From the Winter 2010 issue of Green Pages:
Greens play key role in growing anti-nuke movement
by Michael Canney; Green Party of Florida
Nuclear expansion threatens residents of the “Sunshine State,” but resistance is growing. read more »
Nicholas Ruiz III has announced his campaign for US House of Representatives representing Florida’s 24th House District. He needs to gather 5000 signatures on a ballot access petition to avoid paying a substantial filing fee. His campaign has set an initial goal of raising $10,000 as a foundation for success.
The district includes portions of Orange, Volusia, Seminole and Brevard counties. His campaign plans a “listening tour” of the district. Ruiz is author or co-author of three books, and donations to his campaign can be made here.
Maryland’s Green Party has four candidates this year, one of whom has already been elected to office. Mike Cornell was elected to the Village of River Hill city council in April of this year. On the ballot Tuesday are Christine Nagle who is running for city council in Prince George’s, Dan Robinson who is running for town council in Tacoma Park, and George Gluck who is running for County Council in Montgomery County.
In Virginia three candidates will be offering on Tuesday. John Reeder is running for county board in Arlington, Josh Ruebner is up for House of Delegates in the 47th district, and Mark Antell is running for the House of Delegates in the 48th district.
The Florida Greens are offering Javier Del Sol for Mayor of Lake Worth.
Javier Del Sol is running for Mayor of Lake Worth, FL. His campaign sent out the most recent weekly titled “Have we inspired you?” The full text can be found here.
You can donate to his campaign here
Javier maintains the largest community organic garden in Palm Beach County. His gardening programs turns school yards into sanctuaries, butterfly gardens, and micro organic farms. He has taught generations of Lake Worth’s children about the importance of maintaining a balance with nature by using gardens as the classroom. The next time you spend an afternoon gardening, bring a kid along. The blooms may only last a season, but the memories will be a lifetime.
Javier del Sol is the Green candidate for mayor of Lake Worth, Florida. Javier has promised to run a different kind of campaign: he and his volunteers will bike and walk for transportation, stay conscious of the campaign’s carbon footprint and true costs of products, take only small individual donations, perform community service, participate in a series of public issue forums, inspire and educate community members, and of course, have fun doing it all. His campaign is innovative, but not unprecedented: Cara Jennings of the Green Party has been elected to the Lake Worth City Commission twice.
Lake Worth is a diverse city of 35,000 people in Palm Beach county, with a bounty of public parks and open space, including one of the last remaining large public beaches in Southeast Florida. As mayor, Javier del Sol would ensure that public lands benefit the whole community, develop land trusts, and work towards energy independence for Lake Worth. He hopes to encourage small businesses in the city, and provide incentives to businesses that implement sustainable practices and offer a living wage. Javier also supports recreation, arts, and sports programs, humanitarian solutions to social problems, and education to promote family planning and crime prevention.
Just a glance at the 41-year record of community activism on Javier del Sol’s website should convince anyone that he is serious about working hard for positive change. Please help Javier del Sol make his Green vision a reality in Lake Worth by making a small donation to his campaign today.
Members of the Green Party work daily recruiting candidates, educating voters, lobbying their local and state governments, serving on local boards and city councils, and lately, challenging obstructive and unequal election and campaigning laws in court. Below is a round-up of some the latest legal moves and victories won by state Green Parties across the country. Your support of the Green Party on all levels is vital if we are going to continue to work for better election laws and candidate recruitment.
Read on for news from Arkansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Connecticut about how Greens are working for better election laws. 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.
Craig Pittman of the St. Petersburg Times recently reported that the Green Party of Florida, along with allied groups, successfully gained legal standing to challenge the federal permit of a new nuclear plant in Levy County. This means that planners of the nuke plant will need to address issues with the ecological impact of the plant, such as where to store the radioactive waste.
Progress Energy’s plans for its new Levy County nuclear plant hit another potential roadblock Wednesday when an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that the Green Party of Florida and two other groups can challenge the plant’s federal permit.
