Long-time Democrat Scott Harshbarger, who held the office of Attorney General and ran for Governor as a Dem, has handed in his registration card and has joined Evan Falchuk’s (and jconway‘s) United Independent Party. From a post at Commonwealth Magazine:
[A]s a lifelong Democrat, honored to serve in public office for 16 years, and as an advocate for good government and citizen engagement, I’m joining the United Independent Party (UIP). My goal is to help the UIP reach its legally-required benchmark of 43,000 enrollees by this November….
Harshbarger’s main point is that uncontested elections are a bad thing: “once again, a majority of our legislators are unopposed for re-election, not just in the primary but also in the general election. As a result, even common sense proposed reforms such as public financing, independent redistricting, and overturning Citizens United are all political non-starters. We all know that this is wrong!” He continues:
[I]n Massachusetts, neither my Democratic Party with its overwhelming majority, nor the on-life-support Republican Party solicits or encourages citizens to run for office against any incumbent of either party. As an official party, the United Independent Party will offer us challengers in races across the Commonwealth under a banner of independent thinkers promoting nonpartisan public policies that deserve to be heard and debated. That fact alone will begin creating the climate for reform.
Ensuring contested elections is the single most important reform we can implement right now to encourage citizen engagement and renew our democracy. That is why it matters that enough of us – Democrats, Republicans, and the unenrolled – register and join the UIP by November so it can be a vehicle for contested legislative elections.
I’d call this an interesting development. Harshbarger is, to my knowledge, now the highest-profile member of the UIP. If he were to undertake a serious recruiting effort, one can certainly imagine that UIP would find it easier to reach official party status.
Certainly, the embarrassing prevalence of uncontested elections year after year is a serious problem. So, good for Harshbarger for making it a priority and putting his own party registration in the service of addressing it.
BMG is progressive, not Democratic or Republican. We should support whatever will advance progressive politics in Massachusetts. Personally, I’m unenrolled. Perhaps we should follow Harshbarger and throw the weight of the blog, such as it may be, behind the UIP.
As a committed Democrat I support any help that BMG wants to provide to the UIP.
What could possibly go wrong?
BLUE Mass Group suggests Democrats, and I personally fall in the more and better Democrats camp.
This is a pretty big deal. And as anyone who ever lived in Middlesex County will tell you, Scott is a relentless campaigner.
in the house, if people like him are not being challenged or primaried, then I’d be interested in what a UIP candidate has to say.
n/t
😉
😉
I want a progressive independent party in MA. I quit the Dems decades ago and would be happy to join a progressive alternative. But the UIP seems even more in-sincere than the Greens. One man provides all of the funds in apparent violation of state law and OCPF regulations. The party platform reflects his views, no convention needed to ratify the platform as his opinions seem to trump any experience of people who actually work in the political world.
I have previously asked here for the names of UIP candidates running for the lege this year and have seen nothing on either their web site nor from it’s prolific BMG poster here. Nothing. It is hard for me to think of the UIP as anything other than a corrupt version of the Greens: a pretty platform funded by a guy who thinks he is smarter than the public.
I worked my a– off for Harshbarger during his his AG and gubernatorial bids. This latest move is sad.
Perhaps Mr. Harshbarger understands something that you don’t.
next time you see him in MA, ask him how he feels about the UIP running a campaign that is pretty clearly in violation of MGL Ch 55.
I understand a lot that you have don’t. Your little tittle of a post has no value but may make you feel warm while you do nothing to….
and I have to give you credit STom for an entirely content free post. Again.
there is exactly one UIP candidate on the ballot. Dan Fishman is running for state rep in the 6th Essex. He may be familiar to some from his multiple runs for office (most notably Congress) as a Libertarian. In fact, he still is a libertarian. He was recently quoted in the globe as a libertarian official, was a delagate to the libertarian convention, and here’s a pic he tweeted a couple days ago of himself with an “I Vote Libertarian” sign. Not exactly a progressive slate.
There were at least two other candidates who pulled papers and submitted sigs, but didn’t get enough to be on the ballot. One of them has dropped out and one is pursuing a write in- but he’s been repeatedly called a “jackass” on social media by Falchuk so I don’t know if he counts.
