If you ask someone on the street what comes to mind when you said the words “Green Party,” most likely they would say Ralph Nader and then give you a blank stare. A few people, still bitter about the 2000 presidential election, might scoff and throw in the word “spoiler.” But popular knowledge about the Green Party belies a fascinating history.
Green Party History 1970s-2000
The first Green Parties in the world were founded in Europe and New Zealand in the 1970s.1 It wasn’t until 1984 that Green Party committees began to form in the United States. Inspired by the chapters around the world, leaders in the U.S. formed the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCOC), which laid the groundwork for the National Party and formulated the “Ten Key Values.” According to the Green Party website, though different Green Parties may prioritize issues differently, all Green Parties are united and guided by the Ten Key Values:2
- Grassroots Democracy
- Social Justice and Equality
- Ecological Wisdom
- Non-Violence
- Decentralization
- Community-Based Economics and Economic Justice
- Feminism and Gender Equity
- Respect for Diversity
- Personal and Global Responsibility
- Future Focus and Sustainability
Alaska, a fairly conservative state, might seem like a strange place for the emergence of the Green Party. So, surprisingly in 1986, two years after the formative committees began to meet, the first green candidate appeared on a ballot in Alaska. Local bids for office continued until 1990, when Jim Sykes ran for governorship of Alaska, winning about 3.3% of the vote.3 Receiving a 3.3 voting percentage is certainly not a record-breaking number, but it was enough to earn Greens ballot status in the state and give them greater national prominence. Nonetheless, many people in the GCOC were becoming impatient with the Committee’s strategy of radical, slow, long-term organizing.4 Thus, in 1991 the GCOC was disbanded and the Greens / Green Party USA was formed.
The Greens / Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) was, as its title suggests, actually two different parties working together. The Green Party USA was the more well-known and moderate of the two. It was also the Party that held official national committee status to run candidates. The other organization, the Greens, was more radical, and served as more of a political and environmental advocacy group than as a political party with candidates.5
Over the next five years between 1991 and 1996, the number of Green party members continued to rise. However, trouble was on the horizon. At the 1995 national Green Gathering in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the group adopted a measure that placed a candidate for president on ballots in 40 states. A large portion of the Greens opposed this measure. According to this faction, the key value of decentralization meant that becoming involved in such a large-scale political arena would be ideologically inconsistent. Nonetheless, Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke ran for president and vice president together in 1996.6
After the 1996 election, a handful of state Green Parties broke from G/GPUSA and formed the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), which put a strong emphasis on running candidates for office. The ASGP ran Nader and LaDuke again in the 2000 Presidential election, and in October 2000 the group negotiated the “Boston Proposal” with the G/GPUSA. The Boston Proposal was an attempt to join the two groups, having G/GPUSA focus on advancing issues while the ASGP concentrated its efforts on running candidates.8 Unfortunately for them, G/GPUSA ultimately rejected the proposal and fell into relative obscurity while the ASGP, renamed the “Green Party of the United States,”9 became officially recognized by the Federal Election Commission in 2001.10
Not only was the 2000 election controversial among members of the various Green Parties in the U.S., it was also very controversial in mainstream politics. The Nader / LaDuke ticket went on to win 2.7% of the national vote in the 2000 election, and according to many Democrats “spoiled” the election for Al Gore. The spoiler claim goes like this: in 2000 George W. Bush (Republican) beat Al Gore (Democrat) in the national election by just barely eking out a 537 vote victory in Florida. Nader had 97,421 votes in Florida, so many Democrats claim that without Nader in the race most of those 97 thousand votes would have gone to Gore, and therefore Al Gore would have been President of the United States rather than George W. Bush.11 Since the 2000 election, if you talk to members of the Green Party they may tell you that Nader no more spoiled the election for Gore than Gore spoiled it for Nader.
Green Party History 2001-Present
Since June 2007, 226 elected officials in 28 states have been members of the Green Party of the United States.13 The party continues to take a stand for independent politics, challenge the major parties in elections, and not follow previous notable third parties into obscurity by having their key views absorbed. In the recent 2012 election, Green Party nominee Jill Stein only won 0.36% of the popular vote.14 However, her efforts drew attention to the importance of including third parties in U.S. politics. During the course of the presidential race she managed to be the only candidate to be arrested (she was actually arrested twice—once when protesting her noninclusion in debates,15 and another when attempting to bring food and Halloween candy to protesters camping out in trees to oppose the climate change (Obama hardly mentioned the issue, Romney never did).17
Surprisingly, Green Parties around the world have fared very well in politics, especially in countries with a multiparty political system. In fact, the Green Party of Germany recently saw their candidate elected to one of the highest offices of government—prime minister of Baden Württemberg, a major regional state.18 Due to our two party political system, many people in the U.S. do not realize how much their views dovetail with those of candidates they’ve barely heard of, much less considered voting for.19 At least two websites, iSideWith and ElectNext, have developed online questionnaires designed to match voters with their most ideologically compatible candidate. On iSideWith, Green Party candidate Jill Stein was the candidate most ideologically compatible with a whopping 39 percent of site visitors. Next election, perhaps you might check out what you and the green party platform have in common!
