An Arizona judge last month ruled the newly-named Arizona Independent Party could not call itself that, and needed to revert back to what it used to be known as: the No Labels Party; the party chair said he’d appeal.
One of the arguments made by those challenging the new name was that it was confusing — they said since so many Arizona voters consider themselves independent, they could inadvertently end up as a member of the party, rather than as "party not designated," which is the official name for voters who choose not to join a political party.
Thom Reilly, co-director of Arizona State University's Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy joined The Show to talk more about the idea of a party for independents.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Thom, good morning. Thanks for being here.
THOM REILLY: Thanks for having me.
BRODIE: So it seems as though, and you and I have talked about this in the past. There's often a misconception about who independent, small independents are in Arizona, and that it's kind of a monolithic, moderate group of people. But as your research has found, that's not really what's happening.
REILLY: Yeah. So the majority of people that have decided to be an independent with a small "i" is that they don't want to be party affiliated. And they do represent the spectrum, right, of the political spectrum is that you have some individuals that are feel that Democrats aren't liberal enough or the Republicans aren't conservative.
BRODIE: Yeah.
REILLY: Although some would describe it as a bell curve, maybe there's more that tend to be more moderate. But overall, it's a pretty group that is representing a lot of diverse. interest.
BRODIE: Well, and within that, it seems like, at least for some, if not most or all, it's people who specifically chose not to be in a political party?
REILLY: Yeah, and we hear that time and time again in the research, is that they do not want to be party-affiliated. So they make a conscious decision of their dissatisfaction with the two-party system, that they're aligning themselves, and national polling has that. I mean, it's a pretty common definition, both in academia and polling, exit polling, When we look at independents, it's those that have identified themselves as non-party affiliated.
BRODIE: So it would seem then that it would be difficult to create a political party for a group of people who A, don't believe the same things, and B, don't really want to be in a party.
REILLY: Yeah, I've often referred to it as like herding cats, trying to understand who the independent vote is. One is that there is no party loyalty. And we see that when we look long-term voting patterns of independence. They move in and out of independent status. They're Republicans or Democrats. Many are anti-incumbent. But underscoring this is that they do not have party loyalty. And I think that makes it very challenging when we look at identifying a specific party just for independence. One is, I'm not sure what the platform is. And two is that they do not have loyalty to party. Kind of going back to what our forefathers warned us against is that, you know, they see parties as something undesirable.
BRODIE: Well, so if they don't have party loyalty, would it stand to reason that they, in theory, if there were an Arizona Independent party, for example, that actually encompassed political independence, that they probably wouldn't have loyalty to that either?
REILLY: I wouldn't think so. If we look at, again, voting patterns, and I think that, you know, we have studied voting patterns for decades. to try to understand the independent vote. And there is no loyalty and they consistently change their positions as far as aligning with parties. And so what we're seeing with independents is that they more are identifying with the candidate or the issue at hand. And so as candidates change and as issues change, so does their vote.
BRODIE: It would seem also that like almost any third party that was not sort of a specific like segment of a, like a conservative party or a progressive party, it would be hard, at least in Arizona, to even come up with any kind of third party in that scenario?
REILLY: You know, I would think so. I mean, I think that having multiple parties, I mean, people feel that's a good thing, right? Give voters more choices. I mean, voters do constantly talk about the reluctance and feeling trapped between Republicans and Democrats. But as far as unifying independence into one party, you know, and developing a coherent platform, I think that is very challenging.
BRODIE: So I want to preface this next question by saying that you were not affiliated with the Arizona Independent Party. You weren't working with them or for them or anything like that. I'm curious, just to get your take, like, did you find it confusing or did you think that having a party calling itself the Arizona Independent Party could lead to voter confusion as some of the two major parties and other critics suggested?
REILLY: Yeah, when this issue first came out there, we actually drafted a letter to the Secretary of State, you know, voicing our concern. namely around that it could disenfranchise voters, that it would be confusing. That, you know, one is that the term independent, both in U.S. academia and in exit polling, has a specific meaning, right? So for comparison purposes. So if you look at the American National Election Studies, Gallup, Pew, Edison exit polling, they're all using independent as unaffiliated.
And then to align them now with a party would be confusing. And then for the voter itself, and we can look at what's happening in California and New York and elsewhere, is that it has created voter confusion that individuals have identified with the independent party, thinking that they're unaffiliated, only to find out later that it was part of an organized party that they perhaps didn't want to join.
BRODIE: Well, and that matters here because if you are a member of a party, you vote in that party's primary, for example, right? And if you're an independent, you think, Well, I can sign up for a Democratic Republican ballot. If you're a member of the formerly known Arizona Independent Party, you can only vote in that party's primaries?
REILLY: Right. And I think that's been a central issue of many independents is that they want the ability to to vote like any other individuals and not be excluded. And if the Republican and Democratic Party are going to accept federal and state dollars, they shouldn't exclude people. Right. And since many of the decisions are made at the primary level right most of the decisions are made who becomes the candidate excluding independents really has disenfranchised them and that has been a major issue and a major concern with independence nationally.
BRODIE: All right we'll have to leave it there. That is Thom Reilly co-director of ASU’s Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy. Thom thanks so much.
REILLY: Thanks for having me.
