You know, a lot of people, me included, have felt politically homeless, and the way things are going, it feels more and more like we do have a uni party, like everything is the same no matter who you elect. And there are other parties that are starting to gain a little traction. One of them is the Forward Party. And joining me right now from the Colorado Forward Party is Dave Ryan to talk about what the Forward Party
stands for. If you're looking for a political home, you may want to listen up, Dave.
Welcome to the show.
First of all, all right, thanks for having me, Mandie.
So let me.
Start by asking you the simple question. Give me your elevator speech about the Forward Party. Give me your ninety seconds on what you guys are doing, what it's about, and why people should be interested in learning more.
Seri.
Okay, yeah.
More and more hoters feel like they don't belong to either party. I feel like they're political orphans. So that you just mentioned and Forward is building a national movement. Are home for them, and we are the fastest growing new political movement in the country. And it's built around the idea that Americans deserve more choice and more voices in their democracy. Our polling and polling that we look across is there's fifty percent of younger adults wish there
were more than two parties. Forty three percent across the country identify as independence. Around affiliateds here in Colorado is just past fifty percent now. And if you look at this registration statistics here in Colorado, Democrats and Republicans are losing registered voters. Unaffiliateds are climbing rapidly and currently total
more than all Democrats and Republicans combined. So it was originally formed by good government and governance groups from the left and the right to come together to work on system wide approaches that we believe are dividing us rather than bringing together. It's all about incentives. In our current system provides incentives that separate us, and the primaries are just a great example of.
How that works.
I'm right there with you when it comes to primary politics, because our current system incentivizes a run to the hard right or the hard left, because unfortunately voters don't engage in the primaries, So you tend to get the most politically purer, to use a word, the people that are the most passionate about their party, and they tend to
be either the hardest right or the hardest left. So we then have candidates that run to those edges, and even if they try and moderate after you know, they win the primary, you're still dealing with people that are not necessarily working in what I call the biggest part of the political spectrum, which is the flexible center. Right, the people that maybe pro gun rights on this side,
but they may be pro environmental regulations on another side. Right, I mean, people that hold varied positions that don't pass the political purity test.
And when I first moved to Colorado, that was.
One of the things I loved about Colorado is you would see a pro Second Amendment bumper sticker right next to a Sierra Club bumper sticker.
Right.
I mean, there's just you could support whatever you wanted to support.
That has changed dramatically here, And what does the Forward Party want to do? Let's start with that dynamic. What do you want to do to change that dynamic?
Well, first off, from a good governance and systems perspective, so we are firm supporters of independent resistricting nationwide, which we're fortunate to here in Colorado. That was something that Colorado embraced recently, which you know, we believe it's just a great thing to put bringing more of that power back into the voter's hands rather than the political parties. We also believe that every vote should count. Right now with the first past the posts elections, and many elections,
somebody with less than fifty percent can often win. We believed in things like ranked choice voting, where every vote counts every like, for my case, in a minor party, people can vote for a minor party but not be a spoiler in the overall election.
If people are worried.
About let's call that what it is, Dave like, people say, you're wasting your vote. If you vote for that third party candidate, you're wasting your vote. I wasted my vote in two thousand and voted for Ralph Nader. I would have been horrified if he'd won, but I was voting for the viability of a third party candidate.
I love ranked choice voting.
I think it's a great idea, and once politicians start to understand it, I think they will embrace it as well.
I think so. I think I think there's a great example.
I mean, we've had several examples just in the last couple election cycles where.
A minor party actually changed the election. You know, a congressional.
District EID is a great example where Barbara Kirkmeyer ended up losing, but it was a very close race, and you know that there was in my opinion, and that was a spoiler situation.
Now, the liberty we don't want that. We want we do the ability for.
People to vote who they want to without ruining the the you know, the the chances of the main candidates.
So what are some of the others.
Well, I've talked a lot about ring choice voting on the show, so I don't want to derail this conversation by going deep on that. What are some of the other ways that you would would perceive it would be effective to to slow down the polarization or maybe bring us back together.
So open primaries to me is a is a is a great thing. It is It's something that there was a run taken at its last last election cycle. It didn't succeed. It took on a number of points to try to combine it all together on that balance proposition to me, having a primary where whatever part of the spectrum you are associate with, you are all combined into a single primary and the voters choose, you know, the top four or five, and then those four or five
go on to a general election. It is it forces every candidate instead of pandering to the extremes, It forces them to not only focus on their base, but also on the modern the moderate, flexible middle has to come along with them, and they have to win those hearts and minds to be able to be effective in the in the election.
So let me ask this, because what I see on the Forward Party platform, and I've been to the website, I have dug through all the issues.
For me, everything begins and ends.
I'm a single issue voter, and that is debt and spending, because I think that is like the tip of the spear in our country because without without managing that, nothing else is going to matter. Right when we run out of money and we can no longer no one's buying our debt and we're just printing money like mad, then people will begin to understand how significant the debt is. But I don't see a lot or or a lot of specifics about.
