State Reports

Detailed guidelines for state reports are available upon request. Deadline for submissions for the next issue: May 15.
We encourage states to identify skilled writers with journalism experience to report on the latest news with voices from your state. Maximum word count for reports is 300 words. 

Photos of local Greens in action are always welcome. Please include a caption and photographer credit information with all photographs. Please submit a copy of your state party's seal/ graphic with your report, unless you have recently submitted graphics to Green Pages in high-resolution quality. We prefer .bmp, .jpeg or .gif files for pictorial submissions. 

Send reports to:
Dave McCorquodale
mccorq@comcast.net

Green Pages
E-mail: greenpages@greens.org 
Website: www.gp.org/greenpages/ 

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caucus, committee, network, and other reports

Committees, working groups, and other subgroups within the GP-US are where much of the nuts and bolts of party work gets done. We encourage each such group to let Greens know what the national party is doing. 

Guidelines for group reports are available upon request, but are essentially the same as those for state reports. Please be sure to include website and other contact information at the end of your report. Maximum word count for reports is 300 words. Deadline for next issue: May 15.

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New Jersey

When it comes to public policy, New Jers­ey's three alternative political parties don't agree on much. But the political rivals-the Green Party, the Conservative Party and the Libertarian Party-have put aside their differences to take aim at a problem they share in common: New Jersey's discriminatory and unconstitutional election laws.

New Jersey's statutory scheme places a huge hurdle-the most restrictive of all 50 states-on political parties seeking official state recognition. This is according to a lawsuit served on Oct. 30, 2006 by New Jersey Apple­seed Public Interest Law Center and Emery Celli Brinkerhoff & Abady LLC, counsel for the three parties. 

"New Jersey election law is patently discriminatory against our clients," said Renee Stein­hag­en, Executive Director of New Jersey Appleseed, "so much so, that we believe it is unconstitutional under both the Federal and New Jersey constitutions."

New Jersey law defines a "political party" as a party that attains 10 percent of the total vote cast in the State Assembly races. Effect­ively, only the Democrats and Republicans have been able to meet this criterion since they established it in 1920. "No other state in the Union has such a restrictive definition of political party," said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News and a nationally recognized expert on federal and state election laws. 

"This effort seeks judicial relief to overcome barriers created by two parties sustaining their mon­opoly," said George DeCarlo, chair of the state Green Party. "We recognize that the United States in good faith signed and pledged to support the Copen­hagen Declaration of the Helsinki Accords that political parties (are to be) provided ... the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by the authorities."

Maine State Report

The Green Party remains strong in Portland. The 2006 elections have added two Greens to the Portland City Council. Congratulations to Dave Marshall and Kevin Donoghue for their successful campaigns. Matt Reading of Portland lost his race for the state legislature by only four votes. Rebecca Minnick gained a seat on the Portland School Committee. There are currently four greens on this School Committee. The Maine Greens are grateful for all that John Eder did during his two terms in office in the Maine State Legislature. We hope that he will be running again in the next election.

Former Green vice presidential candidate, Pat LaMarche, was one of four candidates running against incumbent John Baldacci for Gov­­ernor. She qualified as a clean elections candidate emphasizing universal healthcare as the primary issue in her campaign platform. Baldacci won, receiving only 38 percent of the vote. LaMarche received 10 percent of the vote. Her outstanding website was visited by thousands of Maine voters and she received endorsements by several Maine newspapers including the Portland Phoenix and the Courier Gazette. LaMarche and her campaign team worked hard crisscrossing the state touring hospitals and participating in debates. The Maine greens applaud all the hard work that she and other candidates did to keep Green issues in the forefront.

Campus Greens

Campus Greens has 42 affiliated chapters nationwide for school year 2006-2007. Five of these chapters are high schools, which is very promising because they've all reached out on their own! 

The website (www.campusgreens. org) has been updated with the addition of the Green Festival event, taking place in Chicago on April 21-22, 2007. Hope­fully there will be a space to promote Campus Greens at this event! The campaigns page has been updated with several new campaigns added which can be used as a resource by chapters everywhere. Illinois, California, and Wis­consin chapters (and possibly other states as well) brought Green candidates and speakers to their schools during the 2006 election cycle.

Planning the 2007 National Con­vention has begun and students are being sought to join the Events Committee. This committee organizes the various conventions, conferences, teach-ins, workshops, and other national events sponsored by the Campus Greens. This is a great opportunity for CG members to gain experience in putting together major events. 

Email info@campusgreens.org to get involved or if there are questions or comments.

Vermont State Report

On April 23, 2006 the Vermont Green Party became the first political entity in the nation with a ballot line to call for the Impeachment of the Bush/ Cheney Administration,
starting with its complicity in the attacks of September 11th, 2001, among other numerous crimes against humanity, civilization and the continuation of life on Earth. 

The Vermont Green Party does not blindly accept the Admin­i­stra­tion's contentions concerning 9/11, which helped launch the "War on Terror" that has been enthusiastically supported by both Congressional Republicans and Democrats. The VGP be­lieve that only criminal forces in and around the U.S. government could have carried out such attacks. It is recognized as part of the political leadership of the 9/11 Truth = Peace Move­ment, along with other Greens such as Carol Brouillet. 

In the election cycle, the party ran three candidates: Craig Hill for Senate; Jim Hogue for Gov­ernor; and Bruce Marshall for the U.S. House. All ran to save the Constitutional Republic as the prerequisite for building a positive future and emphasized that incumbents have violated their oaths of office by allowing the administration to commit numerous violations of the Constitution and by going along with the wars for oil. 

As Governor, Jim Hogue would not have allowed the Vermont National Guard to participate in undeclared foreign wars. Craig Hill made the crucial connection between war and the environment: "The first consideration in stopping global warming is to stop the wars for oil." 

Bruce Marshall echoed Hill's message, which included bringing back the policies of Franklin Roosevelt to address the need to create a new economic infrastructure that works for the survival of people and the planet. He also mentioned Victor Schauberger's concept that science must participate with nature, in order to understand and copy it. A vision of a positive future must inform our efforts today to bring hope to the younger generations. 

Upcoming campaigns will em­phasize decoupling school funding from property taxes and opposition to the use of fluoridated drinking water, just two of the issues not being addressed by various political and environ­mental groups in Vermont.

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