langley, was a challenge. in the end, we won because i have the right experience and background to get that done. it was a great experience. and that is what i am doing here. most of my responsibility as a representative from this area is to fight the bureaucracy from the people who need the bureaucracy thought. >> you can watch our interview with freshman congressman will heard at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> self identified political independents gathered in new york. we will hear from jackie salit and author of a book on the topic. >> please welcome to the stage the chairman from united independents of illinois, david cherry, along with the pollster who helped get mike bloomberg elected, doug schoen. doug schoen: jackie salit has been in front of the front lines and begin depended movement before there was an independent movement. i am proud to have worked with her for 25 years. as a colleague and as one of her students. she has taken the movement from a party-based movement, as it was during the reform party days to move beyond parties, to organizing and empowering independents without a political party, and creating new tools for the exercise of power and bringing people together across ideological lines. for 30 years, she has been willing to speak out against any kind of effort to cripple or subdue the independent movement. whether it came from a republican, a democrat, or even an independent. here is a quick look back at a few of those moments. >> the reform party is a sham. >> the attitude that calls the reform party a sham, it is that attitude that inspires millions of americans to become involved. it does matter what the attitude is, because that is the kind of dismissive attitude that -- there are lots of people in the progressive movement who are concerned about the possibility of a less-center-right coalition that is populist, that breaks up the old coalitions, your magazine recently ran an article attacking the buchanan sit down with dr. lenora fulani, a leading figure in the reform party, because of concerns that the populist left-right coalition will have too much of an appeal to your constituents and to the base of the democratic party. and i think you should be afraid. >> progressives just don't have the full clout. without compromising the principles, they can enter into these ad hoc alliances, and that is the only way they will prevail. jackie salit: i think you make an error when you focus on using independent politics as a mechanism to quote unquote move the democratic party to the left . what the left has to do is get out of the democratic party, out of the confines of political correctness, and go to the american people. >> you are a member? i am aim member -- a member of the anti-party. [applause] >> thank you for the kind introduction and thank you for having me to your biannual conference yet again. i sent to cathy stewart that this has become a growing, and i daresay enduring, pleasure for me to have a chance to introduce jackie salit. i say growing pleasure, because as a political consultant, you are supposed to advise. you are supposed to be all-knowing. the truth is, jackie has been one of my teachers, too. i began in, i think, the introduction suggested, as someone who worked with mike bloomberg. it was a fusion effort. it was a republican and independent party workers and advocates in 2001. low and behold, what we learned in the election, and this is a statistical fact, is that mike bloomberg would not have been elected mayor without votes on the independent party line. i think he governed for most of the 12 years when he was mayor as effectively as an independent mayor. i think that is due in large measure, and insubstantial amount, to the work of the independent party, and jackie salit personally. jackie is and remains a teacher of mine, because there is a huge agenda that we will be discussing today, that people like jackie, all of you and i daresay, me, have been working on. yes, open primaries. yes, political reform. yes, recognizing that the largest single political grouping in america, according to gallup, and david said it, our independence -- are independents. somewhere north of 40% are independents. let me say some other things about jackie personally. this is important. i don't have to make clear to anyone in this room how tough it is to be an independent. what i've said to people as i have worked all over the world the toughest country in the world that i found to work outside the boundaries of established parties is the u.s. that is very sad, but all too true. jackie has been a leader for the 30-odd years she has been involved in opening up the process. she is unique in that she is a compassionate, giving, and loyal person. she is a thoughtful person, and she sees the big pic her. she is able to discuss grassroots politics, coalitions, and the larger challenges of the movement. there is an effort in this country to open up the political process. open primaries political reform, in terms of campaign contributions. but also, in terms of redistricting as well. the party leaders do not take advantage of their inherent advantages in various legislatures to rig things against the people. i have never been more optimistic about the urgency and necessity for reform, then now. i am, frankly, completely, completely convinced that with the work of people like jackie, success will be achieved, if not this year, in the future. this one thing that this attendance on a rainy day in the winter shows, as before, is that the commitment of independents is as strong as it has ever been , if not stronger. one final word. in hearing people's biographies and hearing people ask commitment to independent politics many having left established parties, i am left with one thought, which i think is of seminal importance. nobody would have had the commitment they have, the success they have had, and the interest and passion, but for the leadership of jackie salit. i consider myself someone to have benefited in or mislead intellectually, personally, and professionally, from my friend who i am proud to -- i was going to say endorse, but endorse and introduce, jackie salit. thank you very much. [applause] ♪ jackie salit: it's great to see you all. isn't that cool? you just walk somewhere and someone brings you a chair. great to see all of you. thank you so much for being here, and i am so glad we get to spend this time together today. before i start, i want to thank sarah lyons for putting that beautiful video