Until recently, I had not thought of sheriff offices as places for “Greens.”

But last week, at the US Green Party Annual National meeting in Alfred, New York, I saw the energy and excitement around Cheri Honkala’s candidacy for Sheriff of Philadelphia. I had seen her name here and there before, including on this website, but I had not really understood who she was or why she was running for sheriff as a Green – or why this was important for Greens in general.

Cheri Honkala has a long track record of advocacy for poor people. She is very concerned about the large numbers of people being thrown into the street due to foreclosures – a hot topic among Green advocates these days. As Sheriff, she can do something about this: “Cheri Honkala vows to serve the interests of the people instead of the interests of the banks by ‘Keeping Families in Their Homes’ until the economic climate in Philadelphia changes.”

This video of the speech she gave at that meeting says a lot: