Proposals for 2006 Summer State Committee Meeting

Proposals for the State Committee meeting can be submitted, revised, and commented on here. The State Committee (previously scheduled for July 9th, 2006) has been rescheduled for Sunday August 6th, 2006. State Committee proceedures say that proposals must be submitted by being posted here at least two weeks prior to the meeting.

Any two members of the State and Administrative Committees, or any Green-Rainbow Local, may submit a proposal for the State Committee to consider.

If you have proposals that are ready to post, do not hesitate as it gives people more of a chance to read it and comment on it ahead of time and possibly improve it.

If you have the proposal already in a word processor document, please attach the document at the bottom of your post to facilitate the process of making the proposal package for the meeting.

Please read them completely so you are prepared for clarifying questions, discussion, and decisionmaking. If you have comments ahead of time, you can post a follow up here and you can contact the sponsors of the proposal.

Third March to Abolish Poverty
Monday July 03, @12:53AM by Grace Ross and Melissa Harrell (posted by David Rolde)
Grace asked me to post a placeholder here, on behalf of herself and Melissa, for a proposal to have a third March to Abolish Poverty in September this year. Grace is having phone and computer problems. I'm sure Grace and Melissa will post the full text of the proposal in the next couple days. - David
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Support Aimee Smith
Sunday July 02, @10:28PM by annie butler and Owen Broadhurst
from the Mystic River Green-Rainbow Action (MRGRA) committee.
Recently there was an attempt to prevent former GRP Membership Director Aimee Smith from being seated on the GPUS Media Committee as a representative from the Green Party of Michigan. She was eventually seated. Mystic River Green-Rainbow Action, the GRP local group that Aimee was part of when she lived in Massachusetts, has written a statement of support for Aimee and forwarded it to the national party. MRGRA would like GRP of Massachusetts to also express support for Aimee.
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Support Ron Francis
Sunday July 02, @10:16PM by annie butler and David Rolde
Our party chair has been attacked in letters to newspapers, in rightwing blogs, and in emails to GRP members, by Zionists because of his work advocating for human rights for Palestinians. We should stand with Ron and support him against these attacks
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Support Divestment from Israel
Sunday July 02, @10:08PM by annie butler and Owen Broadhurst
The Green Party of the US has a position supporting divestment from Israel (Prop 190). There is an effort by Zionists to get the GPUS to change its position. The Green-Rainbow Party already supports divestment from Israel. We should reaffirm our support and let the GPUS know.
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Discussion of Transparency Policy
Sunday July 02, @10:00PM by annie butler and Mike Heichman
Recently issues have arisen regarding non-GRP persons reading our public GRP discussion email lists.
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No on Fusion
Sunday July 02, @06:28PM by David Rolde and Bill Cunningham
from the Middlesex County Convention committee.
I have been tabulating the email votes on the 'No On Fusion' email proposal. I believe that the proposal received enough votes to be adopted. But I am reposting the proposal, as worded during the email vote, so that it can be officially confirmed at the July 9 State Committee meeting if necessary.

- David Rolde GRP Secretary

Here is the background and summary that was posted for the Spring meeting:

Summary: Oppose the 2006 state ballot question on fusion and support the establishment of a No On Fusion ballot committee.

Background: There is likely to be an election reform question on the State ballot this November. The subject will be "fusion voting." Under fusion, or cross-endorsement, a candidate's name can appear two or more times on the ballot as the nominee for two or more parties. This is already possible in the State of New York. As a result, New York has more small political parties, but fewer candidates on the ballot.

The Massachusetts fusion petition specifies that cross-endorsement decisions would be made only by the State Committees of the political parties. This centralized endorsement process is the same as that of the New York-based Working Families Party (WFP), which happens to be the group that initiated and funds the fusion drive in this State.

The core endorsers of fusion here are also the core backers of the WFP in New York - locals of the Communications Workers, SEIU and Teamsters, and the low-income community organizer group ACORN. These groups also contribute money to WFP. So WFP is unusually well financed for a minor party.

Most of WFP's funds - millions of dollars - come from Democrat politicians and their backers, including Senator Hillary Clinton and billionaire financier George Soros. They do not give this money out of love for political diversity. In effect, The New York WFP functions as an arm of the Democratic Party. WFP leaders don't hide that their purpose is to draw disaffected working class people back into the Democratic Party. There are people who would never vote for, say, Hillary Clinton as a Democrat but might vote for her on the WFP line.

