In Illinois, seat of supposed disgust with the Chicago Democratic Machine, and with country-club Republicans as well, independent presidential candidate Ross Perot fared worse in 1992 than he did in the nation at large. Back in 1980, not even native son John B. Anderson could run much better in Illinois than he did in the rest of the country.

Clearly, election returns in this state should discourage advocates of any third political party.

And yet when May 7 comes around — the first legal date for circulating Illinois ballot petitions for third-party presidential candidates — supporters of independent movements are likely to start moving through shopping malls, armed with pencils and clipboards. With so much history foretelling the futility of third-party efforts, what has gotten into these folks?

The established parties are appealing to a shrinking segment of the population willing to vote at all. One coalition of longtime Democratic and Republican loyalists believes that's because both parties have deserted the electorate. A "gang of eight" national figures, including U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, a Democrat from New Jersey, and former Republican U.S. Rep. Anderson of Illinois, said last month they were debating whether to back an alternative to the major-party presidential candidates. In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Paul Tsongas, a Massachusetts Democrat and a member of the group, argued the parties no longer appeal to the "center" — a "passionate" center that is fiscally conservative, protective of individual liberties, pro-environment and supportive of campaign finance reform.

Further, a number of African-American thinkers and activists have raised the possibility that blacks, traditionally loyal to the Democratic Party, should consider running a candidate of their own. They believe that party has ignored the cities and is willing to backtrack on affirmative action.

Meanwhile, Perot is back for a second try. He's announced that his independent group will field a candidate, though not necessarily him this time. In fact, the swirl of activity for an independent candidacy indicates that neither major party has recaptured the disaffected center-of-the-road Perot voters of 1992. This is a historical anomaly. Third parties usually give a voice to minority movements that, to the extent they are successful, are annexed by one of the major parties. Thus, many of the white working-class resentments embodied by George Wallace's American Party in 1968 have been subsumed by the Republican Party. On the Democratic side, the party managed in the '50s to lasso back two factions that had broken off in 1948:
the left-wing Progessives under Henry A. Wallace and the right-wing Dixiecrats under Strom Thurmond. In short, both major parties tend to crowd toward the center while enlisting the zealots on the fringes of the political spectrum — after they've had their third-party fling.

Contrary to stereotype, however,

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For their stability here, established parties can thank elections laws written by their own politicians.

there have been third parties that staked out the center, not the extremes, of public opinion. In 1980, for example, Anderson appeared to have Ronald Reagan on his right and Jimmy Carter on his left. Going farther back, the Constitutional Union Party tried to find a middle ground on the slavery issue, contributing to the fragmented electorate that gave a plurality win to Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln in 1860. When the major parties no longer seem to be fighting for the middle, but instead are polarizing, a large chunk of the electorate feels politically homeless.

Illinois historically has been inhospitable to third parties, though, whether of the center, right or left. The state is a mainstream jurisdiction whose demographics and partisanships have mirrored those of the country as a whole. Democrats and Republicans have been fairly evenly matched on a statewide basis here for many decades. So, while the modern organizational decline of political parties is a pundit's cliche, Illinois has maintained relatively strong party structures, with urban Democrats and suburban/rural Republicans keeping their organizations in fighting trim, election cycle through election cycle. For the most part, Illinois voters tend to stay home rather than stray into third parties when disaffected on election day.

For their stability here, the established parties can thank, in part, the state and national election laws written by their own politicians. At the state level, ballot petition requirements place heavy burdens on new parties seeking entry to the political marketplace. For example, a major-party presidential candidate needs 3,000 to 5,000 signatures of registered voters; an independent or new-party candidate needs 25,000. And campaign finance rules favor the established parties.

Nationally, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974— co-sponsored by Anderson, by the way — set up the system of public matching funds for presidential candidates and national party conventions. This has amounted, in effect, to federal subsidies for the existing Democratic and Republican duopoly. Ironically,

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We've had strong third parties in one out of five presidential elections. None have returned for a second strong showing.

