Colorado Reform Party FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE COLORADO MINOR PARTY SUMMIT A SUCCESS! A First Of Its Kind Event Sets The Stage For Future Meetings Denver, Colorado—The four Minor Parties of Colorado met Saturday for a first of its kind "Minor Party Summit." With a simple goal of establishing core goals and action plans beneficial to all Minor Parties, The Libertarian Party of Colorado, Green Party of Colorado, Natural Law Party of Colorado and The Colorado Reform Party, began to work together in common areas of concern. The summit was well attended with equal groups of all four parties making up the approximately forty attendees. The attendees were in leadership positions within their respective parties, and the event was closed to the public. "We needed as few distractions as possible in order to take this first step in establishing the benefits of working together, regardless of political philosophy, in mounting a serious threat to the Major parties. In this we were extremely successful.", commented Victor Good, organizer of the event and Chairman of the Colorado Reform Party. "We laid the groundwork for the next meeting to be held in two months." Libertarian Party Chairwoman, Bette Rose Smith agreed. "I was pleasantly surprised to find so many things that all of the minor parties can work on from building voter awareness to getting the voter registration card changed to lobbing for instant runoff voting. I expected to come away with two maybe three things for the minor parties to work together on and we found six in our first meeting!" The next event will be organized by the Green Party of Colorado as agreed to at the summit. Once a rotation is implemented the parties will share equally in ensuring the success of future Summit meetings. The meeting included guest speakers. Bill Compton, Chief of the Election Division of the Secretary of State's office who detailed the massive technological update currently under way within his office to prevent situations such as what had happened in Florida. He also promised that Secretary Donnetta Davidson would look into changing the current voter registration cards that are biased against Minor Parties. He also discussed the formation of a panel to look into updating the current election laws and mentioned that David Aiken of the Libertarian Party was appointed to the panel to represent Minor Party interests. Fred Brown, Chief of the Denver Post capital bureau, also addressed the meeting and shed some light on some of the inner workings of the media, including how the media decides on coverage of a particular candidate or political party. The meeting adjourned with all in attendance agreeing to discuss with their memberships the possibilities of working cooperatively in the following areas: Candidate training; developing a joint Minor Party Newsletter; and ballot initiatives of mutual concern. These items will be taken to each parties membership, discussed and brought to the next meeting for final discussions on implementing procedures to bring these initial ideas to completion. "As discussions proceeded it became apparent that all attendees agreed that our differences only added to our abilities to work together,",reiterated Victor Good, "We are not competing for the same voter. The Green Party wouldn't want someone whose ideology was in line with the Libertarian Party, or visa versa, joining their party so why not refer that person to the party that fits best? The largest area that we can work together on is voter education. Making the voter aware of what each of the Minor Parties platforms and idealogy truly are. It is these educational efforts where we can most definitely work together." additional contacts: |