The Massachusetts fusion proposal has both Democratic and Republican sponsors in the State Legislatture. They are hoping, as the ballot sponsors put it, that this can "put an end to the spoiler problem once and for all." The Green-Rainbow Party advocates a very different reform that would resolve the spoiler issue without restricting choice. This is called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). With IRV, voters could vote for more than one candidate, ranking their choices with numbers. If their first choices did not get enough votes to win election, their votes would then be shifted to their number two choices.

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Reconsideratin of Fusion Proposal
Friday June 30, @01:54PM by ron francis
from the none committee.
It seems like there is more and more information about the fusion bill which just makes things more complicated. Overall i don't feel like the nuanced question of fusion is appropriate for an email decision... and I myself did not feel ready to vote ...
The comments sent by Owen seem to suggest that there are problems with this bill (around grassroots democratic control) irrespective of how one feels about fusion. Yet others seem to feel that the bill doesn't change the grassroots control that our party has over the statecom because our bylaws allow us to govern ourselves, and it is not clear if this pertains to GRP as a party of designation.

Also there is the question of the accuracy of the proposal. It is called NO ON FUSION, but it is really concerned with many more things than fusion it seems to me. I would like us to support the aspects of the bill that we think are positive and reject the aspects of the bill that are negative, at least in the title of whatever it is that we pass (even though we may in fact decide to oppose the ballot question because there are enough bad things in there that we should be against ballot question....)

I feel that we need more face to face discussion, espcially as there would appear to be new info on this question surfacing and some of it having to do with complicated legal matter....

there also appear to be some upsides regarding our relationship with some of the folks interested in fusion, many of who have experience organizing in labor and in communities of color in Boston, and also there is the upside of the possibility of coalitioning with other social justice parties. It also seems that some of our own Party members that have organized in Boston have concerns about the GRP being actively against fusion supporters.

At any rate, I don't know what the results of the vote were but I feel like we should have a short airing of all of the points of view, which has never happened really at a statecom that I remember plus know all of the legal considerations, and then let people express concerns or not with the fusion proposal.
Personally I'm not interested in spending a lot of hours talkign about fusion, but I do feel that all facts whould be clearly made to state com reps so that they can vote in an informed way.
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Immigrants
Monday June 26, @12:11AM by David Rolde
All human beings should be equal regardless of what country they were born in or their legal immigration status in one country or another. At the GRP nominating convention earlier this year, the plank in the draft campaign platform that we adopted was "The Green-Rainbow Party supports immediate full implementation of equal rights, including the vote, for all immigrants in Massachusetts regardless of citizenship or visa status."
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Complete Proposals
Monday June 26, @12:05AM by Daniel Melnechuk
from the Procedures and structures committee.
Many proposals are incomplete in a number of manners. Most do not include a budget impact statement. Most do not say how or who will be assigned the work that a proposal will need to take effect. This proposal states the set if minimum requirements that a proposal must have so that it will be considered by a decisionmaking process at state committee or state convention.
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Proposal Vetting by Committee
Monday June 26, @12:01AM by Daniel Melnechuk
from the Procedures and Structures committee.
Proposals come to the state committee, or state conventions, that take a lot of everyone’s time to work out various concerns from simple wording changes to larger issues needing addressing. While this can be a rewarding process when everyone is up for the challenge, many find it frustrating that proposals need so much work to get them to a point where they may get accepted by our consensus seeking process. If proposals were first vetted by the working committee(s) whose area of concern the proposal falls under, many if not most or possibly even all of the concerns that would be brought up in the larger decision making body might first be addressed and the proposal improved before it is seen for a decision.

This proposal modifies our standard proposal process and adds the constraint that before a proposal sponsored by state committee members and or administration committee members can be addressed by a decision making body of state committee or proposals coming before a state convention, a proposal must first be vetted by the working committee(s) whose area of concern the proposal falls under.

