Arizona Green Party

The Green Party of Arizona (AZGP) is the state party organization for Arizona of the Green Party of the United States. It was founded by Carolyn Campbell and others in the 1990s.

In 2008, the Arizona Green Party gathered enough signatures to gain ballot access [http://www.webcitation.org/5amSbCrie] . The party had worked with Arizona's ballot access laws, achieving ballot access for the 2000 election cycle, then losing it again in 2004. On March 6, 2008 the Arizona deadline for ballot access, the Arizona Green Party submitted 29,300 signatures on its petition for party recognition. The legal requirement is 20,449. On April 9, 2008 the Arizona Secretary of State announced that the Arizona Green Party had enough valid signatures to be recognized as an official political party. On February 10, The national Green Party’s ballot access committee had appropriated $4,000 to assist the Arizona Green Party's petition effort [http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/02/11/national-green-party-helps-arizona-green-party-with-ballot-access/] .

Prominent Green candidates in Arizona have included Claudia Ellquist who ran for Pima County Attorney in 2004 on a platform largely focused on declaring a moratorium on the death penalty, and Dave Croteau who ran for mayor of Tucson in 2007 on a platform of relocalization and received over 28% of the vote.

The Arizona Green Party is perhaps best known for its strong stances on immigration. It proposes that the urban walls on the border be dismantled and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) repealed for the sake of the thousands of immigrants who die while trying to cross the border. The AZGP also paid to put two statements in an Arizona voter's guide on ballot initiatives and referendums in 2006. One statement opposed Arizona Proposition 107, which bans civil unions and the second favored Arizona Proposition 202, which raises the Arizona minimum wage to $6.75/hr.

In 2006 the Arizona Green Party and the Pima County Green Party hosted the 2006 annual national meeting of the Green Party of the United States in Tucson, Arizona.

External links

* [http://www.azgp.org/ Arizona Green Party] (Official site)