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by Dave Schwab

Illinois Greens win in five local races

April 23, 2013 in State Party News

From the Green Party of Illinois:

p jessica bradshawWhile most of Tuesday’s elections were officially nonpartisan, Illinois Green Party members competed in elections across the state, with five candidates winning their races, based on unofficial results. If these wins hold, the ILGP’s number of officeholders statewide would grow to 10.

The big win of the night belongs to Green Party member Jessica Bradshaw, who appears to have been elected to Carbondale City Council in a hard-fought nonpartisan race. In the 12-candidate race for three city council seats, Bradshaw came in third and earned 677 697 votes, or 15.59%, with 100% of precincts reporting, according to unofficial returns.

“We knocked on over 4,000 doors in just a few months,” said Bradshaw. “It was hard work, but it showed that the way to win is by getting to know, and listening to, the people.” Read the rest of this entry →

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by Dave Schwab

Several steps forward in Wisconsin – Chicago and DC are next!

April 3, 2013 in Local Elections

From Jill Stein for President:

Several steps “Forward!” in Wisconsin

Dean-Loumos.jpgCongratulations are in order to Dean Loumos and Ledell Zellers, two Madison, Wisconsin Green Party members who were elected yesterday to the Madison School Board and the Madison Common Council, respectively!

There was good news in other parts of Wisconsin as well: Rae Vogeler, a former Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, was elected to the Oregon School Board. And the voters of Fort Atkinson and Whitewater both joined the Move to Amend by voting overwhelmingly (84% and 77%) for the We the People Amendment (see http://www.WethePeopleAmendment.org).

Ledell-Zellers.jpgWe thank all of the Greens who ran for office in Madison this Spring.

Thanks to CJ Terrell, Damon Terrell, Barbara Davis, Christian Hanson, Sarah Manski, Leslie Peterson and Hawk Sullivan, each of whom ran strong campaigns we can be proud of. Sarah Manski, who won her primary with 45% of the vote, withdrew from the race shortly after the primary for family reasons, yet still won a third of the general election vote from diehard supporters.

Now on to elections in Chicago and Washington DC! If you haven’t already checked out LeAlan Jones in his congressional campaign in Chicago (election day is April 9) and Perry Redd in his run for the DC City Council (April 16), take a look.

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by Dave Schwab

Illinois Green Party State Meeting 3/2 in Carbondale

February 28, 2013 in State Party News

From the Illinois Green Party:

ILGP will hold a State Membership Meeting on March 2 on the outskirts of Carbondale. All members are encouraged to attend! Read the rest of this entry →

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by Dave Schwab

LeAlan Jones running for Congress in IL-2 special election

January 30, 2013 in Congressional Campaigns

LeAlan Jones, the Illinois Green Party’s 2010 US Senate candidate, has announced his candidacy for the special election to fill the IL-2 congressional seat vacated by outgoing Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.  From his Wikipedia profile:

LeAlan Marvin Jones is an American journalist who lives in Chicago’s South Shore. His radio documentaries have received critical acclaim and numerous awards. Jones was the Green Party’s 2010 nominee for United States Senate from Illinois.

Check out his campaign website at LealanForCongress.org.

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by Ronald Hardy

Incumbent Won’t Debate Nancy Wade in Congressional Race

November 4, 2012 in Congressional Campaigns

From the Nancy Wade Campaign:

On Sunday, November 4 at 1 p.m., IL’s 5th U.S. Congressional District candidate Nancy Wade will participate in a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters.  The debate will be held at All Saints Episcopal Church, 4550 N. Hermitage in Chicago. Wade will square off against suburban Republican Dan Schmitt.  Conspicuously absent from the debate will be incumbent Democratic placeholder Mike Quigley, who took over IL-5 from current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2009.

Regarding Quigley’s absence in the planned League of Women Voters’ debate, Nancy Wade observed that this represents a pattern that should raise the eyebrows of 5th District voters.

