Green Party of Texas
|
Green Party of Texas
|
|
|---|---|
| Chairperson | Laura Palmer & Aaron Renaud |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Headquarters | 1105 E 6th St Austin, Texas 78741 |
| Ideology | Green politics |
| National affiliation | Green Party |
| Colors | Green |
| Website | |
| Official website | |
The Green Party of Texas is the state party organization for Texas of the Green Party of the United States. The party was founded as the electoral arm of the political movements for grassroots democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, and peace/nonviolence. The aim of the movement is to bring change to the Government such that it is brought in line with the Global Greens Charter.
As of November 2016, the Texas Green Party does not have ballot access, though they had it continuously since 2010, and the two cycles following its founding, 2000-2002. Greens have won local offices in Texas in the past.
The Green Party of Texas began to organize a serious, statewide, grassroots effort in the late 1990s. Small, active Green groups existed in large cities throughout the state (particularly Houston, Dallas and Austin) before this time, but Ralph Nader's 1996 campaign helped spur the growth of the Green Party of Texas.
Ballot access was achieved in Texas by the Green Party, which allowed Ralph Nader and the names of statewide and local Green candidates to appear on the ballot alongside Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian and Independents.
The drive in 2000 was achieved using volunteers with a help from paid petitioners, most of them Greens from other states; the cost of the drive was around $80,000; over 30,000 of those signatures were collected in the last two weeks alone. The goal for signatures was about 64,000 (based on the gubernatorial election of 1998, including a sizable cushion for invalid signatures); over 76,000 qualified signatures were collected. Three Green Party candidates reached the required 5 percent threshold for one statewide candidate to achieve in order to retain ballot access for 2002 (the highest was Ben Levy for State Supreme Court, who received 9.7 percent with 451,338 votes).
Having retained access to the ballot for this year, the Green Party of Texas fielded 28 candidates to appear on the ballot around the state, in addition to candidates for several local races. None of the statewide candidates achieved the required 5 percent of the vote, because of one-punch, straight-ticket voting, so the Green Party lost ballot access for 2004. Of the statewide Green candidates, Lesley Nicole Ramsey got 21.7% with 63,871 votes for State Board of Education, District 10; Ruben Reyes got 1.72% with 77,177 votes for Comptroller of Public Accounts; several candidates for statewide judge seats received votes within that range.
...
Wikipedia