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For Immediate Release
September, 26 2017, 11:45am EDT
Contact:
Scott McLarty, Media Director, 202-904-7614, scott@gp.org
Green Party Candidates to Watch in 2017 Local Elections
WASHINGTON
Local and state Green Parties are running several strong candidates in well-organized campaigns for public office in 2017.
The Green Party of the United States welcomed Maine State Rep. Ralph Chapman, who announced his new membership in the Maine Green Independent Party on Thursday. Mr. Chapman is Maine's second Green in the Maine House of Representatives, following John Eder, who served from 2004 to 2006.
162 Green candidates are running for office in 2017. See also the Green candidates' news page. At least 140 Greens hold elected office in 18 states as of Sept. 15, 2017.
Green candidates often face barriers, such as exclusion from forums and debates; limited ballot access, restrictions, and thresholds that in some states don't apply to Democrats and Republicans; and even rigged elections. In Philadelphia, Pa., Cheri Honkala has taken legal action after she uncovered evidence of election fraud when she ran for State Representative in 2016.
The five candidates profiled below are a sample of those running strong Green campaigns in the 2017 general election on Nov. 7. They show the diversity of backgrounds, interests, and campaign focuses among Green candidates who uphold the party's principles and platform. For more detailed bios and photos of the candidates, visit https://www.gp.org/2017_candidates_to_watch.
* Julie Banuelos, candidate for Denver Board of Education, at-large School District No. 1, in Denver, Colorado
https://www.banuelos4education.org | https://www.juliedps.com
"I come from a family of immigrants who originally were migrant workers but because of education, were able to lift up out of poverty and set us kids on a path to success," said Ms. Banuelos. "Just like many Denver families, we lived in humble surroundings while my father studied for his engineering degree. I grew up in the East Village, which is the housing project across from what was then Ebert Elementary, on 23rd and Tremont, in Denver's Curtis Park.
"During my 15+ years with Denver Public Schools, I've worked mostly with communities of color with large constituents of immigrants, students and families of English Language Learners -- groups to whom I am still tied and who are most impacted by passionate teachers that invest not just their time, but also their souls to these academic and personal relationships."
Ms. Banuelos was interviewed on GreenStream, the Green Party's livestream show, on Wednesday, Sept. 20.
* Jabari Brisport, candidate for City Council, District 35, in New York City
Mr. Brisport, the proud Caribbean son of an immigrant father and a tireless mother, is an artist, educator, and activist who has spent the past ten years creating political theater and marching in the streets.
After attending NYU, where he was a founding member of The Glass Theater Company, and Yale School of Drama, he joined the anti-racist artist collective Artists for Change, which held marches, protests, and online petitions to address the crisis of police violence. For the past seven years, he has performed with the political comedy theater group Political Subversities.
* Mico Lucide, candidate for General Assembly in New Jersey's Legislative District 2
https://www.LucideForAssembly.com
Mr. Lucide grew up in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey and has lived in Atlantic County his entire life. He has held local and state positions in the Green Party, serving as a member of the Executive Board of the Green Party of Atlantic County and as the National Delegate Alternate for the Green Party of New Jersey.
Mico Lucide is running a campaign focused on two major themes: government efficiency and making people the priority. He supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour; a sustainable environment with clean air, land, and energy; and putting more substantive efforts into reemployment for the chronically unemployed and those trying hard to enter the workforce for the first time.
* Montigue T. Magruder, candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, 69th District (parts of Richmond City and Chesterfield County)
A Virginian native who has lived in Richmond since he was 10 years old, Mr. Magruder has worked as a general labourer and caretaker for six years and currently works part-time as a scooter mechanic and fry cook. In 2010, he spoke in opposition to fare increases in Richmond's public transit system, which lead him to join the Richmond Transit Riders Union, VA Organizing, RePHRAME, and the Industrial Workers of the World.
In 2012, he was appointed to the Greater Richmond Transit Company & Transit Study Task Force and wrote five of the 11 recommendations submitted to Richmond City Council. He ran for Richmond City Council in the 2016 election and came in third place with 13% of the vote. Montigue Magruder's struggles with poverty, homelessness, incarceration, and surviving domestic violence led him to realize that the world shouldn't be the way it is today and compel him to do his part to ensure no one else lives the life he has endured.
* Samantha Pree-Stinson, candidate for the Ward 3 City Council seat in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ms. Pree-Stinson is a US Army Veteran who served in Afghanistan as a Combat Medic Sergeant. She has been an educator and Associate Director of Education for Corinthian Colleges, and worked at Medtronic as a leader of both the Global Women's Network and African Descent Network. She serves as First Vice President to the Board at KMOJ and is a Director of the transition team at MTN.
Ms. Pree-Stinson has a degree in Organizational Psychology from Franklin University and a Program Management Certification from UC Berkley extension. She and her husband live in Northeast Minneapolis and contribute to their community by coaching soccer and advocating for their three children and all students in Minneapolis Public Schools.
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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"There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel," said a leader at the National Women's Law Center.
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Continuing the assault on transgender people that President Donald Trump launched as soon as he returned to power last year, the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights rescinded portions of settlements intended to protect trans students at five school districts and one college.
The department framed the move as "freeing schools" from the Biden and Obama administrations' "illegal and burdensome enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972," a landmark civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.
According to The Associated Press, "One of the school systems, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students."
The administration also rescinded provisions of resolution agreements with Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware and Fife School District in Washington, as well as California's La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified, and Taft College.
This is a cruel step by the Trump administration that will make our schools less safe and welcoming for all.Trans kids deserve what every student deserves — a school that supports their freedom to thrive.
