Political parties are not enshrined in the Constitution, but they loom large in American politics and government

Wanna have a par­ty?  A polit­i­cal party?

It’s not real­ly a sense­less ques­tion.  When the U.S. Constitution was rat­i­fied, there was no men­tion of par­ties includ­ed in the doc­u­ment.  In fact, the framers (at least some of them) felt that par­ties would be lit­tle more than an exten­sion of fac­tions that had roiled the world in their time, some­times resort­ing to assas­si­na­tions and even civ­il war to achieve their ends.

The arrival of polit­i­cal par­ties came about through laws and statutes and pro­pos­als of the politi­cians them­selves. And the rest is his­to­ry.  But not the sim­ple his­to­ry that so many assume.

In the span of the 235 years since the Constitution was enact­ed, the num­ber of polit­i­cal par­ties which has come and gone would be too numer­ous to recount here. Some have achieved a mod­icum of pop­u­lar­i­ty in their time, large­ly based on the indi­vid­u­als who ran under their ban­ners.  And there has been an even larg­er num­ber of polit­i­cal par­ties which were — and still are — lim­it­ed to state races.

George Washington was elect­ed to two terms with­out any par­ty affil­i­a­tion, but begin­ning with John Adams, and extend­ing through the terms of John Quincy Adams, the two notable par­ties were the Federalist and the Democratic-Republican.  It was not until the time of President Johnson (Andrew, not Lyndon) that the Democratic and Republican par­ties became the two promi­nent par­ties, far over­shad­ow­ing all oth­er splin­ter par­ties which arose from time to time.

Wikipedia lists nine­ty-sev­en polit­i­cal par­ties that have appeared on the scene through the years of U.S. elec­tions.  Most are small and will be unrec­og­niz­able to most read­ers, such as the Pirate, Transhumanist, Readjuster, and Nullifier par­ties.  Others, like the Green, Libertarian, Whig, American Nazi, and Dixiecrat, will evoke some memories.

There are cur­rent­ly only two mem­bers of the U. S. Congress who are des­ig­nat­ed Independent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Angus King of Maine. [Just days after this sto­ry was filed, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced she was chang­ing her par­ty affil­i­a­tion from Democrat to Independent, mak­ing her the third U.S. Senator to become an Independent. –Ed.]

Some of the more sub­stan­tial polit­i­cal par­ties of the past include Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party (1912), Strom Thurmond’s States Rights Party (1948), George Wallace’s American Independent Party, and Ross Perot’s Reform Party (1992).  These par­ties are sig­nif­i­cant because of the amount of sup­port each received in their respec­tive elec­tions, which might have made a dif­fer­ence had they not been run­ning under the elec­toral sys­tem (more about the Electoral College in a future column).

Roosevelt received 27.4% of the pop­u­lar vote, Thurmond 2.4%, Wallace 13.5%, and Perot 18.9% while run­ning under their less­er-known parties.

The selec­tion of President fell to the U.S. House of Representatives on two occa­sions, once for Jefferson and once for John Quincy Adams (Twelfth Amendment, rat­i­fied 1804), which became a major role of par­ties at the time and could again under the pro­vi­sions of the Twelfth Amendment if cer­tain con­di­tions came to pass.  This, per­haps more than any oth­er poten­tial­i­ty, bodes ill for the elec­tion of President, con­sid­er­ing the fac­tion­al­ism that per­vades pol­i­tics today.

Many states lim­it the num­ber of bal­lot-qual­i­fied par­ties.  As of December, 2021, Wikipedia list­ed eleven polit­i­cal par­ties which were bal­lot-qual­i­fied in two or more states.

In Kentucky, the vot­er reg­is­tra­tion form asks whether the appli­cant is apply­ing for mem­ber­ship in the Democrat, Republican, or “Other” par­ty.  Applicants can write in the name of any “oth­er” par­ty they wish.  If noth­ing is spec­i­fied, they are appar­ent­ly des­ig­nat­ed as “inde­pen­dent” and can­not vote in a Kentucky Primary Election unless their spec­i­fied par­ty has been bal­lot-qual­i­fied.  This is still cod­i­fied in the 1892 Kentucky Constitution.