On April 14, Michael Canney earned 36% of the vote in his bid to knock off 12 year incumbent Orien Hills Alachua City Commission District 4 (Alachua County, Florida).
Posted on his website, Canney states:
As a public citizen, I will continue to raise the issues that I introduced in this campaign (see the Platform page for a basic idea) and that I pledged to address if elected to the city commission. I have been and will continue to be an “activist” for the causes I believe in, and the principles I hold dear.
As this blog now evolves from a campaign website to a community affairs journal and a discussion forum about local issues that affect us all, I invite and welcome your participation and your ideas.
Check out his website.
Canney looks like a great candidate and we hope he stays engaged in local government and challenges for office again.
ht/Brent McM
The Green Party of Suffolk County issued a Social Media Release via pitchengine.com announcing the election of Suffolk County Green Matthew Lavery to the Green Party House Campaign Committee. In the release they point to his experience in the Green Party in Norwich, Norfolk England, and his work on a campaign for the European Parliament for Rupert Read, who is a Norwich City Councilor. The announcement includes a video.
Indian Country Today covers an appearance in Seattle March 18 – 19 for discussions on diversity and environmental stewardship by Winnona LaDuke, Green Party Vice-Presidential nominee in 1996 and 2000.
The High Springs Herald carries a story about Michael Canney, who is running for Seat 4 in the April 14th Alachua (FL) City Commission election. His website includes information about Alachua City Manager Clovis Watson Jr., who it seems resigned, and now is about to be re-appointed without discussion. H/T to Anita Stewart for the story, posted to her FaceBook page.
In this article at the News Gazette, Republican Mayoral nominee Rex Bradfield bemoans his loss in that race, expresses dismay that the voters voted along party lines, and explains that he thought the Green Party nominee Durl Kruse would take votes away from the Democrat.
Over at Independent Political Report, writer Ross Levin covers the campaign of Lee Scott Laugenour for Lenox, Massachusetts town select board. Langenhour is an active member of the Green-Rainbow Party and, according to this article at the Berkshire Eagle, is a ten year resident of the town, serves on the board of the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, and has been married to his husband for four years. To carry the thanks forward, Levin pays kudos to Green Ferret.
Levin also writes about Green Mayor Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond, CA here, noting that she is pushing for green building requirements in that city. The Contra Costa Times reports that the proposal is
“in the middle of the pack when it comes to how stringent its requirements would be for commercial construction, and a little above the middle when it comes to residential construction.”
Finally, in a press release the Green Party national office announced that the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on the Green’s constitutional challenge to the manipulation of presidential elections. The statement says that the court has issued a ruling that, while dismissing the plaintiff for lack of standing, did not reject the validity of his arguments challenging the Electoral College based on the Mal-Apportionment Penalty clause of the 14th Amendment. The case was filed pro-se by Asa Gordon of the DC Statehood Green Party.
The Green Party of Florida has official permission to investigate the “Florida Five”, five previously unknown candidates last fall for state legislative races that all paid $2,000 filing fees at the last minute in hotly contested races between Democrats and Republicans.
See past coverage of the Florida Five here.
On Friday the Palm Beach Post reported that the Florida Greens may proceed with their subpoenas of financial records and other data collection. Throughout the latter half of 2008 the Florida Green Party attempted to contact the five candidates in question but to no avail. Political insiders suspect that all five were plants by the Republican Party to throw the election, but there is as yet no proof.
Pasco County Circuit Judge Stanley Mills is allowing the Greens to subpoena testimony and records to get to the bottom of who, if anyone, was behind the effort, although the candidates ultimately had little or no impact on the elections.
read more »
In a Press Release, the Green Party of the United States called the decision to include two supporters of single payer health care in the circle of experts at a White House health care policy summit a “modest but important victory for universal health care.”
On Thursday morning, Green Party members learned that the White House had relented after receiving numerous complaints, and invited two Single-payer advocates: Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the author and main sponsor of HR 676, legislation for Single-payer program.
Earlier the Green Party had issued a press release calling for widespread protest of the exclusion of these voices.
