Progressive Green reaches runoff in Assembly Special Election in conservative Orange County; criticizes campaign spending, and promises to reinstate public school, university funding
GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS RELEASE
ORANGE COUNTY (November 19, 2009) - Green Party candidate Jane Rands collected nearly seven times her party's registration in conservative Orange County Tuesday night to move into the runoff for the 72nd Assembly District seat. Rands joins Republican Chris Norby and Democrat John MacMurray in the runoff Jan. 12.
The Green candidate's showing in a GOP stronghold mirrors Green Party success this year in local elections, where Greens picked up six seats, including a key city council win, giving them a majority on a town council in Fairfax, near San Francisco. Rands' total was about three percent, but significant in that it represented such a big bump over party registration.
(Green Jack Lindblad, running in the 39th Assembly District in 2008, did even better - he pulled in more than 8 percent of the vote, 1600 percent of the GP registered base and nearly 6,000 votes.)
Rands commented that if Green Party voting procedures had been used, the taxpayer would have saved money in the Special Election.
"If California had Instant Runoff Voting the 72nd District would already have representation in Sacramento instead of having to hold an expensive run-off election in two months," she said.
Rands also criticized the big spending in the election, noting that "Nearly half a million dollars, mostly from PACS and corporations, was contributed to support or oppose two Republican candidates. I question whether either of these candidates would represent their constituents rather than their special interest donors.
"We need publicly financed elections to keep our legislature from being bought and paid for by special interests. Until then, I will keep running my own clean money campaign by only accepting contributions from individuals," she said.
Rands said her top priority - after 14 people were arrested and thousands rallied Wednesday to protest a 32 percent hike in UC costs - is to "reinstate funding for our public schools and universities. We shouldn't try to balance the state's budget on the backs of the youth when the wealthiest Californians are allowed to pay a lower effectual tax rate than the working poor in California and oil companies pay no excise taxes."
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Contacts:
Susan King, Spokesperson, 415.823.5524,
Derek Iversen, Spokesperson, 323.481.8984,
Laura Wells, Spokesperson, 510.504.4254,
The Green Party of California
PO Box 2828
Sacramento, CA 95812
Phone: (916) 448-3437
Web: http://www.cagreens.org
EMail: