[Pnp-wg] Essay proving need for membership-based apportionment
Greg Gerritt
gerritt@mindspring.com
Mon, 28 Feb 2005 22:04:40 -0500
RI lost ballot status but has more active volunteers than ever. greg
> From: "Steve Greenfield" <bicyclesax@earthlink.net>
> Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 21:05:23 -0500
> To: <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
> Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Essay proving need for membership-based apportionment
>
>> Even Greens in his own state have sent out
>> notices that their own locasls are stronger than ever
>
> Main reason for that is that Cobb wasn't on our ballot. And our growth in
> New York is something you still claim can't be measured.
>
> If "many" locals report growth, that's a sideways way of acknowledging that
> most do not. I can document that for you if you care and have the time. I've
> been told that expository writing for purposes of demonstrating facts is
> sleep-inducing.
>
> The party has shrunk dramatically. We started 2004 with 22 ballot lines and
> finished with 8. I have no idea how we can improve the situation the Green
> Party finds itself in if we cannot look at it realistically. This committee
> should be a spin-free zone.
>
> Steve
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Greg Gerritt" <gerritt@mindspring.com>
> To: <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 8:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Essay proving need for membership-based apportionment
>
>
>> Considering that many local groups consider themselves to now be stronger
>> than ever, inlcuding RI, I do not think Steve's statements agree with the
>> reality of the Green Party. . greg gerritt gpri
>>
>>> From: "Steve Greenfield" <bicyclesax@earthlink.net>
>>> Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:51:43 -0500
>>> To: "Elizabeth Arnone" <elizarnone@comcast.net>, <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
>>> Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Essay proving need for membership-based
> apportionment
>>>
>>> I'll summarize. The point of the essays below is that no ideological or
>>> movement-based party in US history, none with zero exceptions, has
> survived
>>> a general population-based representation system more than 2
> presidential
>>> election cycles. There is no way to overstate the importance of
>>> understanding this.
>>>
>>> The Green Party is already almost dead as a consequence of using such a
>>> model. We fell from first to fourth among alternative parties in just
> one
>>> election cycle. Our membership within the total of all registered voters
>>> fell for the first time in Green Party history. We lost 14 ballot lines,
>>> which will prevent other Green candidates in all those states from being
>>> able to run, and require all kinds of resources to restore in the coming
>>> years that we no longer have. These are facts, not speculation.
>>>
>>> Surely you can't be proposing that we continue down this road.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Elizabeth Arnone" <elizarnone@comcast.net>
>>> To: "Steve Greenfield" <bicyclesax@earthlink.net>; <>
>>> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 6:36 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Essay proving need for membership-based
> apportionment
>>>
>>>
>>>> Too much information to digest. I'm not a historian and this kind of
>>> stuff
>>>> puts me to sleep. Sorry, no offence intended.
>>>>
>>>> The quandry with 1 member - 1 vote is how do you get each member to
> vote?
>>>> It would be ideal if it was doable.
>>>>
>>>> The only way I see that happening is by individual state conventions
> where
>>>> voting would take place, be counted and then delegates selected based
> on
>>> the
>>>> outcomes.
>>>>
>>>> However, if that were the case, we probably wouldn't need delegates.
> Each
>>>> state could report their outcomes to the GPUS and GPUS would make the
>>> final
>>>> tally by ranking.
>>>>
>>>> So, in essence, we could have a national convention where candidates
> would
>>>> make their pitch and then go back to our states and hold statewide
>>>> conventions for voting.
>>>>
>>>> A little far out but I don't see why not.
>>>>
>>>> Liz Arnone - NJ
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Steve Greenfield" <bicyclesax@earthlink.net>
>>>> To: <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
>>>> Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2005 10:38 AM
>>>> Subject: [Pnp-wg] Essay proving need for membership-based apportionment
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The following was authored by Mark Lause, an historian and college
>>> professor
>>>> in Cincinnati, Ohio, and condenses information he uncovered while
>>>> researching a book. It is reproduced here with permission. It is my
> hope
>>>> that this information will help lead to a better understanding of why
>>>> general-population based models bode poorly for the hope of a
> meaningful
>>>> future for the Green Party. The main essay is followed by a brief Q & A
>>> with
>>>> Mark explaining the source material that led to these conclusions.
