On May 3, Vermont Representative Jarrod Sammis announced that he has left the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party. See this story. Sammis is in his first term, and represents the Rutland-3 district.
In Vermont, the voter registration form does not ask for party, so party affiliation is simply by the individual’s own declaration. Thanks to Bill Redpath for this news.
I recall back in 2000 a Libertarian got elected to the state legislature in Vermont, and about 6 months of so into his term he switched to Republican, with his stated reason for switching being that he did not support state recognition of gay marriage.
Okay.
I wish more politicians in the two major parties had the courage to party switch in response to their massive disagreements with said parties. We’d end up with a multiparty system akin to the one we often had before the 1950s during the heyday of the Progressive, Populist, Farmer Laborer, and Socialist Parties.
In multiparty systems you just end up with party coalitions. In the US caucuses of parties tend to fill that role.
Is that really true anymore though? It was in the 1970s where the two parties were “big tents”, but now I think we’re seeing people in the two tents moving the posts to make the tents smaller and more homogeneous. People that say that now, it’s a complete lie. There are a wide range of mainstream positions a person can have now that would make them entirely unelectable in a primary in both parties.
based on the article (thanxs for reporting it, rich) I applaud Rep Sammis for two uncommon reasons —
> he jumped ship to LP not for usual personal or civil or economic liberty issues but a foreign-policy issue. Usually such views on military are from the left (ie, Greens, Socialists, etc).
> He aptly and strategically noted to the media that he wasn’t sure if he’d now caucus with Dems or Repubs. Seems too often libertarian folks automatically choose Republicans. But various issues of less government pro-choice liberties fall about equal between conservatives and liberals, at least in their rhetoric (not so much in practice).
@Burt… in theory you’re right, but what happens when the caucuses on the right edge of the Democratic Party and the left edge of the Republican Party would want to get together and form a governing center coalition? The answer is they effectively can’t.
This is also true for caucuses that say; agree on economics but disagree on social policy but would like to set up a governing coalition that would solely focus on economic policy during that congressional/legislative session.
You just end up creating a situation where there’s zero room for unique coalition building and things descend into “partisan” bickering between the standing non-wavering caucus coalitions that formed decades ago. Multi-party systems have that free-form mechanism to form coalitions that would be impossible in a two-party system. The Christian Democratic Union in Germany has formed coalitions in the past with the Free Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, and even the Greens. I’d like to see a Republican even suggest a coalition with the US Greens.
The US has not had a really multiparty system since the 19th century. There are times when third parties are stronger than at other times though.
PR = MORE PARTIES ALL THE TIME
HOW MANY PARTIES IN EURO PR REGIMES ???
That can’t possibly logically be true. At some point it would at best have to level out.
Congratulations to Rep. Sammis and welcome to the Libertarian Party!
Good point, Pat!