“Mike Quigley has refused or ignored multiple invitations to debate me, and he’s taken no public stands on issues of great importance and currency to 5th District voters, such as the recent effort by the Chicago Teachers Union to fight against Rahm Emanuel’s destructive and unpopular education policies,” she said.  She also noted that Quigley hasn’t said much about his vote to extend the Patriot Act’s domestic spying provisions.  “Where will he stand on the next president’s attempts to bargain away Medicare and Social Security?  How will he vote if the next president requests authorization for bombing or invading Iran?”

Given that so much is at stake in the next two years, said Wade, 5th District voters need to know what kind of representative they’ll be sending to Washington.  “My campaign has been very open about where I stand on our country’s most important issues, and the voters deserve no less from the incumbent.  Mike Quigley needs to make his positions clear to the voters.”

“We promise not to lock him out and have him arrested,” Wade said, referring to the treatment that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein recieved at the third presidential debate.

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Paula Bradshaw for Congress Debate Recap

September 21, 2012 in Congressional Campaigns

From the Paula Bradshaw campaign:

In the second full Congressional debate held in Marion, Illinois last night, Green Party candidate Paula Bradshaw established herself as the clear choice for all Southern Illinois voters who would like to see the region and the nation move forward, not backward – on the economy, social issues and the environment. Specifically:

  • While Bradshaw and Democratic contender Bill Enyart both addressed the need for greater tax fairness, Bradshaw was the only candidate to address the federal government’s responsibility to directly employ jobless workers and achieve full employment, through a mass mobilization, on the scale of World War II, but directed toward producing the weapons to fight global warming, the end of cheap oil and a crumbling infrastructure, through her Green New Deal proposal.
  • Bradshaw was the only candidate in the race to categorically oppose horizontal drilled hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” – recognizing that the practice cannot be made safe through regulation, and that the economic harms outweigh the claimed economic benefits, since most of the jobs created will not be local, and the environmental impacts will harm tourism, recreation, farming and the natural resources on which the economy depends.
  • Bradshaw was the only candidate to squarely attack our reliance on fossil fuels generally, noting the urgent need to immediately invest major federal resources in renewable energy and sustainable transportation now – both to benefit our economy and combat global climate change.
  • Bradshaw was the only candidate to call for the repeal of NAFTA and other so-called “free trade” policies, supported by both Democrats and Republicans, that harm labor in our own country and created much of the surge in immigration by devastating the Mexican economy.
  • Bradshaw was the only candidate who rejected the premise that Southern Illinois should be reliant on prison jobs, attacking the prison-industrial complex and the over-incarceration of Americans for nonviolent offenses. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Illinois Green Party Declares Solidarity With Striking Chicago Teachers

September 9, 2012 in Social & Economic Justice, State Party News

The Illinois Green Party released the following statement after the declaration that the Chicago Teachers Union strike would begin September 10:

We stand with the Chicago Teachers Union. Months ago we declared our unity with them, and today we reaffirm that unity.

The battle the teachers of the Chicago Public Schools are fighting is not one of their choosing. It is one which has been foisted on them by politicians who have been bankrolled by, and who therefore represent the interests of, the 1%.

Rahm Emanuel’s war against the Chicago Teachers Union is not simply about wages or benefits. It is about the future of public education in Chicago and beyond. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, with their “Race to the Top” initiative, are seeking to destroy the influence of the teachers unions, to reroute public dollars to private interests, and to undermine the core fabric of public education in America. Still, the Democratic Party is convinced that so long as President Obama says some nice things about teachers and emphasizes how evil the Republicans are, teachers will sit down, shut up, and continue to vote Democratic.

The Chicago Teachers Union is leading the way for teachers everywhere by saying that they will not sit down and shut up. Teachers are highly educated professionals, who care deeply about the well-being of their students. They are also highly politically aware, and they know that they are being mistreated by Democrats and Republicans alike. At one point the Democrats may have been their friends, but now they know that the Democrats are just corporate sellouts like the Republicans.