It’s understandable that they don’t want to elaborate, since it’s so much less than Falchuk has been promising for years. But, still vexing as have make such noise about transparency for others. The UIP party (Falchuk 2018 campaign…shhhh) motto seems to be “transparency for thee, but not for me.”
…before counting anyone out. The Secretary’s site doesn’t have ballots yet and there are two more that organized committees. The deadline for submission was Tuesday.
is to the final list of ballot-makers, published by the Secretary on Tuesday…check it out. Also, the two candidates have announced their plans- one dropping out and the one Falchuk was feuding with going write-in. To his credit, Josh Sanderski, the now write-in candidate, has not returned Falchuk’s name calling (at least publically).
Provided links to their websites and we made announcements on our website, Facebook and Twitter. We had multiple discussions about these candidates on this forum and in the press. One has made the ballot, several declined to run, and two dropped out of the race after failing to get their signatures. It’s really hard to run a successful third party candidate in the general election, it’s never happened in this states history. But it may yet happen this year.
We will be releasing write in candidates we are endorsing for our primary and contested primaries in the week ahead. Two on the Cape, another on the North Shore, and another in Central Mass. BMG will be one of the first places to know.
n/t
Don’t believe me? Just ask him. He’s probably bored and is looking for attention.
1) The March filing deadline was a difficult hurdle
Prospective candidates had to leave their existing parties and register with ours by that narrow window, and that was not enough time for many to make the commitment, and some who took that step anyway still got cold feet and didn’t want to risk a run.
2) Signature Requirements are difficilt for new parties
Our candidate from Fitchburg is a former city councilor well known in that community who got more than 300 signatures, but too many of those signatures were from registered Democrats, Republicans, or people not properly registered in the district. I might add the incumbent and her Republican challenger failed to get those requirements last cycle, it’s a really hard district to collect signatures for.
It’s certainly on me as field director and his organization sure for not being more proactive in anticipating that, but it makes it more difficult to collect signatures for a party that’s less than a year old when our pool of valid signatures is limited to our members and the unenrolled.
3) It doesn’t help when the states top election official says you’re not a real party
Galvin’s postcard to the 22,000 voters in our party hurt our enrollment and hurt our recruitment effort. Many top tier local officials were reluctant to come on board because of that and worried that we were a fringe organization. Ironically, he wasted over a million dollars of your money printing out more than a half a million UIP ballots for the presidential primary when he made it clear he knew w head 22,000 voters and he knew we had no presidential candidate.
4) It’s a presidential year
The March 15th primary hurt our enrollment momentum as people unenrolled and rebrolled. We’ve fully recovered from that, but we would’ve easily passed the registration requirement at the pace we were going had we not had to deal with it. An open primary or same day enrollment would be prevented this problem from occurring.
It’s also made many volunteers and activists laser focused on those races at the top, including potential candidates worried that joining the UIP would hurt the Democratic ticket somehow or cause a Nader effect-despite the fact that we are only competing for house races that are uncontested. It also drained potential funding sources that were focused on the primary. Bernie’s campaign definitely sapped us of active volunteers from the 2014 campaign.
5) No fusion voting
We can’t legally put candidates we like in contested primaries on our ballot line while they are on their regular ballot line. The Independent Party of Oregon has done that and has a higher membership level and more influence on state policy because of it, though I would add our level and influence is higher than theirs than they were when they were our age.
6) Money
As a new party without any existing members of the legislature we don’t offer any transactional advantage to dealing with us. You are donating only because you believe in what we are doing. And the non-ideological and non-partisan post/culture war piece hurts us since those wedge issues which divide us and distract us from solving our economic, education, and infrastructure challenges are the things that animate voters.
So what are we going to do?
We are recruiting write in candidates, endorsing unenrolled candidates already on the ballot, and endorsing candidates in competitive primaries. We believe in contesting elections. Period. It’s the single biggest thing that can fix the problems with the House. And that’s how we are going forward, and as we release that information I will definitely share them with the BMG community. If you are working with any of these campaigns feel free to get in touch with me to discuss next steps.
