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A political party is an organized group of people, often with common views, who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests.
Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. The state's largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State. It is named after the English queen Henrietta Maria, known in England as Queen Mary.
The PPMD originated as a vehicle for ballot access for the 2004 Ralph Naderpresidential campaign. Unlike such groups in other states, the PPMD organization has survived beyond 2004, laboring to field candidates for local political offices. In 2006, Populists launched a campaign for governor of Maryland, nominating Chris Driscoll, their state chairman as their candidate. Driscoll chose Ed Rothstein, a Baltimore labor organizer as his running mate. The Populist candidates emphasize the Populist alternative to Liberalism and Conservativism, tax cuts for working people through the Tobin tax, a "split-rate" land value tax, employee- or consumer-owned electric companies and municipal utilities (banned by Maryland state law since the late 1990s under energy reforms enacted by the Democratic General Assembly), and promoting government promotion of employee ownership and control of workplaces through employee stock ownership plans.
In the United States, ballot access refers to the rules and procedues regulating the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots. As the nation's election process is decentralized by Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, ballot access laws are established and enforced by the states. As a result, ballot access processes may vary from one state to another. State access requirements for candidates generally pertain to personal qualities of a candidate, such as: minimum age, residency, citizenship, and being a qualified voter. Additionally, many states require prospective candidates to collect a specified number of qualified voters' signatures on petitions of support and mandate the payment of filing fees before granting access; ballot measures are similarly regulated. Each state also regulates how political parties qualify for automatic ballot access, and how those minor parties that do not can. Fundamental to democracy, topics relatred to ballot access are the subject of considerable debate in the United States.
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney, noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the United States, Nader was educated at Princeton and Harvard and first came to prominence in 1965 with the publication of the bestselling book Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers that became known as one of the most important journalistic pieces of the 20th century. Following the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader led a group of volunteer law students—dubbed "Nader's Raiders"—in a groundbreaking investigation of the Federal Trade Commission, leading directly to that agency's overhaul and reform. In the 1970s, Nader leveraged his growing popularity to establish a number of advocacy and watchdog groups including the Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen.
Origin
Ralph Nader
The Ralph Nader campaign chose to create a local "Populist Party" in states where ballot access is more readily available by forming a new political party than by filing as an independent candidate.
The Populist Party was a political party in the United States between 1984 and 1996. It was conservative and often white nationalist in its ideology. The party was unrelated to the original American Populist Party or other American parties that have used the same name. Willis Carto helped found the Populist Party, which eventually served as an electoral vehicle for Ku Klux Klan member David Duke.
David Ernest Duke is a prominent American white supremacist, white nationalist politician, white separatist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, convicted felon, and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
James Gordon "Bo" Gritz is a former United States Army Special Forces officer who served for 22 years, including in the Vietnam War. His activities in retirement, notably attempted POW rescues in conjunction with the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, have been controversial.
In Maryland, the Populist Party only succeeded in putting Nader on the ballot after challenges from the Maryland Board of Elections and the localDemocratic Party. The PPMD submitted a petition of nearly 15,000 signatures on August 2, a number more than sufficient to achieve official party status and a ballot line, but this was rejected under a local ballot access law as a number of the signees had moved between counties since their voter registration. On September 20, the Maryland Court of Appeals found the restricting law unconstitutional and ordered the Board of Elections to accept the petition for Nader and Camejo.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
The Court of Appeals of Maryland is the supreme court of the U.S. state of Maryland. The court, which is composed of one chief judge and six associate judges, meets in the Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal Building in the state capital, Annapolis. The term of the Court begins the second Monday of September. The Court is unique among American courts in that the judges wear red robes. The Maryland Court of Appeals joins the New York Court of Appeals in being the only two state highest courts to bear the name "Court of Appeals" rather than "Supreme Court".
Continuation
The party conceived a "Unity Campaign" with the idea of bringing together Green Party, Libertarian Party, and Populist voters in support of the fusion ticket of U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Zeese, a founder of the PPMD and 2004 press secretary for Ralph Nader.
The Maryland Green Party is the state party organization for Maryland of the Green Party of the United States.
The Libertarian Party of Maryland is the Maryland affiliate of the Libertarian Party. The state chair is Robert S. Johnston III. The party, also known as "LPMaryland," is Maryland's third-largest political party, with 13,549 registered voters across the state as of March 31, 2014. According to its website, the party advocates "a smaller government that costs less and leaves individuals with more economic opportunity and more personal freedom," and "work[s] to advance that view by supporting Libertarian candidates for local, state, and federal office." LPMaryland also forms coalitions with other civic organizations who share at least some common ground with libertarians, including groups that concern themselves primarily with civil liberties, world peace, fiscal restraint, and government reform. The official views of the party on state-level policy issues are set forth in the Libertarian Party of Maryland Program.
Kevin Zeese is an American lawyer and political activist who has worked on a wide range of issues beginning with ending the war on drugs and mass incarceration, including helping to organize the 2011 Occupy encampment in Washington, DC at Freedom Plaza. He currently serves as co-director of Popular Resistance.
According to Chris Driscoll, the state party chairman, the party plans to run candidates for municipal, county, state and federal seats, under the slogan "Democracy and a Better Paycheck Too."[citation needed] The Populist Party of Maryland's rank and file and leaders have drafted a program calling for an end to the "corporate crime wave," cleaning up widespread political corruption in the capital city of Annapolis, and enacting legislation favorable to employees, employee-owned businesses and small business owners, small landlords, etc.
In August 2008, the Populist party was reconstituted as the Independent Party. Its membership soared from 5 to 35,000 at one point in May 2010, after all independent voters were counted as members of the new party, blurring the distinction between 'independent' and 'Independent'. However, the Independent Party of Maryland was dissolved by the State Board of Elections on June 3, 2010 due to its inactive campaign finance account.[1]
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