Dues-Paying Membership and Ranked Choice For GPUS Growth

A 2013 Strategic Plan put forth by the Green Party of the United States Steering Committee highlighted the need for further discussion around the party’s membership structure. At present, the national party is designed as a federation of state parties; that is, the members are state parties themselves, not individuals. Individuals are expected to join their local and state parties as members. This structure in some ways mirrors the structure of the US Congress, with the US itself being a federation of states with some level of autonomy as well as responsibility to the other states.

Instead, the 2013 Strategic Plan put forth some open questions about the potential drawbacks of that model — and potential gains of a switch to some form of individual membership. The plan did not advocate one way or another, only noted the need for Greens to have further discussion to determine a path forward growing the party.

More than a decade later, that debate has not been held in earnest and the strategic plan has not been finalized nor progress made toward many of its proposals. In this essay, I would like to discuss some aspects of the strategic plan and make concrete proposals for Greens to adopt to reform and rapidly grow GPUS and the Green movement as a whole.

Unity of Means and Ends

Historian Zoe Baker notes in the book Means and Ends how anarchists like Petr Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, and Emma Goldman believed “working-class social movements should only use means that were in conformity with the ends of creating a free, equal, and cooperative society without domination or exploitation.” By engaging in activity itself, humans transform themselves and their society, so it is argued that the activity must be in keeping with our goals to be successful. To paraphrase: we cannot create a free, equal, and cooperative society via means and organizations that are not free, equal, and cooperative.

Similar sentiments were shared by socialists, communists, and other leftists. Karl Marx, in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, was particularly concerned with the impact of a founding principles and programme document and how it impacts the development of a working-class party. Marx wrote “every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes,” essentially arguing that what a party does is far more important than what it says; it is critical for the party to put its principles into practice internally. For Antonio Gramsci, the party can only be successful in constructing revolutionary class consciousness if the party itself is internally organized around the same democratic centralist principles the party advocates as its political strategy. If not, Gramsci felt the result would be a party that succumbs to opportunism or “bureaucratic centralism”.

Murray Bookchin, the founder of social ecology and an early proponent of the US Green movement, echoes similar arguments in the essay “The Unity of Theory and Practice”. Reformists can often fall into a trap advancing urgent and humane remedial measures that can easily be co-opted by bourgeois society into the capitalist framework, ultimately concealing connections between broad social problems and neutralizing movements for social change. Bookchin argues that while such measures may be needed, they should not be advanced alone and divorced from the ideals we are fighting for. Society as a whole must be remediated to truly deal with the social and ecological problems caused by capitalism. In other words, “struggles conducted within the framework of the existing system … ultimately perpetuate” the very systems we wish to change. “Invariably, it is the state that shapes the activities and structures of those who propose to use it against itself, not the reverse.”

To paraphrase Bookchin, it is the responsibility of Greens to demystify capitalism and how undemocratic the electoral system is in the US. Greens must not be afraid to publicly discuss and educate around ecosocialist theory. However, again quoting Bookchin, “To be relevant to people generally, it must be embodied in a practice that is publicly visible, one that can mutate the need for reforms of the existing system (which may be allowed) into the need for a revolutionary transformation of society (which the system must resist).”

While Green thought runs a wide spectrum, from varying forms of ecosocialism and eco-Marxism, to social ecology and libertarian municipalism, to communitarianism, to green anarchism, there is a clear consensus across leftist thought that the political institutions we create must be organized around and rooted in the principles we wish society to ultimately adopt. Green principles, found in the Ten Key Values and the party platform, should be revisited and compared against the national party’s current structure, policies, and procedures, as well as the 2013 Strategic Plan, to gain clarity on the path forward.

The Membership Question

The question of whether a federation of state parties model fits GPUS’s goals can now be revisited via a lens of means and ends. The Green Party’s end goals are actually not very clear in the party platform, which tends to read like a checklist of disparate reforms rather than a more unified vision. For clarity of discussion, we’ll focus on the democracy reforms in the platform, since these views should directly inform how the party itself is structured.

