Steve Justino will lead a Presentation & Discussion on the We The People Amendment (Corporations are not People, Money is not Speech, and “The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.”).  Steve is a practicing Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Attorney, Co-Chair of Colorado Move to Amend, and was General Counsul for Jill Stein for President.   Steve was the mastermind and organizer of the successful national Occupy the Courts event on January 20, 2012.  See the end of this e-mail for the full text of the Amendment.

See meeting venue and time information on the calendar/events page.

The post We The People Amendment Presentation April 8 in Arvada appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Many local Colorado educators reached out to third parties in this election, teaching their students about the importance of hearing all voices in a democracy. Despite the lack of a presence in the national debates, we had the support of Democracy Now! and other powerful independent voices to push our message through.

Perhaps most important for Coloradans, our Greens waged powerful grassroots campaigns throughout the state. During the last month, volunteers were out on corners in major cities in Colorado waving signs alongside our local candidates. The first national party phone bank was successfully run from our state. We made great strides as a decentralized team to bring our message to a public drowning in vitriolic national discourse. Eric Fried, Secretary of the GPCO and Poudre Valley Chair, eloquently summed up our victories and our humble thanks:

“I would like to add my voice of thanks for all the courage and hard work of our Colorado candidates. In all cases, votes for Greens were many multiples of the number of registered Greens, despite near-total media blackout. In Larimer County , for instance, Susan Hall got over 4,000 votes, while we have only about 800 registered Greens. In El Paso county, thanks to the good work of Bob and others, Greens did especially well, with Karyna Lemus getting over 10,000 votes for county commissioner and Misha Luzov pulling in 17,000 for Congress, one of the best vote totals for a green congressional candidate in the US. Art Goodtimes was re-elected, and Stephen Schechter raised the visibility of a green alternative in Gunnison County. Thanks also to Chris Allen, state coordinator for Jill Stein, for all his hard work. ” -Eric Fried, GPCO State Secretary

We could not have done this without our dedicated volunteers, state officers, and candidates. I encourage all local Greens to take a moment and thank your local parties for the effort they put forth to make this election a success. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again. We have so much more to do, and without you all it would never happen.

Bill Bartlett
GPCO State Co-Chair

The post Thank You, 2012 Greens! appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Gary Swing, Green Party Candidate for Progress, CD1, Colorado

Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign was remarkably transparent in advancing the planned agenda for his second term as War Criminal In-Chief. Obama’s campaign boldly announced their slogan: “FORWARD.” Some people myopically viewed this as one word, rather than observing it with the proper perspective. In 2008, Obama supporters dutifully voted “For-War-A”(Afghanistan), “For-War-B” (Iraq), and “For-War-C” (Libya). In 2012, they enthusiastically voted “For-War-D” (Iran, Syria?)

Every election year we hear the same nonsense about “voting for the lesser of two evils.” Despite the spirited chants of “We Are the 99%,” 99% of American voters continue to embrace the greater evils: perpetual wars of aggression, imperialism, authoritarianism, and environmental devastation. This is the shared agenda of the two corporate parties. Yet we still hear the same tired old arguments that have never been valid: that voting your conscience is a wasted vote; that a vote for a Green Party candidate is a vote for the Republican, and so on. Voting Green can’t “spoil” elections that are already rotten to the core. If you vote for candidates who don’t represent your values, then you are wasting your vote.

The Democrats and Republicans design the election system to keep themselves in power and shut out any meaningful opposition from start to finish. The fundamental flaws in their antiquated system could easily be fixed. These issues remain because the system as it stands serves the interests of the elite and powerful.

Gary Swing & Jill Stein

Let’s get one thing straight: Green Party candidates don’t “take votes away” from Democrats. Democrats take votes away from Greens. When was the last time you heard someone say: “I’d love to vote for Obama, but he doesn’t have a chance, so I’ll vote for Jill Stein instead?” A legitimate election system would enable voters to cast their ballots for the candidates they prefer without the fear of “helping to elect” the candidates they like least. Modern voting systems used by most democratic countries allow voters to cast effective, meaningful votes to secure fair, proportional representation for the parties or candidates that they prefer.

