Monday, April 18, 2016

Green Party state convention pics, update


Thanks to the Bexar County Greens for these photos.


David Collins had this review of the business conducted.

The Green Party of Texas just concluded a packed weekend at the Grey Forest retreat in San Antonio. On Saturday (April 9), GPTX held its nominating convention for statewide offices, including the selection delegates to August's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. On Sunday (April 10), the Party held its annual meeting, at which the delegates assembled elected members to the State Executive Committee and passed a few resolutions regarding policy positions and internal procedures.

According to Green Party Watch, here is the Texas delegation to the Presidential Nominating Convention:
Jill Stein: 15
SKCM Curry: 3
Darryl Cherney: 2
Kent Mesplay: 2
Bill Kreml: 1

The win for Stein continues a nationwide pattern: Among states that have had their primary elections, caucuses, or conventions, Stein has won all of them. Unless something changes radically in the next three months, she will likely be nominated resoundingly on the first ballot in August.

State Offices
David Wager, longtime treasurer for the Harris County and Texas Greens, reports that all the candidates for the various state offices had their nominations confirmed:

Railroad Commissioner: Martina Salinas
Supreme Court, place 3: Rodolfo Rivera Muñoz
Supreme Court, place 5: Charles Waterbury
Supreme Court, place 9: Jim Chisholm
Court of Criminal Appeals, place 2: Adam "Bulletproof" King Blackwell Reposa
Court of Criminal Appeals, place 5: Judith Sanders-Castro

​ At Sunday's annual meeting, the delegates elected Laura Palmer of Harris County to another two-year term as co-chair. She will continue to serve along with Dallas County's Aaron Renaud, who was elected at last year's meeting. Also elected to the SEC:

Secretary: katija assata gruene, formerly known as kat swift (Bexar)
Treasurer: David Wager (Harris)
Members at-large: Antonio Diaz (Bexar), Wesson Gaige (Denton), Ona Marie Hendricks (Dallas)

Three resolutions passed and were referred to the national convention's committee.  Among them was a review of range voting for elections to public offices.

Salinas, who debated her Libertarian opponent on the day before the state convention, appears to be both standard-bearer and dreamcatcher for the GPTX in this cycle.  Her challenge is to keep the Greens on the ballot for 2018 by achieving 5% or more of the vote this November.

There's a chance that presidential nominee-in-waiting Stein could get this done for Texas Greens, and that's essentially the only reason why I would also like to see some early polling of the Texas electorate, with Trump and Clinton as the red and blue team leaders.  The Bernie or Bust movement -- such as it is -- needs to come to Jesus, but that's likely later than sooner.

Better late than never.