27 Sep 2009
Notes of a Political Life
The Party held its fall 2009 state convention today, in a building run by the Episcopal Church next to the Oregon State University campus.
Barbara Ellis, of the Southside group of the Democracy for America, laid out for the Greens the prospects for a united choice of all progressive Oregon third parties: in particular the chair of the Independent Party, Linda Williams, has said she supports the idea.
When it came time for questions, I asked Barbara how the Pacific Greens could join her proposed alliance if we thereby lost our ballot status. That is, we have access to the ballot in the state of Oregon only so long as we run candidates in state-wide, contested, partisan races where the Green gets at least one per cent of the vote; but we may get no credit for any candidates, no matter how successful, if the person has received the nomination of some other party.
Sal Peralta spoke to that issue from the floor. Sal is the Secretary of the Independent Party of Oregon, and has extensive knowledge of the legal status of third parties. The Pacific Greens would receive credit of one percent in any contested statewide race in which the candidate ran as a Green, he said, whether or not the candidate was cross-endorsed.
That report, if true (and it has the ring of truth to it), means that the possibility of a grand coalition of progressive parties is quite real in this election. It was very good news.
However, Sal had other news to share with the convention: the State Legislature has this last session increased the fee for putting candidate statements in the Voter's Pamphlet some five-fold. Alas, now in place of not having a thousand dollars to run against the Democratic Congressman in my district, Earl Blumenauer, I don't have five thousand.
But I took Barbara Ellis aside later for a quiet conversation, one on one. She lives, like me, in Portland, in Blumenauer's district, and expressed delight that I am planning to run against him in 2010. She suggested I write an op-ed letter to the Oregonian to bring the exclusionary nature of the heightened charges for the Voter's Pamphlet to public attention.
Ah, what an optimist.
By Michael Meo