Minutes of Mass Green-Rainbow Party Candidate Development Committee

Sixth meeting, May 10, Westminister MA

Attending: Jamie, Beth, Scott, Rob, Dave, Vince

Next Meeting: Tentatively, June 7 (aft.), at Florence, MA (Hampden Greens Convention).

Minutes for March and April were approved as corrected.

Subcommittee Reports:

Two GR s garnered highest vote totals in Greenfield preliminary.

Rich Zitola lost bid (398 votes, minimum, 600+ needed) to be on Clinton Charter Commission.

No word on Belechertown selectmans race, or Holyoke mayoral race. Scott will contact Martina; Jamie will contact Holyoke candidate. [Update: Martina got 137 votes out of 837 cast, a 16.5% percentage. She placed 4th in a race for two seats.]

Amherst: 4 GR TM s ran, 3 won.

Beth distributed updated election deadlines. Committee will troll Convention for candidates for fall city elections.

Rob will get accurate O’Keefe precinct-by-precinct votes in Worcester, Beth in Springfield.

Activist Debriefing: Rob and Scott will draft one-page summary of debriefings for website. Promised date is May 15. [Update: now available on website.]

State Convention

strategic vision/goals-- Vince will draft a vision statement.

Goals: each Senate district should register 1,000 GR s; or each House district should have 250 registered GR s. CDLC should produce 10 Key Values brochure, a basic party flyer, and a supply of voter registration cards for all candidates. (Need budget for this). Next year, will need flyer for candidates on why GR party is running candidates for the Legislature.

Presidential Convention process -- We will need to present Sec of State:

(1) with a list of candidates who are running in a GR primary; or

(2) have a convention that will choose who is to be on the primary ballot, or

(3) don’t run a candidate and send an undecided slate of delegates to National Convention.

Vince will research whether Mass GR can put someone on the Massachusetts ballot after the national convention if no one is nominated nationally. Jamie will learn how to submit an undecided slate of delegates or use favorite “son” candidacy (who would release delegates at/before convention).

Training/breakout sessions -- State Convention (June 21-22, Clark Univ.) will have two periods for breakout sessions:

(1) For potential candidates. Will describe what is involved in running, what is expected of a candidate, and levels of achievement candidate must attain to receive successive stages of CDLC assistance. Rob and Sarah to draft outline. At convention, will try to have one-page fact sheet of targeted districts for potential candidates to assess opportunities. Second fact sheet will contain important campaign/registration/ election deadlines. Need to establish an opportunity for potential candidates to discuss their aspirations one-on-one with a committee member. Dave will contact John Rosenthal, to develop an Access template for spreadsheet data so we can produce a handout for targeted districts.

(2) Moving the GR agenda forward -- Jamie will draft statement.

Key to our strategy is building membership and locals. Another committee will do a session at Convention on forming town committees.

Rob -- we need to formalize a regional structure between locals and CDLC, someone a candidate or campaign manager can call for help or answers to questions and who will handle coordination among nearby candidates.