Green Party Watch

According to a post at Ballot Access News, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has signed legislation which guarantees the Arazona Green Party access to the ballot in 2012 without having to re-petition to do so.

Among many other provisions, it says that when a party qualifies for the ballot, it gets the next two elections, not just the next election. Because the Arizona Green Party had successfully petitioned in 2010, it is now automatically on the 2012 ballot, even though it didn’t meet the already-existing requirements for a party to remain on the ballot (that it poll 5% for Governor, or that it have registration of at least two-thirds of 1% of the state total).

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.