Green Party Elects 2025 Pennsylvania Leaders

 

Green Party of Pennsylvania

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, January 23, 2025

 

CONTACT: 

Chris Robinson, Communication Team Co-Leader

267-977-0570 and [email protected]

Green Party Elects 2025 Pennsylvania Leaders

On January 12, thirty-five Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) delegates and their friends from 10 counties chose a new Steering Committee. Faced with threats from conservative office holders on the national and state level, this growing socialist party will have much work in continuing their growth during the last year.

Green Party delegates elected Co-Chair Timothy Runkle (Lancaster), who had been an active Green Party leader since 2025. Runkle had also been GPPA Treasurer from 2017 until 2021 and the GPPA candidate for PA Treasurer in 2020. Runkle had also been a Steering Committee Member-at-large during 2024. Runkle will join Co-chair Theron Gilliland Jr, who continues his term in office.

Three new Steering Committee Members-at-Large were elected from Allegheny, Centre and McKean Counties.

Colleen Schmotzer, a new member of the Green Party of Allegheny County (GPOAC), had been a co-chair of the Abandon Biden (Harris) Campaign. She had also been active with Muslims and Allies for Palestinian Rights. Schmotzer told GREEN STAR, “I ran for the Steering Committee because the Green Party aligns with my values as a grassroots organization. I could no longer be a part of the Republican/Democratic duopoly. I want to offer new ideas, as well as upholding Green Party standards and values.”

In contrast, Barbara Laxon has been an elected delegate to two national Green Party Committees, and she was also an elected member of the GPPA Steering Committee during 2020. Laxon told GREEN STAR, “I was active in the Green Party of Broward County, Florida, before I moved to Pennsylvania in the fall 2016. Since there was no organized affiliate here, and I have been unable to organize an affiliate here in McKean County, being an at-large delegate is still the best way for me to participate at the state level where I can do the most.”

Erin King is a new member of the Green Party of Centre County. She has worked on voter registration, door-to-door canvassing and phone banking. King told GREEN STAR, "After a roughly 10-year hiatus from politics, I decided last summer to switch political parties and to learn more about the Green Party, especially after the better part of a yearlong genocide at the hands of Israel in Gaza and the West Bank being funded and encouraged by the U.S. and other Western nations. I also saw the obvious parallels between the doubling down of police-state oppression happening globally and here in the U.S. I want to spread the message that America is in serious need of a third party, such as the Green Party, which can effectively compete with our ruling duopoly of greedy, self-serving, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist, lying, white supremacist warmongers. I am proud to have been elected to the GPPA Steering Committee."


Newly elected Green Party Secretary Alex Casper (McKean County) had already served one year as a Steering Committee Member-at-Large. Casper told GREEN STAR, “It is an honor to continue serving the Green Party and stewarding democracy in Pennsylvania. I'm looking forward to holding the Steering Committee accountable and making sure we hold regular public meetings and disclose them to our members. Moving forward, attendance will be tracked, absent members will be reached out to, and internal leadership participation will be tracked and seats filled.”

Pennsylvania voters who would like to run for local or county office as a Green Party candidate should contact [email protected]. The Green Party of PA, https://www.gpofpa.org, is an independent political party which stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s Four Pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please email [email protected].

 

Please follow GPPA on social media:

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/gpofpa/; Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/pagreenparty/; and Twitter, https://twitter.com/GreenPartyofPA

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