The direct predecessor of the GPUS was the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). In the late 1990s, the ASGP, which formed in 1996,[10] had increasingly distanced itself from the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA),[11] America's then-primary green organization which had formed in 1991 out of the Green Committees of Correspondence, a collection of local green groups active since 1984.[12] In 2001, the GPUS was officially founded as the ASGP split from the G/GPUSA. After its founding, the GPUS soon became the primary national green organization in the country, surpassing the G/GPUSA. John Rensenbrink and Howie Hawkins were co-founders of the Green Party.[13]
The Greens (as ASGP) first gained widespread public attention during the 2000 presidential election, when the ticket composed of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke won 2.7% of the popular vote, raising questions as to whether they spoiled the election in favor of George W. Bush.[14][15][16][17] Nader has dismissed the notion that he and other Green candidates are spoilers.[18]
The political movement that began in 1985 as the decentralized Committees of Correspondence[19][20] evolved into a more centralized structure by 1990, opening a national clearinghouse and forming governing bodies, bylaws and a platform as the Green Committees of Correspondence[20] and by 1990 simply The Greens. The organization conducted grassroots organizing efforts, educational activities and electoral campaigns.
Internal divisions arose between members who saw electoral politics as ultimately corrupting and supported the notion of an "anti-party party" formed by Petra Kelly and other leaders of the Greens in Germany[21] vs. those who saw electoral strategies as a crucial engine of social change. A struggle for the direction of the organization culminated in a "compromise agreement", ratified in 1990 at the Greens National Congress in Elkins, West Virginia and in which both strategies would be accommodated within the same 527 political organization renamed the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). It was recognized by the FEC as a national political party in 1991.
The compromise agreement subsequently collapsed and two Green Party organizations co-existed in the United States until 2019 when the Greens/Green Party USA was dissolved. The Green Politics Network was organized in 1990 and the National Association of Statewide Green Parties formed by 1994. Divisions between those pressing to break onto the national political stage and those aiming to grow roots at the local level continued to widen during the 1990s. The Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) encouraged and backed Nader's presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. By 2001, the push to separate electoral activity from the G/GPUSA issue-based organizing led to the Boston Proposal and the subsequent rise of the Green Party of the United States. The G/GPUSA lost most of its affiliates in the next few months and dropped its FEC national party status in the year 2005.
The GNC is composed of delegates elected by affiliated state parties. The state parties also appoint delegates to serve on the various standing committees of the GNC. The National Committee elects a steering committee of seven co-chairs, a secretary and a treasurer to oversee daily operations. The National Committee performs most of its business online, but it also holds an annual national meeting to conduct business in person.[23]
Caucuses
Five Identity Caucuses have achieved representation on the GNC:
In 2016, the Green Party passed a motion in favor of rejecting both capitalism and state socialism, supporting instead an "alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power".[36] The motion states the change that the party says could be described as promoting "ecological socialism", "communalism", or perhaps the "cooperative commonwealth".[36] The Green Party rejection of both state socialism and capitalism and their promotion of communalism which was created by libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin places the Green Party into the ideology of libertarian socialism.[37] The eco-socialist economy the Green Party of the United States wants to create is similar to the market socialist mutualist economics of Proudhon which consists of a large sector of democratically controlled public enterprises, a large sector of cooperative enterprises, and a smaller sector of small businesses and self-employed.[38][39] Consumer goods and services would be sold to consumers in the market by cooperatives, public enterprises, and small businesses.[38] Services that would be for free include health care, education, child care, and urban mass transit. Goods and services that would be available at low cost would include public housing, power, broadband, and water.[38]Howie Hawkins who was nominated by the Green Party to run for president of the United States in 2020 identifies as a libertarian socialist.[40]
The Green Party supports the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system and the abolition of private health insurance in the United States.[41] They have also called for contraception and abortion procedures to be available on demand.[42] The Green Party has called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, an act that prohibits the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortions, unless in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.[41]
Howie Hawkins focused his gubernatorial campaign on the Green New Deal, which was the first time the policy was introduced.[46]Jill Stein also developed her presidential campaign based on the Green New Deal.[47]
In the early decades of Green organizing in the United States, the prevailing American system of money-dominated elections was universally rejected by Greens, so that some Greens were reluctant to have Greens participate in the election system at all because they deemed the campaign finance system inherently corrupt. Other Greens felt strongly that the Green Party should develop in the electoral arena and many of these Greens felt that adopting an alternative model of campaign finance, emphasizing self-imposed contribution limits, would present a wholesome and attractive contrast to the odious campaign finance practices of the money-dominated major parties.[citation needed]
