Greens win a record 56 victories in 2001

Breakthrough City Council victories in Connecticut and Minnesota
Increased diversity among candidates top election results
by Mike Feinstein 
Published in GreenPages 

The electoral success story of 2001 for the Green Party is its rapid growth on the local level. A record 56 Greens won municipal and county races in 2001, up 37% from the previous high of 41 in 2000. At the same time, the number of Greens holding elected office rose 55% to 124, up from 80 just a year ago. 

Topping the November election results were double victories in Minneapolis, MN and New Haven, CT, where Greens won two City Council seats in each city.

In Minneapolis, Natalie Johnson Lee was elected in Ward 5, defeating the Democratic incumbent city council president. Dean Zimmerman - an outgoing Parks & Recreation Commissioner - was elected in Ward 6, also beating a Democrat in a head-to-head race. A third Green, Cam Gordon, fell just 108 votes short out of 5,000 cast of winning a third seat. Meanwhile a fourth Green, Annie Young was re-elected to her fourth term on the Minneapolis Parks & Recreation Board.

In New Haven, John Halle was re-elected to the Board of Alderman in Ward 9 after winning a July special election earlier this year. He is joined by newcomer Joyce Chen, who was victorious in Ward 2. A third Green, Bruce Crowder, lost in Ward 8 by only 15 votes. Before the Greens, no third party had won a New Haven election in the last 65 years. In both Minneapolis and New Haven, Greens won by defeating Democrats head-to-head in partisan races, successfully challenging the "one-party Democratic machine" that dominates both cities' local politics. Just as significantly, Greens succeeded in both cities by winning in districts with large African-American populations that have traditionally voted Democratic, but now are beginning to vote Green.

Rather than a "backlash" against the Greens predicted by sore-loser Democrats and other skeptics after the 2000 Nader campaign predicted after the 2000 presidential campaign - what is happening in municipalities across the nation is that Greens are becoming the "second party." As part of this trend, there are now ten cities that either currently or previously have had at least two Greens on the City Council - Fayetteville, AR; Arcata, Point Arena, Santa Monica, & Sebastopol, CA; New Haven, CT; Minneapolis, MN; Santa Fe, NM; Salem, OR and Madison, WI. Minneapolis also becomes the second largest U.S. city (population 383,000) to elect a Green to its city council and the largest to have elected more than one, passing Madison, WI (pop. 210,000), which has three. San Francisco (pop. 775,000) is the largest city with a single elected Green. 

Increased Diversity in Candidates
One of the critical challenges facing the Green Party is to expand its racial and ethnic base. Originally cast by some in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a rural, Anglo middle-class environmental party, Greens are now showing an increasing presence in the nation's urban areas, and are presenting an increasingly diverse face in its candidates.
In 2001, this was most apparent in the number of African-American city council and mayoral candidates, particularly in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Two were elected in high-profile city council races - Johnson Lee in Minneapolis and civil rights activist Elizabeth Horton-Sheff in Hartford, CT, who was reelected to her second-term on the City Council. Johnson Lee ran on a shoestring budget against a well-financed opponent, but won in a heavily poor African-American ward in North Minneapolis by campaigning on issues long-neglected there - affordable housing, child care, and living wage jobs. In neighboring Ward 6, also heavily African-American, fellow Green Brother Shane Price put up a strong challenge against another incumbent, receiving 36%. His efforts further painted the Greens as the party of the urban poor in Minneapolis. Similar issues drove Horton-Sheff's re-election campaign in Hartford. 

She pointed with pride to her record on these issues in office, and her grassroots campaign increased her vote total by 50% from her last run two years previously. In office, Horton-Sheff strengthened the city's Civilian Police Review Board, established an Urban Health Educator in a city which has a 41% rate of asthma in children and prevented the siting of a medical waste plant in the city, all while promoting development that serves Hartford's neighborhoods instead of big downtown developers. Since re-election, Horton-Sheff has staged a mini-coup by becoming Majority Leader of the nine-member council, exploiting a split among the council's six Democrats - quite a feat for the only Green officeholder in a significant city (population 122,000) like Hartford.

Several other African-American Green candidates also made big impacts in 2001, further signaling that the African-American community has more options than just the Democrats and Republicans. Jerry Coleman became the first ever African-American gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey. Jennifer Daniels was the first-ever African-American mayoral candidate in Syracuse, New York. In Harrisburg, PA mayoral candidate Diane White received 20% of the vote, championing the city's low-income minority neighborhoods and providing the only opposition to the five-term incumbent mayor who ran on both the Democratic and Republican Party ballot lines. And earlier this year, Donna Warren became the first Green candidate in South Central Los Angeles, making the failed Drug War and opposition to the three strikes law key issues in a special Congressional election there.

