Complaint against Andrea Merida Cuéllar

It is with deep regret that we are compelled to lodge this complaint against Andrea Merida Cuéllar, manager for the Howie Hawkins 2020 Campaign and former chair of the Green Party United States (GPUS) Accreditation committee. The same committee advancing proposal 1030 to de-affiliate the Green Party Alaska (GPAK) from the national federation. This proposal is clearly retaliation against the members of the GPAK for not advancing Howie Hawkins as the nominee for POTUS in Alaska during the 2020 election cycle

There is so much more here and there were many more people involved in this unfortunate incident, however, in the interests of peace to the body politics, caught in the middle of a public war of words on the national listserv, we believe it best to focus on the key issues and follow the factual evidence in making this statement. Our hope is that this will be sufficient to dispose of proposal 1030 and for the National Committee to take corrective actions internally as is in the best interest of the national federation.

While as chair I have had no direct contact with Mr. Howie Hawkins, it was those on his political campaign team, specifically Andrea Merida Cuéllar, that we maintain was the reason the GPAK made the difficult but democratic choice to not advance Howie Hawkins as the Alaskan nominee. In the void, we polled our members, to the best of our abilities, to gain insight if not direct engagement from other Alaskans. Jesse Ventura, was only on the ballot because of the Draft Jesse campaign. We had heard the rumors but had no more “pre-selected” Ventura then we had “prejudice” for Hawkins going into the process. Our support for Ventura grew as we learned more about him as did our criticisms for Hawkins as our hostile experience with his campaign team and supporters unfolded over the last 5 months.  (Correction: It’s been mistakenly stated that in the August poll, over 100 people participated. The poll was directly emailed to over 150 members and green supporters in Alaska. Sadly, the final return was only 28.)

Complaint 1: Hostile Engagement 

Even before the August 9th official recognition we had been getting messages and notifications from members of the Hawkins campaign and from supporters. This started because we had been openly discussing our options on our page (in our state club house) which is monitored (trolled) by individuals who believed they were in a position to tell us “Alaska bylaws are subservient to the GPUS”. We reached out to the Hawkins campaign to suggest a mutually beneficial event to follow up on the Earth Day event and they refused unless Hawkins was pre-selected to win. I scheduled a Zoom call for members of the state to discuss. As we were having difficulties identifying other greens in Alaska and as we were told they had been in contact with other greens in the state we encouraged them to share the link with those people. Instead several members of the Hawkins campaign joined the call and one, began badgering me to commit publicly, then and there to nominate Hawkins. After repeatedly cutting me, the organizer off, the call ended, and we had our discussions on the phone. Politics can be a street fight and the higher ground means turning the other cheek. Our experience with people who identified themselves as members of the Hawkins campaign, under Andrea Merida Cuéllar, has left our collective heads spinning.

Complaint 2: Subversion of State Party 

My first conversation with Andrea Merida Cuéllar was in response to a document that she drafted and tried to get the Department of Election to accept. Andrea Merida Cuéllar, pretending to act on behalf of the GPAK, forcefully tried to rewrite Alaska political history. A move where, she unilaterally removed me as chair, put Josh in charge, and listed Elizabeth Freeman as a delegate. She very clearly, and has repeatedly, attempted to undemocratically subvert the state party while her and her supporters publicly bash me, Josh, and now the Department of Elections for acting undemocratically and openly plot to set up a new party in Alaska.

This is made worse by all the ongoing public discussions about how the national federation needs to clean house in Alaska and democratically elect a new state party, while banning me, or anyone I know, from influencing politics in the future. Acting as judge, jury, and executioner, Andrea Merida Cuéllar has used her positions of influence in repeated attempts to assassinate my character and force a political coup.

Complaint 3: Refusing to release contacts for state voters

In our discussions Andrea Merida Cuéllar indicated that along with paying for the signatures for ballot access she was in possession of a comprehensive list of Alaskans but would only share this enhanced list (beyond the state listing) if we committed in writing to putting Hawkins on the ballot. It was bad enough for someone in CO to possess an Alaska green phone book and not share it with the state party. But after bragging about how they were in touch with Alaskans and we shared the poll link, they produced virtually no additional input. This strange behavior makes us speculate about what plans they have for this information. Does it have anything to do with the rush to destroy the existing party? Does it have anything to do with the fact that Howie Hawkins is already filed to run for POTUS in 2024?

My contact information as chair is very public. We keep hearing that there all these Alaskans who disagree with this action, yet, we have had less than a handful of people reach out to question or complain. Most Alaskans I have spoken to where neutral or supportive of our reasonings once they saw past the hype of a spun narrative. We have requested assistance from the very beginning to reach out to more Alaskans. Everything we did, that Andrea Merida Cuéllar shot down, was to reach more greens to make the decision democratically and to engage more in the process. She only wanted people to know about and support Howie Hawkins.

Item 4: Interference in our Decentralized Grassroots Democratic Process.

We do not believe the “national party” asked Mrs. Freeman to be the interim chair of the Green Party of Alaska. Considering the other evidence, a more rational conclusion, is that Andrea Merida Cuéllar has been manipulating her with empty promises to gain her support in attempting to have me removed. Prior to August 9th , we never heard a word of complaint, a word of negativity of any kind from Mrs. Freeman, and she and I have been Facebook friends for 3 years. Given the efforts Andrea Merida Cuéllar made with Josh and the secretary of state, there is clear evidence that Andrea Merida Cuéllar has repeatedly attempted to interfere with the democratic process of our state party and election process.

In addition to these actions violating the core pillars and values of the Green Party federation, we believe they are a serious violation of the GPUS Bylaws. Specifically, section 7 Ethical Standards. The second part states “the Green Party shall not discriminate against any of the forms [of representation] chosen by the state party”. When Andrea Merida Cuéllar began writing documents where she unilaterally chose who Alaska would have as delegates and who speaks for Alaskan greens; she crossed the line. When all that failed, she has led a relentless witch hunt to replace the current state party with loyalists to her. These actions alone were the reason Howie Hawkins was not advanced as the GPAK nomination.

Proposed Corrective Actions 

• Proposal 1030 should be removed from discussion and the vote canceled.
• Elizabeth Freeman should be removed as the alternative Alaska delegate.
• Affiliation agreements with all state parties should be reviewed and updated.
• GPUS Steering committee should develop training units for new delegates.
• GPUS Outreach Committee should develop training units on how to set up a state party.