The Green Party of the United States (Greens or 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, anti-war, and anti-racism. it is the fourth-largest political party in the United States by voter registration, behind the Libertarian Party. The party first gained traction in 2000, when Ralph Nader ran for president.
The direct predecessor of the GPUS was the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). In the late 1990s, the ASGP, which formed in 1996, had increasingly distanced itself from the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA), America's then-primary green organization which had formed in 1991 out of the Green Committees of Correspondence, a collection of local green groups active since 1984. In 2001, the GPUS was officially founded as the ASGP split from the G/GPUSA. After its founding, the GPUS soon became the primary national green organization in the country, surpassing the G/GPUSA. John Rensenbrink and Howie Hawkins were co-founders of the Green Party.
The Greens (as ASGP) first gained widespread public attention during the 2000 presidential election, when the ticket composed of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke won 2.7% of the popular vote, raising questions as to whether they spoiled the election in favor of George W. Bush. Pdf. Nader has dismissed the notion that he and other Green candidates are spoilers.
History
Early years The political movement that began in 1984 as the decentralized Committees of Correspondence evolved into a more centralized structure by 1990, opening a national clearinghouse and forming governing bodies, bylaws and a platform as the Green Committees of Correspondence.. By 1990, it was known simply as The Greens. The organization conducted grassroots organizing efforts, educational activities and electoral campaigns.
Internal divisions arose between members who saw electoral politics as ultimately corrupting and supported the notion of an "anti-party party" formed by Petra Kelly and other leaders of the Greens in Germany against those who saw electoral strategies as a crucial engine of social change. This struggle for the direction of the organization culminated in a "compromise agreement", ratified in 1990 at the Greens National Congress in Elkins, West Virginia, in which both strategies would be accommodated within the same 527 political organization renamed the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). It was recognized by the FEC as a national political party in 2001.
The compromise agreement subsequently collapsed, and two Green Party organizations co-existed in the United States until 2019 when the Greens/Green Party USA was dissolved. The Green Politics Network was organized in 1990 and the National Association of Statewide Green Parties formed by 1994. Divisions between those pressing to break onto the national political stage and those aiming to grow roots at the local level continued to widen during the 1990s. The Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) encouraged and backed Nader's presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. By 2001, the push to separate electoral activity from the G/GPUSA issue-based organizing led to the Boston Proposal and the subsequent rise of the Green Party of the United States. The G/GPUSA lost most of its affiliates in the next few months and dropped its FEC national party status in the year 2005.
2020s Howie Hawkins announced his candidacy for President in the 2020 United States presidential election on April 3, 2019, seeking the Green nomination, and later became the nominee.
On August 17, 2024, Jill Stein and Butch Ware officially became the 2024 Green Party's nominees for President and Vice President, winning 267 out of the 287 Green delegate votes at their national convention. Their campaign primarily focused on social justice reforms, labor rights, healthcare, economic restructuring, and demilitarizing. The party also campaigned heavily on ending American aid to Israel during the Gaza war and particularly attacked Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
In 2024, the party ceased to be a member of the Global Greens organization of world-wide green parties. The European Green Party broke ties with the US Green Party, citing concerns about the American party's position on the War in Ukraine, its relationship to other authoritarian regimes, and Stein's potential spoiler status in the election. The Party rejoined the Global Greens in 2026.
The Stein/Ware ticket came in third place, securing 862,049 votes. She received 0.6% of the vote, ahead of 4th place independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who had dropped out, while maintaining ballot placement in certain non-swing states) with 0.5% of the vote, and Libertarian Chase Oliver with 0.04% of the vote.
On February 3, Butch Ware announced that he would be campaigning to become the Governor of California in the 2026 California gubernatorial election.
On August 29, former presidential candidate Jill Stein spoke at and attended the second annual People's Conference for Palestine. She spoke in favor of the UN imposing an arms embargo, trade boycott, divestment, and utilizing the United Nations Protection Force.
Ideology
Values The Green Party of the United States follows the ideals of green politics, which are based on the Four Pillars, namely: Ecological wisdom, Social justice, Grassroots democracy, and Nonviolence.
The Ten Key Values, which expand upon the Four Pillars, are as follows: Grassroots democracy, Social justice and equal opportunity, Ecological wisdom, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Community-based economics, Feminism and gender equity, Respect for diversity, Personal and global responsibility, and Future focus and sustainability.
