Green Party Watch

Rob Richie and Dorothy Scheeline of Fairvote have written some interesting analysis of last week’s elections that used instant runoff voting, aka ranked choice voting. Instant runoff voting was used in San Francisco, CA, St. Paul, MN, and Portland, ME; in all three cities, Greens both helped enact IRV and ran in last Tuesday’s elections. For the mayoral elections in Portland and San Francisco, Fairvote has graphs that show the breakdown of votes round by round until someone takes a majority (in Portland, Greens David Marshall and John Eder finished 4th and 12th of 15; in SF, Green Terry Baum finished 11th of 16). In a Huffington Post article, Richie and Scheeline focus on the story of IRV’s success in Portland:

Repeatedly, we are seeing RCV winners being the candidates who do a particularly effective job at reaching out to voters, often with direct contact involving community debates, local events, and door-knocking. One Portland candidate, David Marshall, said he knocked on 20,000 doors. He didn’t win, but it was ballots from his supporters that provided a particularly strong boost to the new mayor’s win total.

From the Green Party of the United States:

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party candidates have continued to receive endorsements in local races across the US.

59 Greens will be on ballots in the November 8, 2011 general election. Ten Greens have been elected to public office in elections held earlier this year, out of 34 candidates who competed.

Green candidates in St. Paul, Minnesota, received several endorsements. For the first time, St. Paul will use Ranked Choice Voting (also called Instant Runofff Voting) in City Council elections, which will increase the chances of a Green election victory.

TakeAction Minnesota, a progressive grassroots coalition, has endorsed Jim Ivey for Ward 2 (http://iveyforsaintpaul.org) and Bee Kevin Xiong (http://xiongforsaintpaul.org) for Ward 6 in City Council races.
http://www.takeactionminnesota.org/_assets/document/St._Paul_City_Council_Endorsements.pdf
http://iveyforsaintpaul.org/news/jim-ivey-endorsed-takeaction-mn

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 has also endorsed Mr. Ivey and Mr. Xiong.
http://www.ufcw789.org/newsletter/vol2issue5.pdf
http://iveyforsaintpaul.org/news/united-food-and-commercial-workers-endorse-jim read more »

In Portland, Maine’s largest city, the city’s first mayoral election in decades features two candidates from the Green Independent Party: former State House member John Eder and City Councilor David Marshall. Both have been featured recently in the Portland Press Herald.

In his interview, Eder said that affordable housing would be the central issue in his administration:

“We’re on the verge of the creative economy toppling the artists and workers who helped make Portland become what it is,” he said. “We can’t lose those people.”

Marshall pointed to a record of accomplishment in five years on the council and presented his plan:

Marshall’s five-point platform includes investing in the city’s school facilities, converting homes and businesses from oil to alternative fuels, and creating a streetcar line.

Those programs would cost a significant amount up front, as some opponents have pointed out. Marshall calls them “investments.” He points to a record of saving the city money.

The election will be conducted using instant runoff voting, which Green Anna Trevorrow played a key role in enacting as a member of Portland’s charter commission. Ben Chipman, an independent State House member who is closely aligned with the Greens, is also quoted in the article about Marshall.

In 2009, Green candidates won 35% of municipal elections that they entered. Given this figure, it’s not hard to see that with more Greens running in more local elections around the country, the Green Party could become America’s third major party in the course of a few election cycles. Here’s a shout-out to cities where Greens are leading the way by running more than one candidate in 2011 elections, roughly arranged by population. Will your town be next?

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Cheri Honkala, Philadelphia Sheriff

Brian Rudnick, Philadelphia City Council District 8

Baltimore, Maryland

Bill Barry, Baltimore City Council District 3

Douglas Armstrong, Baltimore City Council District 14

Tucson, Arizona

Mary DeCamp, Tucson Mayor read more »

From the Portland Daily Sun:

Portland this year embarks on an elected-mayor campaign that replaces a council-appointed mayor with one elected to an at-large seat. Through a city charter change, voters also will choose their next mayor through rank choice voting, where if any candidate falls short of a majority, then the “second choice” votes come into play in the tabulation.

MacMillan is working on the mayoral campaign for Portland’s David Marshall, an incumbent city councilor and Green Party member seeking the elected-mayor office. Another Maine Green Party member, former state legislator John Eder of Portland, announced in February his candidacy for the Mayor of Portland.

