The Green Party is not ballot-qualified for statewide office in Illinois, but it is ballot-qualified in two U.S. House districts. Illinois is one of the few states in which a party that is not qualified statewide can be qualified in just part of the state. In Illinois, all qualified parties nominate by primary.
Both Green Party U.S. House districts have multiple candidates. In the 5th district in Chicago’s north side, the three Greens running are Rob Sherman, Warren Grimsley, and Richard Mayers. By contrast, only one candidate filed in the Democratic primary: the incumbent, Mike Quigley. No one filed in the Republican primary.
In the 12th district in the southern part of the state, the two candidates who filed in the Green primary are Paula Bradshaw and Sadona Folkner.
The deadline for anyone to file a primary petition challenge is Monday, December 7. So far no petition challenges have been filed in either Green Party primary. Mayers has political views that are not consistent with the Green Party.
I think it’s very healthy for the Green Party to have vigorous primaries whenever possible. I think primaries are one of the best ways a party officers can assess the direction that registered members want to go it. It’s really important to do this. You can’t always have candidates who’re chosen by an inner circle and expect your supporters to remain loyal.
Mayers apparently has a weird history with the law, too: http://www.rblandmark.com/News/Articles/11-20-2007/Alleged-white-supremacist-running-for-Congress-in-3rd-District/
I think it is great that there will be primaries in both districts. Primaries energize the bases of parties. With a primary in IL-12 it is possible that they could have over the 5.7% they got there in the last 2 elections.
As a member of the Illinois Green Party myself, I worry about the possibility that any of these additional challengers (up until the last day to file, the only candidates I’d heard of that were going to file were Grimsley in IL-5, and Paula here in IL-12) could represent an effort by the Democratic and/or Republican parties to use us according to the doctrine of their “spoiler theories”.
However, it is also possible that the presence of these additional primary candidates might help energize the party coming into the 2016 general election. It’ll be an unexpectedly interesting primary election to be sure, I just hope we come out of it with our independence intact.