In United States politics, the Green Party has been active as a third party since the 1980s. The party first gained widespread public attention during Ralph Nader’s presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. Currently, the primary national Green Party organization in the U.S. is the Green Party of the United States, which has eclipsed the earlier Greens/Green Party USA.
The Green Party in the United States has won elected office mostly at the local level; most winners of public office in the United States who are considered Greens have won nonpartisan-ballot elections (that is, the winning Greens won offices in elections in which candidates were not identified on the ballot as affiliated with any political party). The highest-ranking Green ever elected in the nation was John Eder, who was a member of the Maine House of Representatives until his defeat on November 7, 2006. The Party has 305,000 registered members in states that allow party registration, as well as thousands of supporters in the rest of the country. It has ballot access in 31 states.
Greens claim to emphasize environmentalism, decentralization and local autonomy, in keeping with a professed commitment to non-hierarchical participatory democracy. The official party platform also supports an expanded welfare state.
History
Early years
What began as the decentralized Committees of Correspondence evolved into a more centralized structure with a more traditional emphasis on electoral campaigns. Before the formation of a national party, early Greens were committed to an emphasis on educational projects and non-partisan activism. The idea of an "anti-party party" was formed by Petra Kelly and other leaders of Die Grünen in Germany. Their vision was a non-traditional organization in which electoralism would be the least important of the three components. However, in the United States the opportunity for ballot access became too irresistible for others — particularly Marxists and those active in the New Left — who began to move into Green parties during the early 1990s. A struggle for the direction of the organization culminated at the 1991 Green Congress in Elkins, West Virginia — during which those who favored an emphasis on electoral politics began to consolidate power — primarily through sheer numbers.
1996 Presidential Election
At a 1995 national gathering of Greens from many organizations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a measure to put a candidate for president on 40 states was adopted. A significant minorty of Greens voiced strong ideological objections (based on the principle of decentralization) to the proposal to become involved in such a large-scale political arena for the first time. Those who wished to run a candidate for president continued to pursue the possibility. Working within their state parties, as well as through an independent organization called Third Parties 1995, they convinced Ralph Nader to accept placement on the Green Party of California’s primary ballot, and eventually he accepted placement on more ballots, but ran a limited campaign with a self-imposed campaign spending limit of $5,000 (to avoid having to file a financial statement with the FEC). He chose Winona LaDuke as their vice-presidential candidate. The pair were on the ballot in twenty-two states and received 685,128 votes, or 0.7% of all votes cast.
1997-1999
In the aftermath of the 1996 election, representatives from thirteen state Green Parties joined to form the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). The ASGP, while still including issue activism and non-electoral politics, was clearly more focused on getting Greens elected. In the years from 1997 to 1999, more local, regional, and statewide Green parties continued to form. Many of these parties affiliated themselves with both the ASGP and the G/GPUSA.
2000 Presidential Election
In the year 2000, the ASGP nominated Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke for president and vice-president again. This time, the pair were on 44 state ballots and received 2,882,897 votes, or 2.7% of all votes cast. Nader’s strong showing in several states solidified the changes in the Green Party from an "anti-party party" to an organization primarily dedicated to electoral campaigns. In particular, that was the widespread understanding of thousands of recruits to the party, as it went through an unprecedented rate of growth.
In October of 2000 (during the campaign), a proposal was made to alter the structures of the ASGP and G/GPUSA to be complementary organizations with the ASGP focusing on electoral politics and the G/GPUSA focusing on issue advocacy. The Boston Proposal (so named because it was negotiated at Boston in the days before the first presidential debate) was passed by the ASGP at its next annual gathering, but did not pass at the GPUSA Congress, causing a schism in membership among the GPUSA from which they never recovered. The ASGP then changed its name to "The Green Party of the United States" and was granted status as the official National Committee of the Green Party by the FEC in 2001.
It is often claimed that Nader’s participation in the 2000 Presidential election ’stole the election’ from Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, as a vast majority of Green voters otherwise support Democratic policy. [citation needed]
2001-2003
In 2002, John Eder’s election to the Maine House of Representatives marked the first Green Party state legislator in the United States elected in a regular election. (Audie Bock had won a special election as a state legislator in the California Assembly, but left the party and eventually became a Democrat.) John Eder’s party designation on the ballot in 2002 was "Green Independent." Eder was personally congratulated by Ralph Nader on election night. In 2004, despite redistricting in Maine that threatened to unseat Eder, he nevertheless won re-election.