>>>>
>>>> Steve Greenfield, New York.
>>>>
>>>> Time for a little review of third party history....Bear with me,
>>>> please...I'll try to make some interesting long stories as bloodlessly
>>>> concise as possible...
>>>>
>>>> Start right after the Republicans, a successful third party....
>>>>
>>>> In 1871, the National Labor Union voted to organize a National Labor
>>> Reform
>>>> Party. There were some areas that were very well organized, but they
>>> wanted
>>>> a national party. They were convinced that more populous states should
>>> get
>>>> larger delegations at the 1872 nominating convention. Like the major
>>>> parties, they wanted the core delegations to be based on population,
> like
>>>> the Congress. This meant that the states that didn't have that many
> labor
>>>> organizations were represented out of all proportion to their strength
> in
>>>> the movement. In fact, the weighed delegations were pretty much
> present
>>> to
>>>> get the convention to nominate a progressive Democrat. The idea was
> that,
>>>> with that kind of backing, one of the Democratic contenders would get a
>>> real
>>>> boost when that party's convention met. There were some who argued
> that
>>>> doing this was the way to reach the bigger numbers, recruit, and
> establish
>>> a
>>>> real base for a new party. Can you guess how well that turned out?
>>> Anyone
>>>> wonder how long the National Labor Reform Party lasted?
>>>>
>>>> Four years later, the farmers' organizations were pressing hard for
>>> railroad
>>>> regulation and bipartisan opposition created major third party
>>>> movements, especially in Illinois and Indiana. These two parties
> decided
>>> to
>>>> cooperate in 1874-75 and launch a National or Independent
>>>> Party. As with the earlier National Labor Reform Party, they decided
> to
>>>> structure representation just like the major parties...which meant that
> a
>>>> state that didn't have a movement would somehow get a delegation
>>>> representing its population and that they'd have voice and voice right
>>>> alongside delegates from states that did have a movement. Sound
>>> democratic?
>>>>
>>>> Well, these representatives of the farmers' movement in 1876 were
>>>> particularly interested in getting the labor organizations to vote with
>>>> them, so they were particularly eager to listen to the New York
> delegation
>>>> which promised to deliver the labor vote in that state. In fact, the
>>>> convention essentially deferred to them over the presidential
> nomination.
>>>> Turns out the leading New York delegates were William A.A. Carsey and
>>>> Sanford Church from--can you guess?--Tammany and related tigers. They
> got
>>>> the nomination for Peter Cooper, an aged old Jacksonian Democrat little
>>>> known in the areas that had real third party movements. Better still,
> they
>>>> also arranged the
>>>> nomination of a Democratic Senator for vice-president, later replaced
> by
>>>> Samuel F. Cary of the Ohio Democratic machine. Programmatically, they
>>>> convinced the convention to adopt the call for paper currency under a
>>>> formula endorsed (but then being abandoned) by the Democratic Party.
> So,
>>>> they became "Greenbackers."
>>>>
>>>> 1880 was an odd case. The Greenback-Labor Party pulled together a
> broader
>>>> spectrum of the progressive forces in the country than its
>>>> predecessors. Even the socialists were on board. The best explanation
>>> for
>>>> this was that the convention basically decided to represent the
>>>> movement rather stick to Congressional districts. That convention
> voted
>>>> down proposals to nominate Democratic shills and went with a genuine
>>>> independent for president, James B. Weaver. Most importantly, Weaver
>>> would
>>>> up trying to confront the Republican sellout of Reconstruction and the
>>>> campaign was alternately assailed and ignored in the national press,
>>> largely
>>>> owing to the ruthlessness of the Democratic Party, which felt it had a
>>>> chance to win were it not for these third party SOBs. And, of course,
> the
>>>> party of slavery and white supremacism race-baited the third party
>>> movement
>>>> mercilessly.
