As early voting begins today in Harris County and around the state, I would like to issue a reminder about Straight Party voting:
Don't Do It! More specifically, don't just walk up to the voting machine, enter your PIN, push a button to vote for the party of your preference, and have done with it. If you do, here is what it means:
Early voting begins Monday 24 October in Harris County and much of Texas. So it's time to whip out some completely unsurprising endorsements for my dozen or so readers.
The main point that I want to highlight in this post is my support for non-Green candidates in Harris County. There may be some Greens who vote a straight Green ticket and walk out, but I don't know any. Many of us push buttons for Democrats in local, district, and even statewide races. UPDATE: Jill Stein has posted a reply on jill2016.com to Al Gore's remarks. ***** Former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., is quite correct about one thing: Florida's votes really, really, really count. But his campaigning with Hillary Clinton has gravely disappointed my ladyfriend, who got to meet her longtime crush during Climate Reality Training this past August. At a campaign appearance with Hillary Clinton at Miami Dade College, the Sun-Sentinel notes, Gore recalled how much Floridians' votes counted in 2000, and the crowd responded with an enthusiastic chant of "You won! You won!" Considering the evidence that, if the recount had been allowed to proceed, he would have won Florida, the crowd was also correct about that. The Supreme Court and the Brooks Brothers Brownshirts stole the election from Gore and his running mate Joseph Lieberman. Perhaps if Gore had won the presidential race in 2000, we humans would be well on our way to achieving international goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the levels necessary to prevent the dreaded two-degree rise in global temperatures. Perhaps the United States would not have invaded Afghanistan and, subsequently, Iraq, because perhaps there would not have been a 9/11. Perhaps. Do what you know you ought to do. Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor's advice? There is a nearer neighbor within us incessantly telling us how we should behave. But we wait for the neighbor without to tell us of some false, easier way. Please excuse the lengthy exposition below, with its scant source material.
Unitarian Universalists are proud boat-rockers. Speaking truth to power is encoded in UU theology. UU's trace their religious ancestry back to theologians and activists who were considered heretics in their time. More recently, the movement has been identified first with "liberal Christianity," which changed over time to "liberal religion" because a large percentage of UU's self-identify as humanist, agnostic, atheist, or pagan. At various times in US history, Unitarians and Universalists have vocally opposed war and slavery. UU churches in the South opened their doors to black worshipers and visitors when segregation was the law. UU churches across the US were among the first to welcome LGBT congregants and ministers. UU's also tend to be knowledge-workers: academics and teachers, doctors and lawyers, artists and architects. Although they represent about 0.1% of the US population, UU's make up a huge chunk of America's intellectual 1%. A huge majority of UU's in the US are active Democrats. Conversation at coffee hour sometimes turns to politics, and everyone can safely assume that everyone else is at least liberal, if not a practicing Democrat. Quite a few of us UU's consider ourselves progressive, economically and socially to the left of the Democratic mainstream. Yeah, So? Now that we have established that we are taking about very smart, open-minded people, let's get to the substance of this post. Within the UU movement, there is a rather unsettling degree of unwritten orthodoxy. My impression, from 20 years as a practicing UU, is that it's easier for a typical UU Democrat to understand that some UU's are Republicans than that some of us are Green or Libertarian. Some have trouble wrapping their formidable minds around the concept of "third parties." This binary "either/or" thinking is a baseline human trait, but it is also a form of intellectual laziness, especially for people who recognize the falsity of the gender binary. Yesterday I posted this status on Facebook: Things I can say with confidence: Even before I clicked the button to publish that brief statement, I had a feeling that it would generate some controversy. It did, but my friends of various political outlooks who commented on it are a thoughtful bunch, and it did not degenerate into a flame war—at least, it hasn't yet.
There were comments in defense of cast a strategic vote for president, especially in swing states, but even here in deep-red Texas. There were comments suggesting/insisting that voting itself is a waste of time and effort, that it lends legitimacy to our anti-democratic system; and, of course, there were some refutations of that anti-voting philosophy. My words were intended to convey my own beliefs, based on current political tides, events that I have witnessed in the last 40+ years, and whatever wisdom I have been able to absorb from those events. There was no direct intent to influence anyone's mind that was already made up. Naturally, intelligent as my friends are, they caught more than a whiff of subtext, interpreting my post as, "This is how I'm voting, and why I'm voting that way, and you should too, because both major parties suck." Well, both major parties do suck, in the most lethal of ways, but I try to respect people's well-considered opinions and decisions even when I disagree with them. As part of an evolving Green social media strategy, and to promote Green Party candidates for positions other than President of the United States, Texas Green co-chair Laura Palmer has created the Twitter hashtag #DownticketGreens.