The St.Petersburg Times reports on the decision in favor of the Florida Green Party in the case of the “Florida Five”.
Ross Levin, a commentator here and reporter at Independent Political Report, has added the website Op Ed News to his collection of outlets with an article about the Reverend Billy’s campaign for mayor of New York City. Downtown Express covers the good Reverend as well. There is also a piece at MSNBC and also at New York Daily News. The New York Times covered his bid, as did The Hook.
Arkansas Green Richard Carroll has introduced legislation that, according to WXTV, will require inclusion of all ballot qualified candidates in debates held at facilities which receive public money.
The Minnesota Independent reports on Cam Gordon’s campaign for re-election to the Minneapolis City Council. According to the article, Gordon may be one incumbent Green without much major party opposition in his race.
The Mystery of the “Florida Five”, five candidates last fall that changed their registration to Green Party, paid a $2,000 filing fee and entered hotly contested state legislative races in Florida, took another turn when a judge ruled that the Florida Green Party could proceed to subpoena financial records and question one of those five candidates to determine where she got the money to pay her filing fee when her net worth was only $5,200.
The suspicion is that the five candidates were planted by Republicans or a group supporting Republicans for the purpose of tilting those five races toward the Republican candidate. In none of those races did the Florida Five affect the outcome. The judges decision also paves the way for the Florida Green Party to subpoena and question others of the “Florida Five”.
The Florida Green Party is seeking evidence to support a formal complaint with the State Division of Elections.
More on this story at The Ledger.
Past GPW Coverage of the Florida Five:
Florida Five Update: Sarah Roman
More on Florida’s Mystery Greens
The Florida Five
The Florida Situation
What’s Going On In Florida
UPDATE
Broward Palm Beach.com reports on Sarah Roman
If you’re worried that the 22-year-old from Port Richey has found herself in a Jesse Ventura-style world of hurt, don’t, because Roman’s got herself a high-powered lawyer named Jeff Lucas. {snip} Lucas is a big-time GOP dude, a former head of the Pasco County Republican Party, donor to political campaigns including those of Gov. Charlie Crist and President Bush, and financial supporter to fine institutions such as the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican Party of Florida.
Green Party files Petition to Intervene in NRC licensing of Levy County Nuclear Plant,joins Nuclear Information and Resource Service to challenge deficiencies in Progress Energy Combined Operating License Application (COLA)
Gainesville, FL — On February 6, 2009 the Green Party of Florida (GPF, http://www.floridagreens.org) joined with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS, http://www.nirs.org) and the Ecology Party to file a legal challenge to a new nuclear power plant proposed by Progress Energy Florida (PEF) for a site in Levy County, near Inglis, Florida.
The filing is a formal Petition to Intervene in the NRC’s licensing process for nuclear power plants, the latest in a series of such actions taken by NIRS and other groups nationwide to protect the health and safety of the public and the natural resources that are placed at risk by this industry. The interventions by parties with standing, which must follow rules established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), are intended to stop these nuclear boondoggles before construction work starts and millions of dollars are wasted.
read more »
By Jennifer Sullivan, “Area coordinator for the Florida State Green Party, Spring Hill” in the Dec. 3 St. Petersburg Times:
Bring in change that helps people
Nationally we look to be changing for the better, politically. But locally and statewide? We look to be in a red county after all. In a frenzy for change we left in what many say is a puppet-like, do-nothing District 44 state representative, Robert Schenck; U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite flip-flopped once again after getting re-elected. Before Election Day she fiercely opposed the bailout, but now (safely back in D.C. for two more years) she’s thinking some bail-outs may be okay.
Will this county continue to favor the building industry and be anti-people? In goes yet another approval of a Wal-Mart, including the huge space-wasting parking lot. Where are the sidewalks for children and families to safely walk on to get healthful fresh air and exercise? What’s up with so few plans for bike lanes and better mass transit? Will dumb road project boondoggles continue to dominate? (Elgin Boulevard comes to mind.)
read more »
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