The Green Party doesn't accept donations from corporations, political action committees (PACs), 527(c) organizations or soft money. The party's platforms and rhetoric harshly criticize corporate influence and control over government, media, and society at large.
Eco-socialism
In 2016, the Green Party passed a motion in favor of rejecting both capitalism and state socialism, supporting instead an "alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power". The motion states the change that the party says could be described as promoting "ecological socialism", "communalism", or perhaps the "cooperative commonwealth". The eco-socialist economy the Green Party of the United States wants to create is similar to the market socialist mutualist economics of Proudhon which consists of a large sector of democratically controlled public enterprises, a large sector of cooperative enterprises, and a smaller sector of small businesses and self-employed.Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Cosimo, Inc. 2007. pp 218–219. Consumer goods and services would be sold to consumers in the market by cooperatives, public enterprises, and small businesses. Services that would be for free include health care, education, child care, and urban mass transit. Goods and services that would be available at low cost would include public housing, power, broadband, and water. Howie Hawkins, who was nominated by the Green Party to run for president of the United States in 2020, identifies as a libertarian socialist.
Political positions
Economic and social issues Healthcare The Green Party supports the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system and the abolition of private health insurance in the United States. They have also called for contraception and abortion procedures to be available on demand. The Green Party has called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, an act that prohibits the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortions, unless in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Education The Green Party calls for providing tuition-free college at public universities and vocational schools, increasing funding for after-school and daycare programs, cancelling all student loan debt, and repealing the No Child Left Behind Act. They are strongly against the dissolution of public schools and the privatization of education.
Green New Deal In 2006, the Green Party developed a Green New Deal that would ultimately serve as a transitional plan to a 100% clean, renewable energy including solar and wind energy by 2030 utilizing a carbon tax, jobs guarantee, tuition-free college, single-payer healthcare and a focus on using public programs.
Howie Hawkins focused his gubernatorial campaign on the Green New Deal, which was the first time the policy was introduced. Jill Stein also developed her presidential campaign based on the Green New Deal.
Criminal justice The Green Party favors the abolition of the death penalty, repeal of three-strikes laws, banning of private prisons, legalization of marijuana, and decriminalization of other drugs.
Racial justice The Green Party advocates for "complete and full" reparations to the African American community, as well the removal of the Confederate flag from all government buildings.
LGBT+ rights The party supports same-sex marriage, the right of access to medical and surgical treatment for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and withdrawing foreign aid to countries with poor LGBT+ rights records. The party opposes gender-critical feminism.
Youth rights The party supports youth rights. They reject the idea that young people are property of their parents or guardians. They support providing mothers with prenatal care. They oppose child abuse and neglect and support young people's rights to food, shelter, healthcare, and education. They support greater student input into their education and sex education and oppose advertisements in schools. They support lowering the voting age to 16.
Fundraising and position on Super PACs In the early decades of Green organizing in the United States, the prevailing American system of money-dominated elections was universally rejected by Greens, so that some Greens were reluctant to have Greens participate in the election system at all because they deemed the campaign finance system inherently corrupt. Other Greens felt strongly that the Green Party should develop in the electoral arena, and many of these Greens felt that adopting an alternative model of campaign finance, emphasizing self-imposed contribution limits, would present a wholesome and attractive contrast to the odious campaign finance practices of the money-dominated major parties.
Some Greens feel that the Green Party's position should be simply to follow the laws and regulations of campaign finance. Other Greens argue that it would injure the Green Party not to practice a principled stand against the anti-democratic influence of money in the political process. Candidates for office, like Jill Stein, the 2012 and 2016 Green Party nominee for the President of the United States, typically rely on smaller donations to fund their campaigns.
Foreign policy The Green Party calls on the United States to join the International Criminal Court, and sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and Non-Proliferation Treaty. Additionally, it supports cutting the defense budget in half, as well as prohibiting all arms sales to foreign countries.
In the Middle East, the Green Party supports the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to decrease sanctions while limiting Iran's capacity to make nuclear weapons. The party condemned the Twelve-Day War, proclaiming themselves as a party of peace and the Democrats and Republicans as militaristic. When Israel and the United States again went to war with Iran nine months later, three state parties denounced the war and called it illegal under international law.