Anderson's own campaign was subverted by this system. After failing in the 1980 GOP primaries, he launched an independent drive. He did raise enough private money to qualify for some matching funds, but the belated independent effort was not certified for federal cash until after the election, when it did his candidacy little good. With history and election-law biases on the side of the major parties, the record for independents in Illinois is dismal. Here are the numbers: Perot racked up 18.9 percent of the national vote, but only 16.6 percent in Illinois. Anderson ran only seven-tenths of a percentage point better in the state than the 6.6 percent he got nationally — even in his own congressional district in northwest Illinois, Anderson's share of the vote was just 16 percent. In 1968, Wallace took 13.5 percent of the national vote but a mere 8.5 percent in Illinois.

Third parties named Illinois Solidarity and Harold Washington have surfaced here in the past decade, but they sprang from political expediency, not from popular movements. Solidarity was a ballot vehicle for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Adiai E. Stevenson III after two followers of extremist theorist Lyndon H. LaRouche won statewide ticket spots in the 1986 Democratic primary. The Solidarity banner then was hijacked in 1987 by Edward R. Vrdolyak to challenge Democrat Harold Washington, the anti-Machine, African-American mayor of Chicago. After Washington died, a party named for him was created in 1989, again as a device for ballot access to get around a fracture in the Democratic Party.

Last fall the HWP named a new chairman who promised to revive it, but so far the party hasn't won any elections, much less fielded full slates.

As for Illinois Solidarity, it has vanished. Conservative Republicans also took a stab at a third party. In 1994, they tried to run Steve Baer for governor under the Term Limits and Tax Limits Party banner, but failed to win ballot access.

So we return to the question. What accounts for the agitation for an independent party in 1996? Just as political pundits initially overlooked the scope of Perot's appeal in 1992, this time they are missing the importance of the historically unique fact that Perot, or at least the movement he represents, is still around. The nation has seen a significant third-party showing in about one out of every five presidential elections. Never has one of these parties returned to make a strong showing a second time — not Anderson's independents after 1980, not Wallace's after 1968, not the Progressives after 1924, not Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose partisans after 1912, and so on back to the Anti-Masons of 1832.

But Perotians have refused to accept

Illinois'rules for new parties by Ronald D. Michaelson Although the popular term for political parties formed to oppose the Republicans and the Democrats is "third party," in Illinois the better term is "new party." That's the kind of party Ross Perot formed in 1992 — and what he "appears to be reviving for the 1996 election. A "new party" is what Adiai Stevenson III formed in 1986 when his quest for the governorship was thwarted by followers of Lyndon LaRouche, who successfully nominated a lieutenant governor candidate in the Democratic primary. Stevenson lost the general election to incumbent Gov. James R. Thompson, but in the process, he highlighted some of the problems and challenges facing anyone who runs under a new party label. The Illinois Election Code recognizes two kinds of political parties: "established" and "new." Established parties — practically speaking the Republicans and Democrats at all levels of government. Libertarians at the state level, and a few other parties in subordinate jurisdictions throughout the state — are those whose candidates have received 5 percent plus one votes of those cast in the most recent election. If no candidate of a new party receives the required number of votes, that party ceases to exist. In fact, Illinois election law offers several benefits to established parties not available to new parties. For example, election judges represent established parties only. And established parties are listed first on the ballot. But the principal distinction between the two classes of parties is the method of nominating candidates. Established parties have the privilege of nominating candidates either at primary elections or locally by caucus. New parties cannot participate in a primary and can only nominate candidates directly to the general election ballot. Furthermore, established parties may place candidates on the primary ballot with fewer supporters' signatures than would be necessary for a new party to get its candidates on the general election ballot. This seeming disparity is justified by the already demonstrated popular support for the established political party and by the need for a new party to show some modicum of strength. New political parties may be created at all levels of government, from the state level — including all its subordinate jurisdictions — to municipal or township levels.

