Green day

Monday, the winter solstice, was to have been the Maine Greens’ day in the sun, as supporters gathered at the State House to watch Pat LaMarche assign her gubernatorial votes to the newly revived Green Independent Party.

And there, attracting just as much attention, was Senate President Mark Lawrence. Given the nature of the Democrat leader’s announcement, it is doubtful the Green’s resent sharing the spotlight.

Lawrence chose the occasion to propose a total overhaul of Maine’s ballot-access law, the statute that determines how official parties are formed and how they are maintained. While the plan, as Lawrence freely admits, may need some tinkering, the basic concept — placing platform and principle above personality — is sound.

Each state sets its own ballot-access laws and there are 50 different versions of how it should be done. Some, especially in the Far West, make it easy for minor parties to exist; the South makes it as difficult as possible.

Maine is somewhat in the middle. The 5-percent requirement in gubernatorial elections is reasonable, it is a level any party with good ideas and an energetic candidate should be able to reach. The 5-percent requirement in presidential elections is not reasonable. It unfairly places the fate of a state party in the hands of a national organization. It virtually guarantees that third parties in Maine are in a constant four-year cycle of forming and disintegrating.

Lawrence would do away with the 5-percent rule altogether. Instead, official ballot status would be granted to parties that achieve a certain level of enrollment, of registered voter support. Lawrence suggests one-half of 1 percent of population, about 6,000 members, with official status for all parties recertified at the end of each election cycle, but he’s open to other gauges, such as a percentage of total registered voters. He also recognizes that, with “unenrolled” the state’s largest voting bloc, steps must be taken to prevent the ballot from getting clogged with defunct parties that continue to exist in name only.

“The fundamental point is that the existence of a political party should not be based upon the election of an individual, whether it’s a governor or a president,” Lawrence says. “Parties stand for ideas, and I believe sustaining a certain level of party enrollment is the best way to measure support. We don’t want 30 or 40 parties on the ballot, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have three, four or five. Alternative parties are an important part of the two-party system.”

Not only is enrollment the best measure, it also is the best hope for a new party to grow. California, Washington and Oregon all base ballot status upon enrollment; they all have active minor parties at both ends of the political spectrum. Clearly, the way to build a party is from the ground up, by getting candidates elected to city councils, school boards, county commissions, state legislatures. New parties cannot do that if they have to pour all of their resources into an all-or-nothing crapshoot for the most expensive offices going.

LaMarche may have been bit carried away by the moment when she called Lawrence’s proposal an “act of true courage,” but it is a bold idea long overdue. When lawmakers debate this reform, they should remember that the people of Maine don’t expect them to be brave, just fair.