In
United States politics, the 'Green Party' has been active as a
third party since the
1980s. The party first gained widespread public attention during
Ralph Nader's presidential runs in
1996 and
2000. Currently, the primary national Green Party organization in the U.S. is the 'Green Party of the United States', which has eclipsed the earlier
Greens/Green Party USA. There are
Green Parties in many nations, with total membership being about a million people.
The Green Party in the United States has won elected office mostly at the
local level; most winners of public office in the United States who are considered Greens have won
nonpartisan-ballot elections (that is, the winning Greens won offices in elections in which candidates were not identified on the
ballot as affiliated with any political party).
[1] The highest-ranking Greens ever elected in the nation were
John Eder, who was a member of the
Maine House of Representatives until his defeat on November 7, 2006, and
Audie Bock, who was elected to the
California State Assembly in
1999 but switched her registration to Independent seven months later
[1] running as a Independent in the 2000 election
[2]. In 2005, the Party had 305,000 registered members in states that allow party registration, as well as thousands of supporters in the rest of the country.
[2] During the 2006 elections the party had
ballot access in 31 states.
[3]
Greens emphasize
environmentalism,
decentralization and local
autonomy, in keeping with a commitment to non-
hierarchical participatory democracy. The party platform states a number of
social justice positions, including support for a federally funded commitment to end poverty.
[4]
History
Early years
What began as the decentralized
Committees of Correspondence evolved into a more centralized structure with a more traditional emphasis on electoral campaigns. Before the formation of a national party, early Greens were committed to an emphasis on educational projects and non-partisan activism. The idea of an
"anti-party party" was formed by
Petra Kelly and other leaders of
Die Grünen in
Germany. Their vision was a non-traditional organization in which electoralism would be the 'least' important of the three components. However, in the United States the opportunity for
ballot access became too irresistible for others -- particularly
Marxists and those active in the
New Left -- who began to move into Green parties during the early 1990s. A struggle for the direction of the organization culminated at the 1991 Green Congress in
Elkins, West Virginia -- during which those who favored an emphasis on electoral politics began to consolidate power -- primarily through sheer numbers.
1996 Presidential Election
At the 1995 national Green Gathering in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, hosted by the New Mexico Green Party, a measure proposed by Steve Schmidt (New Mexico) and Mike Feinstein and Greg Jan (California) to put a candidate for president on 40 states was adopted. A significant minority of Greens voiced strong ideological objections (based on the principle of decentralization) to the proposal to become involved in such a large-scale political arena for the first time.
[3] Those who wished to run a candidate for president continued to pursue the possibility. Working within their state parties, as well as through an independent organization called Third Parties 1995, they convinced
Ralph Nader to accept placement on the
Green Party of California's March 1996 primary ballot. Eventually he accepted placement on more ballots, but ran a limited campaign with a self-imposed campaign spending limit of $5,000 (to avoid having to file a financial statement with the FEC). He chose
Winona LaDuke as his vice-presidential candidate. A convention was held at UCLA in Los Angeles in August 1996 where each state party who placed Nader on the ballot told their story, followed by a two hour and twenty minute acceptance speech by Nader that was broadcast on C-SPAN and Pacifica Radio - the first time Greens in the U.S. had that kind of national exposure. Nader/LaDuke were on the ballot in twenty-two states and received 685,128 votes, or 0.7% of all votes cast.
[4]
1997-1999
In the aftermath of the
1996 election, representatives from thirteen state Green Parties joined the
Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), an idea promulgated since the early nineties by a small group of active greens. The ASGP, while still including issue activism and non-electoral politics, was clearly more focused on getting Greens elected. In the years from
1997 to
1999, more local, regional, and statewide Green parties continued to form. Some of these parties affiliated themselves with both the ASGP and kept their affiliations with the
G/GPUSA.
