Last year the Green Party of Minnesota met the requirements of a major political party by having a candidate in at least one major race who received at least 5% of the votes cast state-wide, but some parts of the state apparently haven’t gotten the news just yet.
The University of Minnesota’s Student Legislative Coalition (SLC) has blocked the Green party gubernatorial candidates from participating in a debate scheduled to take place at the Minneapolis campus tomorrow, 17 April.
This action by the SLC, an independent non-profit student group recognized by the university, does not reflect the voting results of either the state at large or the university community. 2000 Green party presidential candidate Ralph Nader garnered 16% of the votes within Minneapolis Ward 2, the precinct within which the Minneapolis campus is located. In the 2001 Minneapolis City Council election, Cam Gordon received 64% of the votes in the precincts bordering the Minneapolis campus and 49% in Ward 2 proper.
The UofM Green Party believes the SLC is violating election laws that require non-profit organizations to be non-partisan and use “pre-established, objective criteria” when deciding which candidates to include in debates. “The SLC has failed to provide pre-established criteria,” according to Brett Stephan and Lani Hogan of the UofM Green Party. “In meetings with representatives from the UofM Green Party, SLC Executive Director and Advisor David Boyd repeatedly modified the criteria that were allegedly ‘pre-established’ by the SLC Board of Directors, and has to date failed to provide minutes illustrating the establishment of the criteria for inclusion in the debate.”
One of the SLC criteria that is not in dispute is that in order to participate, a candidate must have received 15% of the vote in a previous election. But Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Sullivan is being allowed to participate in the debate without meeting this criterion (Sullivan has never run for public office.)
According to Stephan and Hogan, Green party gubernatorial candidates Ken Pentel and Nick Raleigh “have received documented correspondence from members of the SLC stating that the candidates’ exclusion is based on their ‘minor party’ status, and ‘inability to win’ an election.”
It’s clear that not all in the university community are happy with the SLC action. The Minnesota Daily, the campus newspaper, ran an editorial opposing the SLC position.
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