In the Spring of 2003, as the 2004 elections loomed, Greens began an often-heated debate on party presidential strategy. Democrats, liberal activists, and liberal journalists were counseling and pressuring the Green Party and Ralph Nader not to run a presidential ticket. In response, a diverse cross-section of U.S. Greens issued "Green & Growing: 2004 in Perspective" a statement initiated by national party Green Party of the United States co-chair Ben Manski. "Green & Growing"’s 158 signatories declared that "We think it essential to build a vigorous presidential campaign," citing as their chief reasons the need to gain ballot access for the Green Party, to define the Greens as an independent party, and the failures of the Democrats on issues of foreign and domestic policy. Other Greens, most prominently Ted Glick in his "A Green Party Safe States Strategy", called on the party to adopt a strategy of avoiding swing states in the upcoming presidential election. A third, intermediate "smart states" position was drafted by Dean Myerson and adopted by David Cobb, advocating a "nuanced" state-by-state strategy based on ballot access, party development, swing state, and other concerns.
2004 Presidential Election
In the 2004 presidential election, the candidate of the Green Party of the United States for President was Texas attorney and GPUS legal counsel David Cobb, and its candidate for vice-president was labor activist Pat LaMarche of Maine.
On Christmas Eve 2003, Ralph Nader declared that he would not seek the Green party’s nomination for president in 2004, and in February 2004 announced his intention to run as an independent, but later did decide to seek endorsement (rather than the nomination) of the Green Party, and other third parties. Several Greens, most notably Peter Camejo, as well as Lorna Salzman and others, endorsed this plan (Camejo would later accept a position as Nader’s vice-presidential running-mate) (see Nomination controversy, below).
The Cobb-LaMarche ticket in 2004 appeared on 28 of the 51 ballots around the country, down from the Greens’ 44 in 2000; the Nader-Camejo ticket in 2004 appeared on 35 ballots. In 2004, Cobb was on the ballot in California (and Nader was not), whereas Nader was on the ballot in New York (and Cobb was not). Political strategists with the Democratic Party used aggressive legalistic tactics to remove Nader’s but not Cobb’s name from several state ballots.
The voting results from the 2004 presidential election were considerably less impressive than the results of the Green Party’s Nader-LaDuke presidential ticket in 2000, which had garnered more than 2,882,000 votes. In 2004, running in most states as an independent (but with high-profile Green Party activist Peter Camejo as his running mate), Ralph Nader received 465,650 votes; the Green Party’s 2004 nominees, David Cobb and Patricia LaMarche, mustered 119,859 votes. Some Greens were not discouraged by the relatively low presidential vote yield in 2004 for Cobb and for Nader, because the Green Party continued to grow in many parts of the country, increasing Green Party affiliation numbers and fielding Green candidates for congressional, state, and local offices.
These claims have been directly contested in an article pointing out that the number of registered Greens declined by about 23,000 between January 2004 and March 2005, in contrast to a previous period of uninterrupted growth from 1998, that the number of Green candidacies declined compared to 2002, and that these candidates fared worse than in the past, particularly during the presidential campaign.
Nomination controversy
When Nader announced that he would run as an independent candidate, and later explained that he was not seeking the Green Party’s nomination, but would (as an independent) seek the party’s "endorsement", factions within the party which had been lining up behind potential candidates solidified into an endorsement camp and a nomination camp (the latter favoring primarily David Cobb).
On June 26, 2004, the Green National Convention nominated Cobb, who promised to focus on building the party. Just over a third of the delegates voted "No Nominee" with the intent to later vote for a Nader endorsement. Pat LaMarche of Maine was nominated for vice-president. Cobb and Nader emphasized different strategies. Cobb promised to run a "strategic states" campaign based on the preferences and needs of the individual state Green parties; as a result, Cobb campaigned heavily in some battleground states and not in others. Nader intended to run a national multiparty ticket uniting the Greens with other parties.
After David Cobb received the party’s 2004 presidential nomination at the Green National Convention in Milwaukee, apparently in a show of unity, Nader’s Vice Presidential running mate, Peter Camejo, said, "I’m going to walk out of here arm in arm with David Cobb." However, the nominating convention and the political discussions and maneuvering before it generated considerable controversy within the party. At issue was the apportionment of delegates and the method used to determine how many delegates each state received. The group Greens for Democracy and Independence, inspired by the principles in Peter Camejo’s Avocado Declaration (in part a response to Nader’s declaration not to seek the Green nomination), arose and became an organizing group for Greens disaffected with the internal policies and procedures of the GPUS, and sought reforms.
