As for Green unity, the Feinstein/Hawkins plan was revisited and revised in October 2000, and ultimately renamed the Boston Agreement because it had been negotiated in Boston in the days before the first 2000 presidential debate. The negotiators for the Association of State Green Parties were Tony Affigne, David Cobb, Robert Franklin, Greg Gerritt, Annie Goeke, Stephen Herrick and Tom Sevigny. Those for the Greens/Green Party USA were Starlene Rankin, John Stith, Jeff Sutter, Steve Welzer, Rich Whitney, and Julia Willebrand. A critically important addition was made in the negotiations to make provision for accredited identity caucuses to receive national committee voting rights in the new national Green Party alongside state Green parties.
The Boston Proposal was approved by the ASGP at its December 2000 meeting in Hiawasee, Georgia. However, it was voted down at the 2001 Greens/Green Party USA Congress in Carbondale, Illinois, in July. There, after an intense credentials fight over the California and New Jersey delegations, the proposal to support the Agreement, from the Syracuse Greens local, received 99 votes in favor and 81 against; this fell short of the 2/3 vote needed to pass. This decision caused a profound schism within Greens/GPUSA membership from which it never recovered. Many Greens/GPUSA organizers and adherents, including their most influential leader, Howie Hawkins, eventually became involved through their state parties in the soon-to-be-formed entity they called the Green Party of the United States (GPUSA).
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- First Stirrings of a Green Political Party in the United States
- Green Politics: The Global Promise
- Early Outreach to the Bioregional Movement
- The Founding of U.S. Greens – St. Paul, MN, August 1984
- Creation of the Ten Key Values
- National Clearinghouse
- Early Debates About Green Issues
- First National Green Gathering – Amherst, MA, 1987
- Strategy & Policy Approaches in Key Areas (SPAKA)
- Greening the West Gathering – near San Francisco, 1988
- Second National Green Gathering – Eugene, OR, 1989
- Early State Party Ballot Qualification Efforts and Candidacies
- Third National Green Gathering – Estes Park, CO, 1990
- Green Party Organizing Committee – Boston, 1991
- Fourth National Green Gathering – Elkins, WV, 1991
- Green Politics Network – 1992
- Fifth National Green Gathering – Minneapolis, 1992
- Electoral Success in 1992 and Post-Election Conferences in Santa Monica and at Bowdoin College, February 1993
- 1995 – A Watershed Year for Green Party Development: The Third Parties ’96 Conference, and the Nader Factor
- National Green Gathering ’95 – Albuquerque, NM 36
- First Green Presidential Nominating Convention – UCLA, 1996; Nader’s 1996 Campaign for President as the Green Party Candidate
- Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) – 1996
- 2000 Presidential Candidate Outreach
- Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention 2000 and Nader 2000
- The Boston Proposal – October 2000
- Founding of the Green Party of the United States – July 2001
- National Committee Status Granted to the Green Party of the United States by the Federal Election Commission, 2001
Green Party Elders 