Association of State Green Parties

The Association of State Green Parties was an organization of state Green Parties in the United States between 1996 and 2001. In 2001, it evolved into the Green Party of the United States.

In the aftermath of the first Green presidential campaign in 1996, 62 Greens from 30 states gathered over the weekend of November 16–17, 1996 to found the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). The meeting was held at the historic Glen-Ora Farm in Middleburg, Virginia where John Kennedy had his weekend retreat in his administration's early days (rented to the president by the mother of ASGP meeting host and Nader supporter Elaine Broadhead.)

Green Parties from 13 states were the founding members, and approved an initial set of bylaws that set out the ASGP's purpose: (1) Assist in the development of State Green Parties and (2) Create a legally structured national Green Party. The founding meeting also established a national newsletter Green Pages, which carries forward today as the newspaper of the GPUS. The founding editor was Mike Feinstein.

Subsequent ASGP meetings occurred in Portland, OR (April 5–6, 1997), Topsham, ME (October 3–5, 1997),Santa Fe, NM (April 24–26, 1998), Moodus, CT (June 5–6, 1999) and Hiawassee, GA (December 8–10, 2000). Ralph Nader appeared in Moodus to talk about running for president the next year.

The concept of the ASGP came out of the 1991 national Greens Gathering in Elkins, West Virginia, where a committee was tasked with examining what an eventual Green Party might look it. The committee produced a report with contributions from six authors, among them Greg Gerritt from Maine. Gerritt's suggestion was for the creation of an Association of State Green Parties based on sovereign state parties, essentially as he argued, how all parties end up structured in the US. The reaction within the GPUSA was, according to Gerritt, to throw him out of the GPUSA. But that did not kill the concept. Instead it was shared by those involved in the establishment of the Green Politics Network in 1992, and what was founded in 1996 in Middleburg very closely reflected the proposal Gerritt originally submitted.

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