Common Sense Party of California

The Common Sense Party of California is a political party in the U.S. state of California. It was founded in 2019 and is currently chaired by Tom Campbell. Since its foundation, the grassroots movement has been conducting educational and outreach efforts. These are needed to acquire enough voter registrations to qualify as a state-recognized political party before the 2024 election year.

History
The Common Sense Party was founded in 2019 by former Republican representative Tom Campbell, former Independent state Senator Quentin Kopp, and former state Commerce Secretary Julie Meier Wright. Coming with multi-partisan experiences in California politics, these politicians collaborated to create a new political party that mainly supports governance reform and multi-party representation.

On January 27, 2023, the Common Sense Party and Forward Party announced a coalition in California with the goal of achieving the necessary 73,000 registered voters to gain qualified political party status in the state.

Political positions
The Common Sense Party focuses primarily on opportunities for optimization of the political system rather than specific issues. Examples of political system reform that the party support are campaign finance reform, voting reform, and increased government transparency and accountability.

The party aims to advance policies and endorse candidates that foster inclusion and engagement in governance. It advocates for political reforms that bolster environmental safeguards, allocating resources to support individuals who encounter obstacles to success, and optimizing investments in education, healthcare, and transportation.

Voting Reform
The Common Sense Party believes that the current plurality voting system, also known as "winner take all" or "first past the post" where the candidate with the most votes wins, does not result in voter engagement. It proposes alternatives to plurality voting, such as ranked choice voting.

Campaign Finance Reform
The Common Sense Party supports campaign finance reform that aims to eliminate the financial prominence of PACs, special interests groups, lobbies, and political parties.

It opposes the ruling of the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC, which prohibited the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations and other associations.