It might strike some as endearing that jconway’s two most loyal fellow bloggers downrate me. Of course neither have a verbal response that counters my words. In real life, that is what is generally recognized as the rot in politics, people defending political corruption because it is “my friend” who is doing it.
Let’s be clear. The UIP is corrupt. Harshbarger has shamed himself by joining the party without looking at the fraudulent finances that pay for what is called the UIP. It is amazing that Common Cause allows Harshbarger to remain as it’s titular head in light of the UIP Ch 55 violations, and Common Cause’s long history of being an outstanding advocate of anti-corruption politics.
The comical parts are that one of the two downraters of my post is a Democratic loyalist, and the other is a frequent complainer about Democratic Party corruption. This is a classic example of people sticking with friends, and ignoring principles. Both of them are defending the Falchuk corruption machine, even if it is a tiny machine.
Campaign finance corruption is political corruption. If you complain about big money corrupting politics, acknowledge it when it happens here in MA. The good news for us is that the chances of Falchuk to steal a ballot position are slim, due to incompetence.
The UIP is not a genuine progressive alternative to the Democratic Party, a concept I would welcome. It is the vehicle for a guy who did not let anyone vote of the platform of his party. That is why he has only one candidate for the legislature.
Harshbarger is no longer on the board of Common Cause
Let me be clear that I avoid responding to TBD for the same reason that I avoid walking near vicious and unpredictable dogs. In the same way that such a dog is occasionally well-behaved, the commentary from TBD is occasionally well-informed and insightful. Sadly, such commentary is completely overwhelmed by unnecessarily hostile screeds such as this.
This comment might strike some as exemplifying the excessively vicious commentary that occasionally creeps into even well-moderated sites like this.
Just saying.
I like this community because the exchanges here are intense, passionate, often deep and insightful. I come here because I welcome and enjoy the “frank and candid exchange of views” that nearly always transpires here.
Exchanges with this particular participant are different. They are too often personal and — yes — vicious attacks, generally on anyone who dares to disagree with the participant.
I stand by my characterization and comment.
…but I downrated you for the same reason I usually downrate you. You can’t seem to contribute without insulting people and mocking their contributions to this site. JConway is a long time and sincere BMGer who has done nothing to deserve the way you treat him. Ditto, for the two of us who downrated.
I will say that candidate recruitment in a compressed time frame, I came on in January and the deadline to join our party was in March, is difficult and that many of the candidates willing to talk to us who demurred are considering running write in campaigns for our primary on Sept 8th and are willing to being publicly endorsed by us. We will be releasing these lists in the coming weeks.
Our former candidate in Fitchburg is a bright and inspiring young leader, he had a good team of volunteers behind him and 40 of them attended his kickoff announcement. He has agreed to lead our town committee and will run for his old seat in 2017. The incumbent he challenged also failed to get her signatures along with her 2014 Republican opponent in that cycle, it’s a difficult district to collect in and more lead time and more training for volunteers would’ve avoided that, but we did well on the compressed schedule we had.
The party spent extensive resources on the 2015 referendum to block the Olympics, a referendum that successfully defeated the bid. We were the only political party willing to take that issue on, and the only member of the legislature willing to help us was a Tea Party Republican who disagreed with us on every major issue. But that story shows why the UIP is needed to challenge the political class in this state that does the bidding of GE, Partners, the IOC or other special interests instead of representing the people.
Feel free to start a progressive third party, I welcome more parties to the state. The earliest it could be on the ballot is 2020 if you take the easy path and run statewide candidates in 2018, or you could take the hard path like us and see if you do any better. I welcome the competition.
In the meantime, joining us in 2016 ensures that more third parties can stay on the ballot and all of our members will have a voice in shaping our platform through the town and state committee structure as we build this party out. You’re welcome to leave as soon as we regain our status. It’s a five minute act of defiance to either party in power on Beacon Hill.