>>>>
>>>> In preparation for 1884, the Democrats (again out of New York) arranged
>>> the
>>>> launching of a different third party, the National Anti-Monopolist
> Party
>>> and
>>>> arranged for its nomination of Benjamin Butler, a Democrat (usually)
> from
>>>> Massachusetts. It turned out later, that Butler's campaign was an
>>> elaborate
>>>> ploy to divide the votes that might be cast against the Republicans,
> but
>>> he
>>>> also seems to have been funded by the Democrats. Much of what he said
> was
>>>> very positive and progressive, but his well-heeled operation pretty
> much
>>>> superseded the real third party movement.
>>>>
>>>> Oh, but how they arranged this? They simply persuaded the third party
>>>> movement that, in order to be taken seriously as a national
>>>> organization, it ought to structure its delegations like the major
>>> parties,
>>>> so that as many states as possible could be represented. This,
>>>> of course, meant that places where there wasn't really a third party
>>>> movement were represented by delegations that would represent... well,
> who
>>>> do you think?
>>>>
>>>> Then there was 1888...but, you know, the lesson's so clear that I
> really
>>>> don't think it's necessary to recite these annals of misdirection much
>>>> further.
>>>>
>>>> Representing third party voters is certainly a step better, but
> proponents
>>>> of this seem to miss the point I keep trying to make--that there's not
>>>> necessarily a connection between those voters and the delegation
> claiming
>>> to
>>>> represent them. There is no party organization here (ed. note: Mark is
>>>> referring to the Ohio Green Party), so there was no discussion and no
>>>> election of delegates. Yet, we had "representatives" in Milwaukee
> going
>>>> 100% for Cobb and safe states....
>>>>
>>>> What should be represented at the conventions are members. There are
>>>> several different ways to define that, but it should be flesh-and-blood
>>>> people who are actually connected to the process that claims to
> represent
>>>> them. Anything else is an opening through which the enemies of
> insurgent
>>>> politics have always poured....
>>>>
>>>> One member=one vote!
>>>> Mark L.
>>>> --------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Additional comments by the author, Mark Lause, and source references.
>>>>
>>>> I encountered the material while researching what became "The Civil
> War's
>>>> Last Campaign: James B. Weaver, the National Greenback-Labor Party &
> the
>>>> Politics of Race and Section" on the 1880 third party movement.
>>>>
>>>> The importance of the representation issue leaped out of the published
>>>> proceedings and accounts of the national conventions mentioned...
>>>>
>>>> 1872: The National Labor Reform Party nominated David Davis, who
> declined,
>>>> leaving the Democratic shills in the NLRP to change the
>>>> convention's nomination to Charles O'Connor, the New York Copperhead.
>>>> Representation of Democratic delegations from non-insurgent states was
>>>> essential to both the nomination and the establishment of a standing
>>>> committee authorized to nominate someone else without a new convention.
>>>> "Official Proceedings of the National Labor Reform Convention Held at
>>>> Columbus, Feb. 21 & 22, 1872," Workingman's Advocate, March 2, 9, 1872.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1876. National or Independent or Greenback Party nominated Peter Cooper
> of
>>>> Cooper Union fame in NYC rather than a leader of one of the real
> farmers'
>>>> parties in the Midwest. They wanted desperately to involve eastern
> labor
>>>> organizations and seated Tammany Hall Democrats (not identified as
> such)
>>> to
>>>> speak on behalf of the workers, and even let them make the national
>>>> nominations in hope of establishing a truly national third party. A
> brief
>>>> look at the New York Times identified these labor spokesmen as Tammany
>>> men.
>>>> "Rah for Rags" and "Base and Bottomless" Chicago Daily Times (both p.