2000 Presidential Election
Ralph Nader, 1996 and 2000 nominee
In the year
2000, the ASGP nominated
Ralph Nader and
Winona LaDuke for president and vice-president again. This time, the pair were on 44 state ballots and received 2,882,897 votes, or 2.7% of all votes cast
[5]. Nader's strong showing in several states solidified the changes in the Green Party from an "anti-party party" to an organization primarily dedicated to electoral campaigns. In particular, that was the widespread understanding of thousands of recruits to the party, as it went through an unprecedented rate of growth.
In October of 2000 (during the campaign), a proposal was made to alter the structures of the ASGP and G/GPUSA to be complementary organizations with the ASGP focusing on electoral politics and the G/GPUSA focusing on issue advocacy. The Boston Proposal (so named because it was negotiated at
Boston in the days before the first presidential debate)
[5] was passed by the ASGP at its next annual gathering, but did not pass at the GPUSA Congress, causing a schism in membership among the GPUSA from which they never recovered. At its July 2001 meeting in Santa Barbara, the ASGP voted to change its name to "The Green Party of the United States" and apply for recognition of National Committee status by the
FEC, which it was granted later that year.
Nader has been criticized for being a
spoiler candidate or having "stolen the election" from
Al Gore, the
Democratic Party nominee. This criticism has largely put Nader's supporters on the defensive on this issue, citing both rights based arguments, for example, that no one owns anyones votes and so Nader no more spoiled the election for Gore than Gore spoiled it for Nader, as well as practical arguments, such as citing that the number of states that Buchanan "spoiled" for Bush would have resulted in a Bush victory if neither Buchanan nor Nader had participated. Nader's role in the 2000 presidential election would have consequences for the 2004 election, when supporters of David Cobb favored a limited role for the Green Party presidential candidate.
2001-2003
In
2002,
John Eder's election to the
Maine House of Representatives marked the first Green Party state legislator in the United States elected in a regular election. (
Audie Bock had won a special election as a state legislator in the
California Assembly, but left the party and eventually became a Democrat.) John Eder's party designation on the ballot in 2002 was "
Green Independent." Eder was personally congratulated by
Ralph Nader on election night. In 2004, despite redistricting in
Maine that threatened to unseat Eder, he nevertheless won re-election.
In the Spring of 2003, as the 2004 elections loomed, Greens began an often-heated debate on party presidential strategy. Democrats, liberal activists, and liberal journalists were counseling and pressuring the Green Party and Ralph Nader not to run a presidential ticket. In response, a diverse cross-section of U.S. Greens issued "Green & Growing: 2004 in Perspective" a statement initiated by national party Green Party of the United States co-chair
Ben Manski. "Green & Growing"'s 158 signatories declared that "We think it essential to build a vigorous presidential campaign," citing as their chief reasons the need to gain ballot access for the Green Party, to define the Greens as an independent party, and the failures of the Democrats on issues of foreign and domestic policy.
[6] Other Greens, most prominently
Ted Glick in his "A Green Party Safe States Strategy", called on the party to adopt a strategy of avoiding
swing states in the upcoming presidential election.
[7] A third, intermediate "smart states" position was drafted by
Dean Myerson and adopted by
David Cobb, advocating a "nuanced" state-by-state strategy based on ballot access, party development, swing state, and other concerns.
2004 Presidential Election
David Cobb, 2004 Green Presidential nominee
In the
2004 presidential election, the candidate of the Green Party of the United States for
President was
Texas attorney and GPUS legal counsel
David Cobb, and its candidate for vice-president was labor activist
Pat LaMarche of
Maine.
On
Christmas Eve 2003, Ralph Nader declared that he would not seek the Green party's nomination for president in
2004, and in February
2004 announced his intention to run as an independent, but later did decide to seek endorsement (rather than the nomination) of the Green Party, and other third parties. Several Greens, most notably
Peter Camejo, as well as
Lorna Salzman and others, endorsed this plan (Camejo would later accept a position as Nader's vice-presidential running-mate) (see Nomination controversy, below).