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End the War on Drugs, Legalize Drugs, etc., aka the Justice Proposal
Sunday June 25, @11:40PM by David Rolde
At the GRP nominating convention earlier this year, we adopted as a work in progress a campaign platform that included a plank on Criminal Justice Reform that read as follows: "The Green-Rainbow Party works to shut down the "criminal justice system" which oppresses low-income and people of color, ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Massachusetts. The "war on drugs" is essentially a war on working-class and minority youth. We work for the legalization of all drugs so they can be regulated like other industries. Drug abuse should be treated as a health problem not as a crime."

In addition, Boston City Councillor Chuck Turner, who is the GRP member who holds the highest elected office and who is a respected leader in our party and in social justice movements in our state, spoke at our nominating convention. Chuck stressed that in order for our election campaign to be relevant to people in his community, we must make legalizing drugs and ending the war on drugs a focus of the campaign.

In other speeches and communication at the District 7 Roundtable and elsewhere Chuck has stated that "all natural drugs" (i.e., all drugs derived from natural sources such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin) should be legalized. So this is the language suggested in this proposal. Chuck has also argued that the movement to merely "decriminalize" drugs is a racist movement designed to allow white people in the suburbs to smoke marijuana with impunity while people in low-income communities and communities of color would continue to be targetted by the police for arrest and prosecution for distributing drugs.

This proposal would have the GRP honor these positions from our 2006 campaign platforms and from Chuck Turner. Chuck and other GRP members are also working on CORI reform and on the establishment of civilian police review boards. GRP should reaffirm our committment to the establishment of civilian police review boards, and we should take a position on CORI reform.

In addition many GRP members, supporters of GRP candidates, and the GRP candidates themselves work with the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition (SHaRC). We should endorse SHaRC's moratorium on jail and prison construction. We should also adopt SHaRC's position about treatment for drug addiction. The position is that in addition to being freely available drug abuse treatment should be voluntary and non-coercive. SHaRC's website is http://www.stopchicopeejail.org
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Oppose the so-called 'Initiative to Protect Dogs'
Sunday June 25, @10:08PM by David Rolde and annie butler
from the MRGRA committee.
The Initiative to Protect Dogs is likely to be a question on the statewide ballot in November 2006. This initiative would ban dog racing. I'm not suggesting that Green-Rainbow Party should take a position in support of the continuation of the institution of dog racing in Massachusetts. However one of the other provisions of the initiative is an unacceptable attack on civil rights of people in Massachusetts.
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Amend Quorum Rule
Saturday June 24, @09:34PM by Mike Heichman-delegate from Suffolk County
from the Procedures (I think-not a member) committee.
We have been having problems reaching quorum and this has been, in my opinion, a demoralizing obstacle for our State Commttee in its efforts to do our business. We should recognize that often our members miss State Comm meetings because they are engaged in either important party or personal business. We should be able to move forward to the best of our abilities without their physical presence.
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Municipal Candidate Search
Saturday June 24, @01:54PM by Ron Francis
from the none committee.
This proposal is that the party spend $225 in Tier 1 to have a paid staff person call our best 300 phone numbers (20 phonenumbers per hour for 15 hours of work at $15 / hour) in order to ask the person one question or leave a message with one question: a question designed to find out the level of interest that the person has in running for municipal office in 2007 and if they would come to a meeting in September of 2006 (date to be chosen)to meet with the CDLC to discuss the details necessary to make a decent run for local office in 2007. Our current local office holders wold be encouraged to attend teh meeting. I have found a donor who is willing to donate the $225 if that helps the party do it. I hope that other donors would consider donating specifically for this worthwhile effort. If more money can be found then the number of names to call would be increased.

In Maine an effort was made to call all of their members (I beleive it was 8000 names). In fact only about 1500 got called. about 75 people expressed some interest. Of those only about 20 wound up running for office and some who ran did not reallyput heart and sould into it... However 20 is a larger number than 0,1,2, or 3.

I believe that the effort can be duplicated in MA.

One key to teh efort was that the person was only asked one question: How interested were they in running for local office. The person could give one of three responses:

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Efficient process on Proposals Proposal
Saturday June 24, @01:36PM by Ron Francis
from the none committee.
This proposal is that the statecom only consider proposals that have gone through a discussion and consensus seeking process in some Working Committee of the GRP.

This will tend to make our proposals be better vetted before reaching Statecom and hopefully allow for less rushed statecom meetings. It is hoped that in teh committee, concerns will surface and hopefully be dealt with prior to comming to teh committee.


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