news you can use

Green Party in Texas holds hope for future

By JOHN WILLIAMS

    Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Political Writer

Their top candidate didn't receive 3 percent of the vote in Texas last November, and their biggest vote-getter captured but 9 percent.

    The party didn't win an election, and didn't even force a runoff.

    Associated Press The Green Party's public image emerged in Texas last year when Ralph Nader ran for president. Nader got 3 percent of the presidential vote nationwide, 2 percent in Harris County.

    It raised only $80,000 in 2000 and can count 10,000 active members in a state with a population of 20.9 million.

    But despite what by most measures would be considered a poor showing last fall, the Green Party's first foray onto the Texas ballot, state and local party officials are ecstatic about their future.

    The party got enough votes to guarantee that its candidates will be on the 2002 statewide ballot. Membership, while small, is up. The party has expanded from four counties, with Harris County as the hub, to 25 across Texas.

    "I'd give us an A-minus," said David Cobb, secretary of the Green Party of Texas and organizer of the Harris County Green Party. "We have energized literally thousands of people, and we have gotten to the point that we are coherent."

    The party's public image emerged last year when Ralph Nader ran on its ticket for president.

    Some analysts argue that Nader's showing siphoned enough votes from Democrat Al Gore to throw the close election to Republican George W. Bush.

    Nader got 3 percent nationally, 2.8 percent in Texas and 2 percent in Harris County.

    But without Nader's star power in the party's leadership, many believe the party will crater amid a lack of funding and the organizational difficulties of maintaining a largely volunteer party.

    Harris County Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Schechter calmly dismisses the party's future locally and in Texas.

    "We just haven't seen that much of them," she said. "We folded a lot of them into our party after the election."

    But Cobb, who helped create the Green Party of Harris County in 1998 and the state party a year later, disagreed.

    The party guaranteed a place on the 2002 ballot by getting at least 5 percent of the votes in Texas in three races, including 9 percent by Texas Supreme Court candidate Ben Levy of Houston.

    Meanwhile, Texas is one of 35 states with Green parties, up from 12 two years ago.

    Now Texas party officials are looking for candidates to run in 2002 for governor and other state offices, and for Harris County positions. In addition, he said, the party will assist radio talk show host Ada Edwards' campaign for Houston City Council this fall.

    Cobb said party officials want former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower to lead the party's ticket in 2002 by running for governor. Hightower, who held office as a Democrat, spoke to the party's national convention last summer.

    A high-profile candidate like Hightower could elevate the party's vote percentage into double digits in a statewide campaign and bring added credibility, Cobb said.

    "I want that desperately, but he has said flat out that he won't do it," Cobb said.

    Nevertheless, Cobb and others will look for candidates who will run on a broader platform than just the ecological issues that provided the party's beginnings and its name. The broad-brush platform of the party now is to free politics from two dominant parties controlled by corporate interests.

    "The Democrats need to stop seeing us as recalcitrant Democrats," Cobb said. "We are a party that will continue getting stronger."

    Still, most identify the Green Party with environmental issues.

    And that is a double-edged sword for environmentalists, said Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club of Texas.

    Attention the Green Party gives to ecological issues pressures Republicans and Democrats to pay more attention to air- and water-quality problems, Kramer said.

    For example, he said, the Legislature appears poised to make many environmental changes this spring because of the bad publicity Texas received during the last election. For example, legislators may rescind the Bush-supported grandfather permit exemption that lets older industrial facilities avoid stricter pollution controls.

    However, Kramer said, Green Party success could hurt state and local Democrats' efforts, much as Nader drew votes from Gore. And Democrats tend to be more closely aligned with environmental issues than Republicans, he said.

    "Their success can be good and bad for the environment," Kramer said.

    Political analyst Bob Stein of Rice University predicts that the Green Party eventually will wither, but not before making Democrats' lives a little rougher in Texas.

    He said the party could be successful if it would take the tactic of the religious right, which gained grass-roots strength by running in smaller races, such as campaigning for school boards.

    "The best way to win elections is to win prior elections," Stein said. "And for them, the best way to win prior elections is to seek small elections."

    Or, the smaller parties like the Green, Libertarian and Reform parties could seek changes in election laws to give them a leg up, Stein said.

    In Texas, a winner must get 50 percent of the vote plus one vote to win.

    But other states have different rules. Reform Party candidate Jesse Ventura won the governor's race in Minnesota, a state that avoids runoffs by giving the election to the highest vote-getter.

    "You change the rules, you change the dynamics," Stein said.

    Cobb said Texas Green Party officials would like to have so-called instant runoffs.

    In this voting system, used in London and elsewhere, voters rank the candidates. If their top choice isn't among the top two vote-getters, their vote goes to their second choice, and so on, until one candidate has a majority.

    House Elections Committee Chairwoman Debra Danburg, D-Houston, said she has promised to submit a bill for instant runoffs.

    But not this year, she said, because the presidential voting fiasco in Florida has created a bad environment for election changes in Texas.

    "It is one of the few realistic things they (Green Party officials) have asked for," Danburg said. "In close elections, smaller parties frequently are spoilers and they often create costly runoffs."

Design copyright Scars Publications and Design. Copyright of individual pieces remain with the author. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...