NATIONAL
Green Party Update On The 2008 Election
Illinois Greens select US Senate candidate, run record number of US House candidates
PEORIA -- Illinois Green Party delegates, meeting at the party's convention this past weekend, nominated Kathy Cummings to run for the US Senate. The meeting took place at the Bradley Student Center in Peoria, March 28-29.
Illinois Greens also selected delegates to attend the Green Party's National Convention to take place in Chicago, July 10-13 The Illinois Green Party is allotted 44 delegates out of a total of 836.
Four Illinois Green candidates for the US House addressed the meeting: Omar Lopez, Steve Alesch, Jerome Pohlen and Rodger Jennings. The candidates discussed party growth, alternative energy sources, immigration reform, and the Green Party's strong opposition to the US occupation of Iraq.
Last week, Sheldon Schafer announced his campaign for the US House in District 18, the latest of at least 11 Green candidates for Congress in Illinois. More Green congressional candidates are expected to announce before the filing deadline on Monday, April 7.
Cynthia McKinney wins Wisconsin Green Presidential Preference Primary
OSHKOSH -- Cynthia McKinney received a majority of the votes cast in the Wisconsin Green Party Presidential Preference Primary. Ms. McKinney received 79% of the vote; Kent Mesplay received 10%; write-Ins for Ralph Nader 5%; Kat Swift 2%; uncommitted 2%; and Jesse Johnson 1%. (Mr. Nader is running as an independent and is not seeking the nomination of the Green Party of the United States.)
The primary was held on Saturday, March 29 during the Wisconsin Green Party's Spring Gathering and Presidential Preference Convention at the River Center at the Gruenhagen Conference Center, University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh.
Wisconsin is allotted 24 delegates to the Green Party's national convention.
Other state's info will be added as it becomes available.
New Mexico
The NM Green Nominating Convention is in the Planning Stages but scheduled for Saturday, June 7th in either Albuquerque or Santa Fe. The convention will choose delegates to the National Convention in Chicago which will nominate the Green candidates for President/Vice-President. New Mexico is allotted 8 delegates to the national convention.
from Ballot Access News
On November 10, the New Mexico Green Party received a letter from the Secretary of State, saying the party is ballot-qualified for 2008. The law has been interpreted different ways during the past 20 years. Ballot Access News has not yet seen the letter. Presumably it offers a definitive explanation of how to interpret the law. Probably it says that if a party goes through an election and doesn’t run a candidate for the office at the top of the ticket, it automatically remains on the ballot. The Green Party was on the ballot in 2006 but didn’t run a gubernatorial candidate. The law links party status to the party’s vote for Governor or President. The ambiguity had been what happens when the party doesn’t run for those offices.
It is not yet clear how this letter will affect the Constitution Party. It had already been clear that the Libertarian Party is on the 2008 New Mexico ballot, since it petitioned in 2006 and parties get at least two elections for one petition.
What's YOUR Carbon Footprint?
If you flew somewhere this past summer, you could have some pretty substantial tootsies there! Recently though, a new concept called "carbon offsetting" has come on the scene to offer air travellers a unique way to do something to ameliorate their share of the jet emissions. We've found a local group offering New Mexicans a way to offset here at home and see the effects of their contributions.
Carbon offsets
Cmon, youve heard of them. You take a plane trip or jump into your vehicle for your Thanksgiving pilgrimage. The vehicles you travel in add their share to the sum total of carbon emissions on the planet. But you can offset carbon emissions generated by your trip by purchasing carbon offsets. We did some research and found a local organization to buy carbon offsets from. The Santa Fe group, Forest Guardians, will plant trees in river and other water-fed areas with the funds sent in.
We asked about the breakdown. The cost of each tree planted is $10, of which $8 buys the tree and the remaining $2 goes towards the cost of transporting the tree and planting it. Administrative costs for the carbon offsets program are absorbed by Forest Guardians.
Here is the information, and it is surprisingly quick and easy to do.
On the internet, go to http://www.fguardians.org/guardians/co2-calculate.asp or just go to the homepage for Forest Guardians (f.guardians.org) and click on the right hand sidebar which says "Compensate for your carbon footprint." It will take you to a screen which asks for your road mileage or total number of air miles traveled. You plug in the miles and the next screen shows the number of trees and total cost for each trip along with how to pay for it.
from Ballot Access News
November 7th, 2007
On November 7, the 10th circuit ruled against the Libertarian Party’s ballot access lawsuit, for reasons having to do with court rules, not over the merits. The case is Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Herrera, no. 06-2303.
The case had been filed in 2006, after the Libertarian Party had successfully petitioned for party status. Under New Mexico law, even though the party was now ballot-qualified, it was required to submit a petition signed by 1% of the last vote cast, for each of its nominees. The U.S. District Court had scheduled a hearing to gather evidence, but had cancelled the hearing only 3 days before that hearing. The U.S. District Court had then ruled that no possible set of facts could result in the law being held unconstitutional, since in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld petitions of 5% for independent candidates and for the candidates of unqualified parties.
