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Weekly Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. I, No. 15 -- August 11,
2001
(This newsletter distributed to 2,921)
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F E A T U R E D I
N T H I S I S S U E
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1) NEW GREEN CANDIDATE IN ATHENS
2) "SPOILER" MONEY TO GREEN CANDIDATES
3) LAWSUIT ON OHIO BALLOT LABEL ADVANCES
4) PENNSYLVANIA GREENS PUSH
BILL
5) NEW MEXICO GREENS TO FILE LAWSUIT
6) NORTHEAST OHIO RADICAL ACTION
NETWORK
7) STATE COMPARISON OF INCOME TAX CHECK OFF
8) UNREPENTANT NADER
UNVEILS NEW PROJECT
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1) NEW GREEN CANDIDATE IN ATHENS
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The Green Party of Southeastern Ohio has endorsed
Paul Weihl as an at-large
candidate running for
Ward 1 of the Athens City Council. Mr. Weihl makes
the eighth Green Party candidate currently in the
state. The local Green Party
in Toledo has two addi-
tional people whom they have endorsed, but whom are
not Green Party members. Earlier this year, Columbus
fielded two Green Party
city council candidates and
endorsed a third in a primary race.
To
date in 2001, Ohio has had 7.8% (10 of 129 candi-
dates) of all the announced
Green Party candidates
nationwide.
The
Green Party of Ohio has also already identifed
two people who appear likely
to run for State House
seats in 2002. There was only one Green Party candi-
date in Ohio last year.
For
a list of Green Party candidates in Ohio:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/candidates/candidates2001.html
For
a list of Green Party candidates nationwide:
http://www.greens.org/elections/
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2) "SPOILER" MONEY TO GREEN CANDIDATES
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According to news reports published on August 8,
Republicans in Washington
state contributed money to
the campaign of Green candidate Young S. Han. When
Han learned that the money came from a GOP operative
hoping that he would
pull votes away from the Demo-
cratic candidate, he announced that the donation
would be returned. Republicans also recruited Michael
Jepson, who had no prior
connection with the Green
Party, to run as a Green in a King County race.
Holly
Hart, secretary of the Iowa Green Party, said,
"If the Democrats are
disturbed over the possibility
that Greens may spoil by taking away votes
that belong
to Democrats -- which is misleading, because the Demo-
cratic
Party owns no one's votes, and Democrats must
compete for votes like all other
candidates and politi-
cal parties -- then Greens challenge them to lead a
campaign to enact Instant Run-Off Voting."
Instant
Run-Off Voting (IRV) ensures that whoever wins
an election wins with majority
support, while at the
same time enabling third party and independent candi-
dates to run without the possibility that their partici-
pation will help
elect a candidate who wins less than a
majority of votes. Under IRV, a Republican
would have no
motivation to support a Green for the purpose of spoiling
a Democratic win. Ironically, the Washington state legis-
lature recently
entertained a proposal to replace blanket
primaries with IRV, but the bill
languished and died
before reaching the floor.
To
read the Green Party news release, visit:
http://www.gp-us.org/press/pr_08_10_01.html
For
the NY Times article of Aug. 8 prompting this
news release, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/national/08GREE.html?searchpv=day03
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3) LAWSUIT ON OHIO BALLOT LABEL ADVANCES
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From Ballot Access News, Aug. 1, 2001:
"On July 9, the Libertarian Party
filed its brief
with the U.S. Supreme Court in Schrader v Blackwell,
01-59.
This is the case on whether minor party nomi-
nees who use the independent
candidate procedure, may
have the name of that minor party on the ballot.
Most
minor parties in Ohio use the independent candidate
procedures, because
they are so much easier than the
new party procedures.
"The
U.S. Supreme Court won't say whether it will hear
this case, until October
2001 at the earliest. This is
the first appeal filed with the Supreme Court
by any
minor party, since the Court decided Bush v Gore and
Cook v Gralike.
[These] . . . cases ought to be powerful
precedents in favor of [this lawsuit]
. . . . Bush v Gore
said states cannot discriminate against any class of
voters. Yet laws which help Democratic and Republican
voters to know whom
their nominees are, and which deny
the same help to members of other parties,
obviously
discriminate for some voters, and against others.
