http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060320/NEWS/60320
0330/1033/NEWS01

Green Party candidates call for change

Petaluma gatherers say electoral overhaul
needed to break 2-party system

By KATY HILLENMEYER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

PETALUMA - Green Party candidates for state and local office called Sunday
for environmental protections, withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, President
Bush's ouster and electoral overhaul that breaks the dominance of the
nation's two major parties and their campaign contributors.

"We have a rigged, two-party system ... which does not reflect the will of
the voters accurately," said Cat Woods of Novato, who is vying against
Republican Michael Hartnett and the winner of a six-way Democratic primary
to fill Joe Nation's 6th District state Assembly seat. "Even people in red
states are angry that our civil liberties are being taken away."

Woods was one of eight Green Party candidates who gathered at a downtown
Petaluma home for a daylong strategy meeting. The candidates, predominantly
from the Bay Area, spoke of impeaching Bush, ending motorists' reliance on
fossil fuels and empowering voters.

Democratic leaders' tepid resistance to the Patriot Act and the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq have given the Green Party an opening to strengthen its
base of 145,000 registered state voters, said Bill Patterson, a former
Windsor Town Council candidate.

"There is increasingly a window of opportunity opening due to the
disenchantment with the dominant parties," said Patterson, a retired small
business owner who said he's mulling another council bid.

California Secretary of State candidate Forrest Hill of Oakland and John
Miller, a Central Valley teacher seeking a U.S. congressional seat in the
21st district that includes Visalia, denounced voter apathy and the
diversion of taxpayers' money to defense.

"Just in Iraq alone, we're throwing away our future and funds that could be
used to solve problems here," said Miller, a Ducor resident and former Army
National Guardsman.

State Attorney General candidate Michael Wyman of Greenbrae called for
ending the death penalty, defending same-sex marriage and decriminalizing
adults' "personal use" of marijuana and other drugs.