Still Portland's Second Party
Wins and losses solidify Greens place
By Mike Feinstein
Green Party of California

Heading into the November 2006 general elections, Portland Greens were riding high. They had six local members holding elected office - the fruits of their organizing since the late 1990s - and held out hopes for gaining even more.

The election results were mixed however, as two key incumbents did not returned to office, but four other local Greens were elected for the first time.

Of course, winning new seats without losing any existing ones would have been nicer. But in some ways these mixed results are a true measure of the Greens' strength in Portland. It shows, as a party, losing important seats, but still wining others, is mark of a truly serious party, one not dependent upon just one person or one growth cycle.

City Council

The biggest victories came with the city council, one of few offices in Portland that Greens had not yet won (having already won for State House, School Committee and Water Board.)

Kevin Donoghue, 27, and David Marshall, 28, both finished first comfortably in three-way races. Donohue beat an incumbent 47 percent to 32 percent, while Marshall defeated well-know members of the local political establishment 45 percent to 34 percent to 21 percent.

"It's clear that Portlanders are looking to the future," said Marshall." It is time to address our housing crisis, our plan for sustainability, and be leaders in the development of our creative economy."

On the campaign trail, Donoghue and Marshall shared campaign literature and held campaign parties together. Being under 30 themselves, they committed to represent young people on the council and were successful targeting young voters. In Marshall's case, this was stategic, as his district - which includes Portland's trendy West End, Parkside and neighborhoods near the University of Southern Maine - is probably the youngest in the state.

According to The Bollard, "the sentiment among city officials and other observers … was that Marshall simply worked hardest for his votes, as did Donoghue - they knocked on more doors, made more phone calls, and sent out more postcards than their more experienced opponents."

School District

Since 2001 Greens have been steadily winning seats on Port­land's School Com­mittee, holding four of nine seats after the November 2005 elections. In 2006, in­cum­bent Stephen Spring and first-time candidate Rebecca Minnick both sought election. If both won, it would mean a Green majority on the committee, only the second Green school board majority in the U.S. and the first in a district this large (the other was in a small rural district in Nevada County, CA).

In somewhat of a surprise, Minnick, 32, overwhelmingly won in District 1 with 59.3 percent, while Spring lost a closer race in District 2 with 47.1 percent.

Rebecca Minnick, elected to the Portland board of education

A board member of her local Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization and an environmental educator at Maine Audubon, Minnick ran on a platform of preserving neighborhood schools without raising taxes, bringing more progressive education programs into the Portland Public schools, and bringing more green design into district facilities. 

During his three-year term, Spring made positive news with his initiative successfully limiting military recruiting on cam­pus, as well as the board taking on student representatives as non-voting members and advocating and securing free passes for students to use METRO public buses.

However, according to The Bollard, a weekly Portland political/cultural publication, Spring's opposition to weighted grades in high school class rankings, an unpopular stance that led to a rare school board policy reversal, may have been a factor in his defeat

State House

While incumbent Spring's loss was disappointing, State House member John Eder's re-election defeat by 97 votes in District 118 was even more so, as he was the only sitting Green state legislator in the U.S. 

First elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2004, Eder was targeted by Democrats who, according to Eder, circumvented Maine's Clean Elections law by illegally hiring heavy hitting consultants to work with Eder's opponent John Hinck. 

One of their tactics was to try and associate Eder with the Republicans, a negative in this very liberal district. The day before the election, a pre-recorded phone message went out from a Hinck supporter who was a registered Green in the District, urging voters to vote for Hinck and connecting Eder to the Bush-Cheney administration. According to the local West End News, Hinck helped write the script.

The Maine Democratic Party simultaneously produced a flyer charging that state Republicans were hoping to take over Maine by getting Eder elected: "Repub­li­cans in Maine are counting on YOU to vote Green," said the flyer, which was placed on car windshields and on Eder signs throughout the district on November 6, the day before the election.

According to Eder, these same Demo­cratic consultants were able to influence the Portland Press Herald "to do an editorial against my little state house campaign, something which is unprecedented for a local campaign."

In his short time in office, Eder accomplished a great deal for a Green caucus of one. In 2005, he used his position as a swing vote in the then closely divided Maine House of Representatives to earn himself a seat at the table in budget negotiations on the Governor's biennial budget. Eder came away with $200,000 for the Portland Bilingual Program and $500,000 to establish the state's first "creative economy incubator" in Portland, along with an appointment for himself as co-chair of the Governor's Creative Economy Council. 

During the last days of the 2005 legislative session, Eder entered into budget negotiations with Democratic Party leadership and secured a commitment from Governor Baldacci to hold a special legislative session on tax reform. Eder was also the author of an anti-Iraq War resolution in 2003, which a local Democratic state senator took credit for.

In addition to Eder's campaign, two other Greens ran very competitive races in neighboring state house districts. School Committee member Ben Meiklejohn received 43.1 percent to finish second in a hard-contested race against an eight-term Democrat in District 120, which includes the East End and most of downtown. 

In District 119, Matthew Reading almost unseated another veteran incumbent, finishing only four votes behind on election night, but ultimately losing by 159 with absentee votes. Both Meiklejohn and Reading ran on platforms of affordable housing, increased access to health care, and creating quality jobs for the people of Maine.

Water Board

Responding directly to the city's environmental agenda - the Portland Water District (PWD) - Greens added another member, as David Margolis-Pineo was elected to the Water Board of Trustees, joining fellow Green Erek Gaines, who was elected there in 2003. 

The PWD is an independent, quasi-municipal organization providing water and wastewater services to 11 Greater Portland communities. Governed by 11 publicly elected trustees, four represent the City of Portland, two of which are Greens.

Margolis-Pineo worked for the past 20 years for the city of South Portland as an environmental engineer, designing wastewater and storm water infrastructure as well as handling the city's environmental issues.

His top three priorities were clean water, protecting the (local) Sebago Lake watershed and controlling costs.

Conclusion

Portland Greens enjoy many advantages most Greens around the country don't: some of the smallest legislative districts in the nation, overlapping campaigns, public financing of elections, progressive neighborhoods, large numbers of independent voters and a lack of the "'spoiler dynamic."' 

Even the party's official name - the Green Independent Party - works in their favor, in a state where almost 40 percent of the voters are not registered in any party.

Since 1999, Portland Greens have focused on a series of municipal and state legislative races all concentrated in the city's most progressive districts, and have taken advantage of overlapping districts and campaigns to continue to win seats and 2006 was no exception, despite the difficult loses of Eder and Spring. Today Maine Greens have 15 members holding elected office - their most ever.

For more: www.maingreens.org 

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