Green Party finds it way back to state ballot
Members urge Texas voters to eye climate issue
The Green Party will be back on the ballot in Texas for the 2020 elections, just as the party’s main topic — climate change — is becoming a major political issue.
A new state law that came into effect on September 1 lowered the threshold for retaining ballot access, qualifying the Green Party of Texas for the ballot at least through 2026. The Greens had last appeared on Texas ballots in 2016.
“We have an opportunity to present the state of Texas with a democratic choice that the voters would not previously have had under the oppressive two-party system, which is really just a one-party system,” said Janis Richards, co-chair of the Green Party of Texas.
For many voters, global warming is now viewed as a top area of concern. In response to this shift in priorities, the Democratic presidential candidates have put out ambitious plans to combat the climate crisis described in the Green New Deal proposed in Congress in February. For the first time in any presidential cycle, Democratic presidential candidates held a climate change town hall this month, televised by CNN.
In Texas, the Greens are watching with mixed feelings — primarily, hope. The party wishes to benefit in the upcoming elections from the widely discussed environmental concerns and aspires to be seen by the voters as the actual political force to tackle climate change. After all, the Greens’ presidential candidate Jill Stein campaigned on the Green New Deal already in 2012 and 2016.
“The Democrats kidnapped the Green New Deal, but I don’t mind at all. This way our name is constantly in front of people – the Greens are present,” Richards said. The Houston-based party leader, who intends to run for a Texas House seat in 2020, views the much-discussed Green New Deal as an advertisement for her party: “When the public hears about green ideas it knows who came up with those in the first place: us, the Green Party.”
The Texas Greens don’t expect the Democrats to implement their goals, and they don’t trust the Democrats’ green agenda.
“We wish that those Democrats would (a) give us credit and (b) retain the portions guaranteeing a 'just transition' away from fossil fuels by 2030,” stressed David Collins, who is serving as a co-chair of the Green Party Houston. He adds: “The Democratic Party continues to take millions of dollars of corporate interests – including the fossil fuel industry.”
Some American Greens are closely watching what is happening in Europe,
where the party is on the rise. In May, the European Parliament election showed that increasing environmental awareness can be turned into political representation. In Germany, for example, the Greens got over a fifth of the vote share. What was once seen as a radical and crazy fringe movement has become an inevitable
political force on the regional as well as on the national level.
This, though, is far away from the reality her party faces, Richards said. “The Green Party is ineffective at the moment,” she said. “It is marginalized by the media as well as by the political establishment of the Democratic and the Republican party.”
Since its founding 20 years ago, the Green Party of Texas has been torn between
left radicals and pragmatic liberals. But the recently restored ballot access gives the party’s leadership hope that personal animosities could be overcome – given the prospect of more public visibility and the chance for political representation.
Moreover, there is the growing Sunrise Movement — a youth-led campaign for climate action and organizing climate strikes such as the one scheduled for Friday
across Texas — that fuels the Green Party leadership with hope that it is just a matter of time. The Texas Green Party is reaching out to the students, and they are interested in exchange.
“We have received much support and encouragement from Green Party leaders in Houston, most of whom are strong advocates for the Green New Deal,” said 17-year-old Houstonbased activist Madeline Canfield, one of the organizers
of the climate strike.
Oil city Houston is not a natural habitat for activists and politicians with green proposals. "Of course it is not easy to promote the end of fossil fuels in a city like Houston,” former Texas party leader Laura Palmer said. But she is convinced of the need for a transition to renewable energies – accompanied by a minimum income for workers. “These are painful discussions but we have to have them in order to stop poisoning ourselves,” she said.
Given their poor results in elections so far, the Texas Greens stick to the idea that their actual power lies not in winning electoral seats but in pushing ideas: “Whether it was abolition, women's suffrage or civil rights: Progressive ideas have repeatedly been forced into the public debate by alternative parties,” Palmer said. “Now this is happening with climate action.”