Jconway, you do not work for the UIP. You work for the Evan Falchuk Committee, as is made clear from the OCPF reports the two committees file. You are not paid by UIP, but by the Falchuk Committee. The Falchuk report is here and demonstrates clearly who pays your salary. It ain’t the UIP.
http://www.ocpf.us/Filers?q=falchuk&cat=C#filer-data
I believe you that that the UIP spent money on the anti-Olympics bid in 2015 but its second biggest expenditures was reimbursing Falchuk himself for $8,817.41.
http://www.ocpf.us/Filers?q=united%20independent&cat=C#filer-reports
I fail to see how a party can claim to be a reform party when it’s almost sole owner runs donations through his own personal campaign account when he is not a candidate for any political office. The obvious reason he does so is that he is limited to an annual maximum donation of $5000 to UIP, so instead he runs much more money through his personal committee. I did a quick count of $15,000 in his personal donations to his own campaign this year, something that would be clearly illegal if he donated that money to UIP.
http://www.ocpf.us/Legal/ContributionLimits
You wrote
but there was no referendum and the proposal certainly was not initiated by UIP. The UIP claiming credit for an election that did not happen is disingenuous at best. Good people can disagree about interpretations and policies but I give one heck of a lot more credit to Boston 2024 for blocking the bid than the UIP. Heck, I remember you claiming that Boston could host a Winter Olympics in a few years.
When a single person, along with a few family members, funds the preponderance of a rogue political operation, even if I agree with it it on most of its platform, it is neither reform nor independent. It is corrupt.
I guess I am the bad guy for pointing this out. But if you have ever been a member of the Third Estate that kind of judgement is like water on a duck’s back.
n/t
You said I answered them to your satisfaction last month when I made it clear why I’m getting paid from one campaign account instead of the other. OCPF advised us it was legal. End of discussion. What else do I have to do?
We report to OCPF and they approve of the activity. Meehan, a public employee making seven figures of tax payer dollars still has several million sitting in his congressional account, most of it from corporate PACs, in the bank even though his campaign hasn’t been active in over a decade.
That’s also legal and far more troubling than anything we are doing. We have grassroots supporters that give monthly amounts like BMG members along with 5,000 donors. They all believe in the movement, nobody is expecting to get anything transactional out of this.
You can disagree with the UIP and its goals or its aims, you can dislike me and our founder, but you can’t argue that we are corrupt when we are following the letter of the law and have been advised by the regulatory body overseeing this activity not only that it is legal but that we regularly disclose this to them.
If you want it to be illegal change the law, there are already enough legal barriers to third party access that another one won’t make a significant difference. The only difference between Falchuk and Steve Grossman is that then former largely self funded a new party with his campaign as a platform for reform and change, while the latter spent all his money and his moms on his own advancement up the ladder. Nobody attacked him for that then, and it’s the exact same activity, just outside of the Democratic Party.
Part of your answer to me was that this was a paperwork issue, and it was “easier” for the Treasurer to leave things as is. Fine, but that can’t be the permanent solution.
Also … you were hired earlier this year, correct? Well into the UIP’s recognition. I really can’t think of any reason why your paycheck would say “Falchuk for Governor.”
I’m sure this is all quite annoying and tedious, but the requirements for a party should be much higher than the requirements for a campaign. Surely you agree?
I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals of the minutiae of campaign finance reform. I agree with Scott Harshbarger’s eloquent piece that none of the reforms we need will ever happen on Beacon Hill if we continue to allow uncontested primaries and general elections that enable no status quo.
Did the UIP ignore voter backed public finance or was that the Democratic leadership in the statehouse in the early 2000’s? Did the UIP abuse a loophole in the law to ensure public employees were elected to state committee positions or was that Charlie Baker and the Republicans? Did the UIP give $135 million to GE or was that a bipartisan deal inked by Baker and Walsh, both of whom have benefitted from that companies largesse, without the consent of the legislature or the city council? Perhaps this is a small loophole you find unfair, it’s legal and frankly the only we can compete with the bigger fish we have to fry.
I think the UIP can be part of the solution, and I find those questions and conflicts of interest far more meaningful than this minor accounting question you keep harping on. The reality is we are building our fundraising base and will use the party funds on party activity, and staffers will be paid out of the campaign committee in the interim. It’s legal and we are fully accountable and transparent with it. Allegations of corruption, calling me a liar and saying I am corrupt are beneath the pail and I’m surprised you uprated them JimC. I expected better.
That’s one way to describe it, I suppose.
I’ll stand on my record of bipartisan harping, when it comes to rules.
