Annual Convention

Second Annual Convention of the Green Party of New Jersey

Held: Saturday, April 18

Location: Rutgers Labor Education Center; Ryders Lane and Clifton Ave.; New Brunswick

It's been quite an inaugural year for the Green Party of New Jersey. Our membership has more than doubled, our committees and locals have started to function as vital sub-units of the party, and we feel that we have taken major strides toward becoming a significant new force in the politics of this state.

The Annual Convention is a time for members to make their voices heard on the variety of issues that face our party, to sign up to participate on statewide committees, to modify the organizational bylaws, and to elect party officers.

At this year's Convention, every party member in attendance had a vote. In future years, as the number of members grows, the locals will elect representatives who will have voting rights at the Convention.

The agenda for this year's convention included: reviews of last year's electoral campaigns; presentations by the current party officers; reports from statewide committee chairs and county coordinators; introduction of some 1998 Green Party candidates; a vegetarian pot-luck luncheon; the debut performance of the Green Party's Eco-Chorale; consideration of policy proposals and bylaws changes; election of 1998 party officers.

Longtime national Green leaders Mark Dunlea and Anne Goeke were featured speakers.

Dunlea is the campaign manager for the 1998 Green Party gubernatorial candidacy in New York (if their gubernatorial candidate receives over 50,000 votes this year the New York Green Party will obtain its own ballot line and voters in New York state will be able to register as "Green Party"). Goeke is a Pennsylvania Green Party activist and has been a co-leader of their initiative for campaign finance reform in that state. She was one of the women (along with someone named Madelyn Hoffman) who was under consideration to be Ralph Nader's national running mate in 1996. Annie was in Brazil from March 24-April 3 helping to organize a conference toward the establishment of a Federation of Green Parties of the Americas.

Also addressing the convention:

	Virginia Ahearn, Director, New Jersey Peace Action
	Larry Hamm, a prime mover of the Rainbow Coalition in New Jersey; State Chair of the Million Man March; founder of the Newark-based Peoples Organization for Progress
	Darlene McKnight or Rev. Bob Moore of the Coalition for Peace Action in Princeton

The closing ceremonies included the powerful poetry of Joanne N'Jie Ashe.

Here are just some of the achievements of the Green Party of New Jersey during its first year of existence:

	conducted a major gubernatorial campaign, which helped to establish a Green Party presence in almost every county of the state (almost 11,000 people voted Green Party!);
	conducted our first campaign for local office (township council in Lawrenceville);
	demonstrated at Fresh Fields supermarket in Montclair to protest the conditions under which strawberry farmworkers are working and to persuade Whole Foods, Inc. to be more labor friendly in their choices of distributors;
	demonstrated and testified in opposition to the USDA's proposal to gut the organic foods standard;
	organized a major forum and march to protest the government's plans to (again) bomb Iraq;
	joined with the Unplug Salem Coalition to protest the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's plans to reopen the Salem I nuclear reactor;
	testified for ballot access reform at hearings before the State Election Law Enforcement Commission;
	participated in the lawsuit "James Mohn and the Green Party of NJ vs. Hartz Mountain Industries and the Mall at Mill Creek" to contest whether a mall owner has the right to require organizations to obtain prohibitively expensive insurance before handing out literature on the mall's property;
	raised money to fund a part-time paid Organizer position;
	participated in Progressive Taxation for Education, an effort to find more equitable solutions to the problem of how to fund primary and secondary education in New Jersey;
	participated in a monthly "Utne Salon" study group;
	sponsored a statewide meeting to coordinate projects and issues work among progressive activists;
	produced, circulated, and garnered support for a major position paper/proposal on campaign finance reform;
	worked against MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investments, which has been dubbed "NAFTA on steroids");
	worked for and end to the Coyote and Black Bear hunts in New Jersey;
	promoted the expansion of bikeways in Mercer County;
	supported a campaign to shutdown the CIA's School of the Americas;
	demonstrated at rallys supporting the Teamster locals on strike against UPS;
	established a Green Party of New Jersey web site, <http://www.gpnj.org>;
	produced and distributed 15,000 copies of the premiere issue of the Garden State GREENews;
	demonstrated at the final gubernatorial candidates' debate to protest the prohibitively high monetary threshold required for third party participation.

As can be seen from the variety of activities above,the Greens stand firmly on two legs -- one in the electoral arena, the other in the movements for social change. More than just the political expression of the environmental movement, Green Parties are emerging as the most viable progressive alternative to the status quo parties in state after state in the U.S. and in countries all over the world. We feel that we are the party for the 21st Century, and more and more voters and activists are beginning to agree. As new solutions are being sought to the looming ecological and social crises facing humanity, it is the fresh perspective of the Greens that is showing the way toward an egalitarian, ecological, and communitarian society.