The American Independent Party (AIP) is a
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
political party in the
United States that was established in 1967. The AIP is best known for its
nomination of former Democratic
Governor George Wallace
George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...
of
Alabama, who carried five states in the
1968 presidential election running on a "law and order" platform against
Richard Nixon and
Hubert Humphrey. In 1976, the party split into the modern American Independent Party and the
American Party. From 1992 until 2008, the party was the California affiliate of the national
Constitution Party. Its exit from the Constitution Party led to a leadership dispute during the 2016 election.
History
Wallace campaign and early history
In 1967, the AIP was founded by Bill Shearer and his wife, Eileen Knowland Shearer. It nominated George C. Wallace (Democrat) as its presidential candidate and retired
U.S. Air Force General
Curtis E. LeMay as the vice-presidential candidate. Wallace ran on every state ballot in the election, though he did not represent the American Independent Party in all fifty states: in
Connecticut, for instance, he was listed on the ballot as the nominee of the "George Wallace Party." The Wallace/LeMay ticket received 13.5 percent of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes from the states of
Arkansas,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
Georgia, and
Alabama. No third-party candidate has won more than one electoral vote since the 1968 election.
In 1969, representatives from forty states established the
American Party as the successor to the American Independent Party. In some places, such as Connecticut, the American Party was constituted as the American Conservative Party. (The modern American Conservative Party, founded in 2008, is unrelated to the Wallace-era party.) In March 1969, the party ran a candidate in a
special election in
Tennessee's 8th congressional district in northwestern
Tennessee, where Wallace had done well the previous November, to replace Congressman
Robert "Fats" Everett, who had died in office. Their candidate, William J. Davis, out-polled Republican
Leonard Dunavant, with 16,375 votes to Dunavant's 15,773; but the race was carried by moderate
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
Ed Jones, with 33,028 votes (47% of the vote).
The party flag, adopted on August 30, 1970, depicts an
eagle
Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...
holding a group of arrows in its left talons, over a
compass rose, with a banner which reads "The American Independent Party" at the eagle's base.
The American Party, as it was commonly called and legally styled in several states, ran occasional congressional and gubernatorial candidates, but few made any real impact. In 1970, the AIP fielded a candidate for
governor of South Carolina
The governor of South Carolina is the head of government of South Carolina. The governor is the '' ex officio'' commander-in-chief of the National Guard when not called into federal service. The governor's responsibilities include making year ...
,
Alfred W. Bethea
Alfred may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*''Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series
* ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne
* ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák
*"Alfred (Interlu ...
, a former Democratic member of the
South Carolina House of Representatives from
Dillon County. Democrat
John C. West
John Carl West Sr. (August 27, 1922 – March 21, 2004) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the 109th governor of South Carolina from 1971 to 1975. From 1977 to 1981, he was the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia ...
defeated the Republican nominee,
Albert Watson, an outgoing member of the
United States House of Representatives. Bethea finished with only 2 percent of the votes cast. In another 1970 gubernatorial race, the Arkansas American Party ran Walter L. Carruth (1931–2008), a
justice of the peace
A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
from
Phillips County in eastern Arkansas, against Republican
Winthrop Rockefeller and Democrat
Dale Bumpers
Dale Leon Bumpers (August 12, 1925 – January 1, 2016) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas (1971–1975) and in the United States Senate (1975–1999). He was a member of the Democratic Party. Prio ...
. Carruth received 36,132 votes (5.9 percent), not enough to affect the outcome in which Bumpers handily unseated Rockefeller. The American Party had gained
ballot access in Tennessee in 1970 as the result of George Wallace's strong (second-place) showing in the state in 1968, easily crossing the 5 percent threshold required, and held a
primary election
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...
which nominated a slate of candidates including businessman Douglas Heinsohn for governor. However, neither Heinsohn nor any other candidate running on the American Party line achieved the 5 percent threshold in the 1970 Tennessee election, and it likewise failed to do so in 1972, meaning that the party lost its newfound ballot access, which as of 2021 it has never regained.
In 1972, the American Party nominated
Republican Congressman
John G. Schmitz
John George Schmitz (August 12, 1930 – January 10, 2001) was a Republican Party (United States), Republican member of the United States House of Representatives and California State Senate from Orange County, California, Orange County, Californ ...
of California for president and Tennessee author
Thomas Jefferson Anderson, both members of the
John Birch Society, for vice president, winning the party over 1.1 million votes, the highest vote share the party has ever achieved since Wallace's run. In that election,
Hall Lyons
In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the grea ...
, a
petroleum industry executive from
Lafayette, Louisiana
Lafayette (, ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the most populous city and parish seat of Lafayette Parish, located along the Vermilion River. It is Louisiana's fourth largest incorporated municipality by population and the 234th- ...
, and a former Republican, ran as the AP U.S. Senate nominee but finished last in a four-way race dominated by the Democratic nominee,
J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.
John Bennett Johnston Jr. (born June 10, 1932) is a retired American attorney, politician, and later lobbyist. A member of the Democratic Party, Johnston represented Louisiana in the U.S. Senate from 1972 to 1997.
Beginning his political caree ...
After the 1976 split
In 1976, the American Independent Party split into the more moderate
American Party, which included more northern conservatives and Schmitz supporters, and the American Independent Party, which focused on the
Deep South
The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...
. Both parties have nominated candidates for the presidency and other offices. Neither the American Party nor the American Independent Party has had national success, and the American Party has not achieved ballot status in any state since 1996.
