The Wisconsin Green Party (WIGP) is one of five recognized political parties in the state of

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

and is an active member of the

Green Party of the United States The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a federation of Green state political parties in the United States. The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy, grassroot ...

History

The Wisconsin Green Party emerged in the late 1980s when several independent local Green groups combined. Walter Bresette and Frank Koehn of the

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

Greens were instrumental figures in the early years of the party's development. Koehn's election to the Bayfield County board in 1986 was the first time a Green Party candidate had ever been elected to an office in the United States. Dennis Boyer, Richard Latker, Joyce Melville and others established a large chapter in Madison that brought together veteran activists (many of them former members of the Labor-Farm Party, which disintegrated in 1987 after Greens and Marxists in the party failed to agree on a platform) and student activists affiliated with the UW-Madison Greens. In 2006, the party helped place antiwar initiatives on the ballots in 32 towns (24 of which passed those propositions). In the spring of 2006, nine of 13 Green Party candidates won races in which they ran. John Hardin (Barron County), Ben Farrell (Winnebago County), Bob Ryan (Door County), Barbara Vedder (Dane County), John Hendrick (Dane County), and Kyle Richmond (Dane County) all won re-election to their respective county board seats. Vedder had been appointed to an open seat a few months before the election. Jeff Peterson (Polk County) and Ashok Kumar (Dane County) took their seats as county board officials for the first time, as did Eric Krszjzaniek (Portage County) who won a recount of write-in votes with an original 5-7 loss turning into an 8-3 win. On April 3, 2007 a further seven out of 14 Green Party candidates running for office won their elections throughout Wisconsin. This brought the total number of elected Greens in

to twenty-two. The Wisconsin Green Party's headquarters are in Madison.

Statewide nominees

* 2002 - Jim Young, Governor * 2002 - Paul Aschenbrenner, Treasurer * 2006 - Nelson Eisman, Governor * 2006 - Leon Todd, Lieutenant Governor * 2006 - Winston Sephus, Treasurer * 2006 - Michael LaForest, Secretary of State * 2006 - Rae Vogeler, U.S. Senate * 2014 - Ron Hardy, Treasurer

Presidential nominee results

Since 1996, the national Green Party has run a candidate for President of the United States. In that year, Green Party nominee,

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the U ...

was on the ballot as an independent. The party's highest vote total came in 2000, when Ralph Nader received over 94,000 votes. The lowest vote total came in 2004, when David Cobb was the nominee. His campaign received only 2,661 votes. Nader, who was also on the ballot as an independent candidate, received over 16,000 votes.

Notable Wisconsin Greens

* Walter Bresette * Frank Koehn

References

External links

Wisconsin Green Party
{{WisconsinPoliticalParties Political parties in Wisconsin Green Party of the United States by state Political parties established in 1988 Green Party