User:Microplastic Consumer/Kat Swift

Katija Gruene (born June 6, 1973), born as Kat Swift, is a United States political activist, former co-chair of the Green Party of Texas, and spokesperson for the Green Party's National Women's Caucus. Swift announced her intention to seek the 2008 Presidential nomination of the US Green Party at the 2004 Green Party National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was one of the youngest candidates to seek the office in 2008, meeting the age requirement of 35-years-old only months before Election Day in 2008. In 2007, she ran for City Council, District 1 in San Antonio, Texas finishing second of three candidates with 1,630 votes for 29.48% of the total vote. On July 12, 2008 she finished third on the single ballot for the party's presidential nomination with 38 out of 532 delegate votes cast. She later endorsed the winner of the presidential nomination Cynthia McKinney. Swift was later a 2010 candidate for Bexar County Commissioner in Precinct 2.

Swift is a critic of electronic voting machines, and during a 2008 interview said: "The people must have precedence over corporations and political machines! Think about who is counting [votes] and paying for the candidates to run for office. Are they people who are acting out of duty for an egalitarian society, justice, and liberty...or are they in it for other reasons?"

Swift changed her name to Katija Gruene in 2016.

Texas Green Party ballot access (2010)
Swift served as the public spokeswoman for the Texas Green Party in the 2010 legal battle over ballot access for the party. In late June 2010, the Democratic Party of Texas sued to block certification of Green Party candidates, claiming that illegal out-of-state corporate donations had funded the party's petition drive to get on the Texas ballot. District Judge John Dietz agreed and issued an order blocking the Green Party from certifying its candidates, citing the limitations of Texas laws on the use of corporate money, that it could only be used for routine and convention expenses, not for ballot petitioning. But on July 2, 2010, the Texas State Supreme Court lifted the lower court order blocking the party, and the Texas Green Party certified four candidates for the general election.

Swift responded to Democrats' claims by explaining that the effort was not just about the governor's race, and that the party is running statewide candidates for the purpose of meeting state requirements to gain ballot status in order to run viable candidates for local offices. She stated that such legal challenges serve mainly to "close down democracy."

Railroad Commission (2020)
In 2020, Gruene was the Green Party of Texas party candidate for the Railroad Commission of Texas. On November 3rd, 2020, she came in fourth in the election for the Railroad Commission of Texas, receiving 129,638 votes (1.2%).