In the early 1980s, Bill Shearer led the American Independent Party into the
Populist Party. From 1992 to 2008, the American Independent Party was the California affiliate of the national
Constitution Party, formerly the U.S. Taxpayers Party, whose founders included the late
Howard Phillips.
2007 leadership dispute
A split in the American Independent Party occurred during the
2008 presidential campaign, one faction recognizing Jim King as chairman of the AIP with the other recognizing Ed Noonan as chairman. Noonan's faction claims the old AIP main website while the King organization claims the AIP's
blog. King's group met in Los Angeles on June 28–29, elected King to state chair. Ed Noonan's faction, which included 8 of the 17 AIP officers, held a convention in Sacramento on July 5, 2008. Issues in the split were U.S. foreign policy and the influence of Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips on the state party.
[Bock, Alan.]
American-Independent split
". ''Orange County Register
''The Orange County Register'' is a paid daily newspaper published in California. The ''Register'', published in Orange County, California, is owned by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital via its Digital Fiest/Media News subsidiaries. ...
Horserace '08''. Wednesday, July 2, 2008.
The King group elected to stay in the Constitution Party and supported its presidential candidate,
Chuck Baldwin. It was not listed as the "Qualified Political Party" by the California Secretary of State and Baldwin's name was not printed on the state's ballots. King's group sued for ballot access and their case was dismissed without prejudice.
[Winger, Richard.]
Keyes Wins California Lawsuit on Procedural Issue
, ''Ballot Access News'', August 26, 2008.
The Noonan group voted to pull out of the Constitution Party and join a new party called America's Party, put together by
perennial candidate and former
United Nations Ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...
Alan Keyes as a vehicle for his own presidential campaign.
Since Noonan was on record with the California Secretary of State as (outgoing) party chairman, Keyes was added to the state ballots as the AIP candidate. This group elected Markham Robinson as its new chair at the convention.
Presidential tickets
Since the fracture of the American Independent Party between the King and Noonan factions, control of the State Party, and thus the ballot line, has been in the hands of the Noonan faction. Attempts to nominate
Chuck Baldwin (the 2008 Constitution nominee) or
Virgil Goode (the 2012 Constitution nominee) were unsuccessful, as were their independent efforts to make it onto the California presidential ballot.
California gubernatorial candidates
Chairmen/Vice-Chairmen
*Bill Shearer: 1967–1999
*Nathan Johnson: 1999–2002
*Jim King/: 2002–2004
*Nancy Spirkoff: 2004–2006
*
Edward C. Noonan/Mark Seidenberg: 2006–2008
* ''Disputed'': Jim King and Markham Robinson claim chairmanship: 2008–present
Membership and accidental-membership phenomenon
As of 2016, about 3% of California's 17.2 million voters are registered with the AIP, making the party the third-largest of California's political parties, although it is far behind the numbers registered with the
Democrats (43%),
Republicans
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
(28%) and those stating "no party preference" (24%).
[John Myers, Christine Mai-Duc & Ben Welsh]
Are you an independent voter? You aren't if you checked this box
''Los Angeles Times'' (April 17, 2016).
However, it has long been thought by political analysts that the party, which has received very few votes in recent California elections, maintains its state ballot status because people join the American Independent Party mistakenly believing that they are registering as
"independent" voters.
[''Voting at the Political Fault Line: California's Experiment With the Blanket Primary'' (eds. Bruce E. Cain & Elisabeth R. Gerber, University of California Press, 2002), p. 219. .] This was confirmed in a ''
Los Angeles Times'' investigation in 2016, which found "overwhelming" and "indisputable" evidence that thousands of California voters who are registered as affiliated with the American Independent Party on voter forms in fact intended to be registered as "no party preference" (i.e., as independent voters).
A 2016 poll conducted of California voters registered with the AIP showed that 73% identify themselves as "no affiliation" and 3% identify themselves as "undecided."
Upon learning the AIP platform, 50% of registered AIP voters wanted to leave the AIP.
A ''Times'' review of voting records revealed a wide array of Californians have fallen victim to this error, including celebrities such as
Sugar Ray Leonard,
Demi Moore,
Emma Stone
Emily Jean Stone (born November 6, 1988), known professionally as Emma Stone, is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award. In 2017, she ...
, and
Kaley Cuoco.
Similarly, in 2008,
Jennifer Siebel, then-fiancée of
San Francisco's former Democratic mayor
Gavin Newsom, attempted to change her party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated, but "checked the American Independent box thinking that was what independent voters were supposed to do."
This confusion results in accidentally registered AIP members being unable to vote in presidential
primary election
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...
s and, in prior years, in all partisan primary elections other than those of the AIP.
A number of California registrars of voters had expressed concern over the confusion that the party's name causes.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said that the California voter form was "confusing and somewhat misleading."
However, since the advent of the "top-two" blanket primary in California in 2012, all voters may participate in non-presidential primary elections where nominations for public office are to be made. Presidential nominations and elections of members of party county central committees are still restricted to voters registered in the party where such contests are held, but a party may choose to allow voters with No Party Preference to vote in their presidential primary.
References
Notes
External links
American Independent Party of CaliforniaAmerican Independent Party at JoinCalifornia
{{Historical right-wing third party presidential tickets (U.S.)
1967 establishments in California
American nationalist parties
Far-right political parties in the United States
Paleoconservative parties in the United States
Political parties established in 1967
Political parties in the United States