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It's impossible to look at our political landscape without noticing how many Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the choice the two-party system presents them with each election cycle. This reality has become even more more stark in light of the likelihood that the nominees in 2024 will be a rerun of Biden v. Trump, though a majority of Americans do not want either to run.
A group that calls itself "No Labels" has proposed an alternative—a unity ticket that would unite a Democratic presidential candidate with a Republican vice presidential pick, or vice versa. But most analysts believe a significant third-party effort would simply create a path to victory for Trump by siphoning off support from Biden.
A far more constructive solution would be something called a fusion party, which allows voters to pick a major party candidate but to vote for that candidate on a ballot line that is neither Democratic or Republican. The aim is to give voters a way to vote for a viable major party candidate without having to vote on that party's ballot line, presumably because the voter does not support the party's overall program. This way, the voter does not need to feel like he or she is endorsing a political party whose agenda they reject.
Currently, only New York and Connecticut allow fusion voting, along with California, which allows it only for presidential races. The other states have statutory prohibitions against a candidate running on more than one ballot line.
This should change. Fusion parties are a very important tool in enabling disaffected voters to express support for a candidate when they don't otherwise believe in the core principles of the major party. For example, when Michael Bloomberg ran for mayor of New York City as a Republican, he also had the endorsement of the Independent Party, which was extremely important in attracting Democratic voters who did not want to vote for a candidate on the Republican line.
By extension, Republican voters who really don't want to support Donald Trump—estimated to be as much as 30 percent of Republican voters—might actually vote for President Biden if it didn't mean supporting him as a Democratic Party candidate.
Historically, fusion ballot lines have only attracted one to five percent of voters, but given the tiny margins we have seen in swing states, such parties could be an extremely useful tool in convincing enough reluctant Republicans and independents to vote for him.
The issue is currently playing out in a number of states where the practice is currently banned, most notably Michigan, where the co-founder of a group called "Republicans and Independents for Biden" is attempting to register the "Michigan Common Sense Party" and then challenge the Michigan ban on fusion parties.
Elsewhere, there are about a dozen other states which currently have rather broad constitutional provisions related to the right of freedom of association, along with state supreme courts which are not under partisan Republican control, where constitutional attacks on fusion party bans might be successful. Efforts in other swing states beyond Michigan, such as Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Nevada, would also be key.
The United States Supreme Court considered this issue in 1997. Writing for the Court, Justice Rehnquist ruled that there is no federal constitutional issue posed by states banning fusion parties and left it to the states to determine whether or not they would allow this innovation to the two-party system.
The issue with the challenges to the fusion party prohibitions is that there does not seem to be sufficient time to successfully make these challenges and get through the state supreme court process prior to the 2024 elections. But that certainly doesn't mean that the issue fusion parties present is not vitally important.
The five New York House seats that flipped to Republicans in 2022 essentially gave the Republican party control of the House. While fusion parties are allowed in New York, the two small parties that serve the fusion goals are on the partisan extremes—the Working Families Party and the Conservative Party—but there is no centrist fusion party that can attract former Trump voters who are highly resistant to casting a vote on the Democratic line.
It might prove important in those swing House districts in Long Island and the Hudson Valley of New York to have a pro-democracy/pro-choice ballot line so that Republicans and Independents in those districts who recognize the last election was legitimate and support a women's right to choose have a place to register their vote for Democratic candidates without having to vote on the Democratic line.
If there are fusion parties in swing states after the 2024 election, an additional reform should allow a presidential candidate on a fusion party line to have that party nominate a vice-presidential candidate different than the one the major party ticket endorses. Such a reform would ease the minds of many who worry about President Biden's age yet aren't comfortable with Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative. In that case, a fusion party could create a unity ticket without undermining the election of the major party presidential candidate.
No Labels' effort of creating a major independent party is in danger of splitting the electorate apart, leading to a victory for a candidate that could not otherwise win. Fusion parties, on the other hand, can be a catalyst for winning over centrists and coalition building, helping to drive compromise and heal our hyper-partisan, polarized body politic.
Tom Rogers is an editor-at-large for Newsweek, the founder of CNBC and a CNBC contributor. He also established MSNBC, is the former CEO of TiVo, and a member of Keep Our Republic, an organization dedicated to preserving the nation's democracy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