Green Party candidates have been running for partisan office in the United States since 1988 and in Colorado since 1994. The Green Party has elected members of parliament in dozens of countries with party list forms of proportional representation. In the United States, about 135 Green Party members held local, mostly non-partisan elected offices as we headed into the 2012 election. These are citizens elected to offices like school boards and town councils, and who happen to be registered Green. Very few of these successful candidates appeared on the ballot with the designation “Green Party.” Twenty-four years of running Green Party campaigns under the winner-take-all voting system has brought us to the level of success and public recognition that we enjoy today. “The Green Party? What’s that?” “Jill Stein? Who’s he?”

2012 Green Candidate for U.S. Vice President Cheri Honkala & Gary Swing

The reality is that we face a near total media blackout of any alternative to the increasingly fascist political establishment that dominates the U.S. The Green Party is invisible in the United States. We won’t make real progress unless we change the voting system. We are yelling into the wind to a deaf and blind audience, begging for the opportunity to help rearrange a few deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship has already struck the iceberg, and it’s sinking fast, but the band is still playing the same tune.

The big issue today is survival. Human overpopulation and over-consumption have brought us to the brink of economic collapse and ecological catastrophes on an unprecedented scale.

A short-term supply of cheap, abundant fossil fuels has temporarily enabled human population to overshoot the long-term carrying capacity of the planet. The world’s human population has grown dramatically from one billion in 1804 to two billion in 1927 and seven billion in 2011. In 2010, the World Wildlife Foundation’s “Living Planet Report” estimated that human ecological impact exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity by 50%.

About 5% of the world’s population lives in the United States, but the US accounts for 25% of global consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. If the average person on Earth consumed as much as the average American, the Earth could not support a population of more than 1.5 billion people.

A recent study by MIT revisiting the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” study concluded that if we continue to follow the path of “business as usual,” the global economy will collapse and the world’s human population will start to decline precipitously by 2030.

Global warming is happening today as a result of human industrial activity, yet the Democrats and Republicans are acting together to accelerate this ecological catastrophe with new oil pipelines, coal burning, fracking, and tar sands exploitation. Mass extinction of species is taking place at an alarming rate. Topsoil is being depleted. Agricultural production is diminishing as nearly a billion people face chronic malnutrition and lack access to safe drinking water.

We need a radical and rapid transition to an environmentally sustainable way of life. We’re running out of time. The message of the Green Party is one that desperately needs to be heard, understood, and adopted.

Green politics, if it is to truly offer an alternative, is about speaking truth to power and standing up for what you believe is right, regardless of the expected outcome, even if you know that you can’t win. The truth is we don’t have much power under the existing political system. Electing a handful of citizens who happen to be Green Party members to small, rural school boards and town councils is a good start, but no more than that.

The winner-take-all voting system ensures that business as usual continues unchallenged, securing short-term profits while guaranteeing long-term catastrophes. If we believe that the message of the Green Party is important; if we think the Green Party should continue to exist; if we want the Green Party to win and gain real political power, then changing the voting system is a necessary and urgent first step towards making the Green Party a viable political entity.

We need to enact citizen initiatives to elect legislators by a system of true proportional representation, using party lists. Political parties should be represented in legislatures in proportion to their share of the vote. We need a truly representational voting system for electing legislators, like the method used to elect Australia’s Senate (not semi-proportional voting plans, winner-take-all voting systems such as instant runoff, or approval voting). If we intend to create a strong, effective Green Party that impacts public policy at all levels in the United States, we need to make implementing proportional representation a top priority.

