Minutes

Massachusetts Green Party Candidate Development and Legal Committee

3rd Meeting, February 1st, 1:00 – 3:30 PM

Westminster, MA

 

Attendees: James O’Keefe, Rick Grabowski, Rob Lewis, Lara Valigorsky, Vince O’Connnor, Scott Pherson, Sarah MacArthur, Beth Bandy, Dave England, Nate Crooker

 

Facilitator: James O’Keefe; Stacker: Vince O’Connor; Minutes: Nate Crooker; Timekeeper: Rob Lewis

 

·         Introductions

·         Review Agenda, Additions, Subtractions, and Set Timeline: Proposed agenda was used, agree to spend 30 minutes on both past, present and future sections. Meeting to adjourn at 3:30

·         Next Meeting: Agreed on Saturday, March 8th, in Westminster. To start at noon. Participants can feel free to bring lunch along.

·         Review previous meeting minutes: Past meeting minutes accepted pending edits to be made by Jamie. Additions to include the needed actions from other MGP committees. Future minutes to be posted to www.massgreens.org as either drafts or approved.

 

Minutes from statewide candidates and campaign managers will be put together shortly. Will include highlights (Tony & Jamie in all debates, Jill in 2 out of 5, Energizing of party and local chapters, increase in voter registration (~6,000 in June to ~9,000 now….40,000 needed for permanent ballot status)) and problems (Clean Elections, getting started early enough, grassroots candidate nomination process).

 

Reviewed Rainbow Coalition 2002 Campaign Review Minutes. Noted need to recognize strong performance in areas of Western Mass.

 

Rick suggested the need for a commitment from media stations to release a statement of intent, i.e. will they bother to cover 3rd parties in election years (e.g. debates, articles, etc.). To present proposal at next candidate development meeting.

 

·         Present: 19 elected Greens serving and a minimum of 5 appointed.  Will use 2nd MGP newsletter to survey and find other appointed office holders.

 

Many Greens will be seeking office in 2003 at town and city level. Committee also needs to monitor special elections for State Rep and Senate and make sure candidates are identified for these races. Will also look to reach out to current candidates to offer support.

 

Tracking town/city elections in 2003. Will use Jamie’s analysis that identified particularly attractive areas. Beth will research dates for filing papers, gathering signatures etc. Will focus first on towns with Representative Town Meetings whose elections will be held after May. Potential resource for this is the Massachusetts Municipal Association (their Directory should be available at most town libraries). Will add purchase to committee’s proposed budget. Goal of having all timelines for RTM elections in May identified for next committee meeting.

 

·         Future: Review of committee calendar. Election cycle draft for state committee (strategic plan) pushed back as next meeting will be later.

 

Dave mentioned that we should add to the 2-year calendar important dates/events of a distracting nature or enhancing nature, e.g. Olympics and Earth Day

 

Will look to have candidate training beta session in March/April. Rob, Laura and Sarah to form sub-committee focused on this. Will  use general campaign knowledge and also lessons learned from ’02 candidates and campaign managers.

 

Another sub-committee will work on the robustness of the current target district analysis. To consider union membership/support, ’02 Green Vote etc…Jamie, Vince and Dave to work on this. Nate can help if needed.

 

 

Jamie and Laura to stay on as temporary committee co-chairs. Dave will fill in as temporary secretary starting at next month’s meeting. 

 

·         Meeting Review: Consensus reached that meeting was very positive experience. Good work and organizing in progress. Will look to track candidate status at future meetings. Take focused approach with specific goals. Look to address need for unifying issues for all candidates to push (similar to Contract with America).

 

Vince made a suggestion that at every CDC meeting from now on, a portion of the agenda must go to updating information about all special elections (esp. partisan ones)- there was consensus opinion of Yes, go forward on this suggestion.

 

Of 160 House seats, 101 were unopposed. With a grass-roots approach we can work to change that!

 

Recommended Reading (from Dave): Vanishing Voter by Thomas Patterson.