SC Call Notes — 22 April 2005
Participants:
SC: Jake Schneider, Jo Chamberlain, Greg Gerritt, Gwen Wages, Peggy Lewis, Marc Sanson, Maya O’Connor, Jody Haug
Staff: Brent McMillan, Emily Citkowski
Facilitator Peggy Notes Greg
Abbreviations used:
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting Committee
BAWG = Ballot Access Working Group
BRPP = Bylaws, Rules, Policies and Procedures Committee
BC = Black Caucus
CC = Coordinating Committee
CCC = Coordinated Campaign Committee
CG SC = Campus Greens Steering Committee
ComCom = Communications Committee
DC = Diversity Committee
DIA = Democracy in Action internet service
DRC = Dispute Resolution Committee
FC = Fundraising Committee
FEC = Federal Election Commission
GP = Green Party
IC = International Committee
LC = Lavender Caucus
NPWG = Nominating Process Working Group
NWC = National Women’s Caucus
PEC = Presidential Exploratory Committee
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
SPWG = Strategic Plan Working Group
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]
Published Agenda
Open Software, CAFTA, portfolio reports, staff reports campus greens, voting queue, trademark
Staff reports
Brent:
Chesapeake Campaign School coming right up, so that is where most of his time went this week. Greens from at least 7 states will attend. Went to CT Green Party State meeting last week, reported on CCC and elections work. Been involved a bit with Aimee Allison effort in Oakland. COFAE met recently, Phil Huckleberry represented GPUS. Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE), an 18-year-old group that defends voting rights, is comprised of these nationally-organized parties: Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform and Socialist. The Committee for a Unified Independent Party, centered in New York, is also a member. COFAE wants to become a little more formal, set up a PO Box and website.
Candidate recruitment is going well. At last 8 new candidates this week. Should be more coming in as state parties meet over the next month or 6 weeks.
April mailing went to printers, March mailing starting to see returns.
Illinois will be considering a proposal soon to turn BAWG into a standing committee.
Following up on the conference call with Cobb/LaMarche campaign team, the Presidential Campaign Support Committee and the SC will be looking into archiving the Cobb/LaMarche campaign website. We are looking at archiving on gpus site but for the information to be useful Cobb/LaMarche team will have to cull out the useful information and put a synopsis together. Interns may be useful for parts of this project.
There have been discussions with codeweavers network about new systems to better track volunteers and better ways of having them sign up on the website.
Emily:
Continue to search for more office interns, especially for summer. Spent time working on campaign school coming up very soon in DC. Job descriptions for fundraising asst and and on line position went out and are starting to circulate.
On line fundraising has brought in $3060 so far this month. Greenline went out this week. Will do one more on line fundraising appeal. Green Party Cards have raised about $8500 so far. Fundraising committee is looking to find people in each state party to be the state coordinator for the program. Also looking to use the program to build “membership” in states without a Green Party or in states with new parties to create a base from which to organize. Also possibly set up escrow accounts for the state shares for those states until they are ready to accept it.
National meeting, we need to get a flier prepared for OK.
Voting Queue:
2 votes going on, results Monday. Add resolution on whales for one week discussion and then vote. Marc Sanson will floor manage.
Support for CAFTA demos, will post a resolution for a quick vote as soon as one is ready.
Need ANMC budget for Tulsa ASAP and waiting for BRPP to send along final resolution changing name of CC to NC. While they are at it, ask brpp to look into updating all documents to replace ASGP with GPUS.
Working Groups:
SPWG Brent — Primarily focused on Survey. They are looking to get that out to greens around the country soon with a one month turn around. Will need help form state parties and locals to make sure distribution is wide and that the returnees are actually greens. WG may need some money for distribution, mailing to greens with no on line access and for putting it on the web.
Expect to have much discussion on it at meeting in Tulsa.
Presidential Nominating Process Working Group, WG is having wide ranging discussions have seen little consensus on the issues. Issues include how to allot delegations to the state parties for the 2008 convention, proxies, NOTA, and whether the rules will include provisions for decisions other than nominating a candidate. Consensus has not been reached on any issue. Expect a lively debate in Tulsa.
Members of the SC received a post about our response to charges of members of the SC serving on secret committees. SC decided to take no action.
Glen Ross lawsuit:
Case is still in court and will be for a while. SC agreed to post further information to CC about the agreement to provide some funds for legal work.
Campus Greens: Peggy followed up CG attendance on SC call of 4/8 with a conference call with a few SC members and some CG members. It appears the current structure of the Campus Greens may not be salvageable. Discussion will continue with the CG SC members to incorporate as a network of the GPUS.
Inappropriate behavior on list serves:
Gwen will consult with Victor Fleitas on GPUS legal liabilities.
CAFTA/OAS:
FL wants us to support demos. We shall post a resolution for a 7 day vote as soon as one is ready. Emily will follow up on this. Support for lawsuits in FL on right to demonstrate. SC generally supportive but need info on specifics before signing on. Looks like if we sign on it would be as plaintiff with no cost to GPUS.
UTAH:
CA delegation asked the SC to set up a 3 person team to investigate legal and political issues in UT and to help us determine who UT GP is. Some discussion. One point was that current representation by UT is by those people who stuck with GPUS in 2004 presidential election. Another point was that GPUS already has a committee specifically tasked with dealing with these type of issues, the Accreditation committee. Most SC members thought that it was inappropriate for the SC to appoint a team to do this and would prefer that the CA delegation have a discussion with the AC about this, and if necessary file a formal letter with the AC asking them to look into this. Another place the CA delegation can look to for work on this is the DRC. If the CA delegation feels the AC or DRC is incapable or inappropriate for handling the situation, a formal letter should be filed with the SC specifically detailing the request and providing reasons for SC action.
Portfolio review
Finance Portfolio
Finance committee is getting ready to send a resolution on Tier 2 committee and caucus funding to the CC. SC agreed that it can be posted on voting page as soon as it is ready . Jake will follow up. Jody will floor mange it on the voting page.
Tulsa meeting: Need a budget from ANMC. Budget should include travel plus accommodations for SC and Staff. Some discussion on which staff to bring to Tulsa beyond Brent and Emily. Was suggested to budget for two additional staff in case they are needed.
Fundraising committee is working on rules so they will go to the CC for approval soon. Marc, Emily and Kevin are discussing options for handling donation pledges online.
Electoral Portfolio
CCC needs to find a way to have all of its members be active.
Policy Portfolio
IC is working on OAS/CAFTA demos. GPAX is active spreading thee word.
Outreach Portfolio
Merchandising committee is becoming much more active. Looking into what else to sell on line. Kids stuff? New bumperstickers? Books? Maybe hold a design contest for a new bumpersticker? Current stickers are in low supply. It was suggested that MerchCom create a simple bumper sticker based on our new logo and letterhead to make available in the very near future. Donnelly Colt could produce these quickly.
Internal portfolio
Personnel:
Job descriptions for two part time positions posted. Still need help with finishing personnel manuals. DRC is working on documenting what they can do and promoting their work a bit more. ANMC needs a little prodding on crating a Tulsa budget, they are working on getting a questionnaire out to CC.
Agenda for Tulsa
Suggestions so far:
45 minutes each for reports from Nader/Camejo and Cobb/LaMarche campaigns
Reports from state parties and caucuses
Committee reports
Big chunks of time for reports and discussion of work from Strategic Planning and Presidential Nominating process working groups.
No one is currently facilitating the development of workshops outside of the plenary sessions. SC will discuss online how to handle this. Committees need to ask for meeting space/times.
Final note. With DC office lease expiring in October moving the office needs to stay on the agenda.
Adjourned 10 PM EST
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green