Many of them are also learning that the Green Party is different. We take no corporate contributions. Our presidential candidate, Jill Stein, is a staunch defender of public sector workers. Our platform calls for restoring workers’ rights which the Democrats have refused to restore, like repealing the Taft-Hartley Act. Not just teachers but other unionized workers are seeing how the Democrats do not have their backs, but the Greens do.

The Illinois Green Party reiterates its call for an elected school board in Chicago, accountable to the citizenry, not accountable to Rahm Emanuel and his corporate backers. Outside of Chicago, we call for hundreds of citizens to stand up and defend their public schools by running for the elected school board seats which exist everywhere else in Illinois, on a platform of protecting public education from corporate encroachment, and respecting the hard-working teachers all across our state.

We also call for more teachers throughout Illinois to stand up and speak out against the entrenched Democratic leadership. Embrace the Green Party as your party, as the party of working people, as the party of the 99%, as the party who joins you in caring about the future of our children.

Teachers, we are in solidarity with you.

Illinois Green Party: www.ilgp.org
Chicago Teachers Union: www.ctunet.com

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Illinois Ballot Access Laws Pit Third Parties Against Each Other

July 5, 2012 in Ballot Access, State Party News

Illinois has some seriously biased ballot access laws against third parties, i.e. any political party other than Democrats or Republicans. In 2012, a third party candidate for President needed 25,000 signatures to get on the ballot, while the D’s and R’s needed nominal signatures for their party primaries, and it is assumed that home-state favorite Barack Obama (D) will win the state. ,

The petitioning period for third parties and independents in Illinois ended last week, and while the Green Party and the Libertarian Party submitted over 25 thousand signatures, four other candidates submitted less than 20 signatures, three of them submitted less than 5 signatures, and based on Illinois state law, any citizen can challenge petitions.

The National Green Party didn’t challenge any petitions, nor did the Illinois Green Party, but one Rob Sherman, a three time Green Party candidate for office, Chair of the Cook County Greens, and outspoken advocate for separation of church and state, did. He filed a challenge to the nomination papers of:

  • Stewart Alexander (Socialists)- 1 signature
  • Michael Hawkins (Together Enhancing America) – 1 signature (but he did submit 5 blank pages)
  • Rocky Anderson (Independent) – 2 signatures
  • Virgil Goode (Constitution) – approx 200 to 300 signatures (35 pages, 10 lines/page)

The Illinois Green Party spent around $8,0000 and put in countless hours to get the Green Party on the ballot in Illinois.  Other than Virgil Goode, the other three candidates put in less than 60 minutes and no money to get on the Illinois ballot. This double standard is frustrating – on the one hand, the Green Party suffered from harsh challenges by Democrats to get on the ballot in 2006, but on the other hand, taking a chance with just two signatures is a colossal risk for a national presidential campaign that hopes to unite the progressive movements with the Occupy protests for real political change in America.

National Greens have come out against the challenge to the petitions of the Socialist, Justice Party and Independent campaigns. The most notable argument that seems to summarize the typical Green Party opposition to the challenges comes from third party and green party advocate Howie Hawkins here (in a statement posted at Ballot Access News)

I know how hard it is to get on the ballot. I’ve petitioned successfully 17 of 19 attempts for myself and petitioned countless times for other Green candidates, with mixed success because of major party challenges or state official malfeasance. I have been challenged on my own petitions by the Democrats almost every time, most of them utterly frivolous challenges that served only to force me to devote limited time and resources to defend my petition instead of campaign for the office.

