The Maryland Green Party is planning to hold its annual assembly on Saturday, May 31st in Takoma Park. The event will tentatively begin at 9am. Plans are being finalized - make sure to stay tuned for the official announcement and full schedule to be posted soon!

Washington, DC - The Green Party of the United States will hold its 2014 Annual National Meeting at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, from Thursday, July 24 to Sunday, July 27.The 2014 meeting will mark the 30th anniversary of the first national get-together of Greens, which took place at Macalester College. The first national Green organization - the decentralized Green Committees of Correspondence - was founded at that meeting with the goal of organizing local groups and working towards a Green political organization.The Ten Key Values adopted by the Green Party were put forth during the 1984 meeting.Read the full statement here...

From the Green Party of the United States:Candidates and leaders of the Green Party of the United States expressed support for the ongoing protests against deportations and confirmed the party's demand for protected legal status for undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S.Recent protests against deportations include hunger strikes and a peaceful sit-in by members of the Orange County DREAM Team at the Washington D.C. office of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.).Margaret Guttshall, Green candidate for Wayne State University Board of Governors in Michigan:"Greens call for the protections of the Dream Act to be extended to all undocumented immigrants, not just those who arrived as minors or graduated from high school. The unprecedented spike in deportations - nearly 2 million, averaging 1,100 per day - under President Obama has meant brutal raids, destroyed families, and a climate of fear and helplessness. The President promised to work for passage of the Dream Act but has also surrendered to pressure from xenophobic Republican politicians."Read the full statement here...

The Green Party urges the Maryland General Assembly to work harder to promote economic, environmental and democratic equality for all Marylanders. Despite several "first steps" taken during the 2014 Maryland General Assembly, the Green Party urges lawmakers to continue working toward a sustainable, equitable society for all Marylanders.The Maryland Minimum Wage Act will raise the Maryland's minimum wage gradually to $10.10 over four years. The Green Party called for an immediate increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour, based on research and statistics by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Greens called Governor O'Malley's and President Obama's focus on a state and federal minimum wage of $10.10 per hour "too little, too late". Greens urge lawmakers to continue working for  a living wage for Marylanders in the 2015 legislative session.House Bill 490 and Senate Bill 749 - designed to establish collective bargaining rights for Maryland community college employees - failed to advance out of committee hearings. Greens support the democratization of the workplace and the rights of workers to collective bargaining.The Maryland Marijuana Decriminalization Act will become law. The Green Party supports decriminalization of marijuana as a step toward its eventual legalization and urges Maryland lawmakers to continue to shut down the failed "War on Drugs".The Marijuana Control Act of 2014 - supported by the Marijuana Policy Coalition of Maryland, of which the Green Party is a coalition member - did not advance past House and Senate committee hearings. The Marijuana Control Act would have legalized possession, use, and limited growth of marijuana and established a state-wide system of regulation and taxation, which decriminalization did not. The Green Party advocates the full legalization of marijuana and shifting state resources from criminal prosecution of drug use to treatment of addiction as a public health issue.The Maryland Health Security Act or any other attempt to create a state-wide universal, single-payer health care system did not progress during the 2014 legislative session. The Green Party continues to remind Marylanders that the federal Affordable Care Act is not a universal health care system, and that states are allowed under federal law to create their own systems to ensure that all their citizens receive adequate health care regardless of their ability to pay for private insurance. Vermont is currently the only state to have instituted such a system.Greens applaud the passage of the Fairness For All Marylanders Act. The Green Party supports equal protections under law for all persons who identify as transgender.Bills to prohibit hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") received unfavorable reports by both the House Environmental Matters Committee and Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee. The Green Party urges Maryland legislators to ban this incredibly destructive energy extraction technique during the 2015 session.After the successful passage of the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act during the 2013 session, development of a sustainable wind energy infrastructure may have stalled in the Maryland General Assembly. The legislature approved a 13 month moratorium on the development of wind turbines off the coast of southern Maryland. The Green Party urges Governor O'Malley to fulfill his commitment to renewable energy and not sign limitations on Maryland's wind energy infrastructure into law.The Maryland Green Party introduced its "Green New Deal for Maryland" - a comprehensive set of legislative solutions for ongoing economic, environmental, and democratic inequality - before the 2014 legislative session. 

From the Green Party of the United States: Candidates and other members of the Green Party of the United States sharply criticized a Supreme Court decision declaring limits on the total amount of money contributors may give to all candidates, committees, and political parties to be unconstitutional, which was announced on April 2."The court's ruling on McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission is a victory for plutocrats and a serious blow to democracy," said Paul Glover, Green Party candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania."The McCutcheon ruling enables a dangerous expansion of the right of the 1% to undermine fair elections. It allows the wealthiest far greater control over which candidates will be chosen by parties and over the outcome of elections. It ensures that the most powerful corporations will have even greater influence over the legislative decisions made by politicians of the two corporate-money parties," said Mr. Glover.The Green Party supports public funding of federal, state, and local campaigns and a constitutional amendment that limits rights and protections to human beings. Greens insist that the U.S. Constitution must protect people, not corporations and the privileges of the super-rich.Read the full release here...