Mt. Airyite running on Green Party ticket

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

Marlene Santoyo, Green Party candidate
for the Pennsylvania state
House of Representatives.

The field just got crowded.

Making the July 25 deadline, the Green Party of Philadelphia filed nomination papers last week to run Mt. Airy resident Marlene Santoyo, a retired public school teacher and longtime activist, in the race to fill the vacant state House seat left by Sen. LeAnna Washington.

Billing herself as “the people’s candidate,” Santoyo, 67, begins a frantic door-to-door campaign this week to counter the name recognition her two major party opponents, Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican Robert Rossman, already enjoy in much of the district. A special election is set for Sept. 13.

In a twist to her candidacy, Santoyo, a lifelong registered Democrat and Democratic committeeperson, was recruited by Green Party officials last month. Long an outspoken critic on issues like nuclear testing and the Iraq war, she has traveled in Green circles for some time. Her views, she said, had been “very Green” even before the political party’s founding in the United States.

For the activist party, the race is a key opportunity to gain a foothold in state politics. According to its national Web site, the Green Party claims 26 elected officials in Pennsylvania, including one mayor, and a number of borough council representatives and township auditors.

With low voter turnout all but guaranteed, a strong Election Day operation could deliver victory to any of the three candidates. The low profile contest gives political underdogs like Santoyo an edge that would otherwise be nonexistent, especially on a crowded ballot in a general election. If elected, she would be the first Green to go to Harrisburg.

Not one to tow the party line, Santoyo said she has stayed true to the campaign slogan she first used in her bid for committeeperson: “An independent voice in the Democratic Party.” Her candidacy is a response to what she considers the entrenched, ineffective leadership of her own party.

“I think that the Democrats in the 200th District realize we’ve voted with the state and the federal governments in areas that were harmful to us,” Santoyo said. “There’s something to be said for loyalty, but it’s also my right to set [officials] right when they are wrong. I will speak truth to power.”

She cites City Councilman David Cohen as both a political hero and a political dinosaur, saying the voices of local Democrats have grown timid. “I want to see Democrats and Republicans standing up to the kind of legacy the Bush administration has left us with,” she said. “I want to see our money used in ways that will benefit children, seniors and people who need a hand.”

What she may lack in legislative experience, Santoyo said, she makes up for with a lifelong passion for activism.

The candidate traces her roots to Mexico where, at 23-years-old, she moved after graduating from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. There, living in a small town just outside Mexico City, she organized her neighbors to protest a water shortage, taking the fight to the mayor’s office. Serving as the group’s spokesperson, she argued their case. “From that day on, we had water,” Santoyo recalled.

For nearly a decade she worked as a public advocate while studying in Mexico, often transporting buckets of water from town to town by car in cases of drought.

Santoyo has gone to the wall, and in some cases prison, for her causes. She, along with scores of others, spent a week in jail in 2003 after refusing to pay a $250 fine for blocking entrance to the federal courthouse in Center City at the start of the Iraq war.

During the 2000 Republican Convention Santoyo formed Moms for Justice, a group whose members served as liaisons for the more than 400 protesters who were arrested and their families.

A longtime Quaker, she helped coordinate the effort at Germantown Friends Meeting to harbor refugees from war-torn El Salvador and Guatemala during the sanctuary movement in the 1980s. Her outreach work has also taken her to Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand throughout the years.

Fluent in Spanish, she taught English as a second language in the city’s public schools for two decades. At 67, Santoyo sees her activism as a natural extension of her teaching career. “As an educator, I feel that it’s important to be educated and to facilitate the education of others.”

If, or as Santoyo says, “when,” elected, she will push for the “demilitarization of public schools,” citing a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that entitles military recruiters to a list of contact information for high school juniors and seniors unless parents or students sign an opt-out form. She is currently involved in such an effort at Germantown High School.

Among other issues that would figure into her legislative agenda: a living wage, tougher gun laws, dedicated funding for mass transit and restoring cuts in medical assistance funds. “I’m an optimist. I’m sincere. I’ve worked hard, and I’ll continue to work hard for a progressive system where everyone can benefit,” she said.

As a third party candidate, Santoyo must convince a good deal of the district’s voters her candidacy is a viable one. That will involve courting the Democratic vote, which outweighs the Republican block by a ratio of more than 7-1.

According to current voter-registration figures released last week by the Board of Elections, the 200th House District is home to 89 Greens, about 4 percent of the third party’s overall voter roll in the city.

Greens have made significant strides in boosting their numbers in the last year, said Mike Rosenberg, membership secretary of the Green Party of Philadelphia. The party’s local membership grew 25 percent between May and October last year in the run-up to the presidential election, Rosenberg said. In addition, about 4,000 voters statewide registered Green during the same period, he said.

The House race is one of the best opportunities in recent memory for Greens to make serious political inroads. Rosenberg said Santoyo’s candidacy will resonate with many of the district’s disenchanted voters, particularly with progressive Democrats critical of their  party’s current leadership. “The Green Party is actively working on issues that the Democrats have given up on,” he said. Among the party’s priorities: universal healthcare and alternative energy sources. “This is a great opportunity, but we’ll see what happens come Sept. 13.”