The Green Party of Texas confirmed itself as the fourth party in a two party state this week as it unveiled a statewide slate of 51 candidates for the November general election. Only four Greens are running for Travis County seats – and only two of those actually live in the Austin area.
Party co-chair David Wager announced back in December that the party had put together one of its larger slates in recent years, but the list of candidates was only released this week. Moreover, it’s a fraction of the candidates that either the Republicans, Democrats or Libertarians have lined up for November.
The party did manage to fill the top of the ticket, with challengers for the US Senate and all the statewide offices (those are the most important, because the party needs to break 6% of turnout in at least one of those races to retain ballot access in 2016.) However, further down the ballot there’s a dearth of candidates.
Travis County Greens in particular don’t have much to choose from, and half of those races are in congressional districts that scarcely graze the county. In CD-21, San Antonio resident Antonio Diaz is taking a shot at Republican incumbent Lamar Smith, while next door in CD-35 another resident of the River city, Wager’s co-chair and former Green presidential hopeful kat swift is challenging Democrat Lloyd Doggett.
Much further down the ballot in the county races, two Greens are making their stand. Health and nutrition consultant Jeff Questad is entering the contentious county judge race, while Austin Parks Foundation volunteer manager and Travis County Green Party chair Bill Stout (who ran an unsuccessful Congressional race in 2012) is running for county clerk.
Unlike the Democrats and Republicans, the Greens do not have a formal primary process. Instead, all 51 candidates have to win against a binding “none of the above” resolution at the party’s annual convention before they can make it on to the November ballot.
This article appears in 2013.
