WHO WE ARE

We are a national strategy, communications, and organizing center working to connect and empower the 40% of Americans who identify themselves as independents. Our mission is to develop a movement of independent voters, in partnership with Americans of all persuasions, to reform America’s political process, create unorthodox coalitions and use our democracy to develop our nation.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE INDEPENDENT

Four in ten voters don’t want to be in a political party. Why? Because parties have become special interests — perhaps the biggest special interests of all.

Independents become independents because we are repelled by the current political system—by the self-dealing and arrogance of politicians and political parties. We are 43% of the country today. Many are young. Growing numbers are from the communities of color. Among millennials and Latinos, 50% identify as independent and 35% of African American between the ages of 18 - 34 are independent. We have been, and continue to be, a restless engine for political and economic renewal.

Independents care deeply about our identity. We go by many names: “Decline to State,” “Unaligned,” “No Party Preference,” “Other.” In states where independents are forced to join a party to vote in a primary, there is anger. Voters of all persuasions believe this is unfair. When people choose a political identity that is other than what the parties want, it is an act of resistance and a step towards changing the partisan nature of the system.

Issues that animate independents across the political spectrum aren’t really issues in the traditional sense. They are about process, the way things work. After this election cycle, many people became educated about the pitfalls of the process—closed primaries which locked out nearly 25 million voters; controlled presidential debates; the convention delegate selection rules; the electoral college; and so forth. Independent voters became more visible as a result. We believe that independent voters deserve respect, recognition and reform and we work in every state—from the ground up—to make that possible.

Independents have been, and continue to be, a restless engine for political and economic renewal.

OUR HISTORY / Our MISSION

While the major political parties redefined themselves in the 1980's and the 1990's--via Reaganism and Clintonism--encroaching on each other’s electoral coalitions to win the White House, diverse Americans began to chafe at the idea that the Republican and Democratic Parties reflected their aspirations for the 21st Century. The numbers of Americans who identified as independents began to grow.

During that time, independent presidential campaigns large and small—with candidates as politically diverse as Ross Perot, Lenora Fulani, Ron Paul, and Ralph Nader—demonstrated a public appetite for political alternatives.  The major parties and major media railed against these “outsider” choices, ignoring or demeaning those Americans who refused to ally with any political party.  To many in the progressive wing of the independent movement, it seemed that creating a new political culture would require some unorthodox coalitions and a set of meaningful structural changes to the political process itself.  The percentage of independents rose to 43%.  Political revolts simmered just below the surface.

We were initially founded in 1994 as the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (“CUIP”), to spur the creation of a new national party out of the Perot revolt. Our mission was to create a left/center/right multiracial alliance and to press for a set of political reform principles that empowered Americans across ideological, racial and geographic lines.  

PRESIDENT

JACKIE SALIT

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my team of instigators, communicators & activators
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