Green Party members said rank choice allows people to vote their conscience instead of feeling they’re casting a vote on a potential “spoiler” who could drain votes away from one of the two major parties.

The Oregon Pacific Green Party will hold its final nominating convention of 2010 on Saturday 31 July at the Metanoia Peace House in Portland, where the party will nominate candidates for elected office, including US Senate. Details can be found on facebook.

Three bits of good news for the Maine Green Independent Party:

According to a story at Independent Political Report about changes in party registration numbers since 2008, the Maine Greens have seen substantial growth in the last 1.5 years:

…in Maine the only state-recognized minor party is the Green Party, which has seen an increase of 8,790 or 34.1% since the 2008 presidential election.

The Maine Greens’ website announces the opening of a new office in Portland, and the election of a new steering committee:

Progressive politics in Maine has a new home. The MGIP announces its new office located in the heart of downtown Portland’s Government district.

Welcome to the first edition of the official quarterly e-newsletter of the Maine Green Independent Party.  This publication is intended to serve as your source of infomation on MGIP initiatives, positions, upcoming events, and more.

Click here to check out our new Facebook Fan Page!

Androscoggin Grange Hall, Greene – May 1, 2010

9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

The Convention will feature a community dialogue on the theme, “New Direction for the Future,” charting goals and ways to get there for the next five to ten years. The Convention will also feature presentations by the party’s 2010 candidates for the Maine House and Senate. There will be an address by Paul Weiss on the work of the Maine Rail Transit Coalition promoting commuter rail in Maine; an address by Sandy Amborn on the Sierra Club’s initiatives to preserve Maine’s woods and wetlands; and an address by State Grange Historian, Stanley Howe. The Convention will elect Steering Committee officials and will elect delegates to the United States Green Party’s National Committee. read more »

This just in from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network:

Maine’s largest city has a new mayor. The Portland City Council yesterday chose Nicholas Mavodones Jr., 49, to serve in the post. It’s Mavodones third stint in the job, according to the Portland Press Herald. In the past, councilors took turns being mayor, based on seniority. But for the second year in a row, the council overlooked Green party members who were next in line, the paper reports, choosing Mavodones instead. read more »

Anthony Zeli is running for school board in Portland, Maine. According to a post by Anna Trevorrow at Facebook, he has turned in the required signatures and a campaign kick-off party is planned for September 5th. Full details are behind the fold.
read more »

One of the most important things that sets the Green Party apart from other political parties in the United States is a consistent and strong support for LGBT rights, including marriage equality. While the Democrats waffle and triangulate, and the Republicans outright pander to homophobia, Green Party activists are getting to work to ensure that all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation, are provided with the equal protection under the law that the Constitution guarantees.

A grassroots example of the Green Party’s support for LGBT rights comes from Portland, Maine. Green Party activists there are organizing members to participate in phone banking in coordination with Equality Maine. They’re donating their time, and their cell phone minutes, to rally opposition to an effort to pass a ballot resolution similar to Proposition 8 in California. Maine only recently secured the right to marry for all couples, without discrimination, but right wing activists from across the country are pouring in resources in an effort to undo the progress.

DownEast.com carries an outstanding and detailed report on the history of the Portland Maine chapter of that state’s Green Independent Party. Jeff Clark, the article’s writer, interviewed several Portland Greens, and offers up a number of quotes.

Much of the thrust of what these Greens have to say can be summed up in these phrases: Go for youth, go for the non-voter, stand by your issues, and the Democrats are not our friends. Here are a couple of quotes to whet your appetite:

But these days the Greens are widely acknowledged as the city’s new second party, displacing the GOP in both votes and political offices and shaking the complacency out of the Democratic power structure.

“One of the first pieces of advice I got was to cut out all voters between eighteen and thirty-five years old, as well as anyone who hadn’t voted in the last presidential election,” Eder recalls. “I said no. Those young voters were my crowd. What I found was that it’s easy for any group of voters to become apathetic if they’re not invited to participate. Appealing to younger voters and going door to door were the keys to my success in Portland.”

Maine’s Greens have largely moved past the disgruntled Democrats who were the majority of early members. “There’s a generational change going on,” she says. “People are feeling they are Greens because of what we stand for, not because they’re sick of the Democrats.”