BEND, OR -- More than 100,000 Oregonians are registered to vote as Independents; it's close to reaching "major" political party status. Tuesday evening, the Bend Chamber of Commerce hosted a discussion on its growth.

Sal Peralta, Secretary of the Independent Party of Oregon, told the audience, "There's a persistent 50% to 60% of the public, according to Gallop, that don't feel well represented by the two major parties and believe a third party, or an Independent Party is needed. That's what's driving the growth on a national basis."

State Representative Knute Buehler (R-Bend) was also a panelist and says partisanship is out of control. "In the Legislature, there's not a place where Republicans and Democrats can meet safely, that they can talk distinctly about policy without having what I call 'the cloud of the caucus.' It's one of the reasons I pushed and led the formation of the Independent party caucus in the Legislature." Buehler won the endorsement of the Independent party when he ran for the State Legislature in November 2014. 

State Senator Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) is known as an independent Democrat who has not voted along party lines on issues like gun control. She told the group, "The orthodoxy on both the right and the left is killing Oregon. I've been a Democrat, I've been a Republican, and I'm trying to serve as an Oregonian. We have lost the middle. There is no more middle, and we've polarized this to that point that if you even try to break bread with the other party you're an apostate in your own caucus."

Oregon's Secretary of State is set to decide on August 17 whether enough people have joined the Independent party to make it the state's third "major" party, therefore allowing it to field candidates in the May 2016 election.