Platform Submission

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How To Submit Platform Amendment Proposals

I. Process

A. All Platform amendments must be approved and submitted by state parties, caucuses or GPUS committees that specify this as part of their mission statement, through an inclusive process of democratic discussion, deliberation and debate. Parties and caucuses are asked to facilitate this process and to appoint a liaison to the GPUS Platform Committee. The Platform Committee can assist parties and caucuses in creating a process for such deliberation.

B. Process Outline:

  1. Platform Committee announces opening of the amendment cycle to the GPUS National Committee (NC).
  2. GPUS-NC delegates notify state parties and caucuses
  3. Parties and caucuses inform their membership down to the grassroots level of the submission process
  4. Proposals from membership received, discussed and revised by state and caucus platform committees.
  5. Proposals approved by the grassroots membership of state parties and caucuses.
  6. Proposals submitted to GPUS Platform Committee, which will compile, edit and organize changes to the Platform.
  7. Proposals submitted to the appropriate body of GPUS for approval.
  8. Proposals integrated into new Platform

 

II. General Template for Submission of Amendments:

  1. Name of party/caucus/committee and co-chair contact information
  2. Brief explanation of approval process and date of approval
  3. Contact Information for author or designated contact person: name, address, phone, e-mail.
  4. Chapter of the platform and letter of plank being addressed; or, if introducing new material, chapter and section where new plank should appear
  5. Current language of plank that is being addressed
  6. Proposed revision or amendment of the current language, or proposed new plank
  7. Additional comments or questions

III. Formatting requirements

A. The Platform is divided into four chapters: Democracy, Social Justice, Ecological Sustainability, and Economic Sustainability designated by Roman numerals. Each chapter contains sections denoted alphabetically. Sections may also contain sub-sections denoted by Arabic numerals.

These sub-sections are sometimes further divided by into paragraphs denoted by lower case letters. Amendment proposals must indicate as precisely as possible exactly which chapter, section and subsection of the Platform they are intended to modify or replace. Use the above system of numerals and letters to identify where the amendment is intended to apply.

B. Amendments should address a single plank, rather than multiple additions or changes to a section. Submit multiple changes as different amendments so they can