Third Parties Matter

by Micah L. Sifry

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

These days, third-party candidates for office are often seen as nuts, nuisances or nonpersons. Most of the time, they face discriminatory barriers to the ballot, demeaning treatment by the media and a debilitating lack of funding. But it would be a huge mistake to ignore the crucial role that third parties can play in American politics in opening up discussion of new issues and forcing valuable reforms into the mainstream of American life.

Consider this: Were it not for third parties, the abolition of slavery, giving women the right to vote, ending child labor, the direct election of U.S. senators, the progressive income tax, shorter working hours and unemployment insurance might never have come about. All these reforms were first proposed by minor political parties whose names -- Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, Prohibition Party, Populist Party, Greenback Party, Socialist Party -- have long faded from view.

For example, in its 1880 platform, the Greenback Party, which brought together hard-pressed farmers and industrial workers, called for "all money to be issued and its volume to be controlled by the national government, an eight-hour work day, enforcement of a sanitary code in industrial establishments, curtailment of child labor, the establishment of a Bureau of Labor Statistics, . . . a graduated income tax, the ballot for women, and equal voting rights for blacks." These once-radical notions are now as American as apple pie -- in part because the Greenbackers elected 13 members to the U.S. House of Representatives from 10 states and demonstrated the popularity of their ideas.

Third parties can "win" in politics, even without electing their candidates to office. By mobilizing a bloc of voters around one or a few central concerns, they often force one or both of the major parties to respond by embracing all or part of their platform. This process of co-optation often has the effect of weakening support for the minor party, even as its ideas move into the political mainstream.

One recent example of this kind of third-party success took place in 1992, when Ross Perot got 19 percent of the vote, in part by focusing on the dangers of the growing federal budget deficit. Democrats and Republicans responded by personally courting Perot, but more important, by altering the focus of economic policy in the mid-1990s toward deficit-cutting and away from lower taxes or increased public spending. Although other forces in the media and the financial community notably added to the debate, it is fair to credit Perot and his supporters with much of this shift.

The same dynamic can play out in lower level races as well. In 1997 and 1998, two Green Party candidates for congress in New Mexico challenged the dominant Democratic Party by drawing 17 and 14 percent of the vote in two successive special elections. In the general election races that followed, Democratic candidates responded by adopting or moving toward Green positions on universal health care, social security reform and local environmental questions.

Changes in the electoral rules, such as proportional representation, or a return to the widespread practice in the 1800s of fusion (or cross-endorsement), might allow third parties to play a more stable and less marginal role in American politics. But even without such worthwhile reforms, it is clear that the third-party path will remain a controversial but fruitful way for outsiders to test the boundaries of political discourse and for neglected issues and constituencies to gain vital attention.

Micah L. Sifry is the author of "Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America" (Routledge, 2002). His latest book, written with Nancy Watzman, is titled, "Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day" (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). He is a senior analyst with Public Campaign, a nonpartisan organization devoted to comprehensive campaign finance reform.

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