Green Party (United States)

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.

Unlike Green Parties in other nations, Greens in the United States have 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). The highest-ranking elected Green in the nation is currently John Eder, a State Representative in Maine. The Party has 305,000 registered members in states that allow party registration, as well as thousands of supporters in the rest of the country."Green Party Ballot Status and Voter Registration Totals (United States)". Greens.org. Retrieved April 12, 2006.

Greens emphasize decentralization and local autonomy, in keeping with the Green commitment to non-hierarchical participatory democracy, so it is perhaps not surprising that the strength of the Green Party does not derive from a central national organization.

Ten Key Values of the Green Party

The Ten Key Values of the Green Party include and expand upon the Four Pillars of the Green Party originated in Europe and practiced by the worldwide green parties. The Global Greens Charter, signed by many of these parties in Australia in 2001, was based on the Ten Values and Four Pillars, reduced to Six Principles for brevity. The ten values are still used by most of the state and provincial parties in North America. Over 20 years of use, there are many different explanations of what the ten original terms mean, and many policies that represent examples of the principles in action, but the terms themselves are relatively constant:

Community-based economics, e.g. LETS, local purchasing, co-housing, Community-supported agriculture
Decentralization, e.g. via Bioregional democracy, sustainable agriculture, regional transmission grids
Ecological Wisdom, e.g. ending human-caused extinction, promoting ecological health
Feminism, e.g. health security especially for mothers and children, and thus a focus on environmental health, gender equity in government; also referred to as Postpatriarchal Values, e.g. de-emphasizing competition and encouraging cooperation
Grassroots democracy, e.g. via electoral reform to improve deliberative democracy
Non-violence, e.g. via de-escalation, peace processes
Personal and global responsibility, e.g. moral purchasing, voluntary simplicity
Respect for diversity, e.g. via fair trade, bioregional democracy
Social justice, e.g. harm reduction rather than zero tolerance, a living wage
Future Focus/Sustainability, e.g. measuring well-being effect over seven generations, leading to what is called seven-generation sustainability, Renewable energy and Conservation, New Urbanism, Zero waste

The Green Party's own description of the Ten Key Values can be found here.

History

1996 presidential election

At a 1995 national gathering of Greens from many organizations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a measure to put a candidate for president on 40 states was adopted. Those who wished to run a candidate for president continued to pursue this 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 primary ballot, and 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 their vice-presidential candidate. The pair were on the ballot in twenty-two states and received 685,128 votes, or 0.7% of all votes cast. ^*

1997-1999

In the aftermath of the 1996 election, representatives from thirteen state Green Parties joined to form the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). 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 state-wide Green parties continued to form. Many of these parties affiliated themselves with both the ASGP and the G/GPUSA.

2000 presidential election

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 ^*.

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) was passed by the ASGP at its next annual gathering, but did not pass at the G/GPUSA Congress in Carbondale, Illinois (although the rejection was controversial for a number of reasons, and lead to the exodus of a significant number of prominent G/GPUSA activists to the GPUS, who later formed The Green Alliance as a vehicle for "movement" politics within the Green Party). The ASGP then changed its name to the "Green Party of the United States," adopted some of the G/GPUSA's structures (identity caucuses, for example), and was granted status as the official National Committee of the Green Party by the FEC in 2001. Today the G/GPUSA survives as a small membership organization, led by the few Greens who opposed the Boston Proposal. Though for a time they represented themselves otherwise, today they describe themselves as "a national non-profit membership organization," not as a political party.

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."Green & Growing: 2004 in Perspective". Greens.org. June 20, 2003. 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.Glick, Ted. "A Green Party 'Safe States' Strategy". ZNet. July 1, 2003. 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

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).

On June 26, 2004, the Green National Convention nominated David Cobb, who promised to focus on building the party, despite a sizable contingent of delegates voting "No Nominee" with the intent to later vote for a Nader endorsement. Pat LaMarche of Maine was nominated for vice-president. Even though Cobb and Nader had different strategies; Cobb supported focusing on "safe states" (designed to avoid pushing the election to a Bush victory) and Nader intended to cover all states; Greens disagree as to whether this strategic difference was the primary issue dominating the nomination.

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. Other Green Party members responded that the analysis they gave in the article was fundemantally 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.

A vigorous debate continues within the Green Party regarding the place of the party in what many party members see as a dysfunctional electoral system.