Over the years, some state Green parties have come to place less emphasis on the principle of self-imposed limits than they did in the past. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that Green Party fundraising (for candidates' campaigns and for the party itself) still tends to rely on relatively small contributions and that Greens generally decry not only the rise of the Super PACs, but also the big-money system, which some Greens criticize as plutocracy.[citation needed]
Some Greens feel that the Green Party's position should be simply to follow the laws and regulations of campaign finance.[50] Other Greens argue that it would injure the Green Party not to practice a principled stand against the anti-democratic influence of money in the political process. Candidates for office, like Jill Stein, the 2012[51] and 2016 Green Party nominee for the President of the United States, typically rely on smaller donations to fund their campaigns.[citation needed]
The Green Party advocates for the Palestinian right of return and cutting all U.S. aid to Israel. It has also expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.[54] The Green Party supports "...the creation of one secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan as the national home of both peoples, with Jerusalem as its capital."[55]
The Green Party's membership encompasses the fourth-highest percentage of registered voters in the United States, with a total membership of 234,120.[58]
The Green Party has its strongest popular support on the Pacific Coast, Upper Great Lakes, and Northeast, as reflected in the geographical distribution of Green candidates elected.[59] As of June 2007[update], Californians have elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18) and Maine (17). Maine has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country and the largest Green registration percentage with more than 29,273 Greens comprising 2.95% of the electorate as of November 2006[update].[60]Madison, Wisconsin is the city with the most Green elected officials (8), followed by Portland, Maine (7).
Membership in the Green Party of the United States by year (1986–2020)
The 2016 presidential campaign of Jill Stein got substantive support from counties and precincts with a high percentage of Native American population. For instance, in Sioux County (North Dakota, 84.1% Native American), Stein gained her best county-wide result: 10.4% of the votes. In Rolette County (also North Dakota, 77% Native American), she got 4.7% of the votes. Other majority Native American counties where Stein did above state average are Menominee (WI), Roosevelt (MT) and several precincts in Alaska.[61][62]
At its peak in 2004, the Green Party had 319,000 registered members in states allowing party registration and tens of thousands of members and contributors in the rest of the country.[63][64]
The Green National Convention is scheduled in presidential election years and the Annual National Meeting is scheduled in other years.[67] The Green National Committee conducts business online between these in-person meetings.
Musician Jello Biafra ran for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2000, and has run for other offices with the Green PartyMalik Rahim, former Black Panther Party activist, ran for Congress in 2008 with the Green Party2012, 2016 and 2024 Green presidential nominee, Jill Stein, served from 2005 to 2010 as a member of Lexington'sTown Meeting
As of July 2024[update], 143 officeholders in the United States were affiliated with the Green Party.[5] The party has not had any representation in federal or statewide offices.[68]
Previously in 2016, the majority of them were in California, several in Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, with five or fewer in ten other states. These included one mayor and one deputy mayor and fourteen county or city commissioners (or equivalent). The remainder were members of school boards, clerks and other local administrative bodies and positions.[69]
On September 21, 2017, Ralph Chapman, a member of the Maine House of Representatives, switched his party registration from unaffiliated to Green, providing the Green Party with their first state-level representative since 2014.[80]Henry John Bear became a member of the Green Party in the same year as Chapman, giving the Maine Green Independent Party and GPUS its second currently-serving state representative, though Bear is a nonvoting tribal member of the Maine House of Representatives.
Though several Green congressional candidates have topped 20%, no nominee of the Green Party has been elected to office in the federal government. In 2016, Mark Salazar set a new record for a Green Party nominee for Congress. Running in the Arizona 8th district against incumbent Republican Congressman Trent Franks, Salazar received 93,954 votes or 31.43%.[81]
Legislative caucuses
With exception to state legislatures and major city councils, all other legislative bodies included in the following chronological table had/have more than two affiliated members simultaneously serving in office.[82][83]
^Includes the three non-voting elected members to the Maine House of Representatives. Henry John Bear, a non-voting member, joined the Green Party along with Representative Ralph Chapman.
^1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns were prior to formation of GPUS but campaign was endorsed by existing state Green Parties and predecessors ASGP and G/GPUSA.
^Electoral vote allocation for 1996 and 2000 based on 1990 census.[104]
Electoral results
This map shows the percentage of the popular vote Jill Stein received in each county (2016) (with a max vote share of 4.5%)
^Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez, a Green, ran an independent campaign and received 0.6% of the vote, but they were not affiliated with the Green Party.
^Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo, a Green, ran an independent campaign and received 0.4% of the vote; however, they were not affiliated with the Green Party.
^Nader was not formally nominated by the party itself, but he did receive the endorsement of a large number of state parties and is considered as the de facto Green Party candidate.
^In Iowa and Vermont, Anne Goeke was Nader's running mate, in New Jersey it was Madelyn Hoffman and in New York it was Muriel Tillinghast.
A 2020 New York Times article highlighted instances where supporters of a Republican candidate worked to get the Green Party on ballots in close races hoping that it would split votes away from Democratic candidate, including during the 2020 presidential election.[109]
In September 2024, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the Green Party's political strategy as "predatory", alleging that they have failed to build political power at the local level while only "show[ing] up every four years" to run presidential candidates. She contrasted their approach with that of the Working Families Party.[110]
On November 1, 2024, Green parties across Europe urged Stein to drop out and endorse Kamala Harris, arguing that Stein risked electing Donald Trump by staying in the race.[111]
The United States Senate's probe into Russian election interference investigated Jill Stein and the Green Party for potential collusion and looked to better understand why and how Russia was promoting the party.[112]Politico and Newsweek reported that Russian state actors covertly promoted Stein and other Green Party candidates on Facebook prior to the 2016 elections.[107][113]NBC News reported that a "growing body of evidence [exists] that [shows] the Russians worked to boost the Stein campaign as part of the effort to siphon support away from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and tilt the election to Trump."[112] NBC News additionally documented over 100 instances where Stein appeared on Russian state media, receiving favorable coverage.[112] In 2015, Stein was photographed dining at the same table as Russian president Vladimir Putin at the RT 10th anniversary gala in Moscow, leading to further controversy.[112] Stein contended that she had no contact with Putin at the dinner and described the situation as a "non-event".[114] One of the possible Green Party 2016 VP candidates worked for RT while the VP candidate Stein ultimately chose also often appeared on the network criticizing NATO as 'Gangster states'.[115] Stein also met with Sergey Lavrov at an RT Gala in New York.[115]
Stein's 2016 foreign policy positions regarding Russian topics have been considered by some to have mirrored those of the Russian government, in some instances, including concerning the annexation of Crimea.[112][113] Stein condemned Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but claimed that Russia was provoked by NATO's eastward expansion.[116]
Allegations of irregularities in primary elections
On October 16, 2019, a joint candidate letter called for reform in the Green Party's presidential primary process in response to the party's announcement that it would remove unrecognized candidates from its website list that November, an effort which Green candidates claimed was being to done to help the Hawkins campaign secure the party's nomination.[117] This was followed by allegations of conflicts of interest among the party's leadership, members of which the candidates believed were helping party co-founder Howie Hawkins, and of an alleged overlooking of a violation of Green Party rules that would have disqualified Hawkins from running as a Green, due to him also seeking the Socialist Party's nomination.[117]
After the 2020 Green Party Nominating Convention named Hawkins as their presidential candidate, runner-up Dario Hunter announced that he would run as an independent candidate. Hunter cited alleged irregularities and undemocratic processes throughout the primary, arguing that party leaders had committed "ethical lapses" to ensure Hawkins' nomination, and criticizing Hawkins for what he saw as his "imperialist perspective" and "CIA talking points."[118]
^ abBurden, Barry C. (2003). "Chapter 11: Minor Parties in the 2000 Presidential Election". In Weisberg, Herbert F.; Wilcox, Clyde (eds.). Models of Voting in Presidential Elections: The 2000 U.S. Election. Stanford University Press. pp. 206–227. ISBN978-0-8047-4856-8.
^ abHerron, Michael C.; Lewis, Jeffrey B. (April 24, 2006). "Did Ralph Nader spoil Al Gore's Presidential bid? A ballot-level study of Green and Reform Party voters in the 2000 Presidential election". Quarterly Journal of Political Science. 2 (3). Now Publishing Inc.: 205–226. doi:10.1561/100.00005039. Pdf.
aAs of January 2021, the original GPAK is no longer affiliated to the GPUS, following disagreements with the national party during the 2020 presidential election bAs of July 2021, the original GGP is no longer affiliated to the GPUS, following disagreements over amendments passed in the GGP party platform cAs of December 2020, the original GPRI is no longer affiliated to the GPUS, following disagreements with the national party during the 2020 presidential election
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