Those angle issues like abortion.
It's not in here at People on the on the text line right now saying is the Forward Party pro life or pro choice. UH. For me, it's about debt and spending, because all things begin an end for that. What other policy positions have you guys talked about or when will those be developed?
If at all?
That's a that's a development situation.
Maybe the the uh what we don't want to do, which which really makes us unique as far enders as I understand in the political environment, is we don't have a top down, uh driven platform that says every candidate must follow this these rules or you're going to run and follow the party. Right, So somebody in Grand Junction is going to be different than Boulder, It's going to
be different than Pueblock. And we we have a number, you know, the many relationships at all levels of government now that uh, and we talked with people you know, you know pro gun, as you mentioned before, pro gun, pro environmental, pro life, and there are so many common you know, folks who aren't you know, who aren't driven towards that single issue that realize that we as a society have to deal with a lot of different things and we need the best people to come forward and
work together with people that are different than them to come up with a solution that works for their communities. Here in Colorado, Colorado Forward Party, we're focused on the state level, so we're not so much focused on what goes on at the national level, even though it kind of sucks the oxygen out of the room.
Sometimes.
We're focused on what's right for our communities, and we want candidates who put a priority on serving their community. That's got to be priority number one, and it's got to be you know, candidates, whether whether they're from the right side or the left side or in between, they commit to us that they will work with their peers to come up with solutions for their community.
I actually like that.
I tell people on this show all the time, and I mean it that as much as we talk about federal politics, as much as we talk about the Trump administration, as much as we talk about Congress, the stuff that happens here in Colorado has a much more direct and immediate impact on.
Our lives at a very visceral level.
So I think that's a very smart move too many people, And I look at the Libertarian Party in this case, they run a presidential candidate every single presidential cycle, but they're not running anybody in the school board elections, right They're not running anything in the county Commission races.
So I think it's a very smart play.
And it sounds like and I'm not that was a little bit of a hedge on your part, but it almost sounded like we're gonna let candidates make their own decisions about social issues.
Is that part of the plan, that is that is essential to us moving forward here? And because you know, every community is different, every to every candidate is different. We are going to be developing a platform over time, but it's got to come from the ground up. And as we build our base here in Colorado, as we build it nationally, we're first going to start here in Colorado and and come together on the issues that unite us.
And and we're also going to ask our candidates to take a very you know, a very earnest and hard working effort at resolving some of those those critical cultural issues that divide us. Well, we don't we don't take a hard position on some of those things that you just mentioned.
What what are the hard planks?
What what are the things that you feel like are the key cornerstones of the forward party that if you had to tick the boxes and say here's what's really important to us, that we do want you to focus on what are those things?
So if if I look at you know, I mentioned the the the ability for every vote to count, right, and do we call it ranked choice voting or uh, you know, a different form of that where every voters has an ability to choose, Hey, here's my first choice, but here's my second choice. If the first person doesn't win. That engages every voter, and it causes our our candidates to appeal to a much broader spectrum than they normally would.
I mentioned open primaries absolutely, and for a minor party, I mean rank choice voice voting is essential for a minor party to be able to express itself and have voters, you know, express their opinion. And we may not win a race, but well, our talent will increase just because that people will realize I can vote for forward first, but boy, that Democrat or Republican is likely going to win, so I'm going to vote them second, right, And and
so that's real. Open primaries I just see as essential to removing the captivity that our political leaders have over over politicians. Open primaries free up our elected officials to be able to vote their conscience. And we've seen a number of cases where candidates would prefer to vote something different, but they're forced into positions to go along with the party. We've got to find a way to break that cycle. And uh, you know, just I get to like good governance.
We've had.
Down testifying in front of the Legislature on a couple of different issues good governance around just basic things like you know, our our constitution. We have a requirement that every county have three commissioners for you know, a certain population, and it's optional if you grow, you can still stay with three if you want. That sets up some pretty our dynamics when now you're county is you know, a five hundred thousand people and you still have three commissioners.
But because of the way we elect those commissioners in that county, political party controls the process.
Douglas County, you're talking about Douglas County.
Not the names, right, that's the names.
I'm just saying, you're talking about Douglas County. And I'm right there with you, Dave, I'm right there.
There's a couple of them. There's a couple of so you know, we we have we have.
People elected officials that we support and I'll shout out Bob Marshall as one. We have elected officials that we support that are that drive those kind of that drive those kind of discussions, you know, vacancy boating or vacancy sold.
Many vacancy committees of garbage.
Colorado is notorious nationwide the number of people that we haven't elected office that gout there by vacancy and end up going on and because they're now incumbents, they have a much greater chance. We have thirty percent of the legislators came through the venacancy appointment process.
There was some I'm gonna let me go into this if I could. I mean, we have legislation passed this year.
