Green Party of Alaska
# Green Party of Alaska

The Green Party of Alaska (GPAK) was a political party in the U.S. state of Alaska. It was the Alaska affiliate of the Green Party of the United States from its founding until 2021. The Green Party of Alaska was the first state to gain Green Party ballot access, in 1990, when Jim Sykes ran for governor. Sykes had previously filed a ballot access lawsuit, citing an earlier case, Vogler v. Miller.

In 2020, the leadership of the Green Party of Alaska refused to place Green Party nominees Howie Hawkins and Angela Nicole Walker on the ballot and instead draft-nominated a ticket with Jesse Ventura for president and Cynthia McKinney for vice-president. McKinney accepted the vice-presidential nomination. Because of this, the Green Party of the United States national committee voted in January 2021 to decertify the GPAK.

## Issues

The Green Party of Alaska is opposed to industrial oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It supports the development of alternative fuels and energy sources such as wind power and solar power.

The party supports a national single-payer healthcare system.

## History

### Early history (1990–2020)

**Ballot status**

The Green Party first gained ballot access in 1990, but lost its Recognized Political Party status in 2002. Ballot access was regained in 2003 based on a court order, lost again in 2005, and regained in February 2006 when Superior Court Judge Stephanie Joannides issued a preliminary injunction against the State of Alaska, preventing the state from denying access to the Green Party. On June 3, 2007 a lower Alaska state court upheld Alaska's new definition of "political party" and the Green Party of Alaska was removed from the ballot. The judge wrote that she had to uphold the new definition of "political party", because the Alaska Supreme Court had upheld the old definition of "political party" on November 17, 2006.

In 2005, the party sued the State of Alaska over the issue of joint primary ballots and won in the Supreme Court of Alaska.

In 2012, the Alaska Green party put forth a statewide petition, seeking status as a "limited political party" which would allow them to put names on the ballot for presidential and vice-presidential candidates. A total of 3,273 signatures is needed in Alaska to qualify as a limited political party. The Alaskan Greens submitted approximately 4,500 signatures.

### Decertification by GPUS (2020–present)

In late 2020, the Alaska Green Party broke from the Green Party of the United States and nominated former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura and former U.S. Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney for president and vice president respectively, instead of Howie Hawkins and Angela Nicole Walker. The Ventura–McKinney ticket received 2,673 (0.74%) votes.

In January 2021, as the result of breaking with the GPUS, the GPAK was officially decertified, and as a result is no longer the Alaskan state party chapter of the GPUS. The GPUS has begun the process of replacing it with a new GPAK.

## Organization

| State party leader | Position | City |
| - | - | - |
| Robert Shields | Co-Chair | Fairbanks |
| Joshua Hadley | Co-Chair | Kotzebue |
| Lenin Lau | Treasurer | Anchorage |

## Elections

The Green Party of Alaska has gained more than 10% of the votes in past presidential and congressional elections. The most notable example was in 2000, when Alaska voters gave presidential candidate Ralph Nader his highest state percentage. Nader made headlines when he carried the Girdwood precinct, located at the extreme southern end of Anchorage corporate limits. In 1996, the party's U.S. Senate nominee Jed Whittaker came in second, out-polling Democratic nominee Theresa Obermeyer, who had been disowned by her party.

The first election victory associated with the Alaska Green party was in 1991, when environmentalist Kelly Weaverling was elected mayor of Cordova, then a town of about 2,500. Weaverling had previously drawn national attention for his work in the aftermath of a March 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in the Prince William Sound. Municipal elections in Alaska are nonpartisan, though Weaverling's association with the party was highly publicized at the time.

