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• Second National Green Gathering – Eugene, OR, 1989

The second time the Greens met nationally was for the Green Program Gathering, which was held on June 21–25, 1989, in Eugene. The purpose was to develop a Green political platform through the SPAKA process. Organizers of the Eugene Gathering included Jeff Land and Irene Diamond. The Gathering was attended by reporters and received unprecedented coverage from the LA Weekly, Mother Jones, New Age Journal, New Options, Pacific News Service, Pacifica Radio, Utne Reader, and Z Magazine, as well as a substantial write-up in New Options.

Working groups were formed to focus on and synthesize input in each of 19 issue areas that had been identified by the Merrymeeting Greens of Maine. Concurrently, the Green CoC local in Eugene produced a daily newspaper entitled Green Tidings, which reported on the Gathering and contained a daily report on all changes in the issue areas so that delegates could follow the process. After three days input and revision within the working groups, the plenary session on Saturday was devoted to reports from each, with decision-making reserved for Sunday. This provided the working groups with one more chance to receive input and revise their documents, which many did. On Sunday, policy approaches in all policy areas either received consensus or at least the approval of 80 percent of the delegates. Those SPAKA approaches were then published in Green Letter and sent back to the locals for an additional year of review and more input. Final final approval set for Green Gathering 1990 in Estes Park, CO. After Eugene, Christa Slaton of Alabama became the SPAKA coordinator and began preparations for the Estes Park conference.

Well-attended daytime workshops on Thursday and Friday focused on electoral strategy and were followed by very lively discussions and debates at night. The daytime strategy sessions were oriented towards building state political parties, while the nightly Left Green-sponsored marathon sessions were oriented towards building a non-party, politically organized movement. The strategy sessions went so far as discussion running a Green presidential candidate, while for the Left Green members the goal of building an electorally engaged party was left open, which reflected the divergent views of many in the group. After Eugene, the Politics Working Group of the Green Committees of Correspondence issued a statement encouraging Green electoral activity. It recommended that “Greens begin running candidates at the local level and only proceed to the state and then to the national level when there were a substantial number of Green officeholders at the level immediately below.”

This directive was followed by a successful proposal at the Inter-Regional Committee (IC) meeting in Washington, DC, in October 1989, to form a Working Group on Electoral Action. Authored by Merrymeeting Greens (ME) John Rensenbrink and Matt Tilly, the proposal needed a two-thirds vote. After heated discussion and with the outcome possibly in doubt, the proposal was brought to a tense vote and received over 90% approval. Then, even more boldly and controversially, the Working Group proceeded at the IC meeting in San Diego in March 1990 to form a national Green Party Organizing Committee. There the 15 co-signers stated: “The relationship of this new group to the IC and the GCOC was carefully discussed. The following point was agreed upon, ‘that we consider ourselves a cooperating organization but autonomous from the IC and GCOC.'”