Green Party revival.

• Author: Skinner, Joseph
• Position: New Mexico

The past year has been a heady time for the fledgling New Mexico Green Party. In March 1994, the Greens succeeded in landing a seat on the City Council for Cris Moore, a twenty-five-year-old mathematician at the Santa Fe Institute and a Green activist. The Greens also helped get Debbie Jaramillo, a former Rainbow Coalition activist, elected mayor. Jaramillo went on to appoint gay-rights advocate Patti Bushee to her vacated city-council seat. As a result, Santa Fe has "the most radical city council in recent memory," according to the Santa Fe Reporter.

The realtors, developers, and hoteliers, who over the last decade have transformed Santa Fe into a chic mecca for the idle rich, were understandably shaken. Here was a new Green counselor determined to turn back developers' assaults on the eastern foothills, deny subsidized low-interest loans to land-owning companies like Trammell-Crow, and establish a tenants'-rights hotline. And here was a Chicana mayor equally determined to give voice to the large and increasingly marginalized Hispanic population.

Progressive politicians around the state were elated by the victories. By July, the Green Party had put together an impressive slate of candidates for the November statewide elections. Most prominent among them was Roberto Mondragon, who ran for governor.

Mondragon populist Spanish-language radio commentator and publisher of bilingual educational textbooks, renounced his membership in the Democratic Party, after serving two terms as lieutenant governor under former Democratic Governor Bruce King. King, a wealthy rancher and consummate politician, was running for an unprecedented fourth term. His Republican challenger, Gary Johnson, was a conservative who pledged to cut social services by a third.

Despite Democratic attempts to derail the Greens by challenging their ballot access in court, Mondragon and his running mate, former Jerry Brown campaign organizer Steven...