We can pick out of the democracy plank that a major goal of the party is to replace the current bipartisan “duopoly” system of elections and representation with a multi-party system making use of proportional representation and ranked choice voting. To make Congress far more representative, the number of House seats is to be expanded while the Senate is abolished entirely due to its undemocratic nature of representing states rather than individuals.

Herein lies a contradiction — while the party platform calls out the undemocratic nature of the US Senate, the GPUS is similarly structured around state members rather than individual members. Every state gets the same number of members — three — on most committees, similar to how the US Senate allows every state two Senators regardless of population. Not only do states themselves vary wildly in population, but state Green Parties also vary wildly in how they define, count, and track membership and activity, which is problematic in several ways.

First, the number of delegates allotted to each state in the GPUS National Committee relies on a complicated formula that takes into account membership of each state party. If state parties are tracking membership in different ways, we’re comparing apples to oranges, resulting in a less democratic allotment and representation in the National Committee.

Second, outside of the decision-making National Committee, much GPUS work is broken into smaller committees, with each state party getting three members regardless of membership. This results in a national party system that tends to skew toward states with fewer members yet a more active “core” set of individuals — and in particular, rewards individuals active in GPUS committees, not necessarily in election campaigns or other political action. The structure promotes a cycle of the same individuals staying in positions of power within GPUS for years on end, despite little track record of success in actually building an active state membership, running candidates, or winning political demands. This isn’t to say all state Green Parties are like this; some states have active memberships and run candidates every election, but ironically, being more active locally tends to mean less energy left to engage in GPUS. In the end, GPUS mirrors problems of the US Senate, where a handful of individuals can effectively “filibuster” action within committees yet face few consequences for doing so due to the lack of an active state party membership to hold them accountable.

Third, the national party simply does not have a clear indication of how large our membership and support actually is. In theory, state parties would track their members and report in, but in practice this doesn’t always happen, in part because not every state has an active state party structure to do the reporting. This makes it difficult to track progress, set goals, and communicate to the public how big and active the movement actually is.

All of these issues can be remediated by adopting a national individual membership. To be considered a Green, one must register as an individual with the national party. From there, the party will have an accurate membership count based on a clear criterion that doesn’t vary by state election laws. GPUS will have data on which state party each member is affiliated with. Instead of complex apportionment formulas, we can use the proportional representation methods we support across the country in our own national committees.

Not only does a national individual membership better reflect Green values and governmental demands, but it has been shown to work. Historically, the Socialist Party successfully used a national membership structure to grow rapidly and win thousands of seats at the local and state levels, and even a few to Congress. Today, other US organizations such as DSA make use of a national membership.

The Donor Fundraising Model

The GPUS platform also calls for public funding of elections and an end to rulings like Citizens United that equated money with speech. These reforms of campaign finance and good governance come from the observation that money tends to represent wealth and power and becomes an undue, undemocratic influence on campaigns and ultimately the whole system.

Despite an objection to the role of money in politics, GPUS currently operates on a donorship fundraising model similar to the Democratic and Republican Parties. That is, the national party runs on a budget funded almost entirely by individual donations. Granted, GPUS has a donor bill of rights governing its fundraising and does not accept “dark money,” which is far better than the two major capitalist parties. Still, this means the party must solicit donors to afford things in the budget, which is exceedingly hard to do when you don’t already have money to pay fundraisers.

Worse, despite best intentions, the fundraising model can start to recreate the same undemocratic, undue influence within GPUS for the sake of raising money. While active in the national party as a delegate and co-chair in 2021-2023, I ran across several cases where fundraising came up as an issue. In one case, several individuals told me privately about how they felt they needed to walk on eggshells around one individual on the national committee who was facing criticism, due to her large donations to the party in the past that they hoped for her to keep up. In another case, in response to my raising of reform proposals on the national list, another individual attempted to shame me for not doing as much fundraising as others to support the party budget, seemingly putting fundraising activities above other contributions to the party I had made including substantial time and energy to ballot access work. None of this was corporate money, yet relying on fundraising still created a dynamic where donors and fundraisers “matter” more than other volunteers. This downplays and excludes the important and hard work that must go into organizing a movement, especially a working-class movement where most of our members do not have funds for large donations.

