MINUTES – Green Party US Steering Committee Meeting
Date: Sunday, April 14, 2024
Time: 8:00 pm ET
AGENDA
I. Setup and Background
A. Facilitator: Jody Grage
B. Steering Committee Roll Call:
1. Craig Cayetano (co-chair) – present
2. Margaret Elisabeth (co-chair) – present
3. Darryl! Moch (co-chair) – reported absence
4. Alfred Molison (co-chair) –
5. Joseph Naham (co-chair) – present
6. Tony Ndege (co-chair) – present
7. Tamar Yager (co-chair) – present
8. Holly Hart (secretary) – present
9. Bob Stuller (treasurer) – present
Observers: Starlene Rankin, WA; Maureen Doyle, MA
Committee Reports: Doug Lary, Apportionment Tabulation Committee, xawrittenreport from Tim Runkle
Approve Agenda (changes require majority, new items require ⅔)
REQUEST to CHANGE ORDER OF AGENDA ITEMS:
Allow Report from Apportionment Tabulation Committee to follow directly after roil call. (See V. Reports) APPROVED
REQUEST TO ADD SC Elections (MARGARET) SC elections take place during the ANM . The SC needs to prepare the election ballots. APPROVED
I. REPORT from the Apportionment Tabulation Committee
Doug Lary spoke for the ATC, and a report with the calculations was sent by Tim Runkle. See Addendum A The committee finalized its work with some new input from the general election. A number of new delegates went to other regions, which meant other states lost delegates. The summary from late October was published. The supporting documents were early November figures, so the website has the new numbers published. However, an older summary was circulated with the wrong number of delegates. The correct number is in the documents on the website.
The proposal as written has the incorrect numbers. A housekeeping proposal will be sent to the voting queue. Tamar proposed an expedited proposal, the same proposal with the numbers corrected and listing the states in alphabetical order. Margaret seconded. Margaret will write it up and send it to the SC for a 48/48 decision, to go into the voting queue next Monday, April 29th.
II. Treasurer’s Report (Bob)
ACCOUNTS
Signal
General $9,280.43
Merchant $5,557.41
Savings $120,688.86
PayPal $2331.54
Bob reported there has seen some income fromdirect mail and he hopes to see more income soon from that mailing. September mailing is still generating revenue.
III. New Business
A. Forum Manager/s to fill out the remainder of the term left by Samuel Chance. He will remain as a forum manager until a replacement is found. (Holly)
In the coming week, SC members suggested names of one or two individuals they feel would serve well in this capacity.
https://gpus.org/rules-procedures/#09-0
Eligibility : The Steering Committee shall nominate five (5) individuals, subject to National Committee approval, to serve coincident two-year terms as Forum Managers. They must not all be of the same gender and have gender balance of females, non-binary, and males.
Forum Managers may be sitting NC delegates, alternates or others as recommended by their State or Caucus.
All nominees must be either recommended or approved by their state or caucus. It is recommended that Forum Managers have dispute resolution training.
Vacancy : In the event of a Forum Manager resignation or inactivity, the SC shall nominate a replacement to fill the role of Forum Manager, to be approved by the NC. After two months of inactivity, the Steering Committee will send a reminder to the inactive Forum Manager to determine the vacancy.
B. Correspondence re: Green Party of Colorado (Margaret)
The Secretary has heard from GPCO and the Colorado SoS. GPCO has until Sept. 6th to file to place a candidate on their presidential ballot line. They retain their minor party status as long as there are at least 1000 registered Greens in the state. Margaret has received several complaints from the same source. In terms of procedural issues, this is an internal state issue.
C. Proposal: Assign Temporary Inactive Status to Green Party of South Dakota Holly reported that the state party has not appointed any delegates to the NC, and is therefore not casting any votes, while still being counted toward quorum. Margaret suggested waiting for the deadline, reviewing the proposal during the next two weeks, then taking it up and approving at the next call. Deadline (6 mos. inactivity) is this week.
D. SC Elections (Margaret)
We are about 90 days out from the SC election, and need to make sure we are prepared to hold that election during the ANM. The SC election is on the Sunday following the PNC. Traditionally the last thing done, announced Saturday night,. All outgoing/incoming SC meet, would be a good idea to have a virtual meeting, maybe within the next couple of days. The secretary will send out a call for nominations shortly, it is on the calendar. Tamar recommended two sessions with prospective candidates. One would be a simple Q&A with a few SC members answering questions and talking about what the job entails. This could be done several times with different members. The other is a candidate forum well before the week of voting.
