Green Party Watch

Hat tip to Ballot Access News for this story:

On February 6, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania jury convicted State Representative H. William DeWeese of using state resources to work on partisan political activity during the period 2000-2006. DeWeese was in the Democratic leadership in the House during those years. He directed staff to use government employees and government computers to help challenge the 2004 petition of Ralph Nader, and the 2006 statewide Green Party petition. See this story. DeWeese is currently in the legislature, and has been a state legislator since he was elected in a special election in May, 1976.

For background see earlier article posted by Gregg Jocoy and My article at IPR.

I arrived in Maryland on November 22. Andy Jacobs was there one day before me and Darryl Bonner was already there earlier working on the Green Party petition (and the Libertarian petition when it became available – the Greens started earlier). Several other people came and went for parts of the drive, but the three of us gathered the bulk of the Libertarian petitions. Darryl gathered a good chunk of the Green Party petitions and Andy and I gathered somewhat small numbers of signatures for the Green Party as well.

Although it was the same time of year, the weather was about 20 degrees colder than it was four years ago in Maryland, and we had several snow storms. Temperatures were frequently in the 20s and 30s, sometimes with strong winds. Since the vast majority of places we work are outdoors, it made it more difficult to stop people.

read more »

From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:

From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:

In the most recent piece the Arizona Green Party is covered as they go to go to US District Court hoping to overturn laws that shorten the deadline for filing petitions and which forbid out-of-state petitioners.

Only slightly older is this piece which discusses recent polls which indicate that the Green Party of England and Wales may elect their first Member of Parliament. It includes a link to an article at The Independent which says that Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has an 8% lead over the Conservative challenger.

But the most significant development is the candidature of Caroline Lucas herself, Britain’s most accomplished Green politician. Articulate, passionate, radical without seeming threatening, the former Oxfam adviser has been MEP (editorial note: Member of the European Parliament) for South-east England for 10 years, and is a world away from the old image of the Green party activist as someone who lived in a tepee eating brown rice.

As reported here at Green Party Watch, speculation of a Green Senatorial campaign backed by organized labor in Arkansas has Greens there and across the nation buzzing at the prospect. Rebekah Kennedy, the Green Party standard bearer in 2008, won 20.5% of the vote with few financial resources.

Now John Gray has announced that he is seeking the Green Party’s nomination for the seat currently held by Blanche Lincoln. Gray, Mayor of Greenland, AR (population about 1000), is a former employee of the Atomic Energy Agency who became an anti-nuclear activist. He is also a former out-sourcing specialist who says that he helped move close to a thousand jobs out of the United States to Mexico. According to videos posted to Flickr, Gray became disgusted with the corporate greed he was dealing with and left when he was asked to help move these jobs from Mexico to China.

read more »

A very grateful hat tip to Ballot Access News.

Connecticut Public Funding Law Held Unconstitutional Because it Discriminates Severely Against Minor Parties & Independent Candidates

August 27th, 2009

On August 27, U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill, a Clinton appointee, held that Connecticut’s public funding law for candidates is so discriminatory in favor of the two major parties, and against all other parties and candidates, that it is unconstitutional in its entirety. The opinion is 138 pages long. A link to the decision is found in this news story from Connecticut News Junkie. Thanks to Ken Krayeske for this news. The case is Green Party of Ct. v Garfield, 3:06cv1030. The Libertarian Party is a co-plaintiff. read more »

In a report at Ballot Access News, Richard Winger reports that a new date, September 23, has been set for depositions to be taken in the case of the “mystery Greens”. Five people unknown to any Florida Green Party members filed to run for office in races where the Republican and Democratic Parties were both fielding candidates, paying a substantial filing fee to do so.

After they filed to run several people, including this writer, attempted to reach them to find out what their plans were. Contact was minimal and as far as can be determined no actual campaigning happened. The state chair filed suit to find out where the money to pay the filing fees came from. According to brief discussions with Floridians attending the national convention, the depositions have been delayed as lawyers representing the “mystery Greens” dropped the case and new attorneys had to be found.

