Toward a Popular Opposition to the Two-Party State: Green, Libertarian, Tea Party and Independent Activsts Unite for Electoral Reform

At the Broward Palm Beach New Times blog, Gail Shepherd reports on a local event planned for this coming Saturday on "electoral disenfranchisement," that will bring together Green Party, Libertarian Party, Tea Party and independent activists:

[Green Party activist] Jayne King has banded together with some strange bedfellows: She says that the Electoral Reform event she's helping to organize for this Saturday has support from a whole spectrum of political activists.

Sure, members of the Green Party and the ACLU will show up -- you expected that, right? But so, King says, will Tea Party activists, Libertarians, Independents, and even a few Republicans. The common thread is that all agree that major reforms are due in our highly compromised elections system.

People are disenfranchised. Third- and fourth-party candidates are discouraged from running. The public is apathetic about voting. Lobbyists exert undue influence. And our state Legislature is stocked with millionaires who don't represent the will of the common people . . .

The event is the "kickoff," King says, for a series designed to get the public reinterested in its old civics lessons . . . In the future, the group will focus on at least ten areas of electoral reform.

Consider it a sign of the times.