Small party, big ideas

Most political third parties in American history have quickly come and gone, but some have stuck around long enough for their ideas to have a lasting impact. Their efforts gave impetus, for example, to the anti-slavery movement, to women’s right to vote, to income tax and Social Security.

Such may be the ultimate influence of the Green Party. It’s famously a party of big ideas but little clout in a two-party system, as was evident when the California Green Party’s political road show rolled through Chico Monday (Oct. 2).

Five of the party’s candidates—for governor on down to state Senate—were in town to speak at a forum that evening at City Council Chambers. Three of them appeared at an afternoon press conference in Chico State’s student union: Mehul Thakker, an investment advisor from Oakland running for state treasurer; Larry Cafiero, a newspaper editor from Santa Cruz seeking to become insurance commissioner; and Bob Vizzard, an emergency physician from Placer County running for the state Senate, District 4.

They were well aware they weren’t going to win or even come in second. They campaign because it’s a way for them to spread the party’s ideas and because they believe the Republican and Democratic parties largely have sold out to their corporate donors.

Vizzard, for example, said he’d joined the Greens because the party “says what it means and means what it says.”

The party’s Web site has a highly detailed platform covering all major issues, from health care and the environment to the war in Iraq, based on 10 key values, including ecological wisdom, nonviolence, grassroots democracy, sustainability and so forth. If ideas were money, the Greens would be rolling in dough.

The party has had some success: Some 223 Greens hold public office nationwide, mostly on city councils and boards of education, and Ralph Nader’s candidacy in the 2000 presidential race was one of the great spoiler runs in modern American history.

But the winner-take-all two-party system essentially shuts out third parties, which is why the Greens strongly support not only Proposition 89, the public-financing initiative on the November ballot, but also what they call “proportional representation.”

Prop. 89, based on similar laws in Arizona and Maine, would be “a step forward” that would generate “a whole slew of reforms in its wake,” Thakker said. He noted that Pat LaMarche, the Green candidate for governor of Maine, has received $1.2 million in public financing, enough to run a credible campaign without becoming beholden to corporate donors.

Long-term, though, major restructuring of the political system is needed, said Thakker. He said the Green candidate for secretary of state, Forrest Hill ("the coolest name ever for a Green Party candidate,” he observed), is a strong advocate of parliamentary-style proportional representation, in which the number of elected representatives from each party is proportional to the number of people who voted for them.

“Why is the U.S. the only industrialized democracy with a two-party system?” Cafiero asked. “Registration in both parties is in decline,” he noted. “Independents are the only group that’s increasing.”

Vizzard noted that his district has 800,000 residents, so there’s no way to have a personal relationship with a legislator, and a candidate needs $1 million or more to hope to win a state Senate seat.

On other issues, the candidates said they supported a single-payer health insurance system and lambasted as “almost criminal” Governor Schwarzenegger’s veto of SB 840, which would have created such a system. They also support a much liberalized immigration system, a “pay-at-the-pump” tax on gasoline for auto insurance, socially responsible investment of pension funds, and allowing longtime non-citizen residents to vote. For a full account of the party’s positions, go to its Web site at www.cagreens.org.