But perhaps even more indicative of the growing strength of Greens among African-Americans was the city council victory of Asian-American Joyce Chen in a primarily African-American New Haven, CT neighborhood, defeating an African-American female Democratic incumbent. 

Greens are Strong with Youth
The number of young Green candidates also grew in 2001, and six Greens between the ages 20 and 27 were elected to municipal office. Heather Urkuski won for Auditor in Centre Township, Berks County, PA on her 20th birthday, becoming the youngest U.S. Green ever elected. 
Aaron C. Tedjeske, also 20, was elected to the Windber, PA Borough Council. The youngest Greens previously elected in the U.S. were university students Dan Herber, 21,to the LaCrosse, WI City Council (1993) and Echnaton Vedder, 21, to the Dane County, WI Board of Supervisors (1998).

Two more student Greens were elected in 2001 - 22 year-old Todd Jarrell of the University of Wisconsin Madison and 26 year-old Matt Filipiak at sister college UW Stevens Point. In California, 26 year-old Jose Octavio Rivas was elected to the School Board in the city of Lennox, neighboring South Central Los Angeles, the first Latino Green to be elected in Southern California.

In Washington State, 21 year old Young Han became the youngest Green seeking a seat in a state legislature, receiving 1.8% of the vote for State Assembly. Sarah Marsh, a 25 year old recent graduate of University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, became the first Arkansas Green to run for state or federal office, receiving 1.9% for U.S. Congress in a November 20th special election. And in Boise, ID, the state's first two Green candidates ever for any office were 24 year old Jason Shaw for City Council and 27 year old Jeremy Maxand for Mayor.

Among all Green candidates, Green support has been particularly strong with voters under 30, and Green Party registration is highest among that same group. 

More Candidates 
Reaping the benefits of a vigorous 2000 presidential campaign, the Green Party enjoyed increased publicity, credibility, candidate quality and organizational strength in 2001. This manifested itself in the vast increase in candidates and victories - 278 candidates in 25 states ran in 2001, almost tripling the previous high for an odd-numbered year of 95 candidates (in 15 states) set in 1999.
Although the majority of races in 2001 took place in small towns and moderately populated counties, Greens competed in more large metropolitan centers than ever before - running for city council in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York and Seattle, and for District Attorney in Philadelphia. 

The strongest concentration of Green candidates came in the Northeastern states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts. Over 180 candidates came from these states, about 2/3 of the national total for the year, including about 3/4 of those candidates who ran in the fall elections. 

Greens also ran for office for the first time ever in Idaho and Montana, signaling the growth of the Green Party in more parts of the country overall.

Leading the way with a record 108 candidates was the Green Party of New York state, eclipsing the previous single-state high of 62 by the Green Party of California in 2000. Twenty of them ran within New York City alone, primarily contesting the many city council seats that became open as a result of the city's new term limit law. The second-highest number of candidates came from Pennsylvania with 30. The large number of candidates from both states tells a similar story, set against different political backdrops. In New York, there is a Democratic majority among the electorate and one house of the state legislature, while in Pennsylvania, the Republicans are in control. The Greens are growing well in each environment, suggesting that the Green Party has its own independent base, and is not a reaction simply against one or another of the major parties. 

A Record Number of Victories
The 56 victories in 2001 were not only an all-time high for U.S. Greens, and were four times higher than the last odd-numbered election year in 1999. As part of this phenomenal growth, 22 victories were for city/town/borough council, 11 for school or college boards and 6 for water and/or soil boards. Greens won city council seats for the first time in Massachusetts and Michigan.
More and more victories overall are also coming in larger cities - nine city council victories came in cities of 90,000 or more, with Mark Ruzzin (Boulder, CO) and Todd Jarrell and Brenda Konkel (Madison, WI in spring 2001 elections) joining the Greens elected in Hartford, Minneapolis and New Haven. 

Pennsylvania Greens won the most races overall in 2001 - 13 - including a small town mayor and three town council seat, as well as several uncontested administrative positions. California had the next highest number of victories (7), then Massachusetts and Wisconsin (5), and Colorado (4).

As a result of its strong performance, the Green Party of Pennsylvania now has 14 Green officeholders overall, third in the U.S. following California (39) and Wisconsin (16). Colorado, Massachusetts and Oregon have eight each. California has the most city council members (19) followed by Colorado (6). Wisconsin has the most county supervisors (9), followed by California, Colorado and Hawaii with one. 

With the re-election of Halle and Horton Sheff in Connecticut, 42 out of the 50 Green incumbent city/town council members and county supervisors have won re-election since 1992 (84%).