Jan

27

Green Party’s task: Fill up ballot

[From Pantagraph.com]

By Adam Jadhavadam.jadhav@lee.net

Wanted: One candidate for the U.S. Senate, 19 for the U.S. House, 118 potential state representatives, dozens more wannabe state senators, hundreds of potential county officials.
And as many as 11,692 precinct committeemen, among other vacancies. Interested applicants should contact the Illinois Green Party.
Such recruitment is the daunting task of Illinois’ newest official political party. With 10.4 percent showing by the Green’s candidate for governor, Rich Whitney, in the 2006 election, the party now has established status under state election code.
That means in less than two years, in time for the 2008 primary, the Green Party has a reserved spot on the ballot for candidates for every partisan office in every jurisdiction at every level of government in Illinois.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” said Phil Huckelberry, who heads the party’s government and elections committee and is also responsible for candidate recruitment. “Actually, that may be an understatement.”

The party, founded in Illinois in 1999, fielded a full statewide slate for the first time in November, with Whitney, a lawyer from Carbondale, at the top. Green candidates also were on the ballot in six legislative districts and a handful of county races.
Each Green lost handily.
But Whitney’s vote total, more than double the 5 percent needed to earn official party status statewide, and with it a place on the ballot, was seen as a victory for his campaign.
Now, the push, Green officials say, is to turn the party from a loose coalition into something of a machine, with candidates in as many races as they can manage. They’ll be aided primarily by the reduced requirements to get on the ballot.
For example, Whitney, as an unofficial party candidate, had to get 25,000 signatures. In 2010, Green candidates in the primary will need only 5,000. A Green candidate needs roughly 500 to run as a state representative and 1,000 for the state Senate.
And in many county board contests, such as Madison County, the Greens will need only 25 signatures per candidate, the bare minimum for any office, according to state election law.

“The bar is lowered considerably now for them,” said Steve Sturm, an attorney with the Illinois State Board of Elections. “What they’ll probably need to do more is to get as many local people on a grass-roots level as they can, because they’re going to need that grass-roots structure through the primary.”

Whitney’s candidacy earned them attention, Huckelberry said, as the rolls of dues-paying members roughly doubled to more than 900. But that’s still far from the thousands of elected Democrats and Republicans around the state backed by thousands more volunteers.
In an attempt to rapidly build up their forces, the Greens are holding a membership meeting March 2-4 in Normal.
Generally thought of as progressive and left-wing politically, the Greens have set themselves up as the pro-environment, pro-social welfare and anti-war party. Now, for the first time in Illinois, what started as a grass-roots movement is beginning to lay concrete foundations.
“Of course we want to grow, but there are certain ideas, our key values, that we can’t compromise on,” Whitney said.
Some political observers remain skeptical that a third party can sustain itself, given the entrenched history of Democrats and Republicans in Illinois. Pundits generally believe Whitney was aided in 2006 by distaste for both incumbent Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich as well as Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka, the former state treasurer, a mood that might not exist the next time around.

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