In his address to the Green Party's national convention on 6 August, Julian Assange predicted that Hillary Clinton's fans in the media would launch a ruthless, relentless stream of attacks against the Stein/Baraka campaign, the Green Party, and progressives in general. We are now waiting to see whether the attacks will heat up gradually or Blitzkrieg-style. Thus far, it has just been a manageable trickle of the usual myths and outright lies, such as "OMG Nader 2000!!!" A gradual crescendo of vitriol would leave progressives like the proverbial boiled frog, unaware or unsure whether anything is actually happening until it is too late to jump out of the pot. The Blitz would just overwhelm us, leaving us unable to resist on multiple fronts, similar to the way corporate puppet-masters use their seemingly endless supply of cash to push an agenda until the opposition runs out of resources. At last night's Harris County Green Party meeting, Ms. Palmer mentioned one of the noteworthy lies of Hillary's propaganda brigade. It goes something like: "The Green Party exists only to run a candidate for president every four years. Then it goes back into its closet to wait for the next presidential election. You never hear about them doing anything else." It's not just Dan Savage saying so any more. The trope has found its place in the liberal echo chamber. Well, the last sentence is certainly true: You don't hear about us between presidential elections, primarily because the major media refuse to cover Greens' activities as candidates or activists. If we didn't run a presidential candidate, press coverage of the Greens would range between bupkis and diddly-squat. However, we do have other candidates, even in non-presidential years. We also serve to raise public awareness of issues that receive scant media attention and policy positions outside the establishment consensus. It troubles me a bit that several Texas Greens who filed to run for office this year have had to back out for a variety of reasons. Laura Palmer was a candidate for State Board of Education, District 6, but she and her husband Don "Sketch" Palmer have purchased a house in District 4, so she has had to withdraw from the race. But Texas Greens still have candidates for five statewide judicial seats, plus several candidates for US House, Texas House, Texas Senate, and some county offices, not to mention Martina Salinas for Railroad Commission. Hey, it could happen: The Green presidential nominee, or Railroad Commission candidate Martina Salinas, could poll 5% statewide in Texas in the general election. That 5% in a statewide race would guarantee the Greens a ballot line in 2018. In the past, the Greens have benefited from the lack of a Democrat in at least one statewide race; however, the Democrats have all those bases covered in 2016. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party could find nobody to run against Pete Sessions in northeastern Dallas County's Congressional District 32. (The district also contains a portion of south-central Collin County.) There are, however, candidates from the Libertarian and Green Parties. Gary Stuard is the first Green to run in TX-32 since Carla Hubbell ran in 2002, the very first race for that seat. The district was one of three created following the 2000 census. Sessions won the new seat with 67.77% of the vote, and he has occupied it ever since. If you're in the Dallas area Sunday afternoon, 10 July, you can attend a meeting to find out more about Stuard and his campaign strategies. This is from the Facebook event page: The Green Party of Texas just concluded a packed weekend at the Grey Forest retreat in San Antonio. On Saturday, GPTX held its nominating convention for statewide offices, including the selection delegates to August's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. On Sunday, the Party held its annual meeting, at which the delegates assembled elected members to the State Executive Committee and passed a few resolutions regarding policy positions and internal procedures.
President of the United States—updated According to Green Party Watch, here is the Texas delegation to the Presidential Nominating Convention: Jill Stein: 15 SKCM Curry: 3 Darryl Cherney: 2 Kent Mesplay: 2 Bill Kreml: 1 The win for Stein continues a nationwide pattern: Among states that have had their primary elections, caucuses, or conventions, Stein has won all of them. Unless something changes radically in the next three months, she will likely be nominated resoundingly on the first ballot in August. State Offices David Wager, longtime treasurer for the Harris County and Texas Greens, reports that all the candidates for the various state offices had their nominations confirmed: Railroad Commissioner: Martina Salinas Supreme Court, place 3: Rodolfo Rivera Muñoz Supreme Court, place 5: Charles Waterbury Supreme Court, place 9: Jim Chisolm Court of Criminal Appeals, place 2: Adam "Bulletproof" King Blackwell Reposa Court of Criminal Appeals, place 5: Judith Sanders-Castro Those were the only candidates who registered to run for those positions. GPTX has a history of fielding only one candidate per office, whose only opposition is None of the Above. Been busy, been traveling, been neglecting this blog for far too long.
