Green Party Ballot Triumph in Texas

The Green Party of Texas will submit more than 74,000 signatures to the Secretary of State in Austin on Tuesday, May 30th, in order to qualify to be on the ballot in state-wide elections. These signatures, gathered by Greens around the state in just 75 days, represent a rebirth of grassroots democracy in a state long hostile to third parties (not backed by local billionaires) and with some of the most difficult ballot access requirements in the country. Having a ballot line in Texas will also prove helpful to Ralph Nader's efforts in Texas; given the certainty of Bush winning his home state, it's likely that the Greens will be able to reach out to disaffected Democrats, giving Nader a great showing in the second most populous state.

At the press conference in Austin on Tuesday, Steve Again will read the following statement:

Good afternoon. I am Steve Agan, co-chair of the Green Party of Texas. Thank you for coming. On behalf of our friends and supporters and all of those who have worked so hard over the last 75 days, I am proud to announce that we have gathered the required number of signatures from registered voters to place our candidates on the Texas ballot in November. There are many who did not think that we could do it, but we did it.

The Green Party of Texas was founded in the spring of 1999. The fact that we have obtained full ballot status only a year later, in a state that has some of the most restrictive third-party ballot access laws in the country, is truly a remarkable accomplishment. And we did it almost entirely through a volunteer, grassroots effort. Over 50,000 of the signatures supporting this petition were collected by Green Party volunteers who spent thousands of hours on weekends and evenings asking hundreds of thousands of people, one person at a time, to sign the Green Party petition.

And they signed. They signed because, like us, our fellow Texans are disgusted with a two-party system that has been corrupted by corporate money. They signed because, like us, they are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. Instead of voting their fears, they would rather vote their hopes for a change. They signed because they believe that democracy demands that citizens have more meaningful choices at the polls on Election Day.

The United States has the lowest voter turnout of any of the world's established democracies. Many people believe that their vote doesn't really matter -- that it won't make any difference. And it's no wonder they feel that way. The Republicans and Democrats accept money from the same transnational corporations and from the same one percent of the population that now owns ninety-five percent of the wealth. In fact, only four percent of the population even donates money to national political campaigns in the United States. With such high levels of voter apathy and such low levels of citizen participation in democracy, it is no exaggeration to say that we live in a time of unparalleled crisis for our republic. In the words of John Rensenbrink, Green Party senatorial candidate from Maine, "[Our republic] is on track to decline into a corporate statism run by an oligarchy whose vision has turned to greed and domination."

This is our reality. But, as my father once told me, "crisis" is another word for "opportunity". We in the Green Party have an historic opportunity to create a political party based on ecology, grassroots democracy, social justice, and non-violence, instead of privilege and wealth. And, unlike some would-be reformers, we in the Green Party do not view politics as inherently corrupt or corruptible, but merely one of a variety of human activities. It is no better or worse, no richer or poorer, in its qualities or meaning than other seminal spheres of activity such as the family, or business, or religion, the arts and sciences, or sports. We believe that the political terrain, though vulnerable as any to distortion and corruption, is also a place for the pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. The Green Party is, in a word, a party of a different kind.

For the Green Party there are three big issues around which all others revolve: (1) runaway corporate power; (2) the recovery of our democracy; and (3) the rising need to overcome the waste, depletion, and poisoning of nature and its resources. In addition to these big issues, other priorities of the Green Party include: Campaign Finance Reform, Minimum Living Wage, Electoral Reform (which includes Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation), Renewable Energy Investment, the end of Corporate Welfare as we know it, Single-Payor Health Care, and Public Education ... just to name a few. We will be talking more about these specific issues during the year 2000 campaign and in the years to come.

But, of course, we do not pretend to have all of the answers. And we do not expect success to be easily won or inevitable. As Ralph Nader once said, "The only place democracy comes before work is in the dictionary." So we have a lot of work ahead of us. This is the end of the petition drive, but only the beginning of our campaign.