 Denver Green Party members Gary Swing, Aaron Ney and Ryan Jones with Jill Stein

The post Green Progress Requires Proportional Representation appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala (President/Vice President): 0.29%, 6,842 votes

Gary Swing (US Representative, CD1) : 1.34%, 4,422 votes

Susan Hall (US Representative, CD2): 2.35%, 9,346 votes

Misha Luzov (US Representative, CD5): 5.88%, 17,218 votes

Victor Forsythe Villacres (State Representative, HD5): 3.73%, 959 votes

Art Goodtimes (San Miguel County Commissioner, District 3): 42.37%, 1,746 votes (re-elected)

Steven Schecter (Gunnison County Commissioner, District 1):  18.82%, 1,553 votes

Karyna Lemus (El Paso County Commissioner, District 2): 22.4%, 10,708 votes

Bradley Harris (El Paso County Commissioner, District 4): 2.61%, 876 votes

“I would like to add my voice of thanks for all the courage and hard work of our Colorado candidates,” said Colorado Green Party Secretary Eric Fried. “In all cases, votes for Greens were many multiples of the number of registered Greens, despite near-total media blackout. In Larimer County, for instance, Susan Hall got over 4,000 votes, while we have only about 800 registered Greens.”

“The challenge now is to build on that success, pulling in people who voted green, got active in the campaign, or maybe just learned for the first time that there is a green party, and involve them in green party activity. Post-election parties or informal discussions, involving any folks contacted during the campaign, might be a good next step. Post-campaign Op-Eds or letters to the editor from greens is another way to continue to try to break through,” Fried concluded.

Noteworthy National Election Results for the Green Party

Nationally, Jill Stein finished in fourth place among presidential candidates with about 0.3% of the vote (396,684 votes), after Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who won1,139,562 votes. Jill received more than twice as many votes as Cynthia McKinney, the 2008 Green Party nominee for president (161,195 votes), and more than three times as many votes as David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party candidate for president (119,859 votes). Her best showing was in Maine, with 1.3% of the vote.

In Arkansas, Green Party nominee and former Harlem Globetrotter Fred Smith was elected to the State House of Representatives. He is just the fourth person to
be elected to a state legislature as a Green Party candidate in the United States. He will now be the highest elected Green Party office-holder in the United States. Smith officially received 100% of the vote after a judge disqualified the Democratic Party incumbent, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit election fraud.

Seven Green Party candidates were on the ballot for U.S. Senate seats, and 64 for US House of Representative seats in 2012. Of these 71 Congressional candidates, two received more than 10% of the vote. Anthony Vieyra, the Green Party candidate for US Representative from California’s 35th Congressional District, received 18.6% of the vote, the highest percentage of the vote cast for any Green Party candidate for Congress this year. Under the ”top two open primary” system instituted in California following the passage of Proposition 14, Anthony Vieyra ran in a June, 2012 open primary, finishing third out of three candidates. He was disqualified from the general election ballot. California’s top two primary system shuts out minor party candidates from the general election ballot. No Green Party candidates appeared on California’s general election ballot this year below the office of president. Rebekah Kennedy, a Green Party candidate for US Representative in Arkansas received 16.1% of the vote, the highest percentage cast for any Green Party Congressional candidate appearing on the November 2012 general election ballot.

Thanks to Gary Swing for submitting this report.

The post 2012 Colorado Election Results for Green Party Candidates appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

The election season begins today. Will you run for office in 2013? Will you volunteer on a campaign? Will you take advantage of the vibrant energy, the supporter lists, and the clarity of purpose that are our new strengths as Greens?

By tonight’s end, between 750,000 and 1,250,000 people will have cast votes for Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala. Some states will perform better than others. But overall, this is a significant number and an impressive act of ballot box solidarity.

The Green Party is back.

• We began the 2012 campaign with 16 states in which we could run candidates on the ballot, and ended it with 38 states.
• We qualified for public financing.
• Our candidates appeared on national television and in all the national press.
• Our message of the need for a new economy and a new democracy was heard and seen everywhere.
• Roughly one million Americans voted with us, and millions considered voting Green for the first time.

The Greens are back and in the political mix. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala did that. And you did that.

What will you do next?

We hope you will take this energy and invest it in your community in the coming months. Recruit candidates or recruit yourself to run. Bring together your local Green community and build a local Green Party that makes a difference in your community. Set high ambitions, knowing that you won’t immediately meet your goals.

Will your community be the next to elect a Green majority in local government?

This campaign will work with the Green Party of the United States to ensure that we make the most of the opportunities Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala have given us. They put themselves on the line. They went to jail for justice. They braved the media. So can you.

I personally want to make sure that every one of us understands what we have achieved this year.Winning nearly a million votes doesn’t happen often for independent parties. We’ve done five times better than in the previous election cycle. We are moving in a good direction. I feel good, and hopeful, and I hope you do too.

You will hear directly from Jill and Cheri in the coming hours and days, and from the campaign and the national party in the coming weeks and months. If the election is still contested tomorrow, we will be in touch with you tomorrow as well.

In Solidarity,

Ben Manski
Campaign Manager

Please take an immediate step by making a donation: http://www.jillstein.org/donate

Authorized and paid for by Jill Stein for President
PO Box 260217, Madison, WI 53726-0217
http://www.JillStein.org 

The post 2013 Green Candidates Needed appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

A poet, freelance writer, basketweaver and potato farmer, Art Goodtimes is completing his fourth term as a San Miguel County Commissioner, one of only a handful of Green Party commissioners currently elected to partisan office in the U.S. He also currently serves as Co-Chair of the state Green Party.

San Miguel County is in the southwestern corner of Colorado, with its county seat in Telluride. The county encompasses a diverse region ranging from the rugged mountain resort communities of Telluride and Mountain Village to the arid ranching communities of the County’s west end, Norwood and Egnar. The county is made up of 1,288.49 square miles, with a population of 29,301 according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

Goodtimes is involved in a number of collaborative processes, including the Burn Canyon Monitoring Task Force, the Alpine Ranger Coalition, and the San Juan Fen Partnership. He was awarded a Practitioner Fellowship in 2010 from the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University and is working with the County Open Space and Recreation Department to implement a Payment for Ecosystem Service Pilot Project in the county.

He has served on some 50 boards and commissions over the past 16 years, including chair of the National Association of Counties Gateway Communities Subcommittee, chair of Colorado Counties’ Public Lands Steering Committee, and he was twice appointed to the BLM’s Southwestern Colorado Resource Advisory Council.

He has won awards for his work at bridge-building among diverse constituencies from a number of groups, including the Colorado Weed Management Association, Club 20, Interior Dept., U.S. Forest Service, Encana Corporation, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Telluride Institute, and Sheep Mountain Alliance.

In 2011 he was named Western Slope Poet Laureate at the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival in Carbondale.

Read about Art’s candidacy in the Telluride Watch article.

From the Colorado Secretary of State Website as of 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012:

COUNTY COMMISSIONER – DISTRICT 3
7 of 7 Precincts Reporting
Percent Votes Kevin Kell (REP) 24.27% 1,000 Dan Chancellor (DEM) 33.37% 1,375 Art Goodtimes (GRN) 42.37% 1,746 4,121

The post Goodtimes Wins 5th Election appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Please consider the issues and people representing them seriously this election. My name is Susan Hall. I am the only candidate for House of Representatives in District 2 believing we should not pay off the deficit through immediate-extreme austerity measures, including cutting every social net, such as Social Security and the education budgets. … continued

Read Hall’s Guest Commentary in the Coloradoan.

The post Coloradoan Publishes Green Candidate Hall’s Commentary appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Read the Colorado Statesman Oct. 26, 2012 article.

The post Colorado Statesman Covers 2012 Green Candidates appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Please watch and share this video of the party with exclusive interviews with Chris Allen, Steve Justino, Bill Bartlett, Susan Hall, Karyna Lemus, Brad Harris, and Gary Swing. Many thanks to the Denver Open Media Project for their invaluable support and their hard work in making this production possible. A very special thanks to the Mercury Cafe who have stood proudly by the Greens and offered their beautiful venue to host this event.

Tonight, Monday, October 22, 2012, expanded debate coverage will be provided by Democracy Now! beginning at 8:30pm EST. Check it out at their site.

The post Meet Your Greens!! Mercury Cafe: After the Debates appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.

Expanding the Debate with Jill Stein

The post Watch Presidential Debate with Jill Stein appeared first on Green Party of Colorado - Official website.