As for your other points, don’t change the subject.
Would they consider a reporting issue of this nature to be a minor accounting problem?
And the former executive director of Common Cause and former top prosecutor in our state joined our party because he believes we are a vehicle for reform. You disagree and that’s fine. We can agree disagreeably and I wish you the best of luck in getting Speaker DeLeo, Mayor Walsh and Charlie Baker to advocate for clean government and reform.
I find it hard to believe that OCPF is OK with this dichotomy, but OK. Best of luck.
It’s a a fully legal and transparent way to ensure a staffer (yours truly) remains housed and fed in Massachusetts on a fairly modest living wage from a publicly disclosed source. They would probably have far more concerns about the millions of unaccountable dollars that tend to fund the other two political parties locally or nationally. Thanks for your questions and concerns and I encourage you to follow the former director of Common Cause into our party.
For the record I’ve only used the UIP email server for my political communications in case anyone was wondering.
That describes me and several colleagues on the Dem side as well.
when it comes to
this comment, I could be more specific.
You had\have my sympathy, but you’re out of line. You know it, and you know why you’re out of line. Ask the editors to delete your comment before things get out of hand.
If you can point to anything that I posted that is inaccurate, then please name it.
I would welcome a good third party, even though our system is stacked against third parties in our winner-take-all system. At least the Greens don’t run massive rich-man campaign scams the way Falchuk is doing.
And build your own party. In the meantime, there are only four parties in Massachusetts right now. It’s unlikely the libertarians cross 3% to come back, though I do wish them luck, ditto the Greens. Only one third party organizing town committees and recruiting candidates at the local level to be cross endorsed for 2016 and for municipal races in 2017. Joining us keeps us on the ballot, failing to join us preserves the status quo which everyone here says they are against.
All of our finances have been reported to OCPF which has been nothing but cooperative with us. They are the regulators and if they had an issue don’t you think it would’ve been made public by now? Wouldn’t Galvin hold a press conference? Those questions have been asked and answered repeatedly.
Baker funneled over twenty times that amount to his state committee from shady corporate sources and no one said anything. No one asked Alan Khazei, Steve Avellone, Steve Grossman, Deval Patrick or other self funding Democrats where their money came from.
This is a smokescreen that you don’t like our policies or our platform-which is fine. Good luck starting your own, it’s an incredibly hard and difficult process not made easier by an uncooperative Secretary of the Commonwealth or state laws written to preserve the two party duopoly. People here complain all the time about our do nothing one party supermajority and have little to show for it. At least we’re doing something.
And attack me all you want, attack Evan all you want, but at least we put our principles into practice instead of hiding beyond the comfort of retirement and anonymity. Attack Scott all you want-but he’s been my hero since I was 10 and no one, not me or Evan and certainly not you, can hold a candle to what he did for our state and his commitment to honest government. You don’t owe me an apology-you owe him one.
In most cases an individual can’t just start a party on a whim. The best they can do is contest a race that already has a structure, such as the primary of an existing party. There’s nothing wrong with self-funding a campaign, but those examples did not turn their campaign into a separate party. As far as I know the laws are the same for all parties. If the Ds or Rs ever fell below the enrollment or turnout thresholds they’d be out of party status too.
By the D and R’s. The most recent rules were overwhelmingly passed by the Democratic legislature and signed by then Governor Romney. In this case, an individual contested a race with the goal of starting a party to run candidates for the legislature. This has been the stated goal of the gubernatorial candidacy since it started and when it ended.
Jill Stein and Gary Johnson are doing the same thing. The difference is, Stein’s party doesn’t attempt to field candidates in legislative races, and it’s unclear how competitive the Libertarians will be if they regain their status since their state committee is in disarray. Both parties begged us for our ballot line.
We are the only third party with a legislative candidate on the ballot running in what would’ve been an uncontested race against a candidate who only got a 40% rating from progressive mass. We are formalizing endorsmenet agreements with other candidates running in primaries in both major parties to also run write in campaigns to win our nomination. This ensures a contested primary can continue through the general when there is higher youth and minority turnout, or if they win their regular party’s nomination they have our seal of approval. This is how we can be an ally to progressive democrats and independents alike, bringing them together to oust the hackish status quo on Beacon Hill.
