Credit: National Archives

For more than 150 years, the President of the United States has either been a Democrat or a Republican. How did we as a nation arrive at a firmly entrenched two-party system, and might our current turbulent political times be fertile grounds for a third party to emerge? A bipartisan panel of former members of Congress, along with other issue experts, will discuss the history of our two-party system, past attempts at a viable third party—such as Ross Perot’s Reform Party—and some of the procedural factors that have created a monopoly for Democrats and Republicans across the country.

Presented in Partnership with the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress