Little-Known Provision in HR1 Will Quintuple the Amount of Money Presidential Candidates Must Raise to Participate in Public Matching Funds Program

WASHINGTON — The Green Party has gone on the record with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules with a request that HR1 be amended to strike a provision that would quintuple the amount of money presidential campaigns will be required to raise to qualify for federal matching funds. HR1 will raise the qualifying threshold for presidential campaign matching funds from $5,000 raised in each of 20 states to $25,000 per state in 20 states.

Greens knew from the start that 2020 would be a tough year for their presidential ticket. The election would be a referendum on Trump. For most progressives, Anybody But Trump would do.

Our campaign believed that an ecosocialist program is needed for real solutions to the life-or-death issues of climate, inequality, racism, and war. We believed that the way to defeat the Trump Republicans was for the left to put forward its own program and not rely on the Democrats’ pallid centrism, which would not speak to the economic and social anxieties that the Trump far-right has been mobilizing around with racist and conspiracy scapegoating. 

Voter suppression has become a real issue in recent years. Mostly, what we hear on voter suppression are Democrats correctly accusing Republications of disenfranchising people of color and poor and working-class people. I want to call your attention to the voter suppression activity by the Democratic Party in the 2020 election. In a number of states, Democrats actively tried to keep the Green Party off the ballot.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for president, said that while it was essential to ensure that all votes are counted before a winner is declared, it was equally important for people to demand that the next president move quickly on COVID relief, climate change, and health care for all.

Hawkins said that he and the Green Party would help organize protests to demand that every vote is counted and that the next administration take swift action on the COVID, health, and climate crises. Hawkins released a statement outlining key issues for the Green Party moving forward.

We’re furious. Livid. Seething.

The Democrats spent the last four years demonizing the Green Party. They blamed us for their failures.

They told lies about Jill Stein acting like a Russian tool. We saw how they undemocratically kicked us off the ballot in state after state, but continued to cynically whip up hysteria about a vote for Green candidates.

NEW YORK, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Harry R. Burger, who is running for Congress under less-known Green Party in New York's 2nd congressional district, recently carried several yard signs for himself and his party's presidential candidates and placed them around an early voting site at Babylon Town Hall Annex on Long Island of New York State.

In a dark green jacket, Burger lamented somebody stole his yard signs which were placed there a few days ago.

Because only the two main political parties—the Republicans and Democrats—have a real chance at winning most elections, Americans tend to forget about the third and fourth biggest parties, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, respectively. This year, both these parties are fielding candidates for the nation's highest office.

The Observer was able to secure an interview with the Green Party presidential candidate, Howie Hawkins, who spoke at length about the environmental-economic nexus, the basis of his party's platform. Aside from environmental sustainability and economic viability, the other two primary components of the Green Party's platform are democracy and social justice. Hawkins is a long time environmental activist and trade unionist who has unsuccessfully ran for a variety of political offices in the past.

With the massive spending and huckstering being done by the two major party presidential candidates, something is being lost in the mix. There are two other candidates who have a mathematical chance to win enough Electoral College votes to become the next president: Jo Jorgensen of the Libertarian Party and Howie Hawkins of the Green Party.

They could both amass enough votes to win but were excluded from the debate stage. Why? Because the Commission on Presidential Debates, or CPD, is a wholly owned, nonprofit subsidiary of the Democratic and Republican parties. It stole the mantle of holding the debates from the League of Women Voters back in the 1980s in order to control the process front to back.

Democrat and Republican. Liberal and Conservative. Left and Right. The United States is dominated by a bipartisan system. These two poles vehemently oppose each other, demanding that citizens choose a side. The media perpetuates this bipartisanship, almost exclusively covering these two parties. Yet, more than 60 other political parties are currently active throughout the country. Some of them, such as the Libertarian and Vermont Progressive Parties, are represented in Congress or state legislators. Others, such as the Green Party, have representatives serving at the municipal level.

It is important to realize we have had two parties of the millionaires governing the United States since its founding. People have always had to pick between which of the millionaire parties we should choose from when neither put the people's interests first. Some people have found a successful third way that builds people's power.

Those in the Green Party view popular movements and third-party candidates (who cannot win elections in this rigged system) working together to change the direction of the country. We would rather vote for what we want and not get it in an election but use our vote to build a national consensus for the changes we need. That is a better alternative than voting for what we do not want, i.e. "a certifiable, lying, murdering war criminal" and a racist mass incarcerator, and getting it.