Structure and composition

Committees

The Green Party has three national committees:

the Green National Committee (GNC)
the National Green Party House Campaign Committee (NGPHCC)
the National Green Party Senatorial Campaign Committee (NGPSCC)

The GNC is recognized by the Federal Elections Commission; the other two, similar to Congressional elections committees in the Democratic and Republican parties, are not yet recognized, being recently established.

National party co-chairs

The co-chairs of the Green Party of the United States are currently: Marc Sanson, Gwendolyn Wages, Jody Grage Haug, Steve Kramer, Rebecca Rotzler, Pat LaMarche, and Budd Dickinson. 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 ^*. Californians have elected 67 (all of them in nonpartisan-ballot elections) of the 204 office-holding Greens nationwide as of January, 2004. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (27), Massachusetts (23), Maine (13), and Wisconsin (19). Wisconsin has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country, and the highest victory rate at over 60% over the state party's 20 year history.

In California in 2000, the Green Party's nominee for president (Ralph Nader) received 405,722 votes; In the 2002 Governor's race, the city of San Francisco gave more votes to the Green Party candidate, Peter Camejo, than to the Republican candidate. Matt Gonzalez, who served as president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and who came close to winning the San Francisco mayoral contest in 2003, is a Green Party member (although these city offices in California are elected by nonpartisan ballot). Jason West, mayor of New Paltz, NY, attained national prominence in 2004 by performing a series of 25 same-sex marriages in that city. John Eder is the highest-ranking Green in the U.S., elected to the Maine state house in 2002 (and re-elected in 2004). The Alaska Green Party has the highest per capita proportion of Greens, receiving 10% of the votes statewide in the 2000 presidential elections.

One challenge that the Green Party (as well as other third parties) face is the difficulty of overcoming repressive ballot access laws in many states. This has prevented the Green Party from reaching a point of critical mass in building party-building momentum in many states.

2004 national ticket and Ralph Nader: an analysis

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.

Late in 2003, Ralph Nader, the Party's 2000 candidate for President, announced that he would run as an independent candidate. Mr. Nader explained that he was not seeking the Green Party's nomination, but would (as an independent) seek the Party's "endorsement". 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."

The Cobb-LaMarche ticket in 2004 appeared on 28 of the 51 ballots around the country; down fromn 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 in 2004 used aggressive tactics to remove Nader and Cobb's names from several state ballots.

Although some Green Party members were upset and some expressed "embarrassment" that Nader was not the party's 2004 candidate, others believed that a serious presidential campaign could be waged with a "home-grown" figure such as Cobb, running away from the spoiler effect. Still other Greens pointed out that the presidential contest should not be the focus of a grassroots party that emphasizes organizing at the local level. Many Greens further argued that Ralph Nader's decision not to seek the Green nomination in 2004 might help the Green Party overcome a widespread mistaken perception that the party was based on a "cult of personality" with Ralph Nader as its central figure.

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.

These claims have been directly contested in an article pointing out that 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, that the number of Green candidacies declined compared to 2002, and that these candidates fared worse than in the past, particularly during the presidential campaign. ^*

List of presidential candidates

1996: Ralph Nader 685,128 votes
2000: Ralph Nader 2,882,000 votes
2004: David Cobb 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 (scheduled for July 27-30)

References

Resources

http://www.greenpartyus.org/fec/fec.html
http://www.greenparties.org/documents/cand_hist.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june00/green_history.html
http://www.gp.org/ – main Green Party in the United States
http://www.greenparty.org/ – Green group that split from main party; not registered as political party in any state
Charlene Spretnak & Fritjof Capra, Green Politics (1984, ISBN 0939680289) – incl. lengthy & influential chapter on first stirrings of U.S. Greens
Mark Satin, New Options for America (1991, ISBN 080931794X) – incl. lengthy & widely discussed chapters on the 1987 and 1990 Green gatherings
Brian Tokar, The Green Alternative (rev. 1994, ISBN 0865713189) – principal statement by prominent member of the original "left Greens" faction
John Rensenbrink, Against All Odds (1999, ISBN 0966062914) – history of U.S. Green organizing during the 1980s and 1990s
Ralph Nader, Crashing the Party (2002, ISBN 0312302584) – memoir of his Green campaign during the 2000 Presidential election
Micah Sifry, Spoiling for a Fight (rev. 2003, ISBN 0415931436) – description & analysis of Green and other "third" party efforts in contemporary U.S.

External links

Explanations of the ten key values

Green political parties | Political parties in the United States

Green Party (USA) | Verda Partio (Usono) | Parti vert (États-Unis) | Green Party (USA) | アメリカ緑の党

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