Green Party of Virginia

The Green Party of Virginia (GPVA) is a Virginia political party and the state affiliate of the Green Party of the United States. The GPVA's focuses on environmental issues and promoting candidates for local elections. The party had its first candidates running for elections in 1993, and got its first successful candidates elected to office in 1997.^[1]

Campaigns

GPVA focuses on local elections for offices such as the Virginia House of Delegates, town council, Board of Supervisors, and Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) Board of Directors. The party earned its first electoral victories in November 1997 when Phil Welch was elected to the Buena Vista Soil & Water Conservation District board ^[2] and Stephanie Porras was elected to the Lexington Soil & Conservation District Board.^[3] Since that time, several other GPVA members have run for office in both partisan and non-partisan races, with some success at the town council and SWCD level.

One of the most notable campaigns for office by a GPVA candidate in a partisan election have been Josh Ruebner's 2006, 2007 and 2008 candidacies for the Arlington County Board of Supervisors. Ruebner received extensive local media coverage for both campaigns. In 2007, he received votes from 10.3% of Arlingtonians who came to the polls (two votes may be cast for the Arlington County Board of Supervisors race; he received 3,253 votes from among the 31,511 people who were counted as having voted). Reeder received a vote share of 23.3% for the Arlington County Board in the 2008 elections. His vote count was 21,503, a figure which represents a significant increase of 10% from the 2007 elections. Reeder achieved this by running on a platform to promote affordable housing, increase recycling opportunities, and trim government waste. Furthermore, a Green Party-backed referendum to establish a housing authority, with the aim of increasing the County's available tools to address an ever-deepening affordable housing crisis, won 33% of the votes despite the opposition of both Democratic and Republican parties.^[4]

In 2015, Jeff Staples ran for Virginia House of Delegates in the 81st District against Republican Barry Knight. He won 4 districts and received a total of 30.3% of the vote.

Independent Greens split

When the state meeting of the Green Party of Virginia refused to recognize Carey Campbell's installation as chair of the Arlington local of the GPVA ^[5] and overturned Campbell's election to chair of the chapter and the election of the other officers due to clear violations of party bylaws. Campbell and others participating in the vote were not members of the local party and at least two people who voted were not party members. Campbell and several others, unhappy with this expected decision, formed the Independent Greens of Virginia and attempted to affiliate with the state party.^[6] When this affiliation was denied, Campbell and Joe Oddo turned the Independent Greens of Virginia into a new statewide party.

Presidential elections

Current officeholders

• Kathleen Harrigan, Fredericksburg Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
• Daniel Metraux, Staunton Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
• Chris Simmons, Loudoun Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
• Buck Richards, Warren County Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Directors
• Giannina Franz, Fredericksburg Soil and Water Conservation District Board
• Wendy Hageman Smith, Appomattox County School Board

References

External links

• Green Party of Virginia
• Green Party of the United States
• Josh Ruebner 2007 campaign site

Virginia political parties
Major	Republican Democratic
Minor	Green Independent Greens Libertarian
Defunct	Readjuster
Political party strength in Virginia