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In American politics, the Green Party is a third party which has been active in some areas since the 1980s, but first gained widespread public attention for Ralph Nader's presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. The FEC-recognized national committee of the party, organizationally akin to the Republican or Democratic National Committees, is the Green Party of the United States (though there is a mostly-defunct rival organization, the Greens/Green Party USA).

Unlike Green parties in other nations, Greens in the United States have won elected office mostly at the local level only; 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). At the federal level, third parties generally poll poorly in the United States. This is largely due to the country's use of first-past-the-post voting and concerns of third party votes causing a spoiler effect, circumstances predicted by Duverger's law.

Greens emphasize decentralization and local autonomy, in keeping with the Green commitment to non-hierarchical participatory democracy, so it is perhaps not surprising that the strength of the Green Party does not derive from a central national organization.

1 History

Largely inspired by the success of the German Green Party, political activists in the United States formed the Committees of Correspondence in 1984This page is about the year 1984. For other uses of 1984, see 1984 (disambiguation). 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday (link shows calendar). Events January January 1 Brunei becomes a fully independent state January 1 AT&T is broken up into 22 indepe, later to be known as the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCOC). The GCOC adopted the Ten Key Values as their philosophical basis, loosely based on the Four PillarsThe worldwide green parties are committed to the following Four Pillars # Ecology (sometimes "Ecological Wisdom") # Social Justice # Grassroots Democracy # Non-Violence In German, it is known as Die Grunen: okologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfre that most European Greens use. They organized themselves around bio-regionalBioregional democracy (or the Bioregional State is a set of Electoral Reforms designed to force the political process in a democracy to better represent body and environment concerns, e. water quality. This movement is variously called bioregional democra lines.

The GCOC held national gatherings of Green activists in 19871987 is a common year starting on Thursday. Events January January 1 Nunavut's capital changes it name to Iqaluit from Frobisher Bay. January 3 Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. January 4 An Amtrak train, then annually starting in 19891989 is a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). Events January January 7 Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan following the death of Hirohito. The Heisei period begins January 8 the Kegworth Air Disaster A British Midland Boeing 737 cra. At the 19911991 like 2002, is a palindromic year. It also has the same calendar as 2002, including Easter on March 31. It is a common year starting on Tuesday. Events January January 2 Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC becoming the first blac national gathering, the GCOC was disbanded, and a new structure was put into place, named the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA), which was organized with delegates from local and regional green groups, in addition to individual members.

In 1990Events January January 3 Former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega surrenders to American forces. January 7 The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public due to safety concerns. January 9 Lt Gen Bazilio Olara Okello The man who led the coup aginst Dr Apo, Jim Sykes ran as a Green for governor in Alaska. He received 3.3% of the vote, enough to grant official ballot status to the Green Party in the state. The California Green Party would follow, attaining official ballot status in 1991. From 1992 to 1995, the number of candidates in local and state-wide elections identifying themselves grew, in addition to the number of organized local and state-wide Green groups. Hawaiian Greens, including the notable Keiko Bonk, have achieved repeated success in county-level elections.

At the 1995 national gathering of the GPUSA in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a measure to run a candidate for president was defeated. However, those who wished to run a candidate for president continued to pursue this possibility. They selected Ralph Nader as their presidential candidate and 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. [1]

In the aftermath of the 1996 election, representatives from eleven state Green Parties joined to form the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). The focus of the ASGP, while still including issue activism and non-electoral politics, was more clearly on getting Greens elected. In the years from 1997 to 1999, more local, regional, and state-wide Green parties continued to form. Many of these parties affiliated themselves with both the ASGP and the G/GPUSA.

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 [2].

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 G/GPUSA Congress. 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. Today the G/GPUSA survives as a small membership organization, led by the few Greens who opposed the Boston Proposal. Though they often represent themselves to the contrary, they do not represent the vast majority of Greens, and only a handful of state parties are affiliated with them.

In 2002, John Eder 's election to the Maine State 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 California, 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 John Eder, Eder nevertheless won re-election.

Late in 2003, Ralph Nader declared that he would not be the party's nominee for president in 2004. However, in February, 2004, Nader announced his intention to run as independent. A few months later, Nader stated that he would accept the "endorsement" rather than the "nomination" of the Green Party, as well as of other third parties. Several prominent Greens, including Peter Camejo and Lorna Salzman , endorsed this plan (Camejo would later accept a position as Nader's vice-presidential running-mate). The most notable opposition came from lawyer and activist David Cobb, who wanted to run a campaign focused on building the party. On June 26, the Green Party of the United States convention rejected the idea of an endorsement for Nader and chose Cobb as its presidential candidate, with Pat LaMarche of Maine as the candidate for Vice-President.

A vigorous debate continues within the Green Party regarding the place of the party in what many see as a dysfunctional electoral system.





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