Forty-six years ago political scientist E. E. Schattschneider (1942, p. 1) declared, “[P]olitical parties created democracy … and modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” When he wrote these famous words in Party Government Schattschneider had in mind the robust condition of the Democratic and Republican parties in his native Connecticut. In a 1980 position paper, the Committee for Party Renewal echoed Schattschneider: “Without parties there can be no organized and coherent politics. When politics lacks coherence, there can be no accountable democracy. Parties are indispensable to the realization of democracy. The stakes are no less than that.”

The Committee for Party Renewal urges state legislators and party leaders to re-evaluate local party organizations and adopt measures to revitalize them. Led by the Republican National Committee playing catch-up by the 1980s, the national parties have been busy revitalizing themselves. It is time to begin party building efforts in the states and return state parties to positions of primacy in policy-making.