State Green Party Press Release

Georgia Green Party
Georgia Greens Congratulate One of Their Own on Election as Co-Chair, Green Party of the United States.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2002

For further information, contact:
Badili Jones 404-454-6909
Co-Chair, Green Party of the United States
Co-Chair, Georgia Green Party

Badili Jones, co-chair of the Georgia Green Party and one of its two delegates to the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of the United States, was named by his peers on the National Committee as one of the Co-Chairs of the national Party, at a Mid-Term Convention held in Philadelphia Pennsylvania this past weekend.

In other business, the national Committee also endorsed an initiative of the national Party's Coordinated Congressional Campaign, a nine-point program for recovering democracy from corporate rule to support its sixty-seven member Congressional slate, including two Greens contesting the First and Seventh District races in Georgia. The two day business meeting was framed by a Mid-Term Convention with the focus squarely on Candidate Training.

"I'm looking forward to working with the leaders of the Green Party as we move forward," said Mr. Jones, a Chamblee Georgia resident who's name is the Swahili word for 'change'. "I want to focus on building a strong, diverse, grassroots Party that will help elect committed and accountable men and women to public office."

"Badili brings a tremendous amount of creativity, wisdom and expertise to the Steering Committee of our national party," said Nicole Jackel-Routh, Jones' Co-Chair in Georgia and Secretary of the Athens-Clarke County Green Party. "I am so proud to be represented by someone with his background in Southern activism and feel that his experience in the South is crucial to a broader understanding of grassroots organizing and diversity. He a tireless defender of social justice and human rights. I can always depend on Badili to ask the hard questions and fight the good fights."

The Green Party uses a system of proportional representation and instant run-off voting for its internal elections, while advocating such systems as a way of democratizing the country's undemocratic winner-take-all election process. Badili Jones and Barbara Payne, of Oregon, were elected in the first round of the tabulation which also re-seated Anita Rios, of Ohio, who has served on the national Steering Committee since the Party's 2001 meeting in Santa Barbara, California. They join on the national Party's seven member Steering Committee, co-chairs Jo Chamberlain of California and Ben Manski of Wisconsin, a newly elected Treasurer, Gerald "Jake" Schneider, treasurer of the Wisconsin Party and Secretary Nathalie Paravicini, candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Texas.

"These are going to be the two busiest years of my life," said Barbara Payne, an Oregon delegate, who recently spent a month or more in Atlanta organizing a Democracy Rising Rally at the Civic Center. "I am absolutely committed to helping to guide this party and to out organize Democrats and Republicans, whose time is up."