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A new party also must choose a name that contains no more than five words, none of which may be included in the name of any established party, although that restriction applies only to new and established parties operating in the same jurisdiction; a new statewide party may use the same name as a local established political party. Often the name of the party contains the name of the candidate for a particular office, such as the "Citizens for John Doe Party," especially when the party is created solely to offer a single candidate for Congress or a seat in the General Assembly. Additionally, a new political party must offer candidates to fill all offices at the level of government where it seeks to be established. For example, a new political party seeking to offer candidates at the state level must slate candidates for all statewide offices to be elected at the general election for which the petitions are filed. It's important to recognize that there is no party membership or party registration in Illinois. When a person registers, he orshe registers as an individual, not as a member of a party or even as an independent. However, in a fleeting sort of way, party membership is noted when someone signs a nominating petition or takes a ballot at a primary election. Thus, a voter is what he or she claims to be by signing the petition of a political party. However, the voter also may sign the nominating petition for a new political party, even though he or she has already signed the primary nominating petition of an established party for the same office. That allows for disaffected party adherents to form new political alliances. Because new party petitions are circulated after the general election, participating in a primary will not disqualify the voter from helping to form a new political party by signing a new party nominating petition. In summary, the Illinois Election Code, as well as case law, strongly favors the maintenance of a two-party system. And laws affecting the formation and functioning of new parties (sometimes called "third "parties) are occasionally complex. While some contend that the system tilts too heavily in favor of the Republicans and Democrats, others argue that the present law provides for stability as well as healthy competition between the two established parties. Prospects for change are uncertain at best, but any change would most likely emanate from the courts (probably at the federal level) rather than action by the General Assembly. Ronald D. Michaelson is executive director of the State Board of Elections.

the demise that history would predict for them. Indeed, national opinion surveys show that voters are increasingly unhappy with the major parties and would like a third option. In an August poll by New York Times/'CBS News, the number of voters saying the country needed a new party was a stratospheric 55 percent.

Like Anderson in 1980, Perot in 1992 appeared as the centrist candidate, sandwiched between Republican and Democratic nominees. The failure of the major parties to win back the Perot voters signifies a breakdown in their traditional function of competing for the mainstream. A bipolar split leaves an enticing opportunity for an outsider to appeal to the middle — if an outsider can figure out what constitutes "the middle" nowadays. Michael Lind, a senior editor of The New Republic, has suggested in a New York Times article that the center itself is split into a "moderate middle" and a "radical center." He likens the moderates to the upper-middle-class Progressives and the radicals to the working- class Populists of a century ago.

For 20 years political thinkers have been debating whether and when Republicans would displace Democrats as the nation's majority party. The fact that three of the last seven presidential elections have featured massive third-party efforts suggests a more radical shift — an unstable, dissatisfied and even fickle electorate not about to bestow lasting majority status on either traditional party. Instead, it appears the electorate will bounce around from election to election, with factionalized parties and independent movements dominated by such mediadriven personalities as Perot.

This trend could overtake a mainstream state such as Illinois, despite its history of stubborn fidelity to the two-party system. Further evidence of the growing independence of the electorate in this state came as recently as last month's special election for the 2nd Congressional District seat formerly held by Mel Reynolds. The Democratic organization worked hard to nominate Illinois Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones Jr., but voters instead chose a political newcomer and a media star, Jesse Jackson Jr.

When even such a traditionally Democratic district can casually turn its back on the party's designated candidate for Congress, the established party structure is evaporating into thin air. The third-party petition circulators we're likely to encounter this spring might not be misguided zealots after all. They might be harbingers of the future of politics. *

James L. Merriner, who has been political editor of the Atlanta Constitution and political writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, is a free-lance journalist. He is writing a biography of former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski.

Election Calendar Delegates for presidential candidates from the established parties file their nominating petitions with the State Board of Elections January 10 through January 17. "New party" presidential candidates file their petitions July 29 through August 5.

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