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— ACLU (@aclu.org) April 6, 2026 at 6:05 PM
"The Trump administration has opened at least 40 civil rights investigations into educational institutions that provide protections for transgender students," and filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota, The New York Times reported. However, "Education Department officials said there was no precedent for the federal government terminating previously negotiated civil rights settlements with schools. Civil rights lawyers who worked under Democratic and Republican administrations said they were unaware of previous examples of such a move."
Advocates for trans people sharply condemned the rollback, which came on the heels of last week's International Transgender Day of Visibility.
"This sends a chilling alarm that trans students really are a target of this administration," Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the California-based Transgender Law Center, told the Times. "It's extremely concerning. Students should be safe to go to school and get an education."
Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women's Law Center, said in a statement that "there is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools. It's always been about that. It's what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration's Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose."
"Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students," Patel noted. "Parents, teachers, and students need the department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe."
"We should all be alarmed at the Trump administration's cruel escalation of their anti-trans agenda," she added. "When they push laws that explicitly target trans people or attempt to use scientifically inaccurate language to define sex, they are also inevitably targeting all women and girls. They want to control what we do, how we look, and how we act until we are pushed out of public life. But we are not going anywhere."
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As President Donald Trump escalated his threats to commit war crimes in Iran if its government does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian officials on Monday rejected what they called an inadequate ceasefire proposal and insisted on a guarantee that the US and Israel will not only stop their attacks, but also refrain from future aggression.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again," Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press, affirming his government's rejection of a 45-day truce proposed by regional mediators led by Pakistan and including Egypt and Turkey.
Trump said Monday that he said he might order attacks on all Iranian power plants and bridges if the country's government does not open the Strait of Hormuz—through which around 20 million daily barrels of oil and a large share of the world's liquefied natural gas passed before the war—by 8:00 pm Eastern time Tuesday.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.
This, after the president on Sunday told Iran to “open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell."
Trump—who recently threatened to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages"—said Sunday that he is unconcerned about committing war crimes in Iran, absurdly telling reporters that “the time the Iranian people are most unhappy... is when those bombs stop.”
Pour stressed that Iran can't trust Trump, who Iranian officials and others have accused of using nuclear negotiations as a cover to impose demands and buy time to prepare for more war.
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Iran's government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on February 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump's—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
The US and Israel also launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing negotiations with Tehran.
A senior Iranian official speaking to Drop Site News Monday on condition of anonymity said that “it is our assessment that the Trump administration, owing to legal constraints within the United States concerning the prosecution of the war as well as the need to maintain control over financial markets, requires a short-term pause in the conflict."
“Our assessment indicates that this proposal has been drafted solely on the basis of the mediators’ perception of the minimum demands of the parties for halting the war,” the official continued.
“Tehran does not consider a temporary ceasefire to be a logical course of action, inasmuch as the window for the United States’ exit from the conflict has already been delineated," they added. "Should the requisite political will exist, the parties are in a position to establish a permanent ceasefire and thereafter concentrate their efforts on diplomacy.”
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Around 2,000 Iranians have been killed over 37 days of intense US-Israeli bombardment, according to Iranian officials and humanitarian groups. This figure includes over 200 children, more than 100 of whom were killed in the February 28 US cruise missile attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab.
At least 13 US service members have been killed and hundreds more wounded by Iranian counterattacks, which have also killed at least 14 Israelis and more than two dozen people in Gulf Arab nations.
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As President Donald Trump's Tuesday night deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face more war crimes approached, the National Iranian American Council on Monday urged Congress to investigate the Republican leader's remarks as well as the US-Israeli destruction of Iran's civilian infrastructure that has already occurred.
"The US-Israel war on Iran increasingly appears aimed not at defeating a military adversary but instead at breaking the nation of Iran," said NIAC president Jamal Abdi in a statement. "The past days have seen repeated US-Israeli attacks on civilian targets in Iran, including Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, one of the world's preeminent universities; a major petrochemical plant in Asaluyeh; and the B1 bridge in Karaj, Iran."
Since the US and Israel launched the war—which has not been authorized by Congress—on February 28, they have struck at least tens of thousands of civilian sites, including energy infrastructure, homes, hospitals, and schools. While surrounded by children at a White House event on Monday, Trump attempted to defend his threat to consider "blowing everything up" in Iran if the government doesn't reopen the key shipping route by 8:00 pm Eastern time Tuesday.
Abdi argued that "as Americans, we should be outraged that our government and Israel's have so blurred the lines between civilian and military targets and are openly threatening to engage in war crimes that have little to no military value while inflicting disproportionate civilian harm."
"NIAC calls on the US Congress to thoroughly investigate the targeting and threatening of civilian sites in Iran, including by utilizing all tools at Congress' disposal including subpoena power to secure documentary evidence and testimony from relevant officials," he said. "Any actions that violate US and international law regarding the conduct of war must be thoroughly investigated and appropriate accountability pursued. We cannot allow such brazen disregard for civilian life to be normalized."
So far, nearly all congressional Republicans—who have majorities in both chambers—and a short list of Democrats have blocked attempts to end Trump's illegal assault on Iran via war powers resolutions, even though the US Constitution explicitly empowers only Congress to declare war. Similar measures for Trump's military misadventures elsewhere have also failed.
Still, Abdi said that "NIAC also reiterates that Congress must pass a war powers resolution directing the president to remove US forces from Iran as soon as possible, including by ending the congressional recess early. Moreover, NIAC calls on the United Nations and other international institutions to intervene and put a stop to these advertised crimes before they take place."
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