together. [applause] wow. our america, there it was. it was fun also, looking at the clip of myself, i had not seen them for a long time until the staff pulled them out for this purpose. that was kind of cool. the first one, actually, the one where i am arguing with john, i liked that one, for a couple reasons. one, it was my first national television appearance since i was miss bosco on the bozo the clown show. [laughter] for those of you of an appropriate age, it was in -- a popular television show in the 60's and 70's. i was on that show, and i got to drink a glass of chocolate milk on national tv. i realize, of course, afterwards, that it was great training for the later part of my career. [laughter] because i had no idea how many bozos i would be on television with. [applause] so that was good. but the other thing is, the appearance with john, which was in the mid-90's, john was -- you get a sample of it he was very worked up on the show and i responded. this was before, as i said, it was my first appearance on national tv. i had not yet learned that what you do when someone comes at you in an adversary comes at you and attacks you, is that you kick them in the teeth, and then, you smile. i had not learned the smile part yet. i am very glad -- grim in that. in the fox peas, 20 years later, i say, i am in the anti-party. ha ha ha. i learned to smile at the end of everything. the fox piece, that actually captured something about a turning point in the movement, which david cherry referenced in his introduction to me about the shift from party-based organizing to organizing independents without a political party. but as a force. as a lever against the defects and dysfunction and frankly, the inhumanity of the political system as it is currently organized and based in the two parties. what we have seen over the last 20 years has been a very very steady growth in the size of the number of independents in this country. doug and david referenced it. in the year 2000, the presentence of -- the percentage of americans who were independents was 35%. as of now, it is about 42%. that number is, in my view and i think, in the view of a lot of people, is a very meaningful number. it is a very meaningful phenomenon. we have seen, of course, as the size of the independent voter block has grown, one of the things that happens in response to that, at least initially, is an attempt by a lot of the powers that be to minimize that, or to paint a picture that suggests that that is really not that meaningful, or not that significant, the fact that 42% of the country have this aligned, in terms -- disaligh ned in terms of their politics. the establishment tries to the little bat and interpret that a way, if you will. that is taken the form of, well, 40 2% may say they are independents, but they are not really independents, because when it comes to the election time, they vote for democrats or republicans. in most elections, that is the only choice people have. i think that fact, that fact of political life in america which simply does not go away, no matter how much the party or political professionals or the media try to marginalize it or paint it as something that is casual or does not have real political and historic significance for the country, no matter how much that goes on, those numbers and that movement continued to take hold. and, while it is not the case yet, that this phenomenon, this independent disalignment, has developed into a full blown american seachange, a full-blown movement that is able to create and move an agenda to change the culture of politics, that has not happened yet. that is what we are working on. but i do see and this is part of what i wanted to share with you briefly this morning, i do see a growing number of situations and circumstances and conflicts, if you well, that are going on around the country that i think are important, because they show that, as much as the political establishment might want to try and put the genie back in the bottle, they can't. they can't do it. for example, just to give you a sense of what i am talking about, we all know of course that in california voters, in their great wisdom in the year 2010 voted to transform the election system in the state of california, and they and acted -- enacted a top to system. for those of you not familiar with the different systems, what the california system basically does, what the voters did is, they said, look. here is a fundamental principle that we will operate with. this principle of the electoral process has to be that every voter has full access to every stage of the political process without having to join a political organization as a condition for entry into the political process. and so the top-two system was adopted in california in order to enforce that principle. and that the game -- that became the law of the land in california. i see my california friends in the audience. [applause] that was a huge victory. and so, naturally as you might imagine, when this system was passed and implemented immediately, all of the power players tried to do -- tried to figure out what to do about it. could they overturn it? could they cut some sort of deal that would in ely rate -- emilia rate the effects of that. i said, let's have become precision. let's deal with the issues. let's break it down. but most of all, let's do that in such a way that we can bring the people of california the people of america, all of the people into the process of saying what kind of democracy we want to have. that is our job. that is our job. [applause] so, in california, i wanted to share this with you, this tickled me a bit. recently, the university of california-berkeley journal of politics and policy came out with their february edition. the entire addition was devoted to an analysis of the impact of top two. they published 15 articles written by 18 political scientists. let me just say, generally speaking, the attitude of these political scientists towards this new system was not sympathetic. not sympathetic. i wanted to share with you some of the titles of the articles, because i got a kick out of this. they are kind of scary. these are political scientists. if you were -- if you even buy the idea that there is a science, that political scientists are experts in, which i don't, but i find it entertaining. they came up with scary titles. top two, too soon to tell? why the top two primary fails california voters. here is my favorite. is california's top two primary bad for women candidates? guess what