Category: Green Party

David Bruce Collins for US Senate—the Official Site

Alert the Prog Blog Squad, We're In for 2020

2/10/2019

Greenings, y'all! Sorry it's been a while since I last had time just to sit & blog. There has been plenty to keep me busy lately, between health issues, computer issues, & occasional gigs. Amid all that, I am trying to get my candidate muscles working again, starting a campaign for US Senate from Texas in 2020. This is the seat that John Corny currently occupies.

Consider this a soft opening for the campaign. We'll have a louder opening soon, after dbcgreentx.org undergoes some refurbishment.

Please Understand the Following

I need to submit 5,000 petition signatures or $5,000 by 9 December, the deadline for candidate filing.
I don't have $5,000. Sometimes even $5 is hard to come up with.
I'm not good at asking people for money. If you are, I could use some help in that department. But I'd rather get on the ballot via petition.
Very important: Those who sign the petition will be ineligible to vote in the big-party primaries or be delegates to any other party's conventions. That's the law. They also may not sign petitions for any other Green candidates for Senate.
About 70% of registered voters in Texas typically don't vote in primaries anyway. The trick is finding them.
If a stronger Green candidate emerges between now and December, I will end my campaign & help that candidate instead. There's no reason to try collecting 10,000 or more valid signatures for the same office.
If Sema Hernández wins the Democratic nomination in March 2020, I do not plan to campaign against her, but will instead use my position as Green nominee to campaign for Instant Runoff Voting in Texas.

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Chronicle: GPTX Ballot Access and Climate Policy

19/9/2019

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Chronicle photo of ten Green Party candidates with fists raised at a press conference during the Green Party's 2016 national convention at the University of Houston.

Green Party candidates from Texas and across the country hold up their fists after speaking at a press conference at the Green Party Convention at the University of Houston Friday, August 5, 2016 in Houston. (Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle)

PDiddie's comment on the most recent entry alerted me to Marina Kormbaki's article in the Chronicle's online edition. (UPDATE: GPTX comrade Don Cook has informed us that the story is also in the print edition, on page A-3.) I had thought that the author would send me a message when it went to digital press; perhaps Janis Richards, Laura Palmer, and I will hear from her today.

As coverage of the Green Party in mainstream papers goes, Kormbaki's piece is above average. It contains no obvious factual errors and treats the Party as a legitimate political movement, not just a one-off human-interest story. It certainly doesn't hurt that Kormbaki works for a German news outlet aligned with the Social Democrats, a party whose role as leaders of the left is gradually shifting to the Greens, as is happening elsewhere in Europe.

The photo selected to accompany the article features some Greenfolk I love and admire, such as the late Ashely "Flashe" Gordon (on the right end, partially obscured by a camera). This photo helps bust the persistent myth that the Green Party is just for old white recovering hippies. It is a microcosm of the convention delegates and the Party as a whole: diverse in ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and other dimensions.

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Paid a Visit to Harry Hamid This Evening

25/8/2019

Photo of blogger Harry Hamid in a back yard, wearing a pink guayabera shirt and clutching his walking cane.

It took a while to recognize this man as blog-brother Harry Hamid.

Fellow Houston blogger Harry Hamid (not his real name) has been chronicling his battle with cancer for the last few months. As with most of Harry's public writing, his posts and Tweets have been long on mental and emotional impressions, short on nitty-gritty details—at least that's true of the one's that I've seen. This report will have to be similar lacking in detail, vague even, because I'm not sure what I'm authorized to reveal.

Mere weeks ago, Harry was in remission and back at his parents' home. Tonight, I visited him in an ICU in one of the major Texas Medical Center hospitals. When I saw his Tweets taking a turn toward resignation, it was a wake-up. Somehow I missed this post two months ago, so I didn't know about his LifeFlight ride between hospitals. It was his first time flying in a helicopter; his mother told me that he slept through it.

Radiation and chemo today. I am being aggressive in fighting this. I want to live. There’s a lot I still want to do in my life.
— Harry Hamid (@katydidknot) August 16, 2019

Howie Hawkins Brings H20 to HOU

19/8/2019

Presidential candidate Howie Hawkins is making a few campaign stops in Texas. Confirmed so far: Dallas on 7 September, Houston on the 9th. GPTX activists Don and Laura Palmer have graciously offered their home as a venue for the Houston stop.

Here is the Facebook event.

Key Howie facts:

longtime Teamster Union activist in Syracuse NY
three-time Green candidate for governor of New York, including a 4.8% showing in 2014
has also run for US Senate and House seats, as well as positions in Syracuse city government
co-founder of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS)
generally credited with coining and promoting the phrase "Green New Deal"—in a Green Key Values context, not the neoliberal Thomas Friedman version

In the interest of fairness, we should emphasize that Hawkins is one of several announced candidates for the Green Party presidential nomination. That nomination will be decided at the Greens' National Convention in Summer 2020.

What Multi-Party Democracy Looks Like (Sometimes)

22/7/2019

Yes, I'm late to the party on this item, but Green Party of Texas luminary Laura Palmer just posted the official press release last night. GPTX is one of several groups and individuals who are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the state of Texas over its unreasonable obstacles to the ballot.

News of the lawsuit appeared in the Houston Chronicle (paywall) more than a week ago. The Green and Libertarian Parties both received mention in the headline. The Texas Tribune got its version of the story out on 11 July, and RawStory picked it up the next day.

Palmer herself is listed as a plaintiff, sharing billing with the Libertarian, Constitution, and America's Parties of Texas. TSU law professor Thomas Kleven, who in 2016 ran for Congress in TX-18, also appears on the list.

