Third Parties making their mark in California
Minor parties have ascended in 1990's from nuisances to persistent threats
by Christian Collet Orange County Register 12/30/98

In 1998, three minor parties qualified for the state ballot: two relics from the state ballot: two relics from the late 1960's, the right wing American Independent Party and the left-wing Peace and Freedom, as well as the Libertarian Party.
But between 1990 and 1996, the number of qualified parties doubled. The legitimizing of three new parties in the span of six years is remarkable, considering that California has fairly stringent ballot access requirments. ( It ranked 27th out of the 50 states in ballot access leniency, according to a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice )>

Because of their proliferation, minor parties in California have collectively fielded more candidates and received more votes in the 1990's than during any other decade in modern state history.
Between the 1990 and 1998 elections, the number of alternative candidates running for Congress increased from 33 to 77; the number of votes they received increased 13 percent.
In 1998, minor party candidates for Congress received 5.5 percent of the total vote - the highest in a statewide election since the early 1900's

Major party registration has dropped continuously every year over the last decade, due in large part to the growth in minor party and decline-to-state registration.
In 1998, 89 percent of all California voters were registered with major parties; by Election Day 1998, the figure had declined to 82 percent. In that time, minor party registration more than doubled from 2 percent to 5 percent, and decline-to-state registration grew 9 percent to nearly 13 percent.
Altogether, 2.7 million registered voters in November were either independent or affiliated with minor parties.

Minor parties have ascended in the 1990's from occaisional nuisances to persistent threats. In 1998, there were no races where minor parties could have affected the outcome. But throughout the 1990's, an average of 10 legislative races per election year saw the minor party share exceed the difference between the major party candidates. This year, races were less competitive in California as the Democrats swamped the Republicans in the major races
But there were nonetheless four contests where minor party candidates may have impacted the outcome.

One of the most significant was in Sacramento's 10th Assembly District, where a Libertarian candidate took 3,775 votes in a race won by Republican Anthony Pescetti by roughly 600 votes. Although Califoria has not elected an alternative candidate to major office since 1914, they have won at the local level. In 1998, there was no notable seats held by minor partisans.
After this year's elections, the Green Party had elected members to the city councils of Berkeley, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz and Menlo Park; and won the mayorality of Davis

The northern coastal city of Arcata, which had a Green majority on it's five-member City Council after 1996, narrowly missed retaining his majority after the November election. The Libertarian Party elected the mayor of Villa Park in Orange County, the mayor pro tem of Bellflower, a city council member in Simi Valley and a supervisor in Calaveras County
In 1998, they also added City Coucil seats in Arcata, Saragota and Moreno Valley

As the state enters the next millenium, it will have an electorate of one in five voters unaffiliated with the major parties, of at least four partiesother than the Republicans and Democrats qualified for the ballot and of alternative candidates running in most legislative districts.
Furthermore, with the blanket primary firmly in place, neither voters nor candidates will have the incentive to adhre to conventional politics.
The 1998 election, as much as it may have confirmed political inertia, showed that the traditional political order is slowly but inexorably fading.

Green Party hoping to expand
Activists gather in Santa Ana to sow seeds for a new crop of members
by Ann Pepper Orange County Register 5/23/1999 pMETRO2

"It's not all about electoral politics to us," said R.J. Schwichtenberg, a computer salesman from Orange and the county's party chairman. "We're working for more direct participation by citizens in their government, ans we're going to do it from county level on up." Currently, about 4000 Orange County voters are registered Green, ans Schwichtenberg doesn't expect to have a big impact overnight.
"We've only got a couple of handfuls of activists in Orange County," he said . "But grass doesn't grow unless somebody does the cultivating." Schwichtenberg and his compatriots say they are patient gardeners. "We want voters to get to know us and for our party's candidates to come out of the neighborhoods they'll represent rather than out of a party machine," he said. Quesada said she was drawn to the Greens by their commitment to such things as grass-roots democracy, personal responsibility, community-based economics, femininsm and ecological awareness.
"So I joined,: she said. "Now I'm working to give kids too young to vote a voice in government"

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