In a lengthy article by Edward Fitzpatrick, the Moderate Party of Rhode Island is considered, along with their ballot access court case and future candidates, among other things. The party, led by Ken Block, is fighting to lessen the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot, which currently stands at 5 percent of the last vote for president or governor, or 23,500 signatures. A party can also qualify by getting that many votes in a presidential race or race for governor.
Read the full article here.
Ken Block, the Barrington software engineer who is trying to win state recognition for the Moderate Party, could have chosen an easier task than challenging the two-party system (or the one-party system, as the case may be here in Rhode Island).
For instance, he could have chosen to promote tourism in Mexico City.
But on Thursday, he chose to testify in U.S. District Court in Providence as part of a federal lawsuit that claims state election laws unconstitutionally hamper new political organizations from getting on the ballot as recognized political parties.
Prospective parties can gain official recognition in three ways: run a candidate who received at least 5 percent of the vote in the last governor’s race; run a candidate who received at least 5 percent in the last presidential race; or gather petition signatures equal to 5 percent of the vote cast in the last election for governor or president…
In 2008, the Moderate Party endorsed 13 candidates for the General Assembly, including six Republicans, three Democrats and five independents. And he said four General Assembly candidates are planning to run on the Moderate Party ticket in 2010 — if the party gains recognition. When asked for an example, he named Richard Rodi, who lost a Democratic primary for a Providence House seat in 2008.
I asked Block if he’d considered taking on a task less difficult than challenging the two-party system. “Like scaling Mount Everest, maybe?” Block replied. “We laugh about it, and there’s a lot of truth to what you said. But there is a lot of support out there.”
“If we are allowed to build it,” Block said, “they will come.”
And hopefully it [a national Moderate Party] would not self implode like the [so called] Reform Movement……….
But at the current rate of politics, I believe that people should create a national Moderate Party.
It’s probably one of those parties that wants to fuse the Democratic and Reublican Parties together.
Don is right this time.
But why does Rhode Island of all places have a Moderate Party? That’s where the Republican Party is most moderate, and the Democrats aren’t far far left either.
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