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| Affiliation | Independent |
|
| Name | Robert B. Winn |
| Address |
, Arizona , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
August 14, 1943 |
| Died |
Still Living
(81 years) |
| Contributor | RP |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Mar 31, 2008 08:51pm |
| Tags |
Single - Imprisoned - Latter Day Saints (Mormon) -
|
| Info | My reason for running for public office relates to independent voters and independent candidates as they exist at the present time in the United States and the state of Arizona. In 1984 an article appeared in the Arizona Republic newspaper about independent voters which described them as being the least informed and least interested portion of the electorate. Perceiving this to be the beginning of an attempt to do away with independent voters in the State of Arizona, a closed primary state, I registered as an independent candidate for the United States Senate against John McCain and requested appointment of a deputy registrar for my campaign in accordance with Arizona election laws, which was denied by the County recorder on the basis of a letter he had received from the Secretary of State saying that I was not really a candidate even though I had registered as such with the Secretary of State. Perceiving that the attempt to do away with independent voters was further along than I had at first thought I contacted another independent candidate who was running for Governer of the state and suggested that I become a deputy registrar in her campaign, which we were able to accomplish.
Accordingly, we spent some time registering voters at a local junior college. After the election I wrote to the County Recorder requesting appointment as a permanent Deputy Registrar for Maricopa County and was appointed, serving in that position for two more years. During the impeachment of Governor Mecham, I went to the office of the County Recorder to turn in a voter registration, and was startled to hear two clerks discussing the fact that the County Recorder had received instructions that independent voters were no longer eligible to serve as deputy registrars. On December 31, 1988, I received official notice that I was being dismissed as a Deputy Registrar and was no longer eligible for appointment to that position since a law had been passed requiring party membership and recommendation by a political party committee for appointment to deputy registrar.
I went to the newspaper in my city, spent a couple of hours with a newspaper reporter explaining the situation, after which the reporter contacted me by telephone to tell me that his editor would not let him write the story.
I then registered as a candidate for governor of Arizona, contacted the President of the Arizona Senate and received permission to hold a press conference on the grounds of the Arizona State Capitol. Then I contacted all major segments of the news media informing them of the time and place, went at the appointed hour, and was , of course, ignored by the news media. I then contacted them again to ask, Why did you boycott my press conference?
"Oh, we would never do that", they all said. "Well, goo", I told them, "I will schedule another one". The second time , there was a news photographer from the Arizona Republic on the grounds of the Capitol taking pictures of a tax demonstration. I approached this individual and asked him if he would like to take a picture of my press conference. This seemed to excite his imagination.
"Get out there in the middle of the plaza", he told me, "We need to get a sense of total isolation."
So he took my picture, which appeared in the Republic newspaper with the caption, Robert B. Winn stands all alone at the Arizona capitol, explaining that news reporters were actually frantically trying to find me, but had been unable to locate my press conference, but also giving me a bit of information I was able to put to good use. There was a Capitol Press Corps room in the Senate building about 50 feet away from where I had been.
So I scheduled another press conference with the media, and ten minutes before the scheduled time, I went to their Press Corps room and announced in person that I would be outside if they wanted to listen to me and went out and waited. The press corps sent two newspaper reporters out.. I gave a little speech announcing my candidacy for Governor and informed them of the dismissal of independent deputy registrars, thanked them for their attendance at my press conference and went home.
A little one paragraph article appeared in the Arizona Republic concerning my candidacy for Governor, also noting the dismissal of independent deputy registrars as my reason for running. The same day, I was contacted by an Independent voter in from Glendale, Arizona, who wanted details of the dismissal. That lady filed a court case against the state of Arizona resulting in the present method of voter registration in Arizona, open registration. Any person can go the the office of the County Recorder and get voter registration forms and register voters.
We see from this the extremes that political parties give us in government. It will either be one extreme or the other, nothing else.
With this in mind, I would like to comment on the origins of the two-party system of government and its application to the government of the United States. Two-party government began with a declaration of war issued by the king of England against Parliament. In the ensuing bloody civil war, King Charles I and his armies were unsuccessful against the armies of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell. With the surrender of the King, Charles I was tried for treason and beheaded. Parliament convened to abolish the office of king forever, declaring England to be a free nation. Oliver Cromwell served as head of state until his death.
