Washington Workers Demand Responsible Investing — Cut Ties Campaign

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Washington workers want to divest their state pensions and retirement from Weapons of War, Genocide, Israeli Apartheid, Climate Polluters, and Fossil Fuel companies.

In March, the MLK Labor Council, which represents 150 labor unions and 220,000 workers, passed a resolution in support of responsible investing. A financial policy that reviews the current investment portfolio of pensions and retirement funds of the state’s workforce and provides a framework and pathway to divest from harmful companies.

In April, pressure from the organizers of the Cut Ties Campaign forced the State Treasurer to end bonds totaling 62 million dollars with Caterpillar.

Caterpillar provides the armed machinery used to ethnically cleanse and displace Palestinians. It is the machinery used to demolish the homes of Palestinians. It is also the same military machinery used to murder an activist from Washington state, Rachel Corrie, in 2003.

Cut Ties Campaign will organize and mobilize workers and the public to provide testimony in Olympia to the Washington State Investment Board. Be on the lookout for this mobilization from Washington for Peace and Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace.

What would a divestment framework do? It would successfully divest 1 billion dollars worth of investments from complicit companies. From weapons manufacturers to fossil fuels companies and private corporations that run immigration detention centers.

Who are these companies:
Chevron
Lockheed Martin
Boeing
RTX
Northrop Grumman
Honeywell International
BAE Systems
Elbit Systems
Primo Water Corporation
Textron
General Dynamics

These are a few of a long list of targets for ethical financial responsibility reviews and divestments.

We call on the Washington State Investment Board, Governor Ferguson, the State Treasurer, and our city, county, and state elected representatives to take action to do the following:

  1. Divest from holdings in companies that profit from the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
  2. Divest from holdings in Israeli corporations and bonds.
  3. Commit to not purchasing Israel Bonds now or in the future.

Counties and cities across the country have already divested from weapons manufacturers, Israeli bonds, and complicit companies.

Vote NO on IL26-001 & IL26-638!

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Vote NO on IL26-001 & IL26-638
Say NO to Discrimination and Division! 

NO HATE in WA State

Brian Heywood, the California hedge fund millionaire behind the slew of bad initiatives in 2024, launched two new Initiatives to the Legislature (IL26-638 and IL26-001). While these initiatives single out transgender and LGBTQ+ school-aged children in particular, they threaten the safety, privacy, and dignity of all students. Washington voters have rejected similar attacks before, and these measures are another attempt to sow division and distract from the real issues facing students and families.

These initiatives would:

  • violate student privacy
  • roll back Washington’s successful inclusive sports policy
  • restrict access to counselors and mental health support
  • subject all girls who wish to play with their friends on a school team to invasive and costly physical examinations
  • expose schools to costly lawsuits and increase stigma and bullying in classrooms across the state

Vote NO on IL26-001 & IL26-638

Information and advocacy:

New WA initiatives seek to undo rewrite of parental rights law, block trans girls in sports

Brian Heywood’s initiative factory is active again: Multimillionaire will circulate petitions for two measures to sabotage youth and LGBTQ+ rights

What to know about the anti-school initiatives (IL26-001 & IL26-638)

The Ever Green Link

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Will you help us build a Green support network across Washington?

We are seeking new Green Party of Washington volunteers to become Local Insight Liaisons for our Ever Green Link program. It’s easier than you think!

Are you already active on local issues and showing up for comrades in your community? With just a couple of extra steps, you can help us establish GPWA as a trusted, supportive presence around Washington.

The first step is suiting up and showing up: wearing a Green Party t-shirt and/or hat to demonstrate your Green Party affiliation while you attend local forums, meetings, and mutual aid efforts. This builds GPWA’s visibility in everyday civic life and helps us become trusted as a long-term ally. It also ensures GPWA is less defined by election cycles alone.

The second step is communicating with your team of Local Insight Liaisons across the state to identify issues and needs of your community, then determining how GPWA can help on the local level.

This is a great volunteer opportunity for introverts and extroverts alike! As Organizer for the Green Party of Washington, I’m here to help you get started as a Local Insight Liaison.

We all have a role to play in carrying out an agenda for people, peace, and planet.

Sign up to volunteer here!

Organizing with you in solidarity,

Karissa Halstrom
GreenPartyWashington.org

Your Anti-Capitalist Political Home for People, Peace, and Planet

  • Become a GPWA member: Members can organize local chapters, endorse candidates, elect state party leaders, and elect representatives to the national Green Party US organizations. Learn more about becoming a member here.
  • Join or form a GPWA chapter: Organizing GPWA members into chapters across Washington State amplifies our message. When you join GPWA as a member and form or join a chapter, you have a voice in determining which candidates get endorsement. Explore existing local chapters here and learn what it takes to form your own here.
  • Run for office: Are you considering running for office or thinking of encouraging someone else to run for office? Now is the time to begin planning for a run and putting together campaign teams! Filing week in WA for most elected offices is May 4-8, 2026. Learn about running for office here.
  • Send us a donation: Don’t have extra time to volunteer right now? You can still be part of building the Green movement by chipping in financially, either as a dues-paying member or a one-time donation here. If you’re already a member or donor, THANK YOU.

