This workshop is to solicit input on the general concept of establishing regular legislative sessions for the GPUS National Committee (NC), and on specific choices and trade-offs in how it would be implemented.
The goal of establishing regular NC legislative sessions is to enable the NC to be more efficient and effective, while involving more NC members. This would be facilitated by establishing a predictable timeline for NC decision-making. Such a proposal has been presented to the BRPP (Bylaws, Rules, Policies and Procedures) Committee. It is on the slow path, in order to get input from many sectors of the party. This workshop is one step on that path.
Under the current NC system, there is great uncertainty on behalf of NC delegates in the timing and length of proposals. This makes it hard for many NC members to participate meaningfully in the NC decision-making process.
The result is a GPUS decision-making process primarily involving a limited number of individuals who can spend large amounts of time on the NC’s email list, leaving many other NC delegates de facto excluded from meaningful participation by timing and circumstance. This does not align with the GPUS’s key value of grassroots democracy, nor does it promote inclusive and well-informed GPUS decision-making.
Under current GPUS Rules and Procedures, state parties, caucuses and committees can introduce proposals at any time, and can ask for discussion periods of differing lengths, the timing of which can then be amended at the last second. This often results in multiple proposals at different points in the decision-making timeline before the National Committee at any one time, with new proposals being introduced, others are in the discussion period, and others in the voting period.
Furthermore all of this is unannounced and on no set printed schedule. Instead most NC delegates only learn about these proposals when they appear without prior notice on the National Committee email list and voting page.
This all makes it virtually impossible for most NC delegates to plan their timing around active participation in NC decision-making, especially while also being active Greens on other local, county, state, national and international levels (let alone attending to their personal lives). All of this greatly limits what types of people can meaningfully participate in the NC, and often intersects to limit participation with other privileges and/or limitations. Additionally it leads to a less efficient NC – and by extension, a less efficient GPUS – because the talents, knowledge and experience of many NC members are not well-utilized by this process.
What will be presented at the 2018 ANM workshop (via powerpoint) will be
– Understanding the type and frequency of decisions before the GPUS National Committee (NC).
Review the raw data about what kind of decisions the NC makes, how many and what kind of decisions are required by party rules, how many are discretionary.
With such knowledge, along with a calendar of when mandated decision are to occur (will be posted later), an informed analysis of the NC workload can occur.
A review of this data reveals a total of 891 decisions before the NC during this period.
Of them, 380 of them were decisions mandated by GPUS rules (including 287 internal elections). Additionally 258 were platform amendments.
Of the remaining 253 non-mandated decisions, 125 were discretionary amendments to GPUS Bylaws, Rules & Procedures, Fiscal Policy and Presidential Convention Rules, 26 involved forming/establishing new committees and 37 more establishing/amending their Mission Statements and/or their Committee Rules.
– background data on what NC decisions are currently mandated by party rules, and a calendar plotting them all out
– a draft legislative sessions calendar that would incorporate those timelines
– options for future legislative sessions of ‘x’ number per year, with ‘y’ length, and any recommended changes to existing timelines and deadlines to achieve them
– a review and discussion of the operational choices and trade-offs that would be need to be made to implement legislative sessions
This w