But...HB 2504! Why Sue Now?
In light of HB 2504 becoming state law this year, guaranteeing Texas Greens a ballot line through 2026, why would GPTX press the issue via a lawsuit? Why would the Libertarians and Railroad Commission candidate Mark Miller, who pulled off a 5% coup in a four-way race in 2016, join in?

Sketch Comes Through and Other GPTX News

14/6/2019

At a lunch meeting Wednesday, Laura Palmer informed me that her husband Don "Sketch" Palmer was the angel who got harriscountygreenparty.org back online for another six years. As mentioned earlier this week, hcgp.org is no longer in HCGP's possession, and the Party will not likely spend the thousand bucks to ransom it.

As of last week's Annual State Meeting of the Green Party of Texas, Sketch is the newly elected GPTX treasurer. Here is the complete listing of the State Executive Committee, delegates and the Green National Committee, and current regional coordinators. The regional coordinator system may be retired soon.

Just prior to the ASM, I relented to Laura's plea to stand for an at-large position on the SEC, and fortunately for me I was not elected.

The Post 2504 Landscape
A Green buzz is reverberating through Texas and all around the nation in the wake of HB 2504 becoming law and guaranteeing a ballot line for 2020. The National Committee has a vested interest in having a strong Green presence in the second-most populous state. Veteran Greens like me, who have faded from the scene to avoid intra-Party squabbles, are becoming active again. Among those with whom I have conversed, the focus have shifted more than ever toward recruiting candidates for 2020 and amassing the funds to back them up.

Governor Abbott Signs Ballot Access Bill

11/6/2019

HB 2504, which we have examined in several recent posts, is now state law. The Green Party of Texas officially has access to the 2020 general election ballot. I tried to make this post look like straightforward news reporting, but I failed in that endeavor. I'm pretty doggone excited about it.

Individual candidates who wish to run as Greens will have to pony up filing fees or collect a goodly number of signatures on a petition in order to run for elective office; the amount of dollars or signatures varies according to the office sought.

There's potential confusion in reading the record. The legislative history for HB 2504 says "Effective immediately," but that is merely an indication that the bill's status as statute takes effect immediately. The provisions of the bill itself go into effect on 1 September 2019, at which time the Texas Election Code will be officially modified.

I'll try to find out whether the effective date means that a prospective Green Party candidate must wait until September to begin collecting signatures; that doesn't appear to be the case, as there's nothing to stop a candidate from raising funds right now.

To be continued.

GPTX Annual State Meeting This Weekend

7/6/2019

I won't be attending this year, but I thought I'd at least disseminate today's press release:

*****

Green Party delegates from across the state will gather this weekend June 8 and 9 for their Annual State Meeting held this year at the Belton-Temple Holiday Inn, halfway between San Antonio and Dallas.

Besides electing new party officers and minor bylaws improvements, Greens will plan for their 2020 candidates support for political offices, and the need for local leadership in solving the climate crisis through legislation and ordinances. A carbon tax, single-payer health care, the need for cities to have noise ordinances curtailing loud delivery drone services, the social changes of driverless cars, doctor shortages, lunar-solar power, women’s and minorities’ human rights, the runaway military budget, death penalty abolition, immigration solutions, cryptocurrencies and banking, and more forward-looking topics may be discussed.

The Green Party of Texas is one of many in the U.S., and is part of a growing movement around the world for decentralized government and ecological responsibility. Read about the Ten Key Values at https://www.GP.org and www.txgreens.org.

Green Party Houston ≠ Harris County Green Party

24/5/2019

At this point, it's worth reporting that there is a new Green entity in Harris County. This is not to say that the Harris County Green Party has officially bitten the dust: It hasn't. But several HCGP members who are currently not active with HCGP have formed a group that they are calling Green Party Houston. It doesn't have a website yet, so nothing to link to here.

I welcome this development, primarily because a group that is not the official county party can do things in the broader community that HCGP cannot, whether due to restrictions imposed by the State of Texas, by lack of resources, or by internal policies. However, the Green Party of Texas can grant it delegates to annual state meetings and conventions.

Let there be no misunderstanding: It would be easy to assume that Green Party Houston is an effort to compete with or supplant HCGP. But that's not the case. Nothing would stop anyone from being an active member of both. The current co-chairs of HCGP know of the group's existence. So there is no problem in naming some names: Longtime Greenie Alfred Molison and 2016 post-DNC-screws-Bernie refugee Jan Richards got the ball rolling.

It's Not Because I've Had Nothing to Say

30/4/2019

Yeah, I've taken another longer-than-usual hiatus from blogging. So much is happening, and I've been busy not commenting on it here. Below, however, I have some observations about recent developments on the local Green front.

This post is completely lacking in links, because I'm not feeling sufficient enthusiasm to find pages to link to. If you want more information about stuff referenced herein, look it up yourself.

Just Another Lazy Unemployed Person—Moi? Kinda.
Unemployment may give me more time to blog, but it has also knocked me off the routine that I had developed. In my office at the university, I could hammer out chunks of bloggage between and around my various duties. Then I could edit them so they didn't read like something I hammered out between and around said duties. I can do that at home, too, but I'm having trouble adapting to the new circumstances.

With domestic business and job hunting to attend to during the day, I also don't consume what had become my regular diet of podcasts and news analysis videos. It's been several weeks since I last listened to a weekly installment of Jeremy Scahill's Intercepted, for example.

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