The party had appealed, but the 10th circuit said that the party is not entitled to relief because it it made a procedural error. Specifically, the 10th circuit said the party’s Rule 56(f) Motion, asking for a chance to present evidence, wasn’t detailed enough. As to the merits of the case, the 10th circuit said “We need not resolve this.”
Any qualified party in New Mexico that is entitled to nominate by convention, and not by primary, is free to file a similar lawsuit in the future.
The 10th circuit had set October 1, 2007 as the hearing date in Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Vigil-Giron, 06-2303. This was the case challenging the state’s policy of one petition to qualify a new party (which then nominates by convention), and then separate hefty petitions for each person the party nominates. The party argues that one petition should be sufficient to show that the party has a modicum of voter support, and additional petitions for all of its nominees have no function. The lower court had upheld the law without even scheduling a hearing. The main issue before the 10th circuit is whether the U.S. District Court should have gathered evidence before ruling. The 10th circuit hearing is in Denver.
On June 11, the ACLU Voting Rights office sued New Mexico over the law that requires qualified minor parties to submit separate petitions for each of their nominees. [The case is] Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Vigil-Giron, 06-615. The case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Martha Vazquez, a Clinton appointee. New Mexico is the only state that requires a new party to submit one petition to qualify itself, and then completely separate petitions for each of that party's nominees (who would have been nominated by convention). A new party that wanted to run a full slate of candidates for all partisan offices would need approximately 250,000 valid signatures.
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The Santa Fe Charter Review - Is Ranked Choice Voting Coming to Our Capitol City?
from the Santa Fe Greens
The Santa Fe City Charter gets reviewed - by a specially-appointed Charter Review Commission - only once every 10 years, and this is the year!
The Charter Review Commission has recommended that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) be added to the Santa Fe City Charter, and the Mayor and five of our City Councilors have expressed support for RCV.
This is a critical amendment to the Charter!
Ranked Choice Voting is a system of voting which guarantees majority support (ie. real democracy) for the winning candidate. It is used in several countries around the world, as well as the city of San Francisco, with great success - increased voter participation and turnout, and an election process which truly reflects the interests and preferences of the majority of the voters. (For more details on Ranked Choice Voting, go to santafegreens.org or fairvote.org).
In order to get Ranked Choice Voting in Santa Fe, each of us needs to take immediate action to encourage the continuation of the Charter Review process.The Charter Review process is bogged down in the Ethics and Review committee, chaired by Patti Bushee, and these folks need to hear from us citizens that we want them to get the ball rolling again. [If you live in the SF city limits] Please call the members of the Committee and ask them to finalize their review of the CRC work so that the amendments can be placed on the ballot for the voters of Santa Fe to decide. Also ask them to leave the CRC recommen- dations intact.
For more info contact Rick Lass at 920-0540 or ricklass@newmmexico.com
Around the U.S. & World
IRV Makes Key Progress, Garners Support
Thanks to Californians for Electoral Reform, [www.cfer.org], ranked choice voting bills, AB 1294 and AB 1662, have passed the Assembly and the state Senate Elections Committee. AB 1294 would allow all localities the option to use instant runoff voting and choice voting, while AB 1662 would protect the voting rights of overseas voters, like members of the armed forces in war zones, through ranked ballots in elections with runoffs.
Cary (NC), a city of 110,000, [and new home to the USA Baseball National Training Complex] will use IRV to elect its mayor and city council in October (see caryvotes123.com). Sarasota (FL) will vote on IRV in November, while St. Paul (MN), Los Angeles (CA) and Aspen (CO) are among several cities taking big strides to vote on IRV. We expect at least one viable statewide ballot measure in 2008.
Two states have launched task forces to study advanced voting methods. Led by Rep. John Kefalas, Colorado lawmakers are studying proportional voting and instant runoff voting. Composed of legislators from both major parties, election administrators and civic leaders, the commission expects to make its recommendations by November. Meanwhile, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has created the Ranked Choice Voting Issues Group to help cities like Minneapolis implement choice voting and IRV.
On the communications side, there have been some terrific editorials and commentaries on IRV this year, including a ringing endorsement from USA Today. See articles and commentaries on IRV [HERE]. See also the newly redesigned instantrunoff.com and our new site includeeveryvoter.org for information on using IRV for overseas voters in runoffs. from Fairvote.org
Green city manager, Ross Mirkarimi helps implement new rule that helps to reduce petroleum consumption and marine life endangerment in this groundbreaking legislaton.
Greens Call for a Massive National, Global Conservation Effort to Curb Global Warming
WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders, on the eve of 'Step It Up' events [stepitup2007.org] scheduled on April 14 to address the growing threat of climate change, spoke out in favor of a massive conversion of the US economic system to curb the threat of global warming in the coming decades.
