Although the two-party system is pretty well cemented in, there have been lawmakers elected from third parties. We currently have three senators who identify as “Independents” even though they caucus with the Democrats. In 2020, Libertarians got a win of sorts when they got their first representative in Justin Amash, who switched from Republican to Independent to Libertarian. However, this was short-lived as he did not run for reelection in 2020. A party that did better was the Prohibition Party, who got Charles Randall (1865-1951) of Los Angeles into Congress for six years.

The 1914 Midterms

Randall had first been elected to public office in 1910 when he won a seat in the state Assembly for a term, and normally he wouldn’t have secured election to Congress, but the Taft-Roosevelt split was still going on in the GOP, and in Los Angeles this produced a four-way race: Charles W. Bell, the Bull Moose incumbent, Randall the Prohibitionist, the regular Republican candidate, and the Socialist candidate. Randall won the election by less than a point. I suppose such elections are the dream for those who wish for political systems closer to that of most of Europe’s legislatures.

Randall’s record in Congress was, on major issues, overall liberal as was its party platform. He opposed Republican efforts at building up the army to prepare for war, supported the Adamson Act, opposed the use of stopwatches to measure efficiency in work, and supported an excess profits tax. In addition to standing for Prohibition he also stood for women’s suffrage, the latter a popular stance in California, its Republican Party having endorsed women’s suffrage in 1894 and its voters having extended suffrage to women in 1911. Randall did prove sufficiently popular to win reelection in 1916, a race in which all candidates were third party! Bell was now running for his seat back as an Independent and there was a Socialist in the running too. However, the coalition he had was strong. As the San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram (1916) reported, “he has the unanimous endorsement of progressives and democrats”. To some people, perhaps except the Prohibitionist part, this is, again, the dream. In 1918 and 1920, he was listed on the ballot as “Prohibition/Democratic”.

Although the Prohibition Party ultimately did attain the goal of Prohibition nationally from 1920 to 1933, the enactment of Prohibition didn’t help Randall, as the 1920 election saw a Republican wave that swept him away. Randall’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.026, which seems a bit higher than his stances on major ideological issues would indicate. He almost immediately got a chance to win back his seat as the winner of the election, Charles F. Van de Water, was killed in an auto accident only 18 days after the election. However, the political climate hadn’t changed by February 1921, and he lost by 20 points. Randall attempted to win back his seat in 1922, 1924, and 1926 as well, in the 1924 contest outright running as a Democrat. In 1924, Randall was briefly the vice-presidential candidate for the American Party, a Ku Klux Klan sponsored party, but he dropped out to focus on his Congressional race (Los Angeles Times, 1924).
Randall had a bit of a second life in California politics when he won a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1925. Although he faced a recall election the next year, he survived it and in 1931 he was elected president of the Los Angeles City Council, holding the post for two years. During this time, Randall initially favored an appeal on a court ruling against segregated swimming pools but switched to opposing after a black politician successfully argued against it to him (Los Angeles Times, 1931). In 1934, Randall tried one more time to get back into Congress, this time as a member of the second Progressive Party. Believe it or not, the Prohibition Party still exists today. You don’t really hear from them, but they are the oldest standing third party in the United States.

References

Angeleno Quits Race for Vice-President. (1924, August 22). Los Angeles Times, 13.

Retrieved from

https://www.proquest.com/docview/161696255?sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers

Fanning, H. (1916, November 20). Chas. H. Randall, Prohibition Member of Congress Will Have Company, is Prediction. San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram, 3.

Retrieved from

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SLODT19161102.2.31&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–

Randall, Charles Hiram. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/7712/charles-hiram-randall

Vote Drops City’s Pool Racial Case. (1931, July 4). Los Angeles Times, A1.

Retrieved from

https://www.proquest.com/docview/162456473?sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers