[Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: Greens Working for Better Election Laws]

[Gerry Gras]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Greens Working for Better Election Laws
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 14:19:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Green Party of the United States <gpinfo at gp.org>
Reply-To: gpinfo at gp.org
To: santaclara at cagreens.org


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     Greens Working for Better Election Laws

Members of the Green Party work daily recruiting candidates, educating
voters, lobbying their local and state governments, serving on local
boards and city councils, and lately, challenging obstructive and
unequal election and campaigning laws in court.￿ Below is a round-up of
some the latest legal moves and victories won by state Green Parties
across the country.￿ Your support

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of the Green Party on all levels is vital if we are going to continue to
work for better election laws and candidate recruitment.

Arkansas
The Green Party of Arkansas, with the assistance of the American Civil
Liberties Union, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against the
Secretary of State of Arkansas.￿ Even though the party elected a member
to the state legislature and won more than 20% in several federal races,
the state has moved to decertify the party for lack of support.￿ The
lawsuit states that the "state's decertification statute violates rights
guaranteed to [the Green Party of Arkansas] by the First and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution".￿￿

Mark Swaney, Coordinator of the Green Party of Arkansas, emphasized the
importance of ballot access for the Green Party in Democrat-dominated
Arkansas, noting that "we are quite literally fighting for freedom and
democracy against a conservative Democratic party machine that can, and
usually does, see to it that the people of Arkansas have no say
whatsoever on election day".￿

New Mexico
In May of this year, the New Mexico Green party filed suit against the
state, which had ceased recognizing the Green Party as a qualified
political party.￿ The GPNM's lawsuit claims, among other points, that
"The State has no justifiable interest in limiting voter choices to the
candidates of the major [Republican and Democratic] parties," that the
state has "no constitutional authority to limit the time available for
minor party candidates to obtain petition signatures for the office of
U.S. Representative," and that state law "Unconstitutionally
discriminates in favor of major parties and against minor parties in
violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to
the U. S. Constitution".￿

Pennsylvania
The Green Party of Pennsylvania joined with the Constitution and
Libertarian Parties of Pennsylvania to file a lawsuit challenging
several aspects of election law.￿ According to Ballot Access News, the
lawsuit challenges "Pennsylvania's unique system of charging candidates
and parties for the costs of checking their petitions...It also
challenges the careless way in which some counties count write-ins and
others don't, and the arbitrary manner in which the state tallies
write-ins for some candidates and not others, and finally it challenges
the requirement that a party have approximately 1,000,000 registered
voters before it can be on the November ballot without having to
petition for its nominees."

This lawsuit is a result of Carl Romanelli's disqualification from the
race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania's 2006 election.￿ After turning in
many thousands of signatures to win access to the ballot, his petition
was rejected and he was charged $85,000 by the state for attempting to
qualify to run for public office.￿Carl Romanelli has continued to try to
convince the court to drop this fee, last filing a new petition with the
court in August of this year.￿

The hearing for the Green Party's follow-up lawsuit is scheduled for
later this month.￿


Florida
The Florida Green Party is uncovering a case of potential abuse of the
political system through a lawsuit to uncover the backgrounds of the
"Florida Five".￿ In 2008, five registered members of the Florida Green
Party filed to run for state legislature, despite being unknown to the
Green Party.￿ Suspecting that these mystery candidates were acting in
coordination with the Republican Party, Florida Greens filed lawsuits to
probe the campaign finance records of the mystery candidates, in order
to trace the source of their filing fees.

Earlier this month, the court began calling the five mystery candidates
to depositions to begin piecing together the background behind their
campaigns. ￿With the court's help, the Florida Green Party continues to
probe the events of the 2008 elections and seek the truth about the
candidates that appeared on the Green Party ballot line.￿￿￿￿￿￿

Connecticut￿
The Connecticut Green Party recently won a significant decision against
Connecticut's public campaign finance system, which the court ruled was
unfairly awarding public finances to major party candidates while
burdening the Green Party and other parties with inordinate obstacles to
public funds.￿

A U.S. District Court judge ruled that Connecticut's public financing
scheme had￿ created a "discriminatory burden" for minor parties and had
unfairly inflated the public campaign funds that major parties were
awarded.￿ "We're very pleased", said Mike DeRosa, co-chair of the
Connecticut Green Party, that "the court ruled that real campaign
finance reform requires a level playing field."

The Green Party of the United States and our state Green Parties need
your support to continue working to level the playing field in court.￿
We don't take money from real estate companies, private health insurance
providers, or lobbyists.￿ In fact, we don't take ANY corporate money
because we think corporate money in politics is wrong.￿ If you want to
help us work for fairer elections, please help us today.￿ Your donation

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to the Green Party will help us make sure we have a strong Green Party
today and into the future.

[Donate to GP Fund]

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You can help us reach the goal we set in July at our national meeting of
funding our operations with the help of 500 sustainers giving $10,000 a
month by the end of 2009.￿ Click here

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become a sustaining donor to the Green Party today!

Your gift of any amount will help to strengthen our voice so that we can
make our vision a reality.￿ With your help we can provide support for
candidates and spread the Green message.￿ If you have given recently,
please consider giving more.￿ And, if you haven't given in some time,
please make today the day you give.

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Email: gpinfo at gp.org

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Office: PO Box 57065 Washington, D.C. 20037 202-319-7191 or toll-free
(US): 866-41GREEN

We are not the alternative - we are the imperative. Rosa Clemente

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