Progressive Mass is welcome to work within the primary, it’s had mixed success since it has the same fundraising and manpower challenges we do. The DSC is welcome to do the same. I reject that this is a binary choice. Fixing the legislature isn’t easy, it isn’t sexy, and it isn’t high profile but it’s vitally important to the future of this state. I welcome any group as an ally in this fight. Our group will cease to exist in November if it doesn’t enroll another 20,000 voters. Our ballot line is real now.
Actually I like the UIP platform, as I mentioned earlier. I just don’t like political parties where one man writes the platform and simultaneously cheats the campaign finance rules by funneling money through his personal campaign account even while he is not a candidate for any public office.
It would be nice if you could get the facts correct about OCPF. Secretary Galvin is not the OCPF boss. It is an independent agency, as described on its website:
I am not attacking you. I am calling the UIP to account. Your choice to take a paycheck from the Falchuk Committee while claiming to be an employee of the UIP is obviously not true.
And OCPF is obviously aware and doesn’t have an issue. It has cleared this month after month. And you did make it personal by claiming I wasn’t doing a good job and not deserving of what I get paid. The CEOs of New Balance and Ge donated thousands of dollars in dark money to politicians in both parties who gave them tax breaks. None of this money is dark or we wouldn’t be talking about it so specifically. Everything has been conducted in daylight with full transparency according to OCPF reporting standards.
All of our money comes either from our founder, who is not making any money operating this party and no longer draws a salary from the business he sold, and the hundreds of grassroots donors and volunteers who believe in what we are doing. It’s fully disclosed and all of you can look it up. I left a better paying job and my wife behind in Chicago to do this, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in the cause. Neither would anyone else involved in our party.
I am happy talk about the platform and ways to improve it, I sincerely value that input. I am happy to here suggestions on candidates to endorse and primaries to get active in. Otherwise I’m done discussing my salary and how we get our money. Call OCPF with your questions.
That I was getting paid by the campaign committee not the UIP and that this was a decision made in consultation with OCPF and it’s obviously been fully disclosed and reported. There are no laws being violated. Now if you like our platform and wish we had more diverse funding sources you’re more than welcome to contribute.
United Independent Party Working to Ensure Everyone Can Vote
jconway | Wed, Feb 10, 2016 4:49 PM EST
A declaration of independents? – promoted by Bob_Neer
[Full Disclosure by jconway: I work full time as the Field Director for the United Independent Party]
I never suggested that Falchuk is making money from his political efforts. Naming other politicians, parties and businesses that use our shitty laws about campaign finance does not absolve UIP or Falchuk of the fraud your team is perpetrating. It does not make the UIP a reform effort.
Come on, you are an employee of the Falchuk campaign, not the UIP. Just acknowledge your team’s deception. No, I won’t call OCPF with questions about UIP. I expect UIIP will slowly fade with no candidates this year. It is sad, since it had potential before it was driven into the ground by a fundamentally flawed strategy and team.
things I could say right now. Would you like me to write them here?
…but I don’t get the reference.
What comes after the word “to” above?
“glass houses.”
I will remain a registered Democrat this year.
Both my representative, Denise Provost, and my senator, Pat Jehlen, have opponents in the state primary election held on 8-September-2016. I strongly support each, and will therefore retain my Democratic registration in order to vote for each.
And leave after November. I think the best part about Scott’s message was saying it’s really important to join between now and November so we keep our ballot status. Once that’s done we have a full two years to raise money and prepare a much stronger slate for 2018 without some of the hurdles I mentioned above.
I strongly encourage everyone here to join, even for the two months between the day after September primary and November presidential election. It keeps us on the ballot and gives voters more choices and contested elections.
Sorry, I should know these things.
So I can pull a Democratic ballot in the Sept 9 primary, then change my registration to UIP, and then change it back after the general election in November, right?
If that works for you then I’m happy to do that.
That’s exactly what I meant. Pull your Democratic ballot for the primary Sept 8th, go here Sept 9th and change to UIP. And you can always leave after we get certified back to the Democrats. It’s likely this is what Scott will be doing.