Two supporters of Camejo, Carol Miller and Forrest Hill, wrote one of a number of articles printed after the convention, including "Rigged Convention; Divided Party‘," alleging that the convention elections had been undemocratic. Many Green Party members were upset at the nomination convention’s process and results, and some expressed "embarrassment" that Nader was not the party’s 2004 candidate.
Other Green Party members responded that the analysis they gave in the article was fundamentally flawed to produce skewed results. One such response was that of the national party Secretary, Greg Gerritt, who self-published a book on the subject, Green Party Tempest.
2006 Elections
The Greens had a number of races in which they expected to contest in 2006. In the Illinois governor’s race, candidate Rich Whitney received 11%, granting the party ballot status in that state. The party won 66 races nationwide, including 21 in California and 11 in Wisconsin. One of the biggest victories included the election of Gayle McLaughlin as mayor in Richmond, California. Richmond now has become the first city with over 100,000 residents to have a Green mayor. In Maine, Pat LaMarche received nearly 10% of the vote for governor and the Maine Green Independent Party also won two seats on the Portland City Council. However, the party lost their only elected state representative, John Eder. The Greens were also excited following Tom Kelly’s receipt of 21% in his run for Congress in Colorado’s 1st District.
8.7 million Americans voted for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and for impeachment resolutions on local and state ballots that were initiated or supported by Greens. Troop withdrawal initiatives won in all ten localities in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, and all 11 communities in Illinois, including Chicago. Of 139 cities and towns in Massachusetts voting on the troop withdrawal measures, only a handful voted nay on initiatives demanding that Congress and the White House end the war immediately.
Structure and composition
Committees
The Green Party has three national committees:
- the Green National Committee
- the National Green Party House Campaign Committee (NGPHCC)
- the National Green Party Senatorial Campaign Committee (NGPSCC)
The GNC is recognized by the Federal Elections Commission; the other two, similar to Congressional elections committees in the Democratic and Republican parties, are not yet recognized, being recently established, although the NGPSCC has filed with the FEC for official recognition. The NGPSCC’s initial members were elected in July 2006: Dave Jette, Daryl Northrop, Eric Oines, Roger Snyder, Anita Wessling, and Brent White.
The GNC is the central governing body of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS). The GNC is composed of delegates from each of the affiliated member party organizations and from recognized caucuses. The GNC oversees all national party functions and elects a Steering Committee to oversee day-to-day operations of the national party.
Caucuses
Caucuses on the GNC are identity caucuses. Three have achieved formal recognition within the GNC:
- Black Caucus
- Lavender Greens (LGBTIQ)
- National Women’s Caucus
Three other caucuses are working toward formal representation on the GNC:
- Disability Caucus
- Latino Caucus
- Youth Caucus
The Blue Greens (workers’ caucus) and the Native American caucus also exist, but do not have organizing committees as of yet.
Standing committees
The GNC has several standing committees:
- Accreditation
- Annual National Meeting
- Ballot Access
- Bylaws, Rules, Policies & Procedures
- Communications
- Coordinated Campaign
- Dispute Resolution
- Diversity
- EcoAction
- Finance
- Fundraising
- Green Pages (editorial board for the party newspaper)
- International
- Media
- Merchandising
- Outreach
- Peace Action
- Platform
- Presidential Campaign Support
- Steering
National party co-chairs
The co-chairs of the Green Party of the United States are currently: Liz Arnone, Jim Coplen, Katey Culver, Budd Dickinson, Steve Kramer, Rebecca Rotzler, and Sarah Steiner. The co-chairs of the Green Party, together with the secretary and treasurer, are called the Steering Committee. They are elected from the delegates, who serve on the Green National Committee, representing the affiliated member states.
Geographic distribution
The Green Party has shown its strongest popular support on the Pacific Coast, upper Great Lakes, and northeastern United States, as reflected in the geographical distribution of Green candidates elected. Californians have elected 67 of the 204 office-holding Greens nationwide as of January, 2004. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Massachusetts , and Maine. Wisconsin has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country, and the highest victory rate at over 60% over the state party’s 20 year history. Madison, Wisconsin, is the city with the most Green elected officials.
In California in 2000, the in 2002 (and re-elected in 2004).
One challenge that the Green Party (as well as other third parties) faces is the difficulty of overcoming repressive ballot access laws in many states. This has prevented the Green Party from reaching a point of critical mass in party-building momentum in many states.
Office Holders
The Green Party claims that "at least 223" party members hold elected office in the U.S. as of late October 2006. Currently there are no Greens in any state legislature or in the U.S Congress.