IV. Standing Business
A. Report back from follow up attempt to determine status of presidential candidates Jasmine Sherman and Jorge Zavala. (Craig)
Craig has received a spreadsheet from the Sherman campaign, but is not clear if that is what is on the FEC site. Craig has spoken with the PCSC co-chair. Craig will pass along the report o to PCSC and have David Doonan update the website to reflect candidate status changes.
V. Reports
1.Reports
a. Treasurer (Bob) – (see I. above)
b. Secretary (Holly)
1. There should now be a complete collection of social media accounts and admins. Will pass along to office and ensure ability to verify at staff/office end.
2. Reminder that correspondence (inquiries, research, copyright requests) should come to the secretary. Media requests go to the media, the rest to the secretary.
c. Staff Report (Tamar, Tony)
Tamar reported that staff and volunteers are working on cleaning up and reducing the number of Tags in NationBuilder.
d. Reports from Committee (co-chairs/committee representative)
See above, ATC
e. Liaison Reports 10 min
Craig: Media; Merchandise, Presidential Campaign Support Committee
PCSC has not met yet this month. Merch hasn’t met het. Media met this week.
Joseph: EcoAction, Green Pages, International
Nothing is happening with Green Pages. EcoAction held a webinar last week, sessions on energy, recycling and the effects of military on the environment; they will be holding 6 more webinars. IC is discussing the issue of Global Greens membership. Margaret asked about an earlier idea of forming a new organization with Canada, Colombia and Norway. Joseph thinks the contacts have changed; possibly the idea of joining Global Greens under a better agreement.
Tamar: Apportionment Tabulation, Credentials, Election Tabulation, Staff
Supervisor, Apportionment Review Committee
No reports
Margaret: Banking and Monetary Reform
BMRC will participate in a forum with the American Journal of Monetary Institutions. Another conference next month.
Darryl!: Platform, DRC
Holly (Platform Committee member) reported that the Platform committee has collected the 2024 platform proposals for this cycle and are in the process of sending them to David Doonan to put on the WordPress site. They will be sent to the voting queue in batches.
Tony: Outreach, Ballot Access, FinCom
BAC has added to their funding application to require a notary.
VI. Voting Queue (Holly)
A. RECEIVED for the QUEUE (5 min)
1. None
B. IN the QUEUE
Discussion
Voting
1. #1186 Change the Date of the 2024 Presidential Nominating Convention
Floor Manager: Holly Hart
Discussion through April 7
Voting period April 8-14
Threshold: 50%+1
NOTE: it has come to light that two, more probably several state parties may have a filing deadline dependent on the date of the PNC that falls before this date. Margaret reported that the Stein campaign did want the later date with the possibility of social media fallout if the proposal fails. Holly and Tamar stated they heard different opinions from the campaign.
C. COMPLETED
1. #1180 – Candidate Issues Guidance
Failed, due to lack of quorum
2. #1181 – Approval of Diane Moxley as International Committee Delegate to Sao Paolo Forum
3. #1182 – Approval of John Krause as International Committee Delegate to Sao Paolo Forum
4. #1183 – Approval of Dylan Parsons as International Committee Alternate to Sao Paolo Forum
5. #1184 – Approval of A J Reed as International Committee Alternate to Sao Paolo Forum
National Committee Approval of Delegates and
Alternated to the Sao Paolo Forum (four
separate proposals)
All APPROVED
6. #1185 Establishment of Green Congressional Campaign Committee GCCC
APPROVED
7. #1187 2024 Budget, II APPROVED
D. Not Completed
1. #1178 2024 Budget
Was not available for the duration of the voting period due to a technical problem. Vote has been rescheduled (see #1187 above)
VII. Old Business None
VIII. Executive Session – None
TOTAL TIME – 1 hr. 20 min.
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ADDENDUM A
ATC report, Tim Runkle; Doug Lary reported
An error in the presentation of the delegate calculation results for the Presidential Nominating Convention was recently brought to the attention of the ATC by Delegate Steve Newman (FL). After review of the proposal and the formula it was determined that ATC had incorrectly used a draft file for the proposal text (proposal 1165). It is noted that the correct final formula (excel file) and summary files included as attachments in proposal 1165 did contain the correctly apportioned delegate numbers. This error impacts the apportioned PNC delegates for the states listed below, where their correct numbers are also now included. In addition, it was found that the territories listed in the apportionment files incorrectly listed the Northern Mariana Islands instead of American Samoa (see PNC rule 2.1.2 for list of territories). Corrections to the formula excel and summary table for these two errors are included in the attached.
Required correction for affected PNC delegates.
California: 56
Maine: 31
Michigan: 24
Illinois: 19
Texas: 18
New York: 13
Pennsylvania: 13
Connecticut: 9
Florida: 8
North Carolina: 5
Virginia: 5
District of Columbia: 4
Minnesota: 4