The Green Revolution Can Happen in Washington, Too!

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Image: Dr. Butch Ware speaks at the GPWA 2025 Fall Convention

Have you heard the news?

The Green Party just changed the course of UK politics, winning our first-ever by-election and striking a blow to the two main out-of-touch parties (sound familiar?).

In California, Dr. Butch Ware is running a formidable campaign for Governor as a Green against the Democratic establishment.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are making it clear they are no opposition party, allowing the Trump administration to start war all over the globe, manufacturing consent for the premise of his reckless acts while feigning concern for the process by which he carries them out.

In Washington, Democratic lawmakers have neutered efforts for the Well Washington fund and tried to sneak corporate handouts into the Millionaire’s Tax.

Both the direness of where the capitalist duopoly has brought us and the inspiration we feel as we watch Greens meeting the moment across the world should motivate us in Washington to get to organizing. It’s not only possible, but it’s our duty to offer an alternative to the two-party dictatorship. It’s time to make hope normal again.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, and the prospects couldn’t be more exciting—but we have to put in the work.

As Organizer for the Green Party of Washington, I’m here to help you connect with local Greens in your area. We all have a role to play in carrying out an agenda for people, peace, and planet.

Organizing with you in solidarity,

Karissa Halstrom
GreenPartyWashington.org

Your Anti-Capitalist Political Home for People, Peace, and Planet

  • Become a GPWA member: Members can organize local chapters, endorse candidates, elect state party leaders, and elect representatives to the national Green Party US organizations. Learn more about becoming a member here.
  • Join or form a GPWA chapter: Organizing GPWA members into chapters across Washington State amplifies our message. When you join GPWA as a member and form or join a chapter, you have a voice in determining which candidates get endorsement. Explore existing local chapters here and learn what it takes to form your own here.
  • Run for office: Are you considering running for office or thinking of encouraging someone else to run for office? Now is the time to begin planning for a run and putting together campaign teams! Filing week in WA for most elected offices is May 4-8, 2026. Learn about running for office here.
  • Send us a donation: Don’t have extra time to volunteer right now? You can still be part of building the Green movement by chipping in financially, either as a dues-paying member or a one-time donation here. If you’re already a member or donor, THANK YOU.

No War With Iran

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People wave Iranian flags during a rally in Tehran on Saturday. Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times/Redux

Statement by the South Sound Green Party – February 28th, 2026

The South Sound Green Party strongly condemns the joint U.S.-Israel military strikes on Iran launched on February 28, 2026, which have already resulted in over 200 deaths, including 85 students killed in school strikes in Minab and Tehran, and hundreds more injured.

These attacks, codenamed “Roaring Lion” by Israel and “Operation Epic Fury” by the U.S., targeted sites in Tehran, Isfahan, and other cities without UN authorization or congressional approval, violating international law and the principles of national sovereignty and self-determination enshrined in the Green Party of the United States’ (GPUS) platform.

These attacks escalate tensions and make peace in the area near impossible to achieve without a massive loss of human life. We call for an immediate cessation of attacks and an end to U.S.-Israeli military cooperation.

We stand with the people-led movements for self-determination around the globe, including in Iran. Self-determination cannot be achieved through military intervention by colonial and imperialist nation-states like the U.S. and Israel. We reject the flawed logic of “preemptive strikes,” which only serve to escalate hostilities and entrench opposition.

These strikes have caused devastating loss of life, with Iran’s Red Crescent reporting at least 201 dead and 747 injured in the initial hours, alongside confirmed killings of IRGC commanders and civilians in residential areas. Such aggression exacerbates suffering in the region, contradicting the GPUS commitment to non-violence and opposition to U.S. wars that prioritize empire over human lives. 

Executed unilaterally by President Trump without democratic oversight, these preemptive strikes flout international law and the UN’s role in maintaining peace, directly opposing long-standing Green Party demands to close foreign bases, end U.S. imperialism, and promote diplomacy over military intervention. Our platform explicitly supports nations’ rights to self-determination free from foreign interference.

The South Sound Green Party demands an immediate ceasefire, U.S. troop withdrawal, and a shift to multilateral diplomacy and humanitarian aid that must include reparations from the US, Israel, and their enablers. We support the people of Iran and Kurdistan in liberation from both local tyranny and global empire.

Original statement from the South Sound Green Party

Disobedience Works

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The United States, including Washington, has a rich history of civil disobedience actions bringing about material political victories where other tactics fell short.

