The
Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is one
of the
political
parties in the United States, and similar in mission to many of
the worldwide
Green Parties. The Greens,
a voluntary association of state parties, have been active as a
nationally recognized political
party since 2001. Prior to
national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and
were recognized by their corresponding
states. The Association of State Green Parties
(ASGP), a forerunner organization, first gained widespread public
attention during
Ralph Nader's
presidential runs in
1996 and
2000. With the founding of
the Green Party of the United States, the party established a
national political presence becoming the primary national Green
organization in the U.S. eclipsing the earlier
Greens/Green Party USA which
emphasized non-electoral movement building.
The Green Party in the United States has won elected offices 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). The highest-ranking Greens
ever elected in the nation were:
John
Eder, a member of the
Maine House of
Representatives until his defeat on November 7, 2006; Audie
Bock, elected to the
California State Assembly in 1999
but switched her registration to Independent seven months later
running as an independent in the 2000 election; and
Richard Carroll, elected to the
Arkansas House of
Representatives in 2008 but switched parties to become a
Democrat five months after his election. In 2005, the Green Party
had 305,000 registered members in states allowing party
registration, and tens of thousands of members and contributors in
the rest of the country. During the 2008 elections the party had
ballot access in 31 states.
Ideology
The Green Party of the United States of America emphasizes
environmentalism, non-
hierarchical participatory democracy,
social justice, respect for
diversity,
peace
and
nonviolence. Their
"Ten Key
Values," which are described as non-authoritative guiding
principles, are as follows:
- Grassroots
democracy
- Social justice
and equal
opportunity
- Ecological
wisdom
- Nonviolence
- Decentralization
- Community-based
economics
- Feminism and
gender
equality
- Respect for
diversity
- Personal and
global
responsibility
- Future focus and
sustainability
The Green Party does not accept donations from corporations and the
party's platform and rhetoric critiques corporate influence and
control over government, media, and society at large.
History
Early years
What began as the decentralized
Green 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, and the attention given to
electoral campaigns, became too irresistible.
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), 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. 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
'96, 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 (which allowed him
to avoid being subject to the obligation to file campaign finance
statements with the FEC). He chose
Winona
LaDuke as his vice-presidential candidate. A convention was
held at UCLA in Los Angeles on August 20, 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 685,297 votes, or 0.7%
of all votes cast.
1997-1999
In the aftermath of the 1998 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 having the Greens run candidates in elections. 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 2,883,105 votes, or 2.7 percent of all
votes cast. Nader's strong showing in several states solidified the
changes in the Green Party, transforming it 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 2000 (during the campaign), a proposal was made to alter
the structures of the ASGP and G/GPUSA to make them complementary
organizations with, respectively, 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)
was passed by the ASGP at its next annual gathering, but did not
pass at the GPUSA Congress. This caused 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 anyone's 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. Or pointing out that Gore failed to win his own state
of Tennessee (no presidential candidate has lost his own state and
won the general election). Nader's role in the 2000 presidential
election had consequences for the 2004 election, when some
supporters of
David Cobb advocated a
limited role for the Green Party in presidential elections.
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 Summer 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. 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. 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
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 legal tactics
to remove Nader's name 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.
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 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', 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.
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 in
the state's
gubernatorial race 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 the
U.S. Congress. However, the party lost its only
elected state representative,
John
Eder.
The
Green Party of
Pennsylvania, faced with an exceptionally high ballot access
petition requirement, chose to run Green Party
organizer,
Carl Romanelli, for U.S. Senate.
The race between incumbent,
Rick
Santorum, and the son of a former Governor,
Bob Casey, was already prominent on the
national scene. Although a strong volunteer petition effort
gathered 20,000 to 30,000 signatures, it was clear that paid
petitioners would be needed to clear the 67,000 signature
threshold. Donations to the petition drive came from many
Republican donors with
encouragement from Santorum's campaign, creating a flurry of blog
attacks.
After Romanelli filed 99,000 signatures the Democrats challenged
the petitions, and the Judge ordered the lawyers and nine
representatives from each side to work full time reviewing
signatures line by line, which continued for six weeks. Near the
end of September the Judge abruptly ruled that Romanelli would be
removed from the ballot.
Following the controversial precedent set in
the 2004 challenge to Nader's petitions in Pennsylvania
, Romanelli and his lawyer were later assessed
$81,000 for court costs and the challenger's expenses. The
Green Party, having no statewide candidates on the ballot to get
the required vote threshold, lost its "minor party" status in
Pennsylvania, leaving only two parties still recognized by the
state.
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.
2008 presidential election
Presidential candidates
In the
2008
U.S. presidential election, the Green Party nominated former
six-term Congresswoman
Cynthia
McKinney of Georgia as its 2008
Presidential nominee and
Rosa Clemente as its 2008
Vice Presidential
nominee at the party's 2008 National Convention on July 12, 2008 in
Chicago, IL. McKinney received less than 0.5% of the vote
nationwide.
The following candidates also ran for the nomination:
Former Green Party presidential nominee and 2004 independent
candidate,
Ralph Nader [5310], announced in
early 2008 that he would seek the presidency for the fourth time,
running with San Francisco lawyer and Green politician
Matt Gonzalez as his running mate. However,
Nader and Gonzalez declined to seek the Green Party's nomination.
Despite not being a formally announced candidate at the time, Nader
won the Feb. 5th California and Massachusetts Green Party
primaries.