The strongest case in favor of the challenges comes from Rob Sherman himself, in a comment left at Independent Political Report:

Unless you have been out there, collecting nominating petition signatures (as I did when I ran for State Rep in 2006 and 2008 and for Village Clerk in 2010), you have no idea how incredibly taxing it is on the legs and feet, and how challenging it is to be out there in all kinds of weather, such as day after day of 90+ degree heat this year, and frigid conditions with frequent blowing snow when I was out there in previous years.  After all of that intense physical suffering by so many, you want me to do what?

Among ballot access advocates and Green Party organizers, this has become a problematic situation. While third parties share in common a complex set of exclusive ballot access laws, there has been a general sense of solidarity on the ballot access front. For an apparently significant Green Party leader to take the lead position to knock possibly four other third party candidates off the ballot in Illinois is significant, and possibly damaging for the Green Party. On the other hand, the greens and Libertarians clearly put together the volunteers and resources to qualify for the ballot in Illinois, far in excess of the number of signatures that the four challenged parties submitted.

So what do you think? Should the Greens have challenged those petitions or not?

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Green Party is ON THE BALLOT in Illinois

July 3, 2012 in Ballot Access, Congressional Campaigns, State Party News

In yet another historic feat, the Illinois Green Party submitted over 25,000 signatures to get back on the ballot in 2012, and this time the Democrats did not challenge the petitions. This means that Illinois joins California, Texas, New York and Florida to have the Green Party on the ballot this fall in the five most populous states. The next most populous state, Pennsylvania, is currently petitioning. The Green Party is currently on the ballot in 22 states, and petitioning in 18 more.

Also, two Green Party Congressional Candidates Nancy Wade (5th Congressional district) and Paula Bradshaw (12th Congressional district) submitted over 5,000 signatures each to appear on the ballot. According to the DuPage County Greens, Paula Bradshaw’s petitions were challenged. Nancy Wade announced that she is on the ballot without challenges.

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Seven Days Left for Illinois Ballot

June 19, 2012 in Ballot Access, State Party News

The Jill Stein campaign is calling for help as Greens have just 7 days remaining to secure the thousands of signatures necessary to get on the ballot in Illinois. Illinois is significant as it is the most populous state left that the Green Party is not on the ballot yet. The Green Party is already on the ballot in California, Texas, New York, and Florida.

From the Stein Campaign:

7 days to win Illinois, with your help

The temperatures are near 100 in Illinois this week. In the Carbondale area, they’ve been working the local fairs. In Chicago, they are sleeping 10 to a room and putting in long days across the city. From Rockford to Champaign Urbana, volunteers for Jill Stein and the Green Party are pushing hard to put Illinois on the ballot.

We are closing in on the minimum signature threshold right now. But we need many more signatures to guarantee the Illinois Greens a ballot line. This is after all, still Illinois, and still 21st century America, where different rules apply to different people. We must have a large safety margin to make sure that partisan election administrators don’t deny us the ballot.

Your donation right now will help win Illinois. We are sending volunteers from across the country to Chicago and other cities. We are providing a minimal daily stipend for food and public transportation expenses. We have rented an apartment for two weeks so that volunteers are in one place and have a place to stay. And we will bring in additional paid petitioners if we can afford to do so. Your donation can put Illinois on ballot. Please donate now.

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Green Party Stands With CTU

May 23, 2012 in Social & Economic Justice, State Party News

In advance of the Chicago Teachers Union rally downtown on Wednesday, May 23, the Illinois Green Party has issued the following statement:

The Illinois Green Party is proud to stand in support of the Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU is on the front line of bipartisan attacks against the public sector. The committed teachers in the City of Chicago deserve widespread support, not just in Chicago but across Illinois, for refusing to back down in the face of this unprecedented campaign to destroy public sector unions.

What group of people worked their way through college and took on a career track dedicated to educating and uplifting America’s youth? It’s not business leaders or politicians. It’s teachers. Teachers are the ones who know best how schools can be better serving our children. They are hard-working, highly-educated professionals who deserve to be treated as such. The people who attack them, of course, know this. They feign contempt because they are upset that they cannot make money by busting unions, depressing wages, and generally treating children like exploitable commodities.

