Welcome to the politics, guys. I'm Michael Baranowski, a political scientist at Northern Kentucky University.

My guest today is Jim Jonas, the founding director of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers and co-founder of Colorado Independent Voters.

Jim's an experienced political, public affairs, and corporate communication consultant based in Denver,

Colorado. For the last decade, he's helped create and manage a wide variety of entrepreneurial,

disruptive political organizations and campaigns to promote independent, nonpartisan causes and candidates. He was a co-founder of Unity 08, a consultant to Americans elect, and the campaign

manager to Greg Orman's independent campaign for the U.S. Senate in Kansas in 2014.

Jim got his start in politics, writing and producing political media for consulting legend

Roger Ailes in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. He also served as Senator Lamar Alexander's

communication director for his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in 1996. Jim Jonas,

welcome to the show. Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. You know, to start with, I was hoping you

could tell us a little bit about how the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers came to be and then also, you know, what you're hoping to accomplish with the organization.

Sure. Great question and great place to kick off the conversation. As you mentioned in the warm up, my introduction of some of these groups that I've been a part of, I've been affiliated with a number of independent, nonpartisan election reform groups over the years. And they always seem to take off with the best of intentions. And we get up and running, we raise the money, and we get some attention and gather a bunch of people up and start start trying to chip away at the at a broken

electoral system and then they go away and with them goes all that data goes all that information

goes all the infrastructural things that we put together and after uh i ran Greg orman's campaign in Kansas in 2014, really got frustrated

with the idea that we had no one to turn to for simple things like voter data, that the Republicans

and the Democrats both have those infrastructural things that give them such a leg up on anybody who's not part of the parties to be

competitive in elections. So a number of us started having some group meetings who are all in

the reform space and saying, what can we do to start chipping away at the electoral barriers

enacted by the two parties.

And how can we do this together so it's long-lasting?

And the next group that pops up, they've got a place to turn for talent,

for data resources, for other infrastructural things,

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