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Green Party of Virginia

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Green Party of Virginia
Female Co-chairTina Rockett
Male Co-chairBryce Davis
TreasurerKirit Mookerjee
Founded1993
HeadquartersP.O. Box 7316
Falls Church, Virginia 22040
IdeologyGreen politics
Eco-socialism[1]
Anti-capitalism
Electoral reform[2]
Grassroots democracy[3]
Communalism[4]
Municipalization[5]
Non-interventionism[6]
Political positionCenter-left to left-wing
National affiliationGreen Party
ColorsGreen
Seats in the US Senate
0 / 2
Seats in the US House
0 / 11
Seats in the VA Senate
0 / 40
Seats in the VA House
0 / 100
VA statewide offices held
0 / 3
Local Offices3 (June 2019)[7]
Website
www.VAGreenParty.org

The Green Party of Virginia (GPVA) is a state-level political party in Virginia and the state affiliate of the Green Party of the United States.

The GPVA's focuses on environmental issues and promoting candidates for local elections. The party had its first candidates running for elections in 1993, and got its first successful candidates elected to office in 1997.[8]

Campaigns

GPVA focuses on local elections for offices such as the Virginia House of Delegates, town council, Board of Supervisors, and Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) Board of Directors. The party earned its first electoral victories in November 1997 when Phil Welch was elected to the Buena Vista Soil & Water Conservation District board [9] and Stephanie Porras was elected to the Lexington Soil & Conservation District Board.[10] Since that time, several other GPVA members have run for office in both partisan and non-partisan races, with some success at the town council and SWCD level.

One of the most notable campaigns for office by a GPVA candidate in a partisan election have been Josh Ruebner's 2006, 2007 and 2008 candidacies for the Arlington County Board of Supervisors. Ruebner received extensive local media coverage for both campaigns. In 2007, he received votes from 10.3% of Arlingtonians who came to the polls (two votes may be cast for the Arlington County Board of Supervisors race; he received 3,253 votes from among the 31,511 people who were counted as having voted). Reeder received a vote share of 23.3% for the Arlington County Board in the 2008 elections. His vote count was 21,503, a figure which represents a significant increase of 10% from the 2007 elections. Reeder achieved this by running on a platform to promote affordable housing, increase recycling opportunities, and trim government waste. Furthermore, a Green Party-backed referendum to establish a housing authority, with the aim of increasing the County's available tools to address an ever-deepening affordable housing crisis, won 33% of the votes despite the opposition of both Democratic and Republican parties.[11]

In 2015, Jeff Staples ran for Virginia House of Delegates in the 81st District against Republican Barry Knight. He won 4 districts and received a total of 30.3% of the vote.

In 2016, Montigue Magruder and Rebecca Keel ran in the Richmond citywide elections and gathered nearly 12% of the votes in their respective districts. Kristen Lawson won the seat to represent Richmond's 4th district with 4,762 votes, 36.9% of the total.

Independent Greens split

When the state meeting of the Green Party of Virginia refused to recognize Carey Campbell's installation as chair of the Arlington local of the GPVA [12] and overturned Campbell's election to chair of the chapter and the election of the other officers due to clear violations of party bylaws. Campbell and others participating in the vote were not members of the local party and at least two people who voted were not party members. Campbell and several others, unhappy with this expected decision, formed the Independent Greens of Virginia and attempted to affiliate with the state party.[13] When this affiliation was denied, Campbell and Joe Oddo turned the Independent Greens of Virginia into a new statewide party.

Presidential elections

Year Nominee Votes
1996 Ralph Nader Not on ballot
2000 Ralph Nader 59,398 (2.17%)
2004 David Cobb (write-in) 104 (<0.01%)
2008 Cynthia McKinney 2,344 (0.06%)
2012 Jill Stein 8,627 (0.22%)
2016 Jill Stein 27,638 (0.69%)

Current officeholders

  • Kathleen Harrigan, Fredericksburg Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
  • Daniel Metraux, Staunton Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
  • Chris Simmons, Loudoun Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
  • Buck Richards, Warren County Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
  • Giannina Franz, Fredericksburg Soil and Water Conservation District Board
  • Wendy Hageman Smith, Appomattox County School Board
  • Kristen Lawson, Richmond City Council District 4

References

  1. ^ "Green Party of the United States - National Committee Voting - Proposal Details".
  2. ^ "Platform of the Greens/Green Party USA". "Abolish the disproportional, aristocratic US Senate. Create a single-chamber US Congress, elected by a system of mixed-member proportional representation that combines district representatives elected by preference voting and party representatives seated in proportion to each party's vote".
  3. ^ "Ten Key Values".
  4. ^ "IV. Economic Justice & Sustainability". Some call this decentralized system 'ecological socialism,' 'communalism,' or the 'cooperative commonwealth,' but whatever the terminology, we believe it will help end labor exploitation, environmental exploitation, and racial, gender, and wealth inequality and bring about economic and social justice due to the positive effects of democratic decision making. [...] Production is best for people and planet when democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by production decisions.
  5. ^ "IV. Economic Justice & Sustainability". "We will build an economy based on large-scale green public works, municipalization, and workplace and community democracy".
  6. ^ "Green Party Ten key values". We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments.
  7. ^ https://gpus.org/elections/green-officeholders-june-2019/
  8. ^ "Previous Electoral Campaigns". Green Party of Virginia. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  9. ^ http://216.92.191.78/elections/candidates.php?candidateId=1015&electionId=77&year=[permanent dead link]
  10. ^ http://216.92.191.78/elections/candidates.php?candidateId=1174&electionId=77&year=[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ "The Green Party of Virginia - Press Release". Vagreenparty.org. 2008-11-07. Retrieved 2010-09-04.
  12. ^ "Proposals to be Decided Upon at the First Quarterly Business Meeting of 2004". The Green Party of Virginia. 2004-01-08. Archived from the original on 2008-08-28. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  13. ^ "State Meeting (Minutes)". The Green Party of Virginia. 2004-02-08. Retrieved 2008-05-24.[dead link]
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