The Cobb-LaMarche ticket in 2004 appeared on 28 of the 51 ballots around the country, down from the Greens' 44 in 2000; the Nader-Camejo ticket in 2004 appeared on 35 ballots. In 2004, Cobb was on the ballot in California (and Nader was not), whereas Nader was on the ballot in New York (and Cobb was not). Political strategists with the Democratic Party used aggressive legalistic tactics to remove Nader and Cobb's names from the ballots.
The voting results from the 2004 presidential election were considerably less impressive than the results of the Green Party's Nader-LaDuke presidential ticket in 2000, which had garnered more than 2,882,000 votes. In 2004, running in most states as an independent (but with high-profile Green Party activist Peter Camejo as his running mate), Ralph Nader received 465,650 votes; the Green Party's 2004 nominees, David Cobb and Patricia LaMarche, mustered 119,859 votes. Some Greens were not discouraged by the relatively low presidential vote yield in 2004 for Cobb and for Nader, because the Green Party continued to grow in many parts of the country, increasing Green Party affiliation numbers and fielding Green candidates for congressional, state, and local offices.
However, the number of registered Greens declined by about 23,000 between January 2004 and March 2005, in contrast to a previous period of uninterrupted growth from 1998; the number of Green candidacies declined compared to 2002, and these candidates fared worse than in the past, particularly during the presidential campaign.
[8]
'Nomination controversy:'
When Nader announced that he would run as an independent candidate, and later explained that he was not seeking the Green Party's nomination, but would (as an independent) seek the party's "endorsement", factions within the party which had been lining up behind potential candidates solidified into an endorsement camp and a nomination camp (the latter favoring primarily David Cobb).
On June 26, 2004, the Green National Convention nominated Cobb, who promised to focus on building the party. Just over a third of the delegates voted "No Nominee" with the intent to later vote for a Nader endorsement. Pat LaMarche of Maine was nominated for vice-president. Cobb and Nader emphasized different strategies. Cobb promised to run a "strategic states" campaign based on the preferences and needs of the individual state Green parties; as a result, Cobb campaigned heavily in some battleground states and not in others. Nader intended to run a national multiparty ticket uniting the Greens with other parties.
After David Cobb received the party's 2004 presidential nomination at the Green National Convention
[9] in
Milwaukee, apparently in a show of unity, Nader's
Vice Presidential running mate,
Peter Camejo, said, "I'm going to walk out of here arm in arm with David Cobb." However, the nominating convention and the political discussions and maneuvering before it generated considerable controversy within the party. At issue was the apportionment of delegates and the method used to determine how many delegates each state received. The group Greens for Democracy and Independence, inspired by the principles in Peter Camejo's
Avocado Declaration (in part a response to Nader's declaration not to seek the Green nomination), arose and became an organizing group for Greens disaffected with the internal policies and procedures of the GPUS, and sought reforms.
Two supporters of Camejo, Carol Miller and
Forrest Hill, wrote one of a number of articles printed after the convention, including ''Rigged Convention; Divided Party',
[10] alleging that the convention elections had been undemocratic. Many Green Party members were upset at the nomination convention's process and results, and some expressed "embarrassment" that Nader was not the party's 2004 candidate.
Other Green Party members responded that the analysis they gave in the article was fundamentally flawed to produce skewed results. One such response was that of the national party Secretary, Greg Gerritt, who self-published a book on the subject, ''Green Party Tempest''.
[11]
2006 Elections
The Greens fielded candidates in a number of races in 2006. The party won 66 races nationwide, including 21 in California and 11 in Wisconsin. One of the biggest victories included the election of
Gayle McLaughlin as mayor in
Richmond, California. Richmond now has become the first city with over 100,000 residents to have a Green mayor. In Maine,
Pat LaMarche received nearly 10% of the vote for governor and the
Maine Green Independent Party also won two seats on the Portland City Council. In the Illinois governor's race, candidate
Rich Whitney received 10%, making the Green Party one of only three legally ''established'', statewide political parties in Illinois. In Colorado's First District, Tom Kelly received 21% of the vote in his run for Congress. However, the party lost its only elected state representative,
John Eder.
