LEWISTON – There’s only one Green Independent Party member serving in the state Legislature: Rep. John Eder, G-Portland.

On Nov. 2, the party is hoping that number will rise.

At its annual convention Saturday at the Ramada Inn, the 50 attending members endorsed 23 legislative candidates now on the ballot: 21 for the House, two for the Senate. There could be more; Julie Sawtelle of Monmouth is a Green running as a write-in candidate for the Senate.

Other local Greens running as House candidates are Sarah Trundy of Minot and Matt Reading of Auburn. Neither were at Saturday’s convention. More than half of the Green candidates were not there.

When it was her turn to speak, Sawtelle said she has a good chance of winning, that the party is strong in her community. “I’m not a politician. That works in my favor.” Sawtelle said she’s as smart as any legislator now serving and, as a paralegal, she understands the law.

House candidate Steven West of Penobscot introduced himself saying in the 1990s he worked in Washington, D.C., for U.S. Sen. John Kerry. His devotion to the party began to wane after one afternoon while attending a fund-raising dinner in D.C. He walked to a balcony overlooking a street, looked down and saw a homeless man. “He gave me the finger,” West said. After thinking about how $250,000 for one candidate was raised in one afternoon, “at the same time we have homeless people,” he quit politics and went into teaching. Now he’s back as a Green candidate. “Just imagine if 23 of us got elected,” he said. “I’m excited about that.”

Party leaders are imaging it.

“The goal is for us to become the balance of power which would transform politics significantly in Augusta,” said outgoing Green Chairman Ben Meiklejohn. If five or six Greens were elected to the House, it could erode the Democrats’ majority and shake things up. “Now Democrats are not a friend of the Greens,” they’re opponents, he said. Democrats tried “to re-district John Eder out of office,” and last year when Eder proposed an anti-Iraq war resolution, “the Democrats stole that and took credit for it on their own,” he said.

With five Greens in the House, Democrats would “have to listen to us,” Meiklejohn said. For instance the Democrats would want Greens to vote for a Democratic Speaker of the House. In return, Green members may demand one of them co-chair a committee, or that same-sex marriage be on the agenda, Meiklejohn said. “Instead of alienating us or trying to steal our ideas, they’d have to embrace us.”

There are more than 16,000 registered Green voters in Maine, said party spokesman Tim Sullivan. Unlike the two major parties that hold conventions every other year, the Greens hold an annual convention.

In addition to endorsing candidates Saturday, members debated bylaws and adopted a budget. The convention continues today with debate on a presidential nomination.

The party could decide to nominate a presidential candidate today or wait until the June national convention. Some considering themselves “anybody-but-Bush” supporters don’t want their party to nominate any candidate. They worry that support for former Green-now-independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader will help re-elect George Bush and hurt Democrat John Kerry.

“President Bush has to not be president anymore. That’s Job No. 1,” said Pat LaMarche, the 1998 Green gubernatorial candidate.
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