A national party does of course need money to exist and support its organizing work. The question then becomes, how do we raise the money needed for important work without falling into the traps of a capitalist fundraising model?

We again turn to historical and contemporary examples of successful working-class fundraising via membership dues. Labor unions, independent political parties, and other organizations have all made use of membership dues to raise a baseline of funding to support organizational needs. The mass Socialist Party of the early 20th century, among others, was funded by membership dues, and DSA also has raised millions of dollars from its membership dues.

Membership dues accomplish several key objectives. First, as discussed earlier, setting a simple dues structure helps define membership within the organization — you’ve either paid dues and are a member, or not. Second, membership dues mean we can accurately estimate our yearly budget based on membership numbers, allowing far better planning of important expenditures to grow the movement. When the budget is always up in the air each year and reliant on donations, the party can only budget minimally and hope for more each year. This leaves the party stuck in a cycle of mediocre budgets and stagnation; with dues-paying membership, the party has a baseline to plan for administrative and organizing needs that can help grow, and any donations beyond that help fund even more projects. If our membership wants to do more in the budget, the answer is simple — grow the membership! Third, membership dues places all members on the same level, helping eliminate informal hierarchies based on who donates and how much, promoting more comradely interaction and democratic ideals. We all pay the same dues, we’re all in this together, we all have “skin in the game.”

Past objections have suggested that dues may prevent people from being members if impoverished and cannot afford the dues. I believe this is largely a non-issue. Historically, movements have seen even the poor and homeless have been not only willing but insist on donating or paying dues to contribute and do their part to win a better life for all. Even in rare cases where someone has encountered an emergency preventing renewing of dues, we might ask members to donate a small amount to a fund to cover those in need, sort of a “give-a-penny, take-a-penny” tray for dues. If the Green movement cannot come together to figure out how to cover dues for an active member facing serious hardship, perhaps that’s a sign we’re not doing the right organizing.

In any case, the dues of course must be reasonable for working people. The party doesn’t need large dues to be effective at the goals of tracking membership and creating a baseline budget. For example, the 2025 GPUS Budget estimates a total revenue of only about $212,000, most of it going to a couple of administrative staff members. The GPUS 2025 Media Kit estimates the national membership at 261,000 members. If those numbers are approximately correct, the entire current GPUS budget could be funded with yearly dues of $1 per member. With yearly dues of $10 per member — a couple coffees per year, or one month of a streaming platform — the budget from that same membership now becomes $2 million, significantly more than past years and closer to what a national political party needs to be realistic at winning power. Those funds can support training and organizing work around actions and campaigns, and a ballot access legal fund. With additional training and visibility, the membership will grow, resulting in larger budgets funding even more campaigns — and more and more political wins.

Several state parties, including in Illinois and North Carolina, already use a state dues-paying membership model and report great success. Other states are considering it due to the success of a dues membership model at promoting an active membership and steady budget.

With these rough numbers and state successes, it should be clear the national Green Party needs to adopt membership dues as its primary funding model rather than donor fundraising. Contrary to some objections, dues actually make the party more accessible to working class members by allowing the party to actually help train, organize, and mobilize for real political power and change. What’s disheartening and discouraging is being a working class member looking to join a political party, only to find out the party has no money and expects members to volunteer their limited time for free to call past party donors and do fundraising instead of getting help to bring change in their community. Who wants to join a party to do fundraising calls? Who wants to join a party that might dismiss their concerns if they don’t donate often enough or in high enough amounts? A dues-paying membership model is much more in line with Green values.