Approximately 8.7 million Americans voted for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and for impeachment resolutions on local and state ballots that were initiated or supported by Greens. Troop withdrawal initiatives won in 34 of 42 localities in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, Madison, and La Crosse, and all 11 communities in Illinois, including Chicago. Of 139 cities and towns in Massachusetts voting on the troop withdrawal measures, only a handful voted nay on initiatives demanding that Congress and the White House end the war immediately.
[6]
2008 Presidential Election
These candidates have announced that they seek the
Green Party's nomination for president in 2008:
★
Jared Ball
★
Sheila Bilyeu of Virginia
★
Elaine Brown of Georgia
★
Dan Imperato of Florida
★
Michael "Jingo" Jingozian of
Oregon
★
Jesse Johnson of
West Virginia
★
Paul Kangas
★
Jerry Kann of
New York
★
Kent Mesplay of
California, CA Delegate to the Green National Committee
★
Gail Parker of
Virginia
★
Joe Schriner of
Ohio
★
Kat Swift of
Texas, co-chair of Texas Green Party
Frequently mentioned candidates who have not announced include
Ralph Nader,
Cynthia McKinney, and
Rebecca Rotzler.
According to Ballot Access News, Gail Parker has been circulating a petition to get the party on the ballot in Arkansas, in two days she collected 160 signatures.
[7]
2008 Convention Site
On August 28, the national committee of the Green Party chose Chicago as the site of the 2008 national convention.
[8]
★
Chicago, IL (Summer 2008)
'Other cities that submitted bids:'
★
Oakland, CA (Summer 2008)
★
Minneapolis, MN (Summer 2008)
Structure and composition
Committees
The Green Party has three national committees:
★ the Green National Committee
★ the National Green Party House Campaign Committee (NGPHCC)
★ the Green Senatorial Campaign Committee (GSCC)
[9]
The GNC is recognized by the
Federal Elections Commission; the other two are similar to Congressional elections committees in the Democratic and Republican parties. The NGPHCC is not yet recognized, but the GSCC filed with the FEC for official recognition, which it received in February 2007.
[12] The GSCC's initial members were elected in July 2006: Dave Jette, Daryl Northrop, Eric Oines, Roger Snyder, Anita Wessling, and Brent White.
The GNC is the central governing body of the
Green Party of the United States (GPUS). The GNC is composed of delegates from each of the affiliated member party organizations and from recognized caucuses. The GNC oversees all national party functions and elects a Steering Committee to oversee day-to-day operations of the national party.
Caucuses
Caucuses on the GNC are identity caucuses. Three have achieved formal recognition within the GNC:
★ Black Caucus -
[10] Caucus Acting Co-Chairs: Alfred Molison, Martina Robinson
★
Lavender Greens [11] (
LGBTIQ)- Chair: Jason Jones
★ National Women's Caucus
[12] - Co-Chairs: Nan Garrett, Sylvia Inwood
Three other caucuses are working toward formal representation on the GNC:
★ Disability Caucus
[13]
★ Latino Caucus
★ Youth Caucus
The Blue Greens (workers' caucus) and the Native American caucus also exist, but do not have formal organizing committees as of yet.
Standing committees
The GNC has several standing committees:
★ Accreditation
★ Annual National Meeting
★ Ballot Access
★ Bylaws, Rules, Policies & Procedures
★ Communications
★ Coordinated Campaign
★ Dispute Resolution
★ Diversity
★ EcoAction
★ Finance
★ Fundraising
★
Green Pages (editorial board for the party newspaper)
★ International
★ Media
★ Merchandising
★ Outreach
★ Peace Action
★ Platform
★ Presidential Campaign Support
★ Steering
National party co-chairs
The co-chairs of the Green Party of the United States are currently:
Liz Arnone,
Jim Coplen,
Jason Nabewaniac,
Budd Dickinson,
Kristen Olsen,
Phil Huckelberry, and
Sarah Steiner. The co-chairs of the Green Party, together with the secretary and treasurer, are called the Steering Committee. They are elected from the delegates, who serve on the Green National Committee, representing the affiliated member states.