the answer was? [laughter] but as i say, this is a good ink. it is good to bring these issues out. it is good for the opposition to have to put their cards on the table. it is good for us to have to argue, why this system is a better system for the voters, for the people of this country. that is part of what i want us to talk about today in the panels we are holding. we have some incredible leaders with incredible expertise and vast experience in community organizing, in holding public office and fighting for democracy and political reform in fighting as outsiders and fighting as insiders. i want to use this time, and use their experience, to dig deeper into these issues. i think they are so very important. the thing about this that i really want you to understand is, part of what happens when you open these issues up, when you bring them out into the public square, is that people are forced to take positions on things and they actually get thrown off their gain. they get thrown off their game. that shows you the power of what it is we are doing the power of focusing on structural political change. it does not fit into the traditional ideological category. it really scuttles the conventional political wisdom. it forces people to do things that get there off their -- get them off their game. after the california pisa's came out, and a number of folks who were ardent supporters and defenders of top two like john updike, wrote pieces that were published in the papers that refuted what the uc berkeley journal said. this provoked a lot more conversation from a lot of different places, including a very very histrionic response from a guy, the founder of daily kos, considered a radical left wing of the democratic party. here is what happened with the daily kos guy. he wrote an article criticizing top two. he said, here is the basic thing that is wrong with top two. top two promised that it was going to deliver a more moderate legislature. but it didn't. so now we know that it is a bad system. he was very perplexed on several accounts. first, top tube does not promise a more moderate legislator. some may advocate for it on that basis, but that is not its promise. the second thing, and the most important ring, daily kos has based its entire political career -- what do you want? do you want moderate? what exactly are you going for here? the reason why i think this is important, is that this is an example of, in this case, a political player being thrown off their game. the existing categories don't apply. you can't invoke the same things, the same arguments and level of political appeal. you can't invoke those things because top two readers -- read a straight bank reform, the whole gambit of political change elements that our movement is interested in, and let me say by the way, there is a broad cross-section of issues people bring to the table on the structural political reform part. that is good. not everyone agrees with everybody on these issues. we will see that in some of our panels. i think that is a good ink. i am happy about. i want to have open, honest, direct dialogue about these issues. these are important issues for the country. but the thing to see about this is, the way our movement grows and perhaps this is maybe the core message i want to give you today, is that it grows because changing the game is not something that happens up here. it is something that happens in the real crucible, in the real day-to-day life, in the new political battles, in the new political conflicts that are enfolding in this country. that is how the game changes. in the state of mississippi the open primary system, through politics -- threw the system into turmoil. mississippi is an open primary state controlled by republicans. in the internal lectins -- in the midterm elections, the incumbent senator, thad cochran was challenged by chris mcdaniel in the primary. he did not receive enough votes to win the republican nomination without a runoff. so, that race went to a runoff in mississippi. the race was between thad cochran, a somewhat moderate republican senator, and a very social conservative tea party candidate on the far right. so what happened in that situation? cochran and his people, smartly went out to the black leadership in mississippi and they said, you know what? we want to come to you and make an appeal to you to bring out lack of voters in -- black voters in this election and support of senator cochran, and use the fact that there is an open primary in this state, and anybody can vote in this runoff, you don't have to be a member of the republican party because it is an open primary. anybody can vote in the runoff. ring this community into this election to defeat the far right . we will expand our support for the things we are trying to bring into the african-american community to deal with issues you are concerned with. what use your political mobility to defeat the right. and that is what happened in that election. that is what happened, because it was an open primary. i am not sitting you're advocating for thad cochran or any such thing. he is not my cup of tea. he is more my cup of tea even the tea party, but we will leave that open for discussion. the point is, this situation has gotten everybody in mississippi into an uproar. this thing happen that wasn't supposed to happen. voters who were supposed to vote actually went over here and voted. they produced an outcome that was not expected. voters did something they weren't supposed to do. in this case, african-american voters did something other than vote for a democrat. the world is changing. the world is changing. that's right. one of the reasons we advocate and work so hard for political reforms that open up the political process, is that we want to give voters, and we want to give communities, the opportunity to do something different, to use their power to use their vote, to create different kinds of outcomes, to upset the apple cart, to change the game and make it a case that the politicians and the parties can no longer rely on the conventional wisdom to determine how they run elections, how they govern, and how they represent the people of this country. that has got to change. [applause] i got a call from a reporter at political a few weeks ago -- at politico a few weeks ago, to talk about a set of things that were going on, were there were challenges to open primaries and the states that have them. we are talking about montana mississippi, tennessee, hawaii south carolina, a whole load of things. we