Parliament had made no provision for replacement of Cromwell. As the government sank deeper and deeper into political confusion, a faction favoring reinstatement of the office of king gained a majority in Parliament. A delegation was sent to France to talk to Charles, the son of Charles I, requesting that he return to England and assume the throne. Charles graciously consented.
Charles II was one of the worst kings in English history. However, he did perform two official acts as king that affect government to this day. The first was execution and drawing and quartering of the eleven judges who had sentenced his father to death. The second was initiation of the two-party system of political corruption.
Charles was a weak king. He could do almost nothing without consent of Parliament. In searching for ways to weaken the control Parliament had over him, his attention was drawn to two disruptive factions in Parliament which called each other by the derisive names of Whigs and Tories. Whigs was short for Whigamores, a Scottish separatist rebel faction. Tories were a group of notorious Irish highwaymen.
Charles announced to Parliament that whichever of these two factions held a majority in Parliament would have an exclusive right to serve as ministers in his cabinet. This practice was so beneficial to the king that succeeding kings continued the practice, which was officially written into English law during the reign of Queen Anne.
The Whig Party dominated English politics until it became so corrupt that it lost its majority, at which time the Tories came into power with promises of reform and honest government. In a pattern which has repeated itself many times in two-party government, the Whig Party faded into oblivion, its members moving to positions in the Tory Party, and another opposition party was formed to oppose the corruption of the Tory party. By 1776, the Tory and Labor Parties had raised taxes so high that the American colonies revolted.
Political parties were not popular with Americans at the time of the Revolution. Americans were well aware that the primary cause of the war had been the practice of English political parties in appropriating public funds to personal and party uses, at the same time denying the colonists any voice in government to oppose the resulting high taxes. When the Constitution was written, no mention was made of political parties in the hope that they would never become popular with the people of the United States.
The first two Presidents of the United States were both vocal in their opposition to the formation of political parties.
The election of 1800 was the downfall of the idea of incorrupt and partyless government. It happened because of an error in the Constitution. The Constitution provided for election of the President and vice-President through the electoral college. Each elector in the electoral college would cast two votes voting for two candidates. The candidate who received the highest number of electoral votes would become President, the candidate receiving the second highest number of votes would become vice-President. The problem was that there was no provision for resolving a tie vote in the electoral college.
This system worked fine for the first two elections under the Constitution. However, two opposing factions were forming which would destroy free and open elections in the United States. One faction called themselves the Federalists and were more a collection of people seeking to enrich themselves at public expense than an organized party. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were the chief organizers of opposition to the Federalists. Finding their ideas of organization through the press and in Congress to be largely ineffective, they hit upon the idea of caucuses, the use of elected public officials as organizers of party at the local level. This extra-legal use of public officials was so effective that it completely overcame the Federalists within a short time. It also completely overcame free and open elections.
The Republican-Democrat followers of Jefferson and Madison decided to attempt to control both top offices, so accordingly, they ran Jefferson for President and Aaron Burr for vice-President, although both men were candidates for President in accordance with the Constitution. When the electors met to cast their votes, all Republican-Democrat electors voted for Jefferson and Burr. The result was a tie vote in the electoral college, throwing the election into the House of Representatives to be decided. Aaron Burr decided he would rather be President than vice-President, so he began to make deals to gain support of Congressmen. The House of Representatives voted more than thirty times before finally selecting Jefferson. This was considered such a traumatic experience at the time for members of Congress that they passed an Amendment giving control of the office of vice-President to political party appointment so that they could avoid having to make such an important decision ever again.
Just as had happened in England, freedom was sold out at the first opportunity in this country, putting the nation back under the same system of corruption it had fought so hard to remove. We now live under a system of matching funds, party financing, contributions, corrupt news media, and political exclusion which makes the English at the time of the Revolutionary War look like honest people.
To place responsibility where responsiblility lies, this is what the American people say they want. This is what they truly deserve to have.
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