Green Party (United States)

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. The FEC-recognized national committee of the party is the Green Party of the United States (although there remains also a mostly-defunct separate Green national political organization, the Greens/Green Party USA).

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 http://www.greens.org/elections/. Californians have elected 67 (all of them in nonpartisan-ballot elections) of the 204 office-holding Greens nationwide as of January, 2004. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (27), Massachusetts (23), Maine (13), and Wisconsin (19). 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.

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In California in 2000, the Green Party's nominee for president (Ralph Nader) received 405,722 votes; In the 2002 Governor's race, the city of San Francisco gave more votes to the Green Party candidate, Peter Camejo, than to the Republican candidate. Matt Gonzalez, who served as president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and who came close to winning the San Francisco mayoral contest in 2003, is a Green Party member (although these city offices in California are elected by "nonpartisan" ballot). Jason West, mayor of New Paltz, NY, attained national prominence in 2004 by performing a series of 25 same-sex marriages in that city. John Eder is the highest-ranking Green in the U.S., elected to the Maine state house in 2002 (and re-elected in 2004). The Alaska Green Party has the highest per capita proportion of Greens, receiving 10% of the votes statewide in the 2000 presidential elections.

Related Topics:
Ralph Nader - Governor's - San Francisco - Peter Camejo - Republican - Matt Gonzalez - Jason West - New Paltz, NY - 2004 - Same-sex marriage - John Eder - Maine

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One challenge that the Green Party (as well as other third parties) face 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 building party-building momentum in many states.

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