Jill Stein, a Massachusetts Green and pediatrician, is running to obtain the U.S. Green Party’s nomination for President in the November election. On January 18, about two dozen Greens from Arlington and Northern Virginia got a chance to meet and heear Dr. Stein at a house party in Arlington.

Dr. Stein Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, called for a Green New Deal to counter the “trickle down economic agenda” laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union address. Stein’s “People’s State of the Union: A Green New Deal for America” that is on her campaign website: http://www.JillStein.org

Occupy Supreme Court Demonstration on January 20: Amend the U.S. Constitution to Ban Corporate Political Contributions and Corruption

A group of Arlington Greens, including Steve Davis, Miriam Gennari, Don Rouse and John Reeder attended the Jan. 20, 2012 demonstration at the U.S. Supreme Court asking that Congress pass a consitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision that legalizes unlimited corporate political contributions and to declare that only living people are “persons” under the Constitution.

http://movetoamend.org/press

Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein spoke eloquently at the Demonstration about Greens support for eliminating corporate campaign contributions of all kinds. The national and Washington DC Occupy groups also supported the constituional change. Speakers all pointed out that a corporation is not a “person” and is not entitled to inalienable rights like the right to free speech, participating in political matters, and running our government.

On Friday, January 20, the Occupy movement took to the Supreme Court as part of a nationwide plan to “Occupy the Courts”. Over 110 actions are planned in front of U.S. federal courthouses across the country to mark the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in elections.
The Move to Amend coalition is working to grow grassroots support for a constitutional amendment that clearly and unequivocally states that: 1) Rights recognized under the Constitution belong to human beings only, and not to artificial legal entities such as corporations or labor unions; and 2) Political campaign spending is not a form of speech protected under the First Amendment.

Arlington Greens at their January regular meeting on January 4 at the Ballston Firehouse Station community room voted to nominate Audrey Clement as its candidate for the vacant county board position to be filled at a special election on Tuesday, March 27, 2012.

For more information on Audrey Clement’s campaign, check out her website:

http://audreyclement.org

Political Notes, the Arlington Sun Gazette, Nov. 17, 20111

GREEN PARTY GETS MIXED MESSAGE FROM VOTERS: Voters sent what could be construed as a mixed message to the Arlington Green Party on Nov. 8.

The party’s County Board candidate, Audrey Clement, picked up 9,724 votes based on unofficial counts reported Nov. 9 by the State Board of Elections. That compares to 24,447 votes for Democratic County Board Vice Chairman Mary Hynes and 23,587 votes for Democratic board member Walter Tejada.

Clement’s vote total equates to 16.5 percent of all votes cast, but since each voter had two votes to spread out among candidates, Clement picked up votes from almost one-third of those who went to the polls.

http://www.sungazette.net/columns/political-notes/article_f1cb44e4-0fb8-11e1-8626-001cc4c002e0.html

Fortunes of Green Party candidates for County Board have tended to be tied to whether the Arlington County Republican Committee fields a candidate:

* Last year, with Democratic incumbent Chris Zimmerman and Republican challenger Mark Kelly on the ballot, Green Party candidate Kevin Chisholm scored 3,454 votes, or 6 percent of the total.

* In 2009, when there was no Republican on the ballot, the Green Party’s John Reeder scored 32 percent of the votes (14,970 votes) against Democratic incumbent Jay Fisette.

* In the presidential year of 2008, Reed scored 21,451 votes, or 23.3 percent, against Democrat Barbara Favola. No Republicans were in the race.

* In 2007, the last “constitutional” election year, Green Party candidate Josh Ruebner won 3,275 votes in a five-way contest that also featured Democrats Hynes and Tejada and Republicans Mike McMenamin and Joseph Warren.

In appearances on the campaign trail this year – often accompanied by political gadfly Jim Hurysz – Clement attempted to make the case that the all-Democratic County Board was too beholden to developers and too interested in funding luxury pet projects over basic services.

Well, the hard truth is that the Arlington Democratic Party once again won all local races in the November 2011 election, including overwhelming Arlington Greens candidate for county board Audrey Clement, a first-time candidate.

