As of January 2022, there are twenty-nine California Green elected officials, including two elected-mayors and three in municipal councils.

On February 4, 1990, Greens gathered at California State University, Sacramento, authored bylaws, founded the GPCA, and started a voter registration drive.

[a][5] On January 2, 1990, a month before foundation, Kent Smith sent notice to the secretary of state that the GPCA intends to qualify for the June 2, 1992 primary elections.

[10] Late that November, the party received financial support and was able to pay people for obtaining registrations on a per-registration basis.

[12] GPCA members used the election qualification to run for offices, each facing the none of the above vote option, and all but one advanced to the general.

[13] Roger Donaldson ran for state assembly district 53, later decided against it, and sent out a letter urging voters to vote for none of the above instead of him.

[21] Margaret Garcia criticized this, saying “How ironic that a party espousing ‘future focus’ and long term planning is using Nader as a quick fix for our dwindling numbers.”[22] The GPCA finally met the registrations requirement in September 1996, and had 95,080 people registered with Green preference on October 7.

The GPCA opposed the June 8, 2010 primary election’s Proposition 14, which would remove access to the general elections from political parties, limiting access to the two candidates that received the most votes in a nonpartisan blanket primary, for California offices, i.e. not for the presidential race, nor local races.

After Proposition 14’s implementation, three election cycles concluded without any Green candidates advancing from “top-two” primaries.

[30] The GPCA espouses green politics and the Ten Key Values of ecological wisdom, grassroots democracy, social justice, nonviolence, decentralization, community-based economics, feminism, respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility, and sustainability.

[31] The key values of social justice, grassroots democracy, decentralization, respect for diversity, feminism, and personal and global responsibility influence the GPCA’s structure of party membership being inclusive of California residents who are disenfranchised by the state in California or the US,[d] party decisions being determined by general assemblies, limiting the role of its coordinating committees, entrusting its power to autonomous Green parties, composing coordinating committees through yearly, staggered-term elections of six women and six of any gender, and affiliating with the GPUS.

[42] Party spokesperson Mike Feinstein attributed the drop to outreach from the Sanders campaign, citing mailers sent to Greens.

[43] Thousands of California Greens decided to support Sanders’ endeavor for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party of the United States of America (DPUSA) through voting, which, as there was a semi-closed election, necessitated reregistration either with CDP preference, or with no party preference (NPP), and then, requesting a crossover ballot.

Gayle McLaughlin, who had won mayoral election as a Green, reregistered with NPP to vote for Sanders.

[49] These directives result in a lack of parties and electoral wins of candidates that would advance the sheepdog’s stated politics.

[50] They also result in captive constituencies[51] that feel compelled to support candidates that they deem the lessers of two evils.

[53] As of January 2022, there are twenty-nine California Green elected officials, including two elected-mayors and three in municipal councils.

[17] For 2022 elections of statewide executive offices, the GPCA, together with the PFP, undertook a cooperative ballot-access strategy in continuation of the Howie Hawkins 2020 presidential campaign’s attempt for “left unity”, consisting of endorsing an inter-party slate.