We often think about the progress made through civil disobedience during the civil rights era in the US. In our own state, we remember the Native American fish-ins of the ’60s, where state law was intentionally broken by fishing without a permit in protest of the denial of Native treaty rights, leading to the landmark Boldt decision that largely restored those rights.

But today, the establishment has learned how to neuter movements that rely on civil disobedience alone. Their allies in corporate media intentionally ignore movement actions and marginalize popular demands.

That’s why it’s time for political disobedience. This means defying establishment orders to vote or run as a Democrat or a Republican as part of a comprehensive political strategy. This doesn’t mean forfeiting electoral politics altogether — it means accepting that you cannot change a corrupt, corporate party from within and organizing outside of it.

Joining the Green Party of Washington to organize for people, peace, and planet while taking clear steps to reject the capitalist order maintained by the duopoly is the kind of disobedience that will accomplish real, progressive change.

As a fellow anti-capitalist progressive activist and voter who recently took the step to join the Green Party of Washington, I look forward to welcoming new members and I thank existing members for already having taken an important “politically disobedient” step.

Organizing with you in solidarity,

Karissa Halstrom
GreenPartyWashington.org

Your Anti-Capitalist Political Home for People, Peace, and Planet

  • Become a GPWA member: Members can organize local chapters, endorse candidates, elect state party leaders, and elect representatives to the national Green Party US organizations. Learn more about becoming a member here.
  • Join or form a GPWA chapter: Organizing GPWA members into chapters across Washington State amplifies our message. When you join GPWA as a member and form or join a chapter, you have a voice in determining which candidates get endorsement. Explore existing local chapters here and learn what it takes to form your own here.
  • Run for office: Are you considering running for office or thinking of encouraging someone else to run for office? Now is the time to begin planning for a run and putting together campaign teams! Filing week in WA for most elected offices is May 4-8, 2026. Learn about running for office here.
  • Send us a donation: Don’t have extra time to volunteer right now? You can still be part of building the Green movement by chipping in financially, either as a dues-paying member or a one-time donation here. If you’re already a member or donor, THANK YOU.

Eliminate Money in Politics

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We have exciting news. With your help…

We can undo Citizens United in Washington State and get corporate and dark money out of our elections!

Fix Democracy First and the Center for American Progress have drafted legislation that would reduce the powers given to artificial entities (corporations, etc.) by restating the powers of such entities to not include the power to spend money on elections. This will eliminate such spending in local, state, and federal elections and applies to all corporations, no matter where they are chartered.

If you would like more information before signing the Citizen Resolution, you can find it HERE. Take a look at the short video introducing CAP’s plan and read the introduction.

Resolution:

“We the People of the State of Washington hereby resolve that the Legislature shall pass and the Governor shall sign a law providing that entities created under Washington law do not have the power to expend resources to influence elections and ballot measures.”

Please sign to show your support!

Thank you!

Start a Green Organizing Group

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Did you know that it just takes a few people to start a Green Party of Washington local organizing group?

As GPWA Organizer, I am here to help you organize.

Do you have friends, family, and neighbors who share your disapproval of corporate-sponsored politics? Do you have a local political establishment — or even a single establishment darling — who is indifferent to your community’s needs and whose power you want to challenge?

Don’t do it alone. It only takes two or three to start the tango in your community.

Connecting with fellow anti-capitalists is the first step. All it takes is a few people getting together not only to lament about the problems, but to visualize solutions.

There are existing Green Party supporters and members all over Washington State, with even more who resonate with our message as we collectively watch the two-party system utterly fail us during this time of crisis. We have to start building an alternative.

Let’s do this all over the Evergreen State.

Currently, we have an informal group of GPWA members in Snohomish County who would like to get more involved. Let us know if you are in Snohomish County and would like to connect with Greens in your area!

Once an informal group has a few achievements under its belt, the next step to building political power is to form a chapter.

Learn what it takes to form a local Green Party chapter.

In Southwest Washington, there are so many progressive-minded folks and a local Democratic Party that is entrenched in the status quo and corrupted by corporate cash. People are hungry for another option, and several important local seats are up for grabs.

Would you like to connect with other anti-capitalists in Southwest Washington and start a GPWA organizing group?

Official chapters already exist in Seattle / King County and in Olympia / South Sound. If you would like to see the Green Party of Washington become stronger in more areas, please let me know what you can do to help make organized anti-capitalist political actions more visible.

“We are not outnumbered, we’re out-organized.” – Malcolm X. Let’s get organized!