The Illinois Green Party issued a press release today calling Governor Quinn’s “amendatory veto” of HB732 support for a “Protect Incumbents Act”. The bill, vetoed with provisions that would allow it to become law if amended to include an unrelated election law provision he wants, according to Ballot Access News

The full text of the press release is behind the fold.

read more »

Sounds simple enough. Elections should be free…or at least access to the electoral process should be…and all candidates should be treated equally.

Sadly, as articles posted here yesterday show, that is not always the case.

For many years the website Ballot Access News was the nation’s sole source of consistent and balanced news about election access and fairness. While that site remains the most complete and best documented source for such news, another effort has taken shape to bring even more attention to these issues so fundamental to our democratic process.

Free and Equal benefits from having Ballot Access News editor Richard Winger on their board, but they do provide additional information, which we will be sharing with you here at Green Party Watch. To read a few of their articles simply click on this article’s headline. In the meantime, do yourself and democracy a bit of a favor and subscribe to Ballot Access News’ print edition. It’s chock full of information, and exceptionally readable.

read more »

The Green Party of Arkansas’ website is down. According to party spokesperson Mark Swaney, the website has become “buggy”, with links not working and other “behind the scenes” difficulties. It has been pulled down for an update.

Richard Winger of Ballot Access News was apparently the first to notice that the state party’s donation page was not working. Facing a fresh ballot access petition drive, the Green Party of Arkansas would benefit from any donations readers here would care to make. Donations can be mailed to:

Green Party of Arkansas
PO Box 2423
Little Rock, AR 72203

Arkansas state law apparently allows unlimited donations to a political party, providing that public disclosure is made. The state party hopes to raise at least $10,000 for this ballot access drive. Donations are needed now to help them secure ballot access for a third time.

The December issue of Ballot Access News reports on 2008 October Registration Totals by political party for those states that have party registration, 21 states do not.

According to this, the Green Party’s registration numbers are at 255,019 (0.25%). This is below the October 2004 numbers (298,701, 0.34%) but still over 20% higher than October 2000 (193,332, 0.22%). These numbers are heavily dependent on California (118,416 registered Greens as of Oct 2008) followed by New York (28,983), Maine (27,354), and Pennsylvania (16,686).

Other states with reporting numbers include: Alaska (2,926), Arizona (4,009), Colorado (5,526), Connecticut (1,906), Delaware (587), DC (4,548), Florida (6,007), Iowa (356), Kentucky (329), Louisiana (1,040), Maryland (8,384), Massachusetts (7,522), Nebraska (1,041), Nevada (3,349), New Jersey (953), New Mexico (5,290), Oregon (8,834), and West Virginia (973).

In an email received today from the chair of the Green Party of Washington State, Maryrose Asher announced that the Secretary of State had confirmed that the Green Party ticket will be on that state’s ballot.

According to a chart at Ballot Access News, this puts the McKinney/Clemente Green Party ticket on 24 ballot lines to date.

Those willing to help gather signatures are encouraged to visit the Ballot Access Committee webpage at the national party site.

Well, maybe it’s not as dramatic as all that, but in fact, Ballot Access News(BAN) does attribute their report to Yager of VA. In the report, BAN announces that Cynthia McKinney has secured enough committed votes to win a first ballot victory in her race for the Green Party Presidential nomination.

The only “problem”, if there is one, is that simply having the committed delegates is not enough, for McKinney or any of the other candidates. Unless those delegates show up at the convention in numbers high enough, her nomination is not sewn up.

Apparently the national party has decided to charge each state for proxy votes to be cast at the national convention, and some states may face difficulties fielding their entire slate of delegates, even with proxy votes.

Green Party Watch and Green News and Opinion will report more news on this front as it comes available.