Pennsylvania uses diverse strategies for fall elections 
By Courtney Wege 
Green Party of Pennsylvania

Adams County (PA) Green Party candidates (left to right): Thom Marti, Robert Lasco, Jacob Schindel, Marty Qually and Courtney Wege. Photo: Carolyn George / Green Party of Pennsylvania

Thanks to steady electoral success since 2001, Pennsylvania has the second most Green officeholders (27) and third most registered Greens (16,047) in the U.S. Nevertheless, as a result of several events and trends in 2004, the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) faces a critical electoral test this fall.

Leadership burn-out and lingering resentment over the 2004 Green presidential campaign, as well as financial and morale setbacks resulting from the Democratic Party's hostile ballot challenge to Green congressional candidate Dorothy Schieber, all threaten the party's momentum. 

Back in 2001, Pennsylvania Greens contested 30 races and won 13, including one mayoral and four borough/township council positions. In 2003, 45 candidates ran with 19 wins, including five for borough council. 

Much of this success came as a result of low-intensity (stealth) campaigns for minor offices such as constable, auditor, inspector of elections and school board director. Some Greens ran moderate-intensity campaigns for intermediate offices such as township and borough boards, and a few of them also won.

In 2005, 31 Greens will run in fall elections across the state. Will these campaigns generate more victories for the party and bring more people into its active leadership? The party's 2005 electoral strategy breaks down into four main categories:

1) Continued emphasis on 'stealth' races

Pennsylvania has an unruly municipal system, with many ineffective municipalities. Many local offices are up for election with no takers. The winner is often decided by a few write-in votes from families, friends and local Greens. In rural York County in particular, Greens have done their homework and used this strategy to good success, winning three races and placing well in several others. Now the performance of their officeholders gives the local party a new credibility. Twelve Greens in five counties are running for these kinds of seats this fall.

2) Green Slates 

In Dauphin and Adams counties, Greens will be running coordinated slates for municipal office.

In the state capital, Harrisburg, Greens will run James Jackson for mayor and Andrea Jefferson, Wanda Devila and Diane White for city council on a common platform: giving a voice to working people who have no voice with the entrenched Democratic machine. All four Green candidates are African-American and advocate stabilizing the economies and housing of the city's low-income minority neighborhoods and improving Harrisburg's schools. Under five-term incumbent Democratic Mayor Stephen Reed, the city's primarily African-American, Latino and Asian-American neighborhoods have been left behind, while mid- and upper-income communities thrive. Harrisburg's school board has also been virtually stripped of its power and effectively placed under the mayor's control, rendering local school children pawns of city politics. 

Local Greens expect the Dauphin County Democratic Party, intent on preserving its power structure in Harrisburg, to challenge vigorously the Harrisburg Green candidates, in the same way they challenged Schieber. 

Fifty miles to the south, the rural Adams County Green Party, with 174 registered Greens, is fielding nine candidates, including four borough council and three township supervisor candidates, one candidate for school committee and one for town auditor. With this "Green Dream Team" they hope to outpace the local Democratic Party in a county where the Democrats seldom run candidates. The Adams County Greens also plan to challenge the entrenched Republican Party, whose incumbents have opened up the county to rampant sprawl. 

According to Thom Marti, township supervisor candidate in Menallen, "Pennsylvania suffers from two big problems that encourage sprawl rather than smart growth. First, the state Municipal Planning Code was written to develop, not preserve, land. Second, part-time boards (who are often the road crew) run the state's 2,000-plus municipalities, and many are not zoned, with volunteer planning boards, at best. 

"Wealthy development corporations (who are buying up farms as our orchard industry collapses) are walking right over these local governments, who fear law suits if they resist. We Greens are trying to form regional planning and zoning districts to better direct development and, taking a leaf from Populist history, trying to get officials elected who will pass ordinances to prevent 'harms' inflicted by development." 

Left: Titus North, Green Party of Allegheny County candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh. Right: Marlene Santoyo received 15.9 percent for Pennsylvania state representative in a September 13th special election, beating the Republican to finish second. Left Photo: www.North4Mayor.org  Right Photo: Green Party of Pennsylvania

3) Major Cities

The third level encompasses Titus North's race for mayor of Pittsburgh and Marlene Santoyo's special election race for state representative in Philadelphia County. 

North, an adjunct professor in the political science department at the University of Pittsburgh, hopes to build the party through a Green populist approach to local politics, at a time when the city is facing a major financial crisis. He advocates drastically reforming Pittsburgh's finances, as well as improving public transit for the poor, increasing community-based policies and increasing city/school partnerships to help education. 

Santoyo's race on Sept. 13 for state representative in the 200th District was a great way for Pennsylvania candidates to start the election season. Santoyo garnered the highest percentage vote of any Pennsylvania Green candidate ever for State Assembly. She received 16 percent of the votes cast and, as Sept. 30, had won at least three divisions within the 200th District. She also became the first Pennsylvania Green to beat one of the major parties in a three-way race, leaving the Republicans as the "also ran." "This race showed clearly that Philadelphians are hungry to participate in the political process when it is inclusive and transparent," said Santoyo.

Her key issues were demilitarization of public schools and opting out of recruitment, providing a living wage, enforcing tougher gun laws, supporting mass transit funding and restoring cuts in medical assistance.

4) Elsewhere

In Berks County Jennaro Pullano, 2004 GPPA chairperson and 2000 Pennsylvania state senate candidate, is running for the Reading city council and has already raised enough funds to have the first-ever Green Party campaign billboards in the state. A local small-business owner in Reading, Pullano intends to keep city resources public, increase community policing and after-school programs, lower cable and telephone bills and support local small businesses.

Next door in West Reading, Michael Morrill, the Green Party's 2002 nominee for governor, was appointed to fill an unexpired term for West Reading borough council in May. He is now the only Green incumbent in the state running for election this year. He has secured the Green, Democratic and Republican ballot lines, the first candidate ever to have done so in the state. 

In Johnston, located in Western Pennsylvania's Rust Belt (where the "Steel Belt" used to be before that industry collapsed), Green Guy Anthony has pursued a cross-file strategy for mayor. Anthony captured the Democratic primary ballot line with a successful write-in campaign and then gathered enough signatures to obtain the Green line also. Cross-filing is a strange quirk of the state's election code, which allows a candidate to obtain the ballot line of more than one party.

Visit www.gpofpa.org to follow the further efforts of Green Party candidates in Pennsylvania.

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