The Mountain Party, also known as the West Virginia Green Party and the West Virginia Workers’ Party, is a political party in

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

affiliated with the

Green Party of the United States The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a federation of Green state political parties in the United States. The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy; anti-war; ...

. It is a progressive and

environmentalist Environmentalism is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of Green politics, g ...

party whose party platform primarily focuses on "Grassroots Democracy", "Social Justice & Equal Opportunity", "Ecological Wisdom" and "Non-Violence".

History

The Mountain Party was created largely in response to the

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

tilt of the West Virginia Democratic Party, and was born out of Denise Giardina's gubernatorial campaign in

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

. Today, the party is chaired by Dylan Parsons.

Prominent campaigns

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

, the party ran former

state senator A state senator is a member of a State legislature (United States), state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature. History There are typically fewer state senators than there ...

Charlotte Pritt for

Governor of West Virginia A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the type of political region or polity, a ''governor'' ma ...

. This led to growth for the party. She received nearly 6% of the vote, the highest ever for a Mountain Party gubernatorial candidate. In 2018, the Mountain Party elected Betsy Orndoff-Sayers as Mayor of Wardensville winning 55.7% of the vote and was re-elected without a challenger in 2022. In 2022, House of Delegates candidate Dylan Parsons was endorsed by two members of the Morgantown City Council, former Democratic nominees for Congress Mike Manypenny and Sue Thorn, Conservation District Supervisor and Executive Director of the West Virginia Farmers Market Association Holly Morgan, and the organization WV Can't Wait. In 2024, Wardensville mayor Betsy Orndoff-Sayers sought election to the

West Virginia Senate The West Virginia Senate is the upper house of the West Virginia Legislature. There are seventeen senatorial districts. Each district has two senators who serve staggered four-year terms. Although the West Virginia Democratic Party, Democratic P ...

. Orndoff-Sayers received the endorsement of

Planned Parenthood The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is an American nonprofit organization

Votes South Atlantic, WV Can’t Wait, and former Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Zachary Shrewsbury.

Platform

The current Mountain Party platform was formally adopted on February 27, 2021, and can be found in its entirety on the party website.

Democratic system

The Mountain Party seeks to allow

initiative Popular initiative A popular initiative (also citizens' initiative) is a form of direct democracy by which a petition meeting certain hurdles can force a legal procedure on a proposition. In direct initiative, the proposition is put direct ...

and

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

processes in West Virginia, which the state does not currently provide, and to allow public employees to run for office. The party also supports the creation of citizen assemblies as a means to open legislative participation to all constituents. The Mountain Party also seeks to allow

recall elections A recall election (also called a recall referendum, recall petition or representative recall) is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a referendum before that official's term of office has ended. Recalls ...

at every level of government, ban corporate donations to candidates, enable non-citizen, permanent residents to vote in municipal elections, enact ranked-choice voting, and require all employers to allow workers paid time off to vote. The Mountain Party opposes legislation that wields penalties against supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

Social policy

The Mountain Party supports equal rights for all persons regardless of their

sex Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

, or

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...

. The party supports a ban on

conversion therapy Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. Methods that have ...

and legislation to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity or expression. The Mountain Party supports reparations to black people, indigenous people, and people of color for what it describes as "the past four hundred plus years of

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

, slavery, land-loss, destruction of original identity, and the stark disparities which haunt the present." The Mountain Party seeks to expand and protect women's rights to participate in society free from

sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment based on the sex or gender of a victim. It can involve offensive sexist or sexual behavior, verbal or physical actions, up to bribery, coercion, and assault. Harassment may be explicit or implicit, wit ...

and job and wage discrimination. The party seeks to ensure that access to birth control, family planning resources, and abortion remains available. The Mountain Party seeks to support persons with disabilities by protecting their rights, providing access to healthcare, and enforcing the

Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...

. Additionally, the party supports fully funding residential, community-based services and public sector service coordinators. The Mountain Party seeks to abolish the use of

eminent domain Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and t ...

to take over land for use by private corporations. The party also seeks to ends homelessness by constructing and maintaining sufficient

public housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

, placing a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions, prohibiting compulsory work service for residents of public housing, providing job training and support services for homeless people, and replacing the shelter system with apartments. The Mountain Party seeks to end

high-stakes testing A high-stakes test is a test with important consequences for the test taker. Passing has important benefits, such as a high school diploma, a scholarship, or a license to practice a profession. Failing has important disadvantages, such as being ...

and eliminate the standardized testing model. The party seeks to fully fund full-day and developmentally appropriate universal

pre-kindergarten Pre-kindergarten (also called pre-K or PK) is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece (when kindergarten starts). It may be delivered through a preschool ...

and all state colleges and universities. The party supports student democratic decision-making in curriculum, administration, and conflict resolution within each school.

Economic policy

The Mountain Party seeks to allow local governments to establish a higher minimum wage for all workers, increase and enforce a statewide living wage that is adjusted annually for inflation, increase wages for tipped workers, and abolish unpaid internships. The party supports the rights of workers to in engage in

collective action Collective action refers to action taken together Advocacy group, by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences ...

and self-representation. The Mountain Party supports

economic democracy Economic democracy (sometimes called a democratic economy) is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift ownership and decision-making power from corporate shareholders and corporate managers (such as a board of directors) to a larger ...

through workers' direct control over the

means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...

Currently elected officials

Betsy Orndoff-Sayers has been the Mountain (Green Party) affiliated Mayor of

Wardensville, West Virginia Wardensville is a town in Hardy County, West Virginia, Hardy County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 265 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Originally named Trout Run, Wardensville was chartered in Virginia in 1832 and ...

since 2018 and was re-elected in 2022. The Mountain Party has consistently maintained a number of officeholders for non-partisan offices, despite not being nominated by the party membership. According to the

elections database, there are two non-partisan officeholders registered with the Mountain Party serving as Conservation District Supervisors.

Election results

President

Governor

Legislature

References

Notes

External links

* {{Green Party of the United States

Mountaintop removal mining Political parties in West Virginia Political parties established in 2000 2000 establishments in the United States Anti-Zionism in the United States Socialism in West Virginia