The war against teachers and other public sector employees is not new, and it is hardly limited to Illinois. The shameful actions of Scott Walker in Wisconsin have helped bring these attacks against the public sector to the front page across the country. But in Wisconsin, as in other places, the attacks have been portrayed as merely the actions of right-wing anti-government extremists. Those of us in Illinois know better. Here it is Democrats, the supposed champions of labor, who are leading the attacks.
Read the rest of this entry →

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by Dave Schwab

Jill Stein in Chicago to Occupy NATO/G8 Summit

May 18, 2012 in Presidential Campaign

From Jill Stein for President:

This is your call to action: The leaders of most of the world’s most powerful nations are meeting in Chicago. Their vision is of a world dependent on fossil fuels, a global labor market based on low wages and high unemployment, and a global political system that uses war to maintain order.

Our vision is entirely different. We know we can win the peaceful, just, green future we all deserve.

Join Dr. Stein, Michelle Shocked, and friends on the weekend of Friday, May 18 through the 20th as we march, rally, petition and celebrate the world we intend to win. Join the Green Surge as we make the green movement a visible presence in the streets, and as we signatures to put the Illinois Green Party back on the ballot.

FULL SCHEDULE: Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Illinois Greens Advocate for “Move to Amend”

April 18, 2012 in Local Party News

Several Illinois Greens were among a group petitioning the Naperville City Council to adopt a Move to Amend Resolution yesterday, hoping Naperville will join a growing movement of communities speaking out against the Citizens’ United Supreme Court ruling. From the Naperville Sun:

At issue for Klingeman, and the six other people who addressed the council on the subject, is the 2009 Supreme Court ruling “Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission,” which overturned part of a federal election law and held that corporations and unions are allowed to spend an unlimited amount of money on electioneering activities due to First Amendment guarantees.

“Money is not speech,” Klingeman said, “and corporations are not people.”

Klingeman spoke against the “gift-giving mentality in Washington, D.C,” and likened the money donated to campaigns and politicians as “quid pro quo bribery.”

Klingeman’s group of supporters echoed his sentiments.

“Money dominates and perverts our political process,” Steve Macek said.

…

The group claims many other communities have expressed support for the movement, including New York City, Madison, Wis., and 64 cities in Vermont.

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Segneri: No Third Party?

April 17, 2012 in Editorials

Illinois Green AJ Segneri has this piece up at Dissident Voice: “No Third Party?”

Towards the end of 2010, I listened to radio shows and TV shows where hosts have asked where is the next third party? When are we going to see another party go against the Republicans and Democrats? I do not understand these questions because there are many “third” parties in our nation. From the Green Party to the Constitution Party and from the Socialist Party to the Libertarian Party, plus everything in between. These organizations have been in existence; however, the major media outlets have failed to expose them. None of the media sources have brought the rank-and-file of these organizations into their respective studios to talk about the issues. Day in and day out, nothing but the same two major party voices are shown speaking in monopoly media about how to solve the issues at hand. Why not bring in someone on TV like Rich Whitney of the Green Party, who in 2006 received 10.7% of the general election vote in the Illinois Gubernatorial race? That was the first time a third party has done so well in Illinois for over 40 years.
Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Ronald Hardy

by Ronald Hardy

Barr & Stein Skype in to Illinois Green Party (Video)

March 4, 2012 in Presidential Campaign

At the Illinois Green Party State Meeting in Macomb, IL this Saturday, presidential candidates Roseanne Barr and Jill Stein both Skype called to address Greens. Below are video captures of those two skype feeds.

Barr, Stein, and Kent Mesplay had also skyped into the Pennsylvania Green Party meeting on Saturday, and in Madison Wisconsin Roseanne Barr Skype called in while Jill Stein addressed the meeting in person.

Roseanne Barr

Jill Stein

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