State Reports

ARIZONA

The state meeting of the Arizona Green Party (AZGP) was Saturday, September 12, 2009 from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM in Prescott.†The major focus of the meeting was to give an update on our ballot status petition drive for the 2010 elections. AZGP is still recruiting volunteers to assist in this effort. They need to collect at least 30,000 signatures by the March 2010 deadline, but hope to finish this effort by the end of 2009.

In order to meet their goals, they will need help from Greens in other states. Think ahead, and plan to take part of your winter vacation in sunny Arizona. If you come, Arizona Greens will provide a place to stay, in exchange for a few hours of signature gathering every day. Thinking Phoenix?† Email info@azgp.org and ask for Angel Tores.

AZGP is also drafting a policy to approve state party members to GP-US committees. If AZGP approves more than one member, they want to ensure gender balance.

FLORIDA

At the annual membership meeting in May, the Green Party of Florida re-elected Jane King and Bill Milner as co-chairs. Bonnie Redding was re-elected secretary. Julia Aires and Barbara Rodgers-Hendricks resigned as GPUS delegates and were replaced by Anita Stewart and Shawna Doran. Michael Canney and Jennifer Sullivan were re-elected GPUS delegates.

There are a wide variety of outreach activities occurring in the state such as tabling at events, appearances on the radio, articles in newspapers, and presentations for groups. ìSolar in the Sunshine Stateî is a campaign where Greens are partnering with other organizations. It was recently kicked off with a successful fundraiser.

The goal of Florida Greens is to organize local or county parties in all 67 counties of Florida. Contact persons have recently been designated in at least 14 counties where there was no previous Green organization. These counties are in various stages of organization.

Several Greens are considering running for office, including Javier Del Sol, who has filed to run in the November election for mayor of Lake Worth. Del Sol has appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, highlighting his community gardening and educational work.

The Green Party of Palm Beach has been supporting Green Party City Commissioner Cara Jennings. The Greens serve as consultants to assist her in developing policy for Lake Worth.

Green Party representation is on the Green Task Force for Palm Beach County and that member has helped to implement a permanent Green Advisory Board for one of our medium-sized (60,000) coastal cities. Also a Green is on a Neighborhood Advisory Board for another coastal city and is influential in that role.

Movements in which Florida Greens are involved are the Slow Food Movement, Natural Farms, and Urban Farming. Urban Farming and Green Jobs training projects are being undertaken.

To learn more about the Green Party of Florida, check out the newly rebuilt web site at www.floridagreens.org.

MAINE

There had been a snowstorm the day before, and the roads were perilous, but 18 people came to a small church on King Street in Augusta the second Saturday in January 1984. They came in response to phone calls from Alan Philbrook and John Rensenbrink. After a long discussion, the group decided to establish a Green Party/Green Movement organization for the state of Maine. It was later discovered that this was the first organizing meeting of the Green Party in the United States. It antedated the first national meeting of Greens in St. Paul, Minnesota, by eight months.

Maine has had many landmarks since then. John Eder won a seat in the Maine State House. Morgan D’Arc founded the GPUS Women’s Caucus. Pat LaMarche was U.S. Vice Presidential candidate in 2006. Recently Cumberland County had the most Greens voted into office of any county in the U.S. Maine Greens have grown from 18 in 1984 to over 31,000 in 2008.

In moving forward, Maine Greens have made some changes to their state party structure,†going from a five member Board to a seven-member steering committee with a†new chairperson, Anna Trevorrow. She replaced Lynne Williams who stepped down to run for Governor in 2010.

One of†the new Maine Green Independent Party committees is the Legislative Candidate Recruitment and Advisory Committee (LRAC), which was formed in February 2009 to facilitate the fielding of a record number of legislative candidates in Maine for the 2010 election. LCRA is comprised mostly of former candidates,†campaign managers, and office holders. The chair is Jason Bergquist, who ran for the State Senate in 2008. Jason says, “Our†goals are twofold:†to recruit potential candidates, and then provide assistance to the campaigns. Phase I consists of developing a list of open legislative seats and communicating through a variety of resources to Maine Greens our desire to find potential candidates. We are now in the process of Phase II, which consists of further developing the targeted list to include races involving an incumbent that would be fitting for a Green to run against, combined with a county-by-county assessment to ensure that a Green is run in each of Maineís16 counties.

ìAs we move forward, we will use various tools to widen the search for potential candidates. Further, we will hold a series of seminars to introduce prospective candidates to the campaign process and to provide practical coaching. As the campaign season begins in earnest, LRAC will then move into its advisory function, providing whatever level of counsel a campaign may want to receive. We will be focusing on serving as a portal to consolidated campaign services (ex: literature and signage design and printing, speech and debate preparation, fundraising / Clean Elections strategy, etc.). Our hope is to make this a record year for running Greens, and for winning seats!”