Audrey got about 9,700 votes; each of the two Democratic incumbents each got 24,000 votes (Hynes getting about 840 more votes than Tejada). Apparently about 840 Democratic voters supported Audrey (roughly 3 percent of all Democratic voters). It appears that Democratic voters consistently voted straight party-ticket, voting for Democrats down the whole ballot. Officially, Audrey got about 17 percent of the votes cast for county board, but since everyone could cast two votes, she got support from one out of every three voters. https://www.voterinfo.sbe.virginia.gov/election/DATA/2011/EB178FD6-875D-4B0D-A295-900A0482F523/Unofficial/00_013_s.shtml

In this election, there were about 25,000 Democratic votes for one of the three state senators, and about 10,000 Republican votes for one of these three senators. There was a drop off of about 5,000 voters who did not vote for countywide offices. About 30,000 total votes were cast for county-wide offices like county board, county treasurer, commonwealth’s attorney or school board.

A reasonable inference is that Audrey’s share of about 33 percent of voters translates into 28 percentage points from voters who voted Republican for state candidates, and 5 percentage points from voters who voted Democratic for state candidates. Perhaps these shares are slightly different because as indicated above about 5,000 voters for state candidates did not vote at all for local races. Clearly some of the Republicans supported Green position against extravagant and wasteful county projects, such as the proposed trolley up Columbia Pike.

In past elections, Green county board candidates running against only Democrats have gotten as much as 32 percent of the votes cast; but running against both Democrats and Republican candidates, Greens have gotten from 5 to 10 percent. The 2011 election represented an increase over results in 2010.
Audrey got a higher percentage of the votes in south Arlington, particularly in the Crystal City area, her top precinct being Aurora Hills with 25 percent of the votes cast and Crystal City (21 percent). Her worst precincts were Four Mile Run (12 percent) and Fairlington (13 percent) which also tend to be most Democratic voting precincts. Crystal City neighborhoods have been severely impacted by increased density and voters there may be thus more willing to vote Green. Precinct operations improved greatly for the Greens in 2011: Greens had at least one poll worker at 49 of the 52 polls.

Sun Gazette, Letter to the Editor:
If Board Isn’t Owned By Developers, It Is Rented by Them Tuesday, October 18, 2011 9:30 am

Editor: Your Oct. 13 endorsement of Democrats Mary Hynes and Walter Tejada for re-election to the County Board started out as a well-reasoned indictment of the incumbent Democrats for their failure to address substantive issues (“too stuck in the weeds on issues where the big-picture view is sorely needed”), and for their sponsorship of a failed Columbia Pike trolley idea.

Then, you rapidly went off into outer space, delivering nonsense instead of your usually excellent analysis.

You criticized Green Party candidate Audrey Clement for her notion of “the popular but laughable refrain that developers are the real power behind the scene in Arlington.”

Oh really? I would like the Sun Gazette to cite just one major development project that Democrats Hynes and Tejada have halted or opposed in their years on County Board. In the past two years, Hynes and Tejada supported a 50-percent increase in density (i.e. development) in Crystal City and increased density around the East Falls Church Metro station.

May I ask where the children of the thousands of new Crystal City residents will go to public school, with nearby Oakridge Elementary School using 116 percent of its capacity this school year?

In August, another Democratic politician, state Senate candidate Jaime Areizaga-Soto, in his primary race against current Democratic County Board member Barbara Favola, accurately described the dollars that she received from her developer friends.

If the current County Board is not “owned” by the developers and related business interests, then perhaps they are “rented”: involved in a cozy, incestuous relationship that puts the interests of the broad Arlington community last, and the profits of the developers first.

Arlington Greens have consistently said that the County Board’s regulation of developers does not take a holistic approach, counting all the social, environmental, transportation, housing and secondary financial costs of development on the Arlington community.

Our pubic schools are overcrowded; our streets are congested during rush-hour; the Metrorail system is running dangerously beyond its own rush-hour capacity; and many moderate-income residents are displaced owing to higher rents and taxes.

Under these circumstances, do we want a County Board that routinely rubber-stamps site plans, or one that looks skeptically and rigorously at any new development?

The Occupy Wall Street protests in recent months throughout the U.S. highlighted that the lower-income 99-percent of Americans are dissatisfied with an incumbent government that protects the business interests and wealthy, and shifts those costs onto the middle class.

We need an Occupy Arlington Courthouse movement to turn our rascals out of local office here in Arlington as well. Vote Green this year.