Here's the first bit of not exactly earth-shattering news that I'd like to include in this entry. Another Houston-based author, Neil Ellis Orts, recently got an idea to create a Facebook event page for creative friends to advertise their wares, gratis. Check out the selection of books, artworks, and jewelry, some of it by Houston residents, including a certain novel about the exciting lives of Unitarian Universalists in a fictitious Texas college town. I met Neil through Continuum Performance Art, the group with which we have both staged performances. I bought Neil's novella Cary and John shortly after it was published last year, and I recommend it, especially to those who might enjoy a good closeted love story with vivid, multi-dimensional characterizations. Since my last post about four weeks ago, I have
Turning UH Green At least I can report that a decision has been reached regarding the venue for the 2016 Green Party US Presidential Nominating Convention. The local and national folks put their heads together, after touring some possible sites, and decided to hold it at the University of Houston. The dates are set at 4-7 August 2016, with Saturday the 6th the most likely date for choosing the party's nominee. Bear in mind that, while Dr. Jill Stein remains the presumptive nominee, the only Green candidate to file the requisite paperwork and pursue federal matching funds, all Greens should be cautious not to label her as "the Green nominee" or even "the Green candidate." She is a Green candidate. Other declared candidates include Kent Mesplay (for the fourth time), Earth First! organizer Darryl Cherney, and the redoubtable SKCM Curry. Not Just Anybody, and Possibly Nobody GPUS has a set of criteria for whom it recognizes as a presidential candidate. One of the criteria is "written support from 100 Green Party members to the GPUS Secretary, with no more than 50 from one state, and including members from at least five state parties; this requirement is not applicable until December 1st of the year preceding the presidential election." In expressing this written support, Green Party members may indicate their support for more than one candidate. It's a standard practice within the Green Party to allow voting for multiple candidates when choosing its officials at the county, state, and national level. The method varies from state to state, but Approval and Ranked Preference voting are the most common; both have the advantage of ending up with a candidate approved by at least 50% of the voting members. For public offices other than President and Vice President, states may also use a form of Instant Runoff Voting. However, for President, delegates the the Presidential Nominating Convention cast votes for just one candidate in each round. They may also choose None of the Above for any office. If NotA wins, the Party chooses not to field a candidate for that office. The NotA scenario almost happened in 2004, when David Cobb narrowly defeated NotA in the second round of balloting. That year, some None-of-the-Abovers preferred to support the Greens' 2000 nominee Ralph Nader, who was running as an independent in '04; some just did not want to risk peeling votes away from Democratic nominee John Kerry in key states. As it happened, Cobb's vote totals did not upset any Electoral College apple carts. He did continue the Green tradition, started by Nader and carried on by Stein, of getting arrested or tossed out while trying to crash the presidential debates. After the 2004 election, Cobb and Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik went to bat for Kerry in Ohio, where the Republicans appeared to have used multiple dirty tricks to lock up the vote for George W. Bush. Kerry, VP nominee John Edwards, and the rest of their crew didn't bother. First, two longish days after Houston's Proposition 1 was officially defeated (Houston, 72% of you didn't even vote, and that's a problem), the news broke that the Obama Administration has just said no to the Keystone XL Pipeline. I feel like celebrating, even while I know that another shoe is likely to drop, and probably soon.
Second, I'm not running for any offices in 2016, so don't even try to talk me into it. But the Green Party of Texas needs candidates. We don't need candidates for every single position on every ballot, although that would be awesome beyond awesome. We do need candidates for statewide positions, especially State Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals. In the Supreme Court (that's civil law, just like SCotUS), Places 3, 5, and 9 are on the ballot; for the CCA, Places 2, 5, and 6. The term is six years. In each court, all nine places are currently occupied by Republicans and have been for the better part of the last 20 years. Apart from these judicial races, there is only one statewide office up for election in 2016, and that is a seat on the Railroad Commission. Our 2014 candidate Martina Salinas has already indicated that she's up for running again. Ms. Salinas amassed more than 93,000 votes last year in a four-way race, good for 2% of the vote. That 2% is a high-water mark for Texas Green candidates when the Democratic Party fields a candidate in a statewide race. But in order to maintain the party's ballot line for 2018, a candidate from that party must earn at least 5% of the vote. For that, I will candidly admit, we need the Democrats to not show up.
A few of our previous Green candidates have expressed interest. Joseph Altgelt, however, just got elected to the Laredo City Council (in a non-partisan race), so he'll be busy. Candidates for these judicial seats must meet some fairly exacting criteria. For starters, they must have ten years of practice as an attorney in Texas. Contact me if you want to learn more. |
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