Green Party coordinator: We'll be back
The party got 4.5 percent of the vote in the race for attorney general
Traveler Staff
Issue date: 11/20/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
The Green Party is here to stay, the party's state coordinator vowed Wednesday. Coordinator Mark Swaney said he believes Americans deserve choices beyond those offered by the two major parties and that his party will continue to resist barriers legislated in Arkansas to limit ballot access of other parties' candidates.
Third parties have played important roles in American political history, Swaney said. At a time when the Democratic and Whig parties dominated, he said, "the Republican Party was the only party to oppose slavery, and, five years after being established, elected Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States."
Swaney joined the Green Party in 2001 and became its coordinator in 2003. He works as a UA research associate in engineering. He spoke to a UA journalism class Wednesday.
Swaney said that he considered the fact that the party got 3 percent in all races it entered except the gubernatorial one this November as "optimistic." In that race, the Green candidate, Jim Lendall, got 2 percent, an amount insufficient by state law to allow the party to run candidates in 2008 without petitioning for ballot access.
Under Arkansas Code 7-1-101, any political party that fails to gain 3 percent of the votes "for the office of Governor or nominees for presidential electors ... shall cease to be a political party."
The Greens are considering whether to sue the state once more, as they have had to do each time they ran candidates, to get a ruling on the law. A similar law in Alaska was ruled unconstitutional.
In 2001, the Greens got Sarah Marsh on the ballot for the U.S. House of Representatives Third District race after U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. ruled in the party's favor on Sept. 12, 2001. The ACLU filed suit on the Green Party's behalf, challenging a law that denied the party's access to the ballot for a special election. That election was required because the representative in the Third District, Asa Hutchinson, resigned to take a federal post.
After Marsh gained access to the ballot in 2001, Swaney said party officials decided to be "a full-service party," which meant running candidates, among other things. The Green Party candidate for land commissioner garnered 18 percent of the vote in the 2006 election, while the candidate for auditor got 15 percent. Other Green candidates got from 2 percent, in the gubernatorial race, to 4.5 percent for attorney general. Except for Lendall, all Green candidates received more than 3 percent.
"Something interesting happened in the state of Arkansas on election day," Swaney said, noting that the Green Party had six candidates on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Party officials and candidates did not expect to win their races, Swaney said, but Green candidates gave Arkansans an option to "establishment" parties.
The Green Party spent its money on lawsuits, leaving little for campaigning, Swaney said. In addition, all of the party's candidates work full-time, and campaign in their free time, he said. Candidates sought all opportunities to reach the public, he said, despite being excluded from debates with the major candidates and getting minimal coverage by the state's media.
"We will be back on the ballot again," Swaney said.
The election gave the Greens the opportunity to project their national and state party platforms, called "The Ten Key Values."
The values include economic justice, non-violence, feminism and "future focus."
"Green Party positions are based on what will happen in the future," including global warming and pollution that is killing the world's oceans," Swaney said.
"The United States is the only country in the world not doing anything about global warming," Swaney said. He told his young audience that at no time in history has a single generation been faced with the possibility of total annihilation.
The Kyoto Treaty, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, was developed to control global warming on a worldwide scale by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Even though the United States helped shape the international contract, President George W. Bush pulled the country out of the treaty in 2001, shortly after he took office.
Bush administration officials said the treaty would hurt the economy and is ineffective and discriminatory because large, rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India escape the limits.
According to the treaty, less industrialized nations do not have limits on amounts of emissions released into the atmosphere so that they can catch up to economic developments associated with highly industrialized countries.
Swaney warned that all of life could be eliminated if the environment continues to be defiled. Plankton - living in oceans, which are becoming more and more acidic - account for 75 percent of all the oxygen produced in the world, Swaney said. "If this trend continues and the plankton die, we will all be in big trouble," he said.
Swaney said Americans must therefore think ahead to protect future generations.
Marcus Looney, Holly Hood, Christopher Cox and Natalie Morrison contributed reporting for this story.
Third parties have played important roles in American political history, Swaney said. At a time when the Democratic and Whig parties dominated, he said, "the Republican Party was the only party to oppose slavery, and, five years after being established, elected Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States."
Swaney joined the Green Party in 2001 and became its coordinator in 2003. He works as a UA research associate in engineering. He spoke to a UA journalism class Wednesday.
Swaney said that he considered the fact that the party got 3 percent in all races it entered except the gubernatorial one this November as "optimistic." In that race, the Green candidate, Jim Lendall, got 2 percent, an amount insufficient by state law to allow the party to run candidates in 2008 without petitioning for ballot access.
Under Arkansas Code 7-1-101, any political party that fails to gain 3 percent of the votes "for the office of Governor or nominees for presidential electors ... shall cease to be a political party."
The Greens are considering whether to sue the state once more, as they have had to do each time they ran candidates, to get a ruling on the law. A similar law in Alaska was ruled unconstitutional.
In 2001, the Greens got Sarah Marsh on the ballot for the U.S. House of Representatives Third District race after U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. ruled in the party's favor on Sept. 12, 2001. The ACLU filed suit on the Green Party's behalf, challenging a law that denied the party's access to the ballot for a special election. That election was required because the representative in the Third District, Asa Hutchinson, resigned to take a federal post.
After Marsh gained access to the ballot in 2001, Swaney said party officials decided to be "a full-service party," which meant running candidates, among other things. The Green Party candidate for land commissioner garnered 18 percent of the vote in the 2006 election, while the candidate for auditor got 15 percent. Other Green candidates got from 2 percent, in the gubernatorial race, to 4.5 percent for attorney general. Except for Lendall, all Green candidates received more than 3 percent.
"Something interesting happened in the state of Arkansas on election day," Swaney said, noting that the Green Party had six candidates on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Party officials and candidates did not expect to win their races, Swaney said, but Green candidates gave Arkansans an option to "establishment" parties.
The Green Party spent its money on lawsuits, leaving little for campaigning, Swaney said. In addition, all of the party's candidates work full-time, and campaign in their free time, he said. Candidates sought all opportunities to reach the public, he said, despite being excluded from debates with the major candidates and getting minimal coverage by the state's media.
"We will be back on the ballot again," Swaney said.
The election gave the Greens the opportunity to project their national and state party platforms, called "The Ten Key Values."
The values include economic justice, non-violence, feminism and "future focus."
"Green Party positions are based on what will happen in the future," including global warming and pollution that is killing the world's oceans," Swaney said.
"The United States is the only country in the world not doing anything about global warming," Swaney said. He told his young audience that at no time in history has a single generation been faced with the possibility of total annihilation.
The Kyoto Treaty, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, was developed to control global warming on a worldwide scale by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Even though the United States helped shape the international contract, President George W. Bush pulled the country out of the treaty in 2001, shortly after he took office.
Bush administration officials said the treaty would hurt the economy and is ineffective and discriminatory because large, rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India escape the limits.
According to the treaty, less industrialized nations do not have limits on amounts of emissions released into the atmosphere so that they can catch up to economic developments associated with highly industrialized countries.
Swaney warned that all of life could be eliminated if the environment continues to be defiled. Plankton - living in oceans, which are becoming more and more acidic - account for 75 percent of all the oxygen produced in the world, Swaney said. "If this trend continues and the plankton die, we will all be in big trouble," he said.
Swaney said Americans must therefore think ahead to protect future generations.
Marcus Looney, Holly Hood, Christopher Cox and Natalie Morrison contributed reporting for this story.
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