In peace and solidarity,

Karissa Halstrom
GreenPartyWashington.org

Your Anti-Capitalist Political Home for People, Peace, and Planet

  • Become a GPWA member: Members can organize local chapters, endorse candidates, elect state party leaders, and elect representatives to the national Green Party US organizations. Learn more about becoming a member here.
  • Join or form a GPWA chapter: Organizing GPWA members into chapters across Washington State amplifies our message. When you join GPWA as a member and form or join a chapter, you have a voice in determining which candidates get endorsement. Explore existing local chapters here and learn what it takes to form your own here.
  • Run for office: Are you considering running for office or thinking of encouraging someone else to run for office? Now is the time to begin planning for a run and putting together campaign teams! Filing week in WA for most elected offices is May 4-8, 2026. Learn about running for office here.
  • Send us a donation: Don’t have extra time to volunteer right now? You can still be part of building the Green movement by chipping in financially, either as a dues-paying member or a one-time donation here. If you’re already a member or donor, THANK YOU.

ICE OUT of our Communities: General Strike on Friday, January 30th

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The violence and assaults on our civil liberties we’re seeing in Minnesota and around the country at the hands of federal agents is unconscionable. As a truly anti-war party, we understand that fascism is imperialism turned inward.

As anti-capitalists, we understand the language that the ruling class speaks and the power of withholding our labor. Fortunately, we are seeing a surge of working-class consciousness emerge in response to the Trump administration’s attacks on our communities.

The Green Party calls for abolishing ICE, and we urge everyone to heed the call for a general strike this Friday, January 30th. We must SHUT IT DOWN to ensure our collective demands are met.

Check out the Green Party of the US Latinx Caucus endorsement of the January 30th national shutdown here and the Green Party of Utah’s statement here. For more information on the general strike, you can go to nationalshutdown.org.

Beyond the general strike, we need to get organizing. As Green Party candidate for Governor of California, Dr. Butch Ware, often quotes from Malcom X: “We are not outnumbered, we are out-organized.”

We know that the pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-police state duopoly will not be coming to save us—even as we’ve reached a crisis point with lawless federal agents executing our loved ones in the streets for the crime of protecting our neighbors from being kidnapped by ICE thugs.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a statement from our own Marc Mixon, Chair of the Green Party of Washington State:

“We are living in dark times, and as the empire crumbles, the violent lashing out at home and across the world will increase. Standing up and fighting back can be scary. But they are scared, too. Scared of our collective power. Scared of our active resistance. We can beat them. If we couldn’t, they wouldn’t be spending so much time and money fighting and oppressing us. Germany fell to the Nazis because ninety percent of people allowed themselves to be bystanders…Unwilling to take a risk to do what is right. Don’t be a bystander. Doing nothing makes you complicit in the assault on our freedoms and lives. The time is now. Stand up with your community, defend the lives we love. If you won’t fight for them, who will fight for you?”

I hope you’ll let us know how you can organize with the Green Party in the coming weeks to amplify our message and challenge the powers-that-be who brought us to this moment. We’re in a fight for our lives.

In peace and solidarity,

Karissa Halstrom
GreenPartyWashington.org

Your Anti-Capitalist Political Home for People, Peace, and Planet

  • Become a GPWA member: Members can organize local chapters, endorse candidates, elect state party leaders, and elect representatives to the national Green Party US organizations. Learn more about becoming a member here.

  • Join or form a GPWA chapter: Organizing GPWA members into chapters across Washington State amplifies our message. When you join GPWA as a member and form or join a chapter, you have a voice in determining which candidates get endorsement. Explore existing local chapters here and learn what it takes to form your own here.
  • Run for office: Are you considering running for office or thinking of encouraging someone else to run for office? Now is the time to begin planning for a run and putting together campaign teams! Filing week in WA for most elected offices is May 4-8, 2026. Learn about running for office here.
  • Send us a donation: Don’t have extra time to volunteer right now? You can still be part of building the Green movement by chipping in financially, either as a dues-paying member or a one-time donation here. If you’re already a member or donor, THANK YOU.

SUPPORT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

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New bills advance the cause of Universal Healthcare for Washington

Two bills are scheduled for hearings in January 2026!

SJR 8206 will protect the right to healthcare in the Washington State Constitution.

SB 5947 will create a Board when the federal government takes specific actions. Both are important steps toward our goal of establishing universal healthcare in WA State.

They both need your voice!

SJR 8206 Amending the Constitution to establish a right to affordable health care.

Sponsors: Hasegawa, Chapman, Liias, Lovelett, Nobles, Saldaña, Slatter, Stanford, Valdez, Wilson, C.

This resolution would provide constitutional protection for cost-effective, clinically appropriate, and affordable healthcare for all Washington State Residents.

SJR 8206 explainer video

SB 5947 Establishing the Washington health care board.

Sponsors: Hasegawa, Bateman, Chapman, Orwall, Riccelli, Saldaña

This bill would establish a board to create a single-payer, universal healthcare system after receiving federal waivers (ERISA/Medicare) or the State-Based Universal Health Care Act legislation passes nationally.

SB 5947 explainer video

See Whole Washington for more information on these and other healthcare bills in the Washington State Legislature.