Hey, looky here: World Socialist Website has an item up today about the nationwide effort to jack the Green Party.
As I noted in the most recent entry, this pattern is not strictly a Texas phenomenon. I was going to post something like a state-by-state rundown of Democratic party-suppression tactics, but wsws.org beat me to it.
Perhaps the most entertaining anecdote of the bunch concerns Montana. It brings me no joy, and too many flashbacks to Texas in 2010, to see that the Republicans there were found to have bankrolled the Greens' petition drive. Any situation in which Republicans assist Greens gives ammunition to Democrats who acrimoniously accuse us of being a Republican front group. At least here, the organization that approached the Texas Greens ten years ago with a large in-kind donation was coy about its partisan affiliation.
Despite wsws's fairly thorough summary, let me mention a few states and the Democratic chicanery happening in them. Let me also note, again, that I have no personal ill will toward MJ Hegar and Chrysta Castañeda, although the timing of their legal action leaves a mighty bitter taste—bitter as in old Pasadena's acrid mixture of emissions from refineries and a paper mill, not as in the pleasant bitterness of a well balanced India Pale Ale. Compounding that bitterness is the fact that, as wsws point out, "In a clear sign of their anti-democratic intentions, Democrats are not challenging the eligibility of Libertarian Party candidates, even though they have yet to pay the filing fees as well."
As I noted in the most recent entry, this pattern is not strictly a Texas phenomenon. I was going to post something like a state-by-state rundown of Democratic party-suppression tactics, but wsws.org beat me to it.
Perhaps the most entertaining anecdote of the bunch concerns Montana. It brings me no joy, and too many flashbacks to Texas in 2010, to see that the Republicans there were found to have bankrolled the Greens' petition drive. Any situation in which Republicans assist Greens gives ammunition to Democrats who acrimoniously accuse us of being a Republican front group. At least here, the organization that approached the Texas Greens ten years ago with a large in-kind donation was coy about its partisan affiliation.
Despite wsws's fairly thorough summary, let me mention a few states and the Democratic chicanery happening in them. Let me also note, again, that I have no personal ill will toward MJ Hegar and Chrysta Castañeda, although the timing of their legal action leaves a mighty bitter taste—bitter as in old Pasadena's acrid mixture of emissions from refineries and a paper mill, not as in the pleasant bitterness of a well balanced India Pale Ale. Compounding that bitterness is the fact that, as wsws point out, "In a clear sign of their anti-democratic intentions, Democrats are not challenging the eligibility of Libertarian Party candidates, even though they have yet to pay the filing fees as well."
Wisconsin
The 2004 Green Convention in Milwaukee remains my favorite of the four that I have attended. Organizers that year made a big deal of the legacy of Fightin' Bob LaFollette and the dozens of socialists Wisconsinites elected to office between the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. As recently as 2011, teachers and other public employees occupied the capitol building in Madison in protest against the Republicans' unilateral ditching of collective bargaining. However, since Republicans play so dirty there, the state's Democrats have determined that they must match them dirt for dirt.
The 2004 Green Convention in Milwaukee remains my favorite of the four that I have attended. Organizers that year made a big deal of the legacy of Fightin' Bob LaFollette and the dozens of socialists Wisconsinites elected to office between the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. As recently as 2011, teachers and other public employees occupied the capitol building in Madison in protest against the Republicans' unilateral ditching of collective bargaining. However, since Republicans play so dirty there, the state's Democrats have determined that they must match them dirt for dirt.
- A brief description, apparently cobbled together by overworked staff at 3 am, of the Democrats' challenging petition signatures, on howiehawkins.us
- A note on Ballot Access News about how Angela Walker's change of residence between the start and end of petitioning season led to a challenge of the entire petition.
- A somewhat longer piece about how the Wisconsin Election Commission voted to disqualify Hawkins/Walker. The WEC is 50-50 Democrat-Republican; take a wild guess which half voted to disqualify. Here's a quote from H20 campaign manager Andrea Mérida Cuellar:
Mérida described the unfairness of the hearing saying, “The chair of the Commission showed a stunning lack of due process by not allowing us to introduce evidence to refute the cherry-picked staff analysis. It’s time for that six-member, bipartisan commission to be expanded to include independents and third party members. If there was ever a demonstration of the need for proportional representation, this is it.”
- And, as too often happens, the decision will result in Green candidates spending valuable time and money in court.
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania erected some strong and expensive barriers to Stein's recount effort following the 2016 election. It took legal action in 2019 to get the state to live up to the settlement reached in 2018. The Keystone State has had a Democratic governor since 2016, but its legislature remains narrowly Republican. Still as you might expect, it's Democratic interests resisting Green presence on the ballot.
The Ballot Access map at howiehawkins.us still shows Pennsylvania in light green for "pending," because the challenge is not yet resolved as of this writing.
Seven Write-In States (updated)
Georgia is the biggest prize of the six states in which the Hawkins/Walker ticket has achieved write-in status. The others are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, and New Hampshire. (The article on howiehawkins.us is republished from the Auburn (NY) Citizen's website auburnpub.com.)
Here's the updated part: As of last Friday, it appears, contrary to what I saw earlier today, that Ohio is a go! However, the Hawkins/Walker ticket will be on the ballot as independent candidates rather than under the Green banner. The Green Party has some history with Ohio: After the 2004 election, Green presidential nominee David Cobb and Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik led an investigation into improprieties in the Secretary of State's Office there. It led to resignations, but not an overturning of the result.
We bring up the issue of write-in states here because of Ohio's next-door neighbor Indiana, where the campaign is, yes, fighting for ballot access in court. Indiana requires a ridiculous number of signatures for a state of its size. Coincidentally, I've never watched Stranger Things, and I didn't expect that a DuckDuckGo search of "Hawkins Indiana" would inform me that Hawkins, Indiana, is the fictitious setting for that program.)
Others
- Arizona, you've got to be kidding.
- Oklahoma is not an example of Democrats conspiring to make life difficult for Greens. There's barely a Democratic Party left in the Sooner State, where third parties are practically illegal. Now that the petitioning deadline has passed, the state wants $35,000 even to consider granting the Greens a ballot line. $35K would be chump change for the Democrats; Libertarians might be able to raise such a sum, but they won't need to, having retained their ballot line because Gary Johnson won 5.74% of the vote there in 2016. (Sidenote: Yo, Oklahoma Libertarians, WTF is up with that half-bison-half-hedgehog creature in your logo?)
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