"Cook
v Gralike said that states may not discriminate
against a class of candidates
for Congress. . . ."
Footnote:
Attorney Terry Lodge and the Green Party of
Ohio are assisting the Libertarian
Party in this case.
To
visit Ballot Access News, go to:
http://www.ballot-access.org/
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4) PENNSYLVANIA GREENS PUSH BILL
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The Green Party in Pennsylvania is pushing the intro-
duction of a bill to
reduce the petition requirement
for nominees of qualified minor parties. This
bill
would lower the statewide requirement from about
25,000 signatures
to about 6,000.
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5) NEW MEXICO GREENS TO FILE LAWSUIT
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The Green Party in New Mexico will file a lawsuit to
regain its status as
a major political party in New
Mexico. The issue to be decided is whether
major
parties must poll 5% for president or for any state-
wide office.
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6) NORTHEAST OHIO RADICAL ACTION NETWORK
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The Northeast Ohio Radical Action Network (NEO-RAN)
is a newly formed network
to facilitate cooperation
between activist groups in Northeast Ohio.
NEO-RAN
has a meeting scheduled Monday, August 20 at
7:00 PM in Cleveland (location
TBA) to make plans
for the September 28 IMF/World Bank protests in DC
and to discuss ideas for the permanent structure of
the Network. NEO-RAN also
has a "listserv." Send a
blank email to neo-ran-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
to subscribe.
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7) STATE COMPARISON OF INCOME TAX CHECK OFF
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Each year when Ohioans file their state income taxes,
they have a choice to
earmark a contribution to poli-
tical parties that polled 20% for president
or governor
in the last election. For the year 2000, this amounted
to
$209,533 each for the Democrats and Republicans.
Of the nine other states
that allow taxpayers this
income tax option, Green Parties in three states
(Arizona, Maine and Minnesota) received some of the
funds because those nine
states allowed taxpayers to
designate which party they wanted to receive funds.
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8) UNREPENTANT NADER UNVEILS NEW PROJECT
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Excerpts from the NY Times, Aug. 6:
"PORTLAND,
Ore., Aug. 5- 'We've got to raise our ex-
pectation level, folks!' Ralph Nader
shouted to a
thunderous ovation here on Saturday night at what he
billed
as the first major rally to kick off a new
'grass-roots movement' that he
calls Democracy Rising.
'We've got to raise our expectations!'
"'Our
elections are not for sale!' said Mr. Nader,
applause from the crowd of 7,500
people nearly drown-
ing him out. 'Our democracy is not for sale! Our
government is not for sale! Our children are not
for sale! Our environment,
not for sale! . . .'
"Though
Mr. Nader made virtually no mention of presi-
dential campaigns past or future
in his 57-minute
speech and declared that the rally was 'not a politi-
cal or Green Party event,' he remained unrepentant at
a news conference just
before about any corollary ef-
fects of his candidacy last year. He reiterated
that
his sole regret was that he had not received more
votes. (He got
about 3 percent nationwide, ranging
from 10 percent in Alaska down to zero
in the five
states where he was kept off the ballot.) . . .
"Mr.
Nader said he was hoping that the Portland rally
would be the first of several
in big cities that were
ultimately designed to spark a 'million-hundred-hundred'
movement of the citizenry: one million people devoting
at least 100 hours
a year and $100 to a variety of
causes like economic and environmental justice,
uni-
versal health care, campaign finance revisions, union
organizing,
solar energy and better public transporta-
tion. . . .
"'You
just have to ask yourself, is anyone else doing
this, is anybody else bringing
out thousands of people?'
he said. 'That's really the comparative measure.
There's
a lot of empty arenas in this country, built by taxpayer
money,
I might add, and they need to be filled.'"
To
read the entire NY Times article of Aug. 6, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/06/politics/06NADE.html?searchpv=day05
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Green Party of Ohio
PO Box 851, Kent OH 44240
Email: secretary@ohiogreens.org
Web: http://www.ohiogreens.org