The Presidential Primary

An additional demand of the platform calls for abolishing the “electoral college” and electing the president via a national popular vote. Since the electoral college is built on top of the US Senate system (each state gets the number of electors equivalent to the number of representatives and senators of the state), the number of electoral votes for president is again weighted toward some of the lower population states rather than individuals. Furthermore, in reality, individual voters do not actually vote for a presidential candidate, only a partisan elector who in theory will represent them and formally cast an electoral vote for their favored candidate.

Despite this, the current GPUS rules and procedures define a presidential primary process that replicates the process used by the Democratic and Republican Parties. Each state has its own primary or caucus process to determine delegates that then go on to formally cast a vote for a candidate at the national party convention. The number of delegates each state gets at the convention relies on a complex formula attempting to account for state populations and Green Party activity in the state represented by the number of elected officials, etc. In other words, the primary process inherits a lot of the same undemocratic problems the party platform calls out.

GPUS should quickly adopt a new presidential candidate selection process before the 2028 presidential election. The GPUS should live its values and choose its presidential ticket via a nationwide ranked choice vote. The ranked choice vote could be held over some period of time, say two weeks, just before the convention which tabulates and verifies the vote and announces the winner. To best facilitate a nationwide vote, especially with not every state having an active state party, the vote should be conducted by GPUS for all Greens nationwide — which leads us again to the need for a national individual membership in order to count our membership, reach all members with a ballot, and ensure there are no problems such as individuals voting more than once.

Membership dues, as discussed above, can be used to pay for a national ranked choice vote for choosing the party’s presidential ticket, and to promote that process nationally to all of our members to ensure everyone has a chance to discuss, debate, and vote. Some funds could even be budgeted for outreach to the general public, bringing more visibility to the fact that we’re living our values, call for ranked choice in all elections, and invite the public to join us as members.

In the past when a ranked-choice nationwide presidential vote has been brought up, one concern raised was that election laws in some states might require use of a state-run primary and convention process. This concern appears to be false and unwarranted. The national Libertarian Party, for example, has always chosen its nominees at the convention by a vote of delegates, ignoring any state-run primary results. The Democratic National Committee even argued in federal court — which the courts supported and upheld — that parties are private organizations and can make internal decisions how they choose. While Democrats use this to subvert the will of the voters, Greens should use this to ensure internal procedures actually match our values and what voters expect.

Conclusions

The Green Party of the United States has stagnated for over a decade at this point. While there are of course external challenges from the bipartisan system, I argue some of stagnation and pain is self-inflicted by refusing to practice our own values internally. The lack of consistent values harms our ability to function internally and recruit new members and electoral campaign candidates.

I’ve proposed three major changes GPUS should adopt. First, GPUS should formally switch from a federation of state parties to an individual dues-paying membership structure. Second, the individual membership should be used with the baseline budget from dues to reapportion the National Committee and other committees using proportional representation methods. Third, GPUS should investigate implementing a national ranked choice method for choosing the 2028 presidential ticket.

To support potential presidential candidates’ campaign planning, and help downballot candidates and ballot access work, these changes should be debated, refined, and implemented by the end of 2026 to be ready for the next Congressional and presidential campaign cycle. A lawyer should be consulted to ensure all changes are done in a correct manner, and some of the budget should be put aside now for a ballot access legal fund to support getting on the ballot and defending in court from bipartisan attacks.

I believe with these changes, we can dramatically open up the party to new membership and new ideas that will grow the party. Dues will put the party on a firm baseline to budget and plan for growth and victory.

Current bylaws allow proposals to alter GPUS from several sources: affiliated state parties, affiliated caucuses, and the Steering Committee. I encourage Greens to contact state parties and/or caucuses they are affiliated with, as well as the Steering Committee, to encourage development of clear proposals for each of these changes. Let’s make sure the Green Party can grow and is not held back by structures and practices that have proven over the last two decades to be ineffective at growing the movement.