Green Party Watch

Here is the second installment of comprehensive election results from the November 2010 elections, covering Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, and Hawaii:

CT:
Michael DeRosa, Secretary of State: 12,565 votes, 1.2%
Colin Bennet, Comptroller: 12,314 votes, 1.2%
Stephen Fournier, Attorney General: 27,803 votes, 2.7%
David Bue, Treasurer: 8,855 votes, 0.9%
Ken Krayeske, US House CT-1: 2,415 votes, 1.1%
Scott Deshefy, US House CT-2: 3,220 votes, 1.3%
Charlie Pillsbury, US House CT-3: 2,457 votes, 1.2% read more »

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.

The Maui Weekly reports:

The annual State Convention of the Green Party of Hawai‘i (GPHI) will be held on Saturday, May 29, in Honolulu at University Square, 2615 South King Street, Suite 106A, at 10 a.m.

The meeting will convene to elect state party officers, two delegates to the Green Party US (GPUS) annual meeting and choose members of National GP Standing Committees.

Organizers hope to send a delegation to the Green Party of the United States 2010 Annual National Meeting, which will be held from June 24 through 27 in Detroit, Mich. (See www.gp.org.)

For more information, contact State Co-Chair Nikhilananda at 572-8787 or nikhilananda [at] hawaiiantel [dot] net, or State Co-Chair Mark Van Doren at (808) 938-4612 or markandster [at] msn [dot] com.

In a posting at Ballot Access News, Richard Winger reports that the Green Parties of Hawai’i and Arizona have secured enough signatures to assure ballot access for the Greens in those states.

Meanwhile, the Arkansas Greens are moving forward with their ballot access petition while simultaneously moving forward with a law suit which would establish them as ballot qualified. In short, they are covering all bases. To help the Arkansas Greens with a financial contribution, mail a check made out to:

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

Their contribution form is below the fold. You can cut and paste the text into a document, or simply send the info along with your check. Online donations are not being accepted at this time.

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From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:

The Hawaii Green Party is now a ballot-qualified party. The state has already approved the party’s petition, which required 692 valid signatures. The party will now be given its own primary, and anyone can get on the party’s primary ballot with either 25 or 15 signatures, depending on which office. Any registered voter may sign.

Several state Green Parties are collecting signatures to win ballot access for 2010 elections – and beyond! No matter where you are, there is some way to help fellow Greens win the recognition they need from their state governments. Please help any of the following states, and stay tuned for further news from other state parties.

TEXAS

The Green Party of Texas must collect more than 40,000 signatures in the next two months. This is a high hurdle but one that a lot of volunteers can make happen! To help the Texas Greens, contact kat@txgreens.org or call 210-471-1791. The Green Party of Texas is online at http://txgreens.org.

ARKANSAS

The Green Party of Arkansas is set to start a ballot access drive on Saturday March 20th. The drive will last until June 18. The goal of the drive is to collect at least 15,000 signatures, in the expectation that 10,000 of them will be certified. You can make a donation or volunteer at http://arkgreens.org.

ARIZONA

The Arizona Green Party just finished collecting signatures. They turned in nearly 30,000 signatures and are hoping enough will be validated to win ballot access. The Arizona party needs financial support to meet their obligations to collectors who helped get signatures. You can send checks to: Arizona Green Party, P.O. Box 60173, Phoenix, AZ 85082.

HAWAII

Always wanted to take a Hawaiian vacation? If you can get to Hawaii to help collect signatures in the next few weeks, please contact http://www.greenhawaii.org/ to volunteer!

According to ballot access expert Richard Winger, “The Hawaii deadline is April 1, although there is a chance that the deadline is unconstitutionally early. The number of signatures is only 663 and if the Green Party gets on in 2010, that will help it be on automatically in the future.

Two State Green Parties are currently working on petition drives to maintain ballot access.

The Green Party of Hawaii, which has had continuous ballot status since 1992, needs 663 signatures to retain ballot access for 2010. They recently got press for this effort here and here

The Arizona Green Party has a stiffer requirement but they are pounding away at it. They need over 20,000 signatures to win full party recognition, and have supposedly already secured over 12,000. They still need help, so if Greens are looking for warm and sunny vacation ideas contact the Arizona Green Party.

The Green movement lost another great person yesterday as Hawaiian Green Ira Rohter passed away Monday. I don’t know much about him so if anyone could share their experiences about Ira in the comments section, it would be greatly appreciated.

HONOLULU — University of Hawaii at Manoa Political Science professor Ira Rohter passed away Monday after more than 40 years on the job.

Rohter earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Michigan State University in 1967 and joined UH Manoa in 1968, teaching political science.Rohter was most widely known as co-chair for Hawaii Green Party, which he helped found in 1992. He was also on the board of the Hawaii Clean Elections Project and was the first vice president of the Hawaii Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.

Friends said Rohter died of an illness he contracted last week.

“I’m personally very saddened to hear of Ira’s death,” Hawaii Democratic Party Chair Brian Schatz said in a statement. “He was a progressive thinker who was passionate about making Hawaii a better place … He understood the need for Hawaii to achieve economic and environmental sustainability and made it his mission to build a new generation of political activists.”Rohter also wrote a book, “A Green Hawaii: Sourcebook for Developmental Alternatives,” which analyzes and gives solutions for sustainable development advocates in Hawaii and Pacific islands.

Source: KITV.com

In 1992, Linda Martin and Mary Jordan became the first Green Party candidates for U.S. Senate.

Mary Jordan ran for U.S. Senate in Alaska, receiving over 20,000 votes, 8.37% of the total vote in a three way race against the infamous Frank Murkowski. Linda Martin ran for U.S. Senate in Hawai’i against an entrenched Democratic Party in 1992 against Daniel Inouye, who had been in the Senate since 1962, and who handedly defeated his opponents winning over 70% of the vote in every re-election – that is until 1992. Linda Martin earned 49,921 votes, 13.73%, holding Inouye to 57.3%, while the Republican picked up 26.9%. Her race changed Hawai’i politics, and Green Party politics, setting records for both total votes and percent of votes by a Green in a partisan race. In this video, Mike Feinstein interviews Linda Martin in 2003 about her campaign.

Two years later, Barbara Blong picked up 140,567 votes running for U.S. Senate in California. In the 1990s, Greens ran for U.S. Senate in Alaska (twice), Hawai’i, California, Maine, Oregon (twice), New Mexico, and New York.

In 2000, with the Nader campaign getting big, Greens ran 10 candidates for U.S. Senate, who combined took in 706,538 votes, led by Vance Hansen (Arizona, 108,926, 7.80%), Medea Benjamin (California, 326,828, 3.08%, and Doug Sandage (Texas, 91,448, 1.46%).
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