Friday, March 13, 2009

3rd party dreaming

rappers

closing the gates

Rhode Island’s dominant political parties…if it’s fair to call Republicans dominant in this state…have a lcok on ballot placement.  For a new party to achieve recognition and a place on the voting ballot, it has to get signatures equal to 5% of the turnout in the last presidential election…and it has to do it in the calendar year of the election the new party wants to run in.  so the Moderate Party is suing…syaing it’s onerous to require 23-thousand signatures…in five months…a time period they say reflects the likely schedule…start in January…get enough to qualify, and then mount an election and fundraising campaign for November.  It’s not easy.  It’s a lot easier in other states.  Here’s what you think about loosening the restrictions some…

no changing the laws just for them if it says you have to start in jan. to collect 23,000 signatures then follow the rules like every other party had too.
William H

Just what we need, more politicians finding more ways to spend taxpayers money. I think we need to get rid of some politicians not create more of them.
Roger G, Providence
. By definition, political parties are private corporations and associations. The government has no business inhibiting or regulating their formation and existence. Political parties exist by their mere incorporation and self-declaration. There should be a clear separation of political party and state. And like the separation of church and state, government shall make no laws that inhibit or promote political parties.
John C
(Plaintiff in Gill vs. the State of RI, a case that challenged the constitutionality of 155 RI Election Laws in Federal Court)

No
And I am in favor of a new party
Howie, North Providence

Should the rules be changed? Maybe. Will the rules be changed? I doubt it. Both existing parties are not in favor of sharing votes with a third party. It is a fact that a third party takes votes away from the existing parties. The less choices we the voters have,  the better the politicians chances of getting elected.
Lee L,  Woonsocket

At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse a systemic failure of the entire banking system. improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of exotic debt instruments, easy money policy, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers pricing houses out of the market. A pattern of reward for fiscal delinquency.
The list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the lack of college graduates.
Obtaining financing is not the reason people are not buying cars. People are not buying cars because they are worried about having a job to enable them to pay back the loan or they are already maxed out as prices rise. It’s the same reason people aren’t buying houses.
Any one running on a Tar and Feather ticket should easily get 23,000 signatures
Its time for all individuals to become corporate citizen entities allocating privatized gain into asset protection and socialize their cost of living.
Zuke

I don’t understand why there is a narrow time requirement to collect the signatures. I say let them on the ballot. If the people don’t want them, they won’t vote for them.
Bill, Portsmouth

Oh yeah, this state really needs another political party.
Then it will really be a shell game.
They should call it the Pothole Party and fix the roads.
And I’m tired of hearing about how the Democrats run the state,
when the people elect Republican governors.
As far as 23,000 signatures, that’s easy.
The hard part is finding enough “legal” citizens in this state.
Stuckinri

Of course Rhode Island should lower the requirements for new parties! It’s called democracy! The two parties we have now are useless and they know it, they’re afraid of decent competition. If we had some fresh new ideas in this state, maybe something would get done.
Bill G, Cranston