MARYLAND

The Maryland Green Party (MGP) is preparing for its 2010 ballot access drive on all fronts. The party is required to collect 10,000 valid signatures to stay on Maryland ballots through the 2014 elections. In past years the MGP has easily achieved that goal, but because of potentially stringent changes in verification, the party is working to stay on the ballot in several ways. The MGP recently joined the Maryland Ballot Access Committee, which is planning to introduce legislation to maintain a reasonable standard for signature verification. The party is also planning to lobby on behalf of its own ballot access legislation (last year’s House Bill 1562 and Senate Bill 927) to decrease the number of signatures required. And it is preparing to collect more than enough signatures to meet the requirement by the deadline of December 31, 2010.

We need your help! You can send financial support to the Maryland Green Party, P.O. Box 2230, Annapolis, MD 21404. You can also e-mail the party at marylandgreens@gmail.com if you can travel to Maryland and help collect signatures anytime in 2010.

MICHIGAN

The Green Party of Michigan has been deeply involved in the campaign for justice being waged by our honorary co-chair, Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor. Rev. Pinkney was also Green candidate for the 6th Congressional district against Rep. Fred Upton (R). Rev. Pinkney ran for office from jail where he had been imprisoned for a probation violation. His original crime: a successful recall campaign against a local politician connected to the Whirlpool dynasty. In his probation violation after his unjust conviction, he quoted the Bible. A judge said he was threatened by Rev. Pinkneyís ìrelationship to God.î This travesty of social justice and religious freedom has been mitigated by a July decision of the state appeals court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which ruled, among other things, that Rev. Pinkneyís freedom of speech had been violated. He is still forced to wear a tether and pay $105 per week for its rental.

The Green Party of Michigan, along with other social justice organizations, is raising money to pay for the tether. We are continuing the fight for justice and freedom for Rev. Pinkney. To learn more about the background of this case, see the bhbanco.blogspot.com — especially the summary by his attorney, Hugh Davis (http://bhbanco.blogspot.com/2008/08/pinkney-imprisoned-for-quoting-bible.html).

Send contributions to the Green Party of Michigan, 548 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI† 48104. Make out the checks to Fred Pinkney.

The Detroit Greens supported candidates in the August 4th non-partisan primary for the municipal charter commission. One of them, Elena Herrada, a long-time community activist and friend of the Green Party, placed 18th out of 44 candidates and is on the November 3rd general election ballot. This is a first for Detroit Greens. All municipal elected offices are elected citywide (650,000 people), making it difficult for new non-Democratic Party candidates. For more information on Herrada and her campaign, go to www.voteherrada09.org.

NEW JERSEY

State Assembly candidacy in New Jersey

This year Steven Welzer will be the Green Party candidate for State Assembly in New Jersey’s 12th Legislative District (covering Mercer and Monmouth counties). During the spring he successfully petitioned to get on the November general election ballot.

Welzer was a founding member of the Green Party of New Jersey and currently serves on its Executive Committee. He and his family reside in East Windsor. He will be advocating that New Jersey implement universal healthcare at the state level if the federal government proves†incapable of doing so nationally.

Contributions can be sent to: Welzer for Assembly ’09, PO Box 2029, Princeton, NJ 08543.

TENNESSEE

The Green Party of Tennessee was successful in getting the McKinney/Clemente ticket on the statewide ballot in 2008.†They received 2,499 votes. Chris Lugo ran as the Green Party candidate for Senate and received 9,170 votes. John Miglietta ran for U.S. House of Representatives†5th district which comprises most of the city of Nashville and parts of two adjoining counties. He received 3,196 votes. Because of Tennessee’s ballot access laws, the Green Party does not have political party status in the state. Therefore Green candidates must run as Independents. The Green Party, together†with the Constitutional†and Libertarian parties, are in the process of bringing a lawsuit against the state to change its regressive ballot access law.

The Green Party†held its state meeting in Knoxville in March. Greens from across the state came together to strategize and build the party in the Volunteer State. The Green Party tabled†in Nashville at the Peace Festival and†Pridefest in June. The Knox County Greens participated at the Pridefest held in Knoxville. A new local has been established in Perry County, which is in western Middle Tennessee, and a new local is forming in Dickson County, just west of Nashville.

The Green Party of Tennessee sponsors a weekly show on Radio Free Nashville, a low power community FM station in the Nashville area. The show is done by several Greens from Middle Tennessee. The show airs Sundays 7-8 PM Central time and can be heard via the Internet on www.radiofreenashville.org

Tennessee Green Rose Davis recently took part in a Code Pink-UN mission to Gaza.

Green and Growing in Tennessee!!