Withdrawn candidates:
Green Party presidential debates 8
Eight
candidates for the Green Party presidential nomination spoke at a
forum at the Green Party Annual National Meeting [5313], 13
July 2007, in Reading,
PA
.
The
Green Party of
Minnesota hosted a Green Party Presidential Forum on Saturday
Jan.
5th
at 5pm in Minneapolis
.
On 13
January 2008, Sunday, 2 p.m., a Green Party presidential candidate
debate was held in San
Francisco
. The
Green Party of
Alameda County, along
with the San Francisco Green Party and the National Delegates
Committee of the
Green Party
of California, sponsored the Northern California Green
Presidential Candidates debate. About 800 people attended the
debate with most paying a suggested donation of $10 to $20to attend
the forum. The three-hour event was co-moderated by
Cindy Sheehan and
Aimee Allison.
Primaries and caucuses
Green
Party primaries in Arkansas, California
, Illinois, and Massachusetts were held on February 5, 2008. California
and Massachusetts were won by
Ralph
Nader, while Illinois was won by
Cynthia McKinney.
Washington,
DC
held the DC
Statehood Green Party primary on February 12 which was won by
McKinney as was the February 19 Wisconsin Green
primary. On May 13 Mckinney won the Nebraska primary with
57% of the vote.
Other states will hold caucuses or will establish their candidate
choices via state conventions. Most states will allocate their
delegates proportionally based on the support for various Green
Party presidential candidates.
2008 State and local elections results
In 2008
Richard Carroll
was elected to the
Arkansas House of
Representatives. Carroll was the first Green to be elected to
the
Arkansas General
Assembly. However, Carroll announced on April 29, 2009 his
departure from the Greens and registering as a Democrat, citing
personal ideological differences that were more in line of the
Democratic Party.
Rebekah Kennedy,
running for the
US
Senate in Arkansas, received the highest percentage of the vote
(20.6%) of any Green ever running for a
US
Senate seat.
Nomination delegate count
Ballot access
There are
31 states plus the District of
Columbia
where the Green Party has achieved a ballot line in
2008 representing just over 70% of voters[5314] and 68% of Electoral
Votes.
Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente were write-in candidates in all other states
with the exceptions of Oklahoma
and South
Dakota
which do not allow write-ins[5315] [5316].
History of ballot access
The following table is the history of the Green Party's
presidential race ballot access:
Structure and composition
Committees
The Green Party has two national committees recognized by the
Federal Election
Commission:
Green National Committee
The Green National Committee is the central governing body of the
Green Party of the United States. The GNC is composed of delegates
from each of the affiliated state party organizations and from
recognized caucuses. The GNC oversees all national party functions
and elects a Steering Committee to oversee day-to-day
operations.
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is composed of seven Co-chairs together with
the Secretary and Treasurer. The Co-chairs of the Green Party of
the United States are currently (2009 August): Jill Bussiere (WI),
Sanda Everette (CA),
Mike Feinstein
(CA), Farheen Hakeem (MN),
Jason
Nabewaniec (NY), David Strand (MN), and Craig Thorsen (CA).
They are elected from the delegates, who serve on the Green
National Committee. The Secretary is Holly Hart (IA). The Treasurer
is Jody Grage (WA).
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 (newspaper editorial board)
- International
- Media
- Merchandising
- Outreach
- Peace Action
- Platform
- Presidential Campaign Support
- Steering
Caucuses
Three identity caucuses have achieved representation on the GNC:
Three other caucuses are working toward formal recognition by the
GNC:
The Blue Greens (workers' caucus) and the Native American caucus
also exist, but have not established organizing committees as of
yet.
State Parties
- achieved 2008
ballot line
- not yet affiliated with the national, Green Party US
[5319]
- currently inactive
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
[5367]. 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. 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.
Office holders
The Green Party currently has at least 193 party members in elected
office in the U.S. as of December 14, 2008. By comparison there are
currently 207 elected
Libertarians serving in
office across the United States. In April 2007 the Greens reached
the most officeholders serving at one time ever when there were 230
greens in office
[5368]. With the November 2008 election of
Richard Carroll as
State Rep. District 39 (Little Rock) the Green Party gained its
first ever state Rep. in Arkansas and the only currently elected
state representative of any nationally organized
Third Party.
Gayle McLaughlin, is mayor of Richmond,
California. With a population of 103,000, Richmond is
the largest city in the United States to have a Green Party mayor.
There are
also Green Party members on city councils (or equivalent) in
San
Francisco, Boston
, Cleveland
, Minneapolis, Madison
(5 Members), and New Haven
. [5369].
Presidential tickets
List of national conventions/Meetings
- 1996
- Los Angeles,
CA
- 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
- 2009
- Durham,
NC
See also
References
- See full text of the Boston Proposal
- Manski, Ben. " Green & Growing: 2004 in Perspective". Greens.org.
June 20, 2003.
- Glick, Ted. " A Green Party 'Safe States' Strategy".
ZNet. July 1,
2003.
- Greenfield, Steve (March 20, 2005) "The Decline of the Green Party."
CommonDreams.org.
- Green National Convention
- "Rigged Convention; Divided Party'"
- "Response to Hill/Miller" GreensRespond.com
- "Forrest Hill (I)" GreensRespond.com
- Green Party Tempest
- [1]
- Nader Announces Pick for Vice President - The
Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
- [2]
- [3]
External links
Explanations of the ten key values
,[5307] Mountain
Party 2004 nominee for Governor of WV and 2006 nominee for
U.S. Senate
City Council
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