Green Party Watch

This weekend two of the more successful State Green Parties are holding state conventions: The Illinois Green Party and the Green Party of Michigan.

At Loyola University’s Lake Shore Campus in Chicago the Illinois Green Party have organized three days of workshops and events beginning Friday July 30 and concluding Sunday August 1. A number of Illinois Green candidates will be speaking, highlighted by keynote addresses by gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney and US Senate candidate LeAlan Jones.

Click here for more information.

The Green Party of Michigan is holding their State Membership Meeting and Nominating Convention in Lansing, MI, where candidates for local, county, state and federal offices will be nominated for the fall election. The Convention is both Saturday July 31 and Sunday Aug. 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Click here for more information.

Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein has set a goal of raising $125,000 by mid-September. Once Stein raises at least $125,000, her campaign is eligible for 1-to-1 matching funds. Here is an email she recent sent to supporters:

The Arkansas Green Party nominated several candidates at its state convention on July 24th. The candidates include two former state representatives, Jim Lendall for Governor and Bobby Tullis for Treasurer, as well as Rebekah Kennedy for Attorney General, who earned over 20% of the vote for US Senate in 2008. Here is the list of candidates after the convention:

U.S. Senate – John Gray – - http://www.johngrayforussenate.com
Congress – District 1 – Ken Adler –  http://www.kenadlerforcongress.org
Congress District 2 – Lewis Kennedy
Congress District 4 – Joshua Drake
Governor – Jim Lendall – jelendall [at] comcast [dot] net
Secretary of State – David Orr
Attorney General- Rebekah Kennedy
State Auditor – Mary Willis
State Treasurer – Bobby Tullis
State Senate District 18 – Greg Slocum
State Rep. District 33 – Conrad Harvin
State Rep. District 90 – Mark Swaney
Saline County Collector – Joy Ballard
Johnson County Coroner – Ray Wood

Endorsements in non-partisan races:
Howard Smith – West Memphis City Council
Jacob Hollaway – Jonesboro City Council

The Green Party of Connecticut announced today that Don Alexander is running for State Representative, House District 64 (Torrington, Sharon, Cornwall, Goshen, and Salisbury) this fall.
A resident of Torrington, Alexander is a quality assurance engineer at a state company. He is married, with three children. He is veteran of the Navy. This is his first time to ever run for office.
Alexander said he is running a positive, issue based campaign with no mudslinging. His campaign will address many issues but focus on:
1. Creating new “Green” jobs with tax incentives for new employees and start up costs for local companies
2. Building a world class state single payer care health care system to model for the nation
3. Restoring education funding and education jobs with free college tuition for all state students at local community colleges. read more »

The Charleston Gazette reports that Jesse Johnson has filed as the West Virginia Mountain Party (WV’s Green Party affiliate) candidate for the US Senate special election to fill the seat left by the late Robert Byrd. Johnson is a well-known campaigner against mountaintop removal and an experienced Mountain Party standard-bearer, having previously run for US Senate and twice for governor as the party’s nominee.

The Northern Virginia Green Party will launch its new Internet Radio Show Thursday, the 29th, at 10 p.m. It is called NoVa Greens Talk and will feature Bo Webb, an anti-mountaintop removal activist. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nova_greens/2010/07/30/nova-greens-talk-ending-mountaintop-removal

Jesse Johnson of the West Virginia Mountain Party needs to raise $1,740 by today (Friday 23 July) to pay the filing fee to enter the race for US Senate as the candidate of the West Virginia Mountain Party, West Virginia’s state affiliate of Green Party US.

You can donate online at the jesse4ussenate facebook page.

Jesse Johnson is well known to many Greens for his 2008 bid for the Green Party’s presidential nomination. He has previously run for US Senate and twice for governor of West Virginia, receiving 4.5% of the vote in 2008 as well as the endorsements of the Sierra Club and the Citizens’ Action Committee. The West Virginia Mountain Party is WV’s only party that opposes mountaintop removal coal mining, which Johnson has called “ground zero for global climate change”.

Help us put a tireless fighter for the Earth on the ballot: donate to Jesse Johnson’s campaign now.

The Green Party of Ohio will be having a state wide convention on Saturday, July 24th., Room 100 in the Northwood Bldg., 2231 North High St. Columbus Ohio. 10 am to 4pm.

MEET Green Party of Ohio’s Candidates
Dennis Spisak Governor
Anita Rios Lt. Governor
Dennis Lambert 89th Ohio State House Representative
Rich Stevenson US Rep District 1

Press Conference at 10:30 a.m.

For the first time in history Ohio voters had the option of requesting a Green Party ballot in a primary election and over a thousand Ohio voters rejected the two corporate parties and voted Green. This was an important step forward on a long road towards true political change but there are many more steps that we must take if we are to build a political tool for concrete and meaningful social change. So we, the newly elected Central Committee of the Ohio Green Party, are calling out to all those who voted Green in the May 4th primary, and anyone else who wants to get involved (regardless of party affiliation) to join us in Columbus on July 24, 10am to 4pm.

Ballot Access News reports that the Hawaii Green Party has filed to run a candidate for US Senate. The candidate is Jim Brewer, who polled 1.6% in 2006 as the Green Party’s candidate for Hawaii Governor.

Illinois Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney will be hosting a joint fundraiser with 5th district congressional candidate Matt Reichel on Wednesday 28 July at the Celtic Crown in West Chicago. Check out the details here.

Richard Winger reports at Ballot Access News:

The Arkansas News Bureau reports on the US Senate race in Arkansas:

The poll of 793 likely Arkansas voters, conducted Saturday through automated phone calls, found that 57 percent said they would vote for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Boozman and 32 percent for Democratic incumbent Lincoln if the election were today.

Another 3 percent said they would vote for independent candidate Trevor Drown and 2 percent said they would vote for Green Party candidate John Gray, with the remaining 6 percent undecided.

Hat tip to Independent Political Report for the story.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on calls for investigation of the murder of Rwandan Democratic Green Party Vice President Andre Kagwa Rwisereka:

Rwanda’s election season is in full swing and prominent critics of President Paul Kagame are turning up dead ahead of the Aug. 9 vote. Are the killings politically motivated?

That possibility has United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concerned enough that he has urged Mr. Kagame’s government to conduct a full investigation into the latest death: that of Democratic Green Party vice chairman Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, who was found last week nearly decapitated.

But the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) says that an autopsy is needed after conflicting police statements have muddied the waters. read more »

Jesse Johnson is the West Virginia Mountain Party candidate for US Senate.

He needs to raise $1,740 by Friday to cover the filing fee to get on the ballot and he needs your help.

Donations should be sent overnight mail to:

Jesse Johnson for US Senate 2010
PO Box 446
Pinch, WV 25156-0446

Labor activists from throughout New York State have started a committee to support the gubernatorial campaign of Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins.

Howie Hawkins is a member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Howie presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS. He is the former Director of CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for an economy that is cooperatively owned, democratically controlled, and ecologically sustainable.

“I’m supporting Howie Hawkins because I believe that working people will never mover forward in the political field until we support candidates and a party by and for workers. The Democrats and Republicans are fundamentally creatures of the corporations that fund them and therefore represent their interests. Howie Hawkins is a working Teamster who understands this question, and who will fight with us for a working class agenda,” said Jon Flanders, a railroad machinist, past president of Local 1145 of International Association of Machinists, co-chair of Railroad Workers United, a cross craft caucus of North American railroad workers. and a trustee of the Troy Area Labor Council. read more »