The Maine Green Independent Party is a state-level political party affiliated with the Green Party of the United States. It is the oldest state green party in the United States. It was founded following an informal meeting of 17 environmental advocates, including Bowdoin College professor John Rensenbrink and others in Augusta, Maine in January 1984. From 1994 to 2006, the party's gubernatorial nominees received between 6% and 10% of the vote.
On September 21, 2017, state representative Ralph Chapman switched party affiliation from independent to the Green Independent Party. He did not stand for re-election in 2018 because he was term-limited. A month later, non voting member Henry John Bear also switched his party affiliation to the Green Independent Party from the Democratic Party.
Ten Key Values
The party is based on the 10 Key Values of: Grassroots Democracy Social Justice and Equal Opportunity Ecological Wisdom Nonviolence Decentralization Community-Based Economics and Economic Justice Gender Equality Respect for Diversity Personal and Global Responsibility Future Focus and Sustainability
Party qualification
The party achieved its current ballot status in 1998. Previously the Maine Green Party achieved ballot status in 1994 with the Jonathan Carter gubernatorial campaign, but lost it in 1997 after Ralph Nader failed to get 5% of the vote for president in 1996, a requirement of state law that has since been changed.
In 1998, Pat LaMarche re-qualified the political party with her campaign for governor, but under the new name, the Maine Green Independent Party. LaMarche ran again in 2006 capturing almost 10% of the vote in a five-way race. The campaign's website was indexed by the Library of Congress and won a Golden Dot Award, because of the site's use of new ways to interact with voters.
The party (in terms of registered votes) is currently in a period of continuous growth stretching back to 1998 according to state records. As of December 4, 2008 there were 31,676 Greens in the state comprising 3.19% of the electorate.
As of November 6, 2012, 37,764 Maine voters were registered in the Maine Green Independent Party, representing 3.83% of the statewide electorate.
As of August 31, 2017, enrollment in the MGIP had increased to 43,996 (4.23%) of Maine voters.
In August 2015, the party decided to open its 2016 primary to unenrolled voters.
Portland Greens
The party realizes its greatest successes in the state's largest city, Portland. From 2002 to 2006, the highest-ranking elected Green in the United States was John Eder, who served in the Maine House of Representatives for Portland's West End neighborhood. Four of the state's elected Greens are Portland officeholders, including three School Committee members, and one City Councilor.
According to the Green Party of the United States, Portland holds the longest streak of elected Green officeholders, having Greens in office continuously since 2001.
The first Green elected in Portland was Ben Meiklejohn in 2001, as an at-large School Committee member. In 2002, city voters elected their second Green, Eder to the State Legislature. Meiklejohn was joined on the School Committee by Stephen Spring in 2003, Jason Toothaker in 2004 (a year Meiklejohn was re-elected), Susan Hopkins in 2005 and Rebecca Minnick in 2006.
The School Committee was once the second "Greenest" governing body in the United States, and from 2004 to 2006, significant media attention was attributed to conflicts between the committee's Greens and Democrats. The Greens successfully passed precedent-setting policy limiting military recruiters' access to city high schools, and were recognized by the National School Board Association.
The Board of Trustees of the Portland Water District became the next governing body in Portland to have Green members, after Erek Gaines was elected in 2003 and David Margolis-Pineo in 2006.
In 2006, Portland elected two under-30 Green councilors (David A. Marshall and Kevin Donoghue) in the inner city West End and East End districts. In 2007, John Anton was elected at-large, which brought the number of Greens on the Portland City Council to three. Both Anton and Donoghue later unenrolled from the party while serving their terms.
In 2008, John Eder was elected to the Cumberland County Charter Commission.
June to December 2009 marked a period when the most number of elected Greens in Portland (9) were serving simultaneously with overlapping terms, after Portland Charter Commission members were elected.