The international Green movement began in the 1970s with the Values Party in New Zealand. Heavily influenced by the national success enjoyed by Greens in Germany, American Greens met in 1984 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and proceeded to adopt the 10 Key Values that Greens in the United States currently use as their basic political goals: “grassroots democracy, social justice and equal opportunity, ecological wisdom, nonviolence, decentralization, community-based economics and economic justice, feminism and gender equity, respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility, and future focus and sustainability.”
By the 1980s several hundred Green chapters existed throughout the United States. In 1990 Alaska was the first state to achieve a recognized ballot line for the Green Party. In 1991 the Green Committees of Correspondence split, over issues related to political participation, into the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). The group continued to organize during the 1990s, but numerous problems stunted its growth. After the 1996 ELECTIONS, the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) was formed to fill the lack of national organization of Green politics, to create new state parties, and to facilitate the growth of existing state parties. Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke ran as presidential and vice presidential candidates, and of the 82 party candidates, 19 were elected to positions including city council seats, a municipal judgeship, and a county commissioner.
Membership in the ASGP consists of state Green Parties, not individuals. The mission of the ASGP is to develop the Green Party into a viable political alternative in the United States, and its operating principle has been to present simple and straightforward goals. The party eschews a large budget in favor of keeping funds at the state and local level. The G/GPUSA still exists, however, and has approximately 1,200 members. The Green Party enjoyed more national visibility in the 2000 presidential election, putting forth Nader and LaDuke again as the party’s candidates. Support for Nader’s campaign is a likely factor in the loss of votes by Democratic nominee Albert Gore, Jr., in the 2000 contest. Currently the party claims to have nearly 80 officeholders in local offices around the country.
See also POLITICAL PARTIES.
—Michele Rutledge
World History
