A Mad River Valley real estate broker from Waitsfield said he’s sick and tired of the Democratic and Republican parties in Vermont. So, he’s starting his own: The Green Mountain Party.
“When we vote, we as citizens think we’ve made changes on a local and state level, but we get the same results,” said 51-year-old Neil Johnson in a press release announcing the formation of the party. “We are frustrated with a non-responsive, dysfunctional, financially out-of-control government that serves everyone but the people who elect them.”
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Johnson has no history in politics. He has been in Vermont’s real estate world since 1987, and he owns the Johnson Real Estate Group in Waitsfield, according to a bio from his website.
Johnson said the party’s platform is fiscally conservative, with some libertarian tendencies. In the party announcement, Johnson singled out a number of issues in the state, including the growing influence of lobbyists, government spending and Act 46, a new school reform law aimed at merging districts.
“We are frustrated with the uncontrolled spending from our state house,” Johnson said. “We are frustrated with the latest federal whim becoming our state policy. We are frustrated with an Act 46 program that will close our local school and still increase our local taxes.”
Johnson said he has been working for the past three months to gain recognition as a minor political party in the state. He said a party website would be up in the next two weeks and that he hopes to field candidates for statewide offices in 2016.
To form a minor political party in Vermont, one must organize committees in 10 towns, a requirement Johnson said he has met. To field statewide candidates, the Green Mountain Party must create a statewide committee by Jan. 1, 2016, according to Will Senning, director of elections at the Secretary of State’s Office.
“It’s fairly easy, a state committee can be nominated through town committees,” Senning said.
The Secretary of State’s Office has no record of the Green Mountain Party filing for recognition, but Johnson said he was still working to meet the requirements.
The only minor political party currently registered in the state is the Libertarian Party, and Senning said Vermont has historically seen other minor parties sprout up during election seasons.
A number of minor political parties in the state have transitioned to major party status after receiving at least 5 percent in a statewide election. The Liberty Union Party, which claims presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders as an early member, had off and on major party status in Vermont. Today, they claim major party status.
The Progressive Party also began as a minor party and gained major party status in 2000, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
“Minor parties, generally, come and go with each election cycle,” he said. “With the exception of the Libertarians, who are consistently here.”