Geographic distribution
The Green Party has shown its strongest popular support on the Pacific Coast, upper Great Lakes, and northeastern United States, as reflected in the geographical distribution of Green candidates elected
[14]. Californians have elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide as of
June 2007. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18), and Maine (17). Maine has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country, and the largest Green registration percentage with more than 29,273 greens comprising 2.95% of the electorate as of November 2006.
[15] Madison, Wisconsin, is the city with the most Green elected officials (8) followed by Portland, Maine, with (7).
One challenge that the Green Party (as well as other third parties) faces is the difficulty of overcoming
ballot access laws in many states. This has prevented the Green Party from reaching a point of critical mass in party-building momentum in many states.
Ballot access
As of July 2007, the Green Party is on the ballot in the following states.
[16][17]
# California
# Colorado
# Delaware
# District of Columbia
# Florida
# Illinois
# Louisiana
# Maine
# Maryland
# Massachusetts
#
Michigan
# Mississippi
# Nebraska
# Nevada
# New Mexico
# Oregon
# South Carolina
# Vermont
# West Virginia
# Wisconsin
Office holders
The Green Party claims at least 230 party members in elected office in the U.S. as of May, 2007.
[13]
Presidential tickets
★ 1996:
Ralph Nader and
Winona LaDuke 685,128 votes
★ 2000:
Ralph Nader and
Winona LaDuke 2,882,000 votes
★ 2004:
David Cobb and
Pat LaMarche 119,859 votes
List of national conventions/conferences
★ 2000 -
Denver, CO
★ 2001 -
Santa Barbara, CA
★ 2002 -
Philadelphia, PA
★ 2003 -
Washington, DC
★ 2004 -
Milwaukee, WI
★ 2005 -
Tulsa, OK
★ 2006 -
Tucson, AZ
★ 2007 -
Reading, PA
★ 2008 -
Chicago, IL
See also
★
Worldwide green parties
★
List of state Green Parties in the U.S.
★
List of political parties in the United States
★
California Green Archives
★
Ralph Nader
★
David Cobb
★
Peter Camejo
★
Winona LaDuke
★
David McReynolds
★
Joel Kovel
★
Matt Gonzalez
References
1. Green elected officials
2. "Green Party Ballot Status and Voter Registration Totals (United States)". Greens.org. Retrieved April 12, 2006.
3. "Greens Win Ballot Access in 31 States, Up From 17 in January". Green Party press release, September 5, 2006.
4. "2004 Green Party Platform; Social Justice". gp.org. Retrieved 17 February 2007.
5. See full text of the Boston Proposal
6. Manski, Ben. "Green & Growing: 2004 in Perspective". Greens.org. June 20, 2003.
7. Glick, Ted. "A Green Party 'Safe States' Strategy". ''ZNet''. July 1, 2003.
8. Greenfield, Steve (March 20, 2005) "The Decline of the Green Party." CommonDreams.org.
9. Green National Convention
10. "Rigged Convention; Divided Party'"
11. Green Party Tempest
12. Green Senatorial Campaign Committee official website
13. [18]
External links
★
Green Party of the United States (GPUS)
★
Green Party Ballot Status and Voter Registration Totals
★
Green Senatorial Campaign Committee (GSCC)
★
National Lavender Greens Caucus (GLBTIQ)
★
National Women's Caucus (NWC)
★
Disability Caucus Identity Caucus of the United States Green Party
★
Campus Greens
★
California Green Archives
Explanations of the ten key values
★
Ten Key Values of the Green Party
★
Global Greens' charter
★
California Green Party's Ten Key Values
★
Radical Middle Newsletter's historical intro. & early version
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