talked about, you have right-wing elements of the republican party trying to get the primaries closed in certain states and make the case that you have to join the party to participate in the primary and democrats are doing that in some places. anyway, we are having this conversation, he is asking me questions and i am filling human. finally, he says, here is what i do not understand. what i don't understand about this, about this seeming aggressiveness and acceleration of aggression on the part of the parties against independents what i don't understand is, it seems to me that what has been happening, other than california and washington state, every time an open primary initiative is put on the ballot, whether it is a new york or in arizona in 2012, or in orgenegon twice wherever it goes on the ballot it loses. the independents and reformers get between 30-35% of the vote. and they lose. he says, given that, how come you are being so aggressive? they are winning at the ballot box. how come you are being so aggressive? so i said, that is such a good question. it really goes to the heart of the matter. it takes time to build a movement that can perform in certain ways at the ballot box. it takes time, development history to make that happen. but, i think the reason the parties are being so aggressive in this regard, is that they know that the american people are on to them. they know that the dissatisfaction that they are seeing in the polling, we all know the numbers of how people feel about congress and how -- you know, the lowest rating ever in the history, 9% of people think they are doing a good job, that kind of stuff. they know, in my opinion, they know that it is not just about what is happening at the ballot box right now. or what is showing up in the polls right now. they know that. they know that the dysfunction of the american political system is something that the american people are deeply, deeply concerned about. deeply concerned about. in my opinion, they are trying to take steps to push back against that sensibility, that feeling, that movement becoming a movement. i read a wonderful book that was written in the 1950's, called "the origin of modern science." i was introduced to that, by butterfield. butterfield talks about the scientific revolution. he talks about how a very misunderstood part of the scientific revolution was that the feelings of masses of people in the world were changing in terms of their understanding of how the world was put together. this was a little-understood part. it is not just a bunch of smart guys in a room coming up with an understanding of the circulatory system. i think some of these impulses were helpful when i read this. i think some of these impulses that broke the scientific revolution, that sense that the way we think about and see the world is inadequate to what the world is actually becoming. i think that impulse in the scientific revolution is also driving if you will, a political revolution in america today, a sense of the part of the american people, from all walks of life, from all different concerns, a sense that the way we are doing this, the way we are seeing this, is inadequate to the challenges we face as a country. i think that the parties and the powers that be, they don't understand it completely. but they do understand, i think they have a sense that there is a momentum, there is a process there is a developmental consideration of how our country is organized politically, and we need to make profound structural and cultural changes in that. i believe they see that. [applause] so, i want to move to our panel. i want to bring some speakers in. and i want to close this section of sharing my own thoughts with you, in the following way. i am very glad, and feel very welcoming, there are numbers of people who have come to the conference this year who are considering bringing initiatives for talk to other the ballot -- top two onto the ballot of their state. i am excited that you are here and that you are coming not just to this event, but to this community of activists and leaders to learn and talk about what you are doing. i think that is so important. i want to see if i can share just a little bit of my own experience or wisdom or belief with you. when you start to do these campaigns, keep this in mind. i know you are like, you bring in your poster. you bring in your consultant. you bring in your communications guy. you bring in your specialist. you bring in your database people. you crunch the numbers. you test the focus. go for it. but, but, you cannot get across the finish line without bringing the movement with you. [applause] you must bring the movement with you. that is the element that is the push, that is the foundation that is the moral compass, that is the base of making these kinds of changes. so do all the analysis you want to do and crunch all the numbers that you want to crunch, all good, all good. the people in this room, and the millions of people that the people in this room represent you are the focus, you are the folks who will make the change. thank you for all you do. you are my inspiration. let's get to work. [applause] >> more now from the unified independent party conference. any moment, a pal -- a panel looks at poverty, health care, low voter turnout and the role of independent voters. jackie salit: hello everyone. >> high, jackie. jackie salit: let's get to it here. we took on a very big topic for this discussion. the title of this discussion is can democracy transform the social crisis? this is obviously a very big and important question. for the country, and for us. what i wanted to do, i wanted to see if i could ask each of you to share thoughts on the following question. in a time of social crisis that we are living through, poverty is on the rise joblessness hopelessness is on the rise, young people are having a terrible time finding their way into careers and into the mainstream. there is a huge housing problem and education crisis police-community relation violence, we saw a few examples of what we are dealing with here. sometimes, when that goes on, when those kinds of conditions go on, it can make people more conservative. by conservative, i mean more frightened, and more, feeling they have to hold on to what already exists, because it is too risky to consider certain kinds of change, even though they also want change and they feel that change is critical and needed. they are torn, in some ways, because the conditions of life can be so difficult. i wanted to