> 3),
>>>> May 18, 19, 1876; "The Greenback Party," "The Greenbackers," and "The
>>>> Greenback Party," Chicago Daily Interocean, May 17, 18, 19, 1876, all
> p.
>>> 5.
>>>> For the most complete and favorable coverage, see "Independents" in
>>>> Buchanan's paper, the Indianapolis Sun, May 20, 1876, pp. 1-2, 5, with
>>>> editorial on p. 3.
>>>>
>>>> 1880. Greenback-Labor nominated James B. Weaver, a real insurgent. In
>>> part,
>>>> this success reflected the decision to counterbalance the
>>>> formalistically determined state delegations by admitting bloc
>>>> representation by organizations like the Union Greenback clubs and the
>>>> Socialistic Labor Party. The convention was covered in great detail in
>>> the
>>>> Chicago press--the Chicago Daily Interocean, Chicago Times, and Chicago
>>>> Tribune, June 9, 10, 11, and 12 1880. For movement coverage, see NYC's
>>>> Irish World, June 26, 1880, p. 1, and the Winamac [IN] Greenback
> Journal,
>>>> July 17, 1880.
>>>>
>>>> 1884: The National Antimonopolist Party that nominated Ben Butler was
>>>> launched by the National Antimonopoly League, essentially NYC
>>> manufacturers
>>>> interested in railroad regulation for their own purposes; they moved to
>>>> start a national third party in 1883 in order to nominate reform
> Democrat
>>>> Ben Butler and suck the remnants of the Greenbackers into his campaign.
>>>> Butler himself acknowledged that his campaign was being funded by
> factions
>>>> of the major parties. Mark W. Summers covers the Butler campaign in
> his
>>>> _Rum, Romanism, & Rebellion: the Making of a president, 1884_.
>>>>
>>>> 1884: Based on their earlier successes, all sorts of factions were
> funding
>>>> and fielding third parties, along with some real, very confused
>>>> insurgents. The hard core Greenbackers and Antimonopolists reorganized
> as
>>>> the Union Labor Party, but their unwillingness to restrict
>>>> representation to the movement resulted in the nomination of A.J.
>>> Streeter,
>>>> not a bad fellow but a supporter of the Democrats who made a grand
> total
>>> of
>>>> one campaign speech that I could find. The United Labor Party of the
>>> Henry
>>>> George movement split three ways as George himself crawled back to the
>>>> Democrats, and others sustained the ULP around the nomination of Robert
> F.
>>>> Cowderey, apparently in an effort to reduce the votes of the Union
> Labor
>>>> ticket, while yet another faction went to the Republicans. All of this
>>> was
>>>> possible by fudging the representation to give undue weight to states
>>>> without reference to members in preference to those that did have lots
> of
>>>> members. (This same year, some women suffragists ran Belva A. Lockwood
> on
>>>> the Equal Rights ticket, and the Socialist Labor Party ran its own late
> of
>>>> presidential electors pledged to vote "No President" in the Electoral
>>>> College.)
>>>>
>>>> 1892 and 1896: Then, there were, as you say, the Populists...which died
> at
>>>> the hands of the Democrats as well.
>>>>
>>>> This pattern doesn't suggest any great, long standing conspiracy among
>>>> Democrats to treat third parties in this way. Rather, these tendencies
>>> are
>>>> built into the political eco-system. There are always some genuine
>>> radicals
>>>> wanting to pull the Democrats left and some genuine Democrats wanting
> to
>>>> pull their party left. Both can easily see third party protest votes
> as a
>>>> tactic to get what they want. However, whatever they build, they hope
> to
>>>> put up for sale.
>>>>
>>>> Before us, we have a succession of third parties that have largely
>>> destroyed
>>>> themselves by the same mechanism. It would be the smart thing for us
> to
>>>> avoid it.
>>>>
>>>> Solidarity! Mark L.
>>>>
>>>>
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