Citizens Party (United States)
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Citizens Party
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|---|---|
| Founded | May 15, 1979 |
| Dissolved | December 31, 1987 |
| Succeeded by | Consumer Party; (indirectly) Green Party |
| Ideology |
Environmentalism Liberalism |
| Political position |
Fiscal: Left |
| International affiliation | None |
Fiscal: Left
The Citizens Party was a political party in the United States. It was founded in Washington, D.C. by Barry Commoner, who wanted to gather under one umbrella political organization all the environmentalist and liberal groups which were unsatisfied with President Carter's administration. The Citizens Party registered with the Federal Elections Commission at the end of 1979. Commoner, a professor of environmental science at Washington University in St. Louis, was the head of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems in St. Louis and editor of Science Illustrated magazine.
The Citizens Party platform was pro-environmental in nature. Some have claimed that it was possibly socialist as well, but this claim arose from a misunderstanding of the economic democracy platform of the party, which appears to be a form of corporatism. Commoner clearly stated repeatedly that socialism for parts of the economy other than essential infrastructure was a disastrous idea. His economic democracy idea stated that the business of business is to do business, but that the business of government is to regulate business to prevent abuses.
In all, the party was founded around four essential platforms, including economic democracy.
§The first Citizens Party National Convention met in Cleveland in the Cleveland Plaza Hotel from April 10 to 13, 1980. There were 260 delegates from 30 states present. The "proposals presented at the convention reportedly numbered some 300 items, a list largely irreducible to a manageable platform. . . Units of the party organization on the state level thus became more or less responsible for delineating their own briefer versions of the list of goals" (Kruschke, p. 46). The Party nominated Barry Commoner for President, and La Donna Harris (then, at that time, the wife of Democratic U.S. Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma) for Vice President. La Donna Harris was "a leading feminist and a Comanche Indian [who] labeled herself as 'a woman of color.'"
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