That triggers if a person resigns within a certain time frame after election, it forces a special election in an odd year, which we don't haven't haven't done before here in Colorado. And coincidentally one of the bills, two days after it became effective, a commissioner in al Paso County resigned and that triggered an appointment which was quite contested, and it.
Triggers a special election on November fourth. In that election.
Limits who can participate as a candidate, and it limits who can vote.
That happens.
Yeah, it happens to be a repof we can who resigns or a normal appointment processes.
You have to appoint a report.
But now we're calling this a special election funded by taxpayers, and if you're a Democrat, you can't run as a candidate. We have a guy that wants would run, that would run for office.
Yeah, we've done there is replace the people of the vacancy committee with other partisans that will only be allowed to vote in an election that will only have people from their party in it.
That's what you're telling the Well.
Another was some negotiations that allows unaffiliated voters to vote in that election, but Democrats registered Democrats can't vote, No minor party candidate.
Can run, and the Democrat candidate can't run in us what we call a special election.
That should be it's a taxpayer funded election and it constrains who can run or who can vote. I just didn't that'd be the type of thing that we're be We kind of scratch our head.
So essentially, the Forward Party seems to be focused like a laser on the strung true imbalances that have created an unfair advantage for the two party system. I mean, that's really what it gets down to, right, Yeah, exactly no.
But the two major parties control everything, right, and we have we have to find from a system perspective, the ability to I mean moost two major parties are essential to our democracy. There's no, I mean no debate on this, right, but it is it is the control that they have and the ability to shut down other voices that need to be heard. Uh, that that is really problematic for us. Man.
So I just got this text message and they said, how about a balanced budget amendment? But let me ask that as a follow let me ask a follow up question. When will the bigger platform items be decided? Where is the where are we in the process of the formation of the Forward Party? If people want to get involved now so they can be a part of these discussions,
when will those discussions move forward? Because like it or not, I agree with everything you're saying about the structural issues, but this is like very granular politics stuff, right, most people are are we going to have a balanced budget amendment? Do we have a pro life or a pro choice playing do? What are what is our opinion on various issues?
Like how is that all getting sorted out?
You know? That's a great question because I mean, when do we talk about, you know, the nuts and bolts of changing things structurally so that things are less polarizing people's eyes beully is over ye. I mean you've got to really be a political junkie to get into these nuts and bolts. But it's the foundation of making improvements in our society. Uh So, but answer answer the question directly. Anybody can get involved with us right now. Go to
calif Coloradofward party dot com. There's an easy way to sign up. Somebody will contact you and indicate where your interests are. We have, uh, you know, weekly meetings, we have subcommittees that are chartered on specific tasks and and we have different topics that we that we do that we do talk about and admittedly it's focused on uh it's focused on helping our our nonpartisan candidates at school
board and municipal levels be successful. It's focused like next year, you'll see us at the at the county and legislative level, supporting various candidates and promoting certain legislation around good governance, the the the the overall score. I mean, we're a brand new party. We're just getting our feet on the ground. We we intend to stay bottoms up, but that it is essential over time that we develop platforms that people
can that resonate with people. And whether it's a balanced budget or or you know, or or water rights or you know, environmental issues. You know, everybody wants our country to be healthy, in our communities to be healthy, and people to be have access to you know, the success will path no matter whether in the rural areas or in an urban center. And so it's it's it's uh, you know, that's got it. It's got to come together.
We have conceptually a Project twenty twenty eight. We and we we had we had Project twenty twenty eight before the other projects started, namely, but Project twenty twenty eight is about because we're we're we're we're accepted in a dozen states right now here here we have we have ballot access here in Colorado and the total of five states and another another seven who are recognized by those states, and and and quite a few more states coming on board with us. And so it's all about building a
national recognition and national visibility. Uh. And it's that brand awareness, right so people and people hear the word Forward Party, they understand what it represents, so I would say, by you know, towards twenty twenty eight, that's what we're driving toward too.
Well. I want to just say this.
One of the things that's missing from the Forward Party national website that is I think a core issue and incredibly important is fair districting. And if you want to have an issue that you can get out in front of right now, the jerrymandering that's going on all over the country, I don't care which party's doing, and it's bad, it's bad, bad, bad bad. But I don't see a specific point on the Forward Party website. But Dave, let me do this. We'll check back in with you periodically.
We'll find out what's going on with the Forward Party. I'm very interested and if I have listeners out there who are very big and concerned about some of these issues, go ahead and get involved. They're not going to make you stay if you don't like it, right, I mean, if you don't enjoy it.
You can believe life gets it the way a lot of times. So we we certainly acknowledge that we love people who come forward. We love people who are interested in our democracy and making sure their communities are moving forward.
Dave Brian from the Colorado Forward Party, A pleasure to talk to you. We'll check back in in a few months and see what's happening.
New stuff in the Forward Party as well.
Cool.
Thank you, Madie, all right, thanks Dave,