John Reeder, Arlington
Reeder is chairman of the Arlington Greens.

http://www.sungazette.net/arlington/commentary/if-board-isn-t-owned-by-developers-it-is-rented/article_d8bc5800-f977-11e0-9e06-001cc4c002e0.html

Why the Democratic Party is Corporate Lickspittle By DAVE LINDORFF

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff05132011.html

An excerpt:

A new Gallup Poll conducted for USA Today earlier this week reports that a majority of Americans (52%) say that they would prefer a third party instead of the two parties, Republican and Democrat, that have dominated American politics for nearly centuries. The poll shows that one third of Democrats say there’s a need for a new political party, while 52% of Republicans say the same thing.

Meanwhile, 68% of independents say they have no use for either Democrats or Republicans and would prefer another option (no surprise there–that’s why they are not registered with either of the two major parties). Of course, the Third Party envisioned by these various groups is hardly the same. Most of the dissatisfied Democrats are almost certainly in the party’s left wing, and are people who would prefer a more left-leaning, socialist party.

Most of the reluctant Republicans are probably either libertarians who can’t stomach the Republican Party’s corporatist stance and its fondness for police state tactics and invasion of personal freedoms, or else they are the rabid right that prefers the kooky conspiracy-driven politics of the Becks, Limbaughs, Bachmans and Palins.

As for the independents, there are certainly leftists, rightists, isolationists, globalists, libertarians and kooks among them enough to populate ten new parties. That’s one reason why we still have just two parties winning all the elections. Some of these dissatisfied citizens just hold their noses and vote for the party that is less likely to make them projectile vomit in the voting booth.

Others, unable to vote for either major party’s candidates without soiling the equipment, just don’t vote. And then there are a few stalwarts who insist on doing their civic duty, march in and vote for the Constitution Party or the Libertarians or the Greens or the Socialist Workers, or they write in Mickey Mouse.

The rest just don’t vote, which is why the US has one of the lowest participation rates in elections of nearly any of the world’s nominal democracies. It’s possible that this latest poll could be signaling some kind of tectonic political event ahead. Perhaps the incongruous collection of Republicans, the Chamber of Commerce crowd and the bible thumpers, racists, misogynists and neo-fascists who populate the Republican voter rolls will finally turn on each other and split into two or three smaller units.

May 5, 2011

Arlington Greens Nominate Audrey Clement for County Board: Sixth Consecutive Year for a Green Candidate in Arlington County

For immediate release

Contact: John Reeder, Convener, Arlington Green Party
Audrey Clement, Arlington Green Party, info@AudreyClement.org, 571-830-8889

Arlington. The Arlington Green Party endorsed Audrey Clement, a seven year resident of Arlington County and long time community activist, as its nominee for Arlington County Board at a meeting on May 4, said Arlington Greens chairman John Reeder today. There are two positions open on the Board this year. “With her experience in environment, transportation planning and community affairs, Dr. Clement, who has qualified for the ballot, will provide an alternative and rational voice on County Board.” Reeder said. This is the sixth consecutive year an Arlington Green has run for County Board.

Clement runs on a platform of fiscal, social, and environmental responsibility. She proposes ending taxpayer support for the Artisphere and other vanity projects; improving the recycling rate in apartment and commercial buildings; curtailing the retail use of single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam containers; adding solar and other renewable energy systems to public buildings; preserving market-rate affordable housing; and reducing the volume of single-occupant vehicles on Arlington’s streets and roads. Audrey played a key role in the Arlington Green Party’s recent initiatives to preserve affordable housing and prevent the widening of I-66. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and holds a doctorate in Political Science from Temple University. She served as a Congressional Fellow during the 100th Congress and is currently employed as an information technology professional.
For more information, please visit Audrey’s web site, www.AudreyClement.org.

The two, first-time Arlington Green candidates, Miriam Gennari for school board, and Kevin Chisholm for county board received excellent vote totals, exceeding expectation of many for first time candidates.

Miriam received 24 percent of the votes cast for school board against long time Democrat Sally Baird. Kevin had a more uphill battle taking on both a Republican and the incumbent Democrat Chris Zimmerman, but still received 6 percent of votes cast in the county board race.

Miriam raised the issue of environmental sustainability and minority student achievement gaps in her race for school board (Miriam is seen campaigning at the Clarendon Day Festival with Arlington Greens treasurer Audrey Clement). Miriam organized parents concerned about better hands on, science and math teaching, and better environmental practices in all school buildings. She also pledged support for the school planetarium which the school board placed on the chopping block.