All Candidates on the City of Tampa - March 2007 Ballot have been invited to speak and display literature

Marshall Center - Campus View East Room, 4th Floor
On the University of South Florida, Tampa Campus
4202 E. Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620

Thursday, February 1st, 7:00 - 8:30 pm

Call813-835-4472 for more information or visit www.HillsboroughGreens.org

The Green Party of Hillsborough urges you to vote for the following on Tuesday, November 7th:

Vote Brian Becker, Green for State House Representative, District 57 (www.ElectBrianBecker.com)

Vote Tammy Harman, Soil and Water Conservation Board, Non-partisan countywide race, (www.TammyHarman.com)

Vote Brian Moore, Independent Candidate for United States Senate (www.VoteBrianMoore.com)

And YES on Amendment 4:
After an American Cancer Society representative came to speak at our local Green Party meeting and then conducting our own outside research, the Green Party of Hillsborough has endorsed Amendment 4. This is a grassroots effort to amend the constitution and the below excerpt from the website of the group who is leading the effort tells us who, what and why:
“….three years ago the Florida Legislature slashed funding to the state's nationally acclaimed youth tobacco prevention efforts and has refused to restore the program. (This) constitutional amendment would require the Florida Legislature to use 15% of the funds from the tobacco settlement to fund youth tobacco prevention efforts.”
Please check out www.keepkidssmokefree.org to find out more about this grassroots campaign and amendment.

The Green Party of Hillsborough has endorsed to date the following candidates for the November 7, 2006 general election:

Tammy Harman (TammyHarman.com) in the nonpartisan race for Soil and Water Conservation Board District 1

and

Brian Becker (ElectBrianBecker.com)is running as a Green for state representative, district 57.

07/19/06 UPDATE ON RECYCLING CAMPAIGN:

Hillsborough County Officials and Solid Waste Representatives have been in contact with the GPH regarding the below letter and proposal. Within the next month, the feasibility of the proposal will be determined. Please call, write, email the County Commissioners (P.O. Box 1110, Tampa, FL 33601, 272-5660)and the Solid Waste Department(24th Floor, County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, Florida 33602, 272-5680) to voice your support for this proposal. Thank you and we will post further details as they are learned...

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February 3rd, 2006, the Green Party of Hillsborough sent a letter to the County Commissioners to propose the following expansion of recycling services to better serve all of the County's residents...

"The Green Party of Hillsborough proposes the establishment of additional recycling drop-off points at Hillsborough County Solid Waste locations already staffed and in operation."

Read the full letter by clicking on the below link.

We will keep you posted of the Commissioners' responses.

The Green Party of Hillsborough has consented to endorse the Fair Election Redistricting Petition Initiative campaign created by the Campaign for Fair Elections organization. Many like minded groups are working on this campaign, such as FCAN, Sierra Club, Code Pink and Citizen Services, Incorporated (the political arm of ACORN) and we wanted to make our listserv members aware of the issue.

Visit www.committeeforfairelections.com to download and sign the petition. Also, there are opportunities to work on collecting petitions for this intitiative and to get paid for doing so (up to $1 per verified signature group and .10 cents per verified e-mail).

If interested, contact Dan Buttrey of Citizens Services, Inc. at dbuttrey4@hotmail.com, 813-828-5460 or Russell Patterson from Florida Consumer Action Network at Russ@fcan.org,(813) 877- 6712 to find out more.

To find out the who, what, when and how of the campaign, click on 'Read More..." link below for the full story.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has ended the Taco Bell boycott; Taco Bell will pay penny-per-pound surcharge demanded by workers and will work with CIW to raise farm labor standards in supply chain and across industry as a whole...Check out the link below for the full story... www.ciw-online.org/news.html. The Green Party of Hillsborough has endorsed the Taco Bell Boycott and supported the CIW from the beginning of this struggle. We can all be proud to have been a part of this victory!

NOT ALREADY REGISTERED AS A GREEN PARTY VOTER? CHANGE YOUR REGISTRATION NOW! Click on the following link:
http://www.votehillsborough.org/content.aspx?id=39
to reach the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections change of registration page. Once on the page, click on the second "click here" link and it will download a change of party registration form for you to fill out, sign and mail back to the Supervisor of Elections (the office address is on the bottom of the page of the above link.)

NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE? Click the following link:
http://www.votehillsborough.org/content.aspx?id=37

Follow the links in order to download a voter registration form to fill out and return to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections (address is on the bottom of the above link.) We hope the Green Party represents your beliefs and convictions. If so, on the portion of the form that states "PARTY AFFILIATION" please check the box next to "other" and print "GREEN PARTY."

YOUR REGISTERING "GREEN" HAS A DIRECT IMPACT ON THE PARTY'S PROMINENCE AND ABILITY TO GAIN REPRESENTATION IN OUR COMMUNITY. PLEASE DO IT NOW.

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING

The Green Party of Hillsborough supports Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and we will soon be working towards this goal at the city level (look for more details coming soon). One of our members working on this issue has prepared a thorough explanation of IRV below...

The major difference between IRV and today's voting practice is that in an IRV election a candidate needs to receive a majority of the vote rather than a mere plurality. The current system, which requires only a plurality, means that the greater the number of candidates running in any given race, the less the percentage of the vote is needed to win. Current practice permits that in a five person race, for example, the winner could be elected with only 21% of the vote. In an IRV-type election, the winner would be required to have more than 50% of the vote, a majority.

IRV achieves this by using a ballot that has voters picking not only their first choice of candidate for a given office but their second and third choices of the candidates running for that office as well. After voting is completed, the ballots get tallied just as in a conventional election: each person's first choice is counted. However, should no candidate emerge with a majority, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated from the race. Those voters who picked the now-eliminated candidate will have their second choice counted when the vote is retallied. All other voters will again have their first choice be retallied as part of the vote. The process of eliminating the candidate with the least votes after each vote tabulation continues until there is a winner who receives more than 50%. So long as a voter's first choice remains in contention, his or her vote goes to that candidate. Only if the voter's first choice gets eliminated, does the voter's next choice get counted.

The IRV initiative achieves an election where the winner's support is more comprehensive than in an election where the winner needs to have a plurality only. Additionally, IRV allows us to vote our conscience. With IRV, we need not be concerned that a vote for who we believe is right but has "no chance of winning" splits the vote with our subsequent choice and thereby helps elect someone who we believe is wrong. Therefore, with IRV, if our first choice is not a top contender in the vote count, he or she gets eliminated, and our next choice gets counted toward the vote. Also, because votes get tallied electronically, retabulating votes does not incur additional expenses. In fact, because all our choices are made at the polls on one visit, less time and money needs to be spent on subsequent runoff elections. Additionally, voter participation remains at the original level as contrasted to the historically lower levels of dedicated runoff elections.

Please visit the following external website for more information on the IRV movement: www.cirv.org.

Here's a new WORKING link to view photos of our Green Party T-shirts for sale: http://www.consciousconsumers.net/greent.html

$12 includes shipping and handling. (Or $10 if you buy one at our meeting). Indicate small, medium, large or extra-large and do not forget to include your mailing address.

Send check or money order payable to Green Party of Hillsborough to:

100% of this money will be used to help your local Green Party grow.

Many people think that when they register Green that is all they need to do to help change the political landscape. But we need more than voter registration: we need donations of time or resources to make the Green Party work, and we need your contact information.