"The time is ripe. We have the candidates. We have the message. We have the values. What we need now is your commitment and support to make it happen," writes Illinois Green Party (ILGP) gubernatorial candidate, and Carbondale lawyer, Rich Whitney in an open letter. The Party announced on Monday that they had collected enough signatures to get on the ballot for the coming November election.
For those not familiar with the ILGP, the announcement may have as a bit of a surprise. Many thought that the possibility of a third party candidate was over for 2006. Last month Rev. Sen. James Meeks dropped his threat for a gubernatorial run, satisfied with Gov. Blagojevich's school funding proposal. Without having to contend with Meeks, who many agree would have cost the Governor votes, the incumbent Blagojevich was left to focus his campaign in opposing State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. However, this November it seems that Illinois voters could indeed be given more than just two choices.
The election could be a formidable challenge for the ILGP, as they are up against the strong loyalty enjoyed by the two major parties, but they have already overcome a great obstacle: Meeting the state's ballot requirement.
Restrictive Ballot Access
Illinois has one of the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation. The legislation has political parties (outside the major two) collect 25,000 valid signatures within a 90-day window (March 28 - June 26) in order to get its candidates on the statewide ballot. The state's Republican and Democratic Party politicians together passed laws so that they themselves only have to gather 5,000 voter signatures to appear on the statewide ballot.
"The Democrats and the Republicans write the laws and they have a vested interest in making sure that at any given point in time, it's only either the Democrats or the Republicans that are in power, "explained Phil Huckleberry, ILGP co-chair, on Monday morning as he was working to move signatures from Normal to their final destination in Chicago. "In pretty much every state in the country, you'll see a Democrat Governor replaced by a Republican Governor— at least once every 16 to 20 years—and that allows for cronyism. As long as both of them control the system together they're both going to get what they want. That's why there are such difficult ballot access laws."
While some refer to the Greens as a "new" party, the organization has in fact been around for some years. So why did they decide only now to offer up a gubernatorial candidate? "It's so difficult in Illinois to get on the ballot," explains Huckleberry. "Until we got to the point where we had a first-rate candidate that people could rally around, and we had more organizational experience behind us, we weren't going to be able to do it."
By last week, the ILGP had already collected over 35,000 signatures but continued to seek support to ensure their candidacy. The Greens anticipate a challenge to their petitions from the two major parties and had set a higher signature goal for themselves in order to secure a place on the ballot. Huckleberry himself was a victim of such a loss as the Greens missed a ballot showing in the March primary earlier this year.
| "We have done very well this year because the general public is mad at both the Democrats and the Republicans."
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In addition to his co-chairing ILGP, Huckleberry is running for the Greens as State Representative in the 88th District for 2006. Disputing the Greens as not being an established party in the district, incumbent State Representative Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) took the March primary without opposition.
"Voters across the political spectrum agree: public elections should be contested," said Huckelberry in a press release. "Every year the system gets more skewed in favor of incumbents through things like sweetheart gerrymandering and higher ballot access restrictions. The people of Bloomington-Normal deserve an actual choice for this office, not yet another unopposed race. Whether he likes it or not, Dan Brady has a challenger again this year."
Huckelberry is determined to be on the ballot in November "one way or another." This determination is bigger than one state district and a race for the Governor's mansion. For the first time, the ILGP are running a full slate of candidates for all Constitutional offices in the State. Huckleberry explains that if any of the ILGP statewide candidates receive 5 percent of the vote, the party representation will be easier to secure in the next election.
Myth of the Spoiler Vote
As their name suggests, the Greens stand for environmentalism, but their platform also includes furthering a grassroots democracy, a push towards social justice and a decentralization of power. Because their values point to a voter profile of someone who might otherwise vote Democratic, the Greens are often criticized with siphoning off precious votes from the Democratic side—a great concern in a closely contested race. A national example was in Green Party candidate Ralph Nader's 2000 run for the Presidency, which many saw as costing the win due Al Gore.
"If the Democrats really cared about that, they would have enacted instant run-off voting [an electoral system that has voters chose candidates in order of preference] in Illinois," said Huckleberry. "They control the Governor's mansion, the House and the Senate, so they've had an ample opportunity to do that. Its obvious to me that the "spoiler" argument is just a myth that's propagated to try to hold us down…Just because the system is messed up doesn't mean that we should be pointing fingers at the people that are working the hardest just to participate."
Despite the criticism and their underdog status, the Greens still believe that 2006 will be their year. "We have done very well this year because the general public is mad at both the Democrats and the Republicans," said Huckelberry in a press release. "We talk about real issues like alternative energy, and have real solutions to problems like education funding. This makes us more credible than the entrenched parties in the eyes of many voters."
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