Green Party Candidate Recruits Students

The Green Party’s gubernatorial candidate is hoping that the lure of some green will help attract students from her alma mater to help the campaign.

Jill E. Stein ’73, the Green Party’s candidate in Massachusetts’ much-watched race for governor, began a recruiting drive on local university campuses two weeks ago with bright orange flyers reading “Get Big Money Out of Politics.”

The campaign wants students to circulate petitions and solicit donations, among other canvassing activities. In exchange, the students would take home a hefty portion—fully 40 percent—of the contributions they bring in to the campaign coffers, according to campaign organizer Brian Sandberg.

The campaign is looking to hire between 20 and 25 interns from MIT, Tufts, and Harvard, who would each work from 8 to 12 hours per week, Sandberg said.

He said one of the Green Party’s main objectives is “to develop grassroots political leaders.”

“This canvassing program is just one facet of that,” he said.

But with a campaign whose total war chest is less than some of her fellow candidate’s monthly expenditures, Stein labors under a decided disadvantage in financing.

At the end of January, her campaign’s total funds stood at $3,200.71. During the same period, state Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham ’72, one of the frontrunners for the Democratic Party’s nomination, spent more than $600,000.

Stein is one of two candidates in the gubernatorial race who have registered as Clean Elections candidates, under a 1998 state law that is supposed to provide public funding for political campaigns that agree to restrict campaign contributions from individuals to no more than $100.

Under the law, Stein must receive at least 6,000 contributions of between $5 and $100 by early May to receive public funds, which could amount to about $1.5 million. But according to a Boston Globe story last month, she remained 4,200 contributions short as of Feb. 17.

Even if Stein gets the necessary number of qualifying contributions, she may have more difficulty in getting public funds, as controversy over Clean Elections continues to swirl around Beacon Hill.

Even though the Clean Elections law has been on the books for several years, the state legislature has refused to fund the measure.

The other Clean Elections candidate, Democrat Warren E. Tolman, won a case in the Supreme Judicial Court last week awarding him public financing and was subsequently paid over $582,000 in public funds.

But recent press reports have suggested the state legislature may gut the law before any further disbursements are made.

Meanwhile, other Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates are just beginning to gear up their campaigns on college campuses.

The Harvard College Democrats recently established subcommittees representing four of the party’s five gubernatorial candidates, according to President Sonia H. Kastner ’03.

The largest of these, representing candidate Robert B. Reich, has so far signed on 120 members, Kastner said, and Reich’s campaign held its first student training session yesterday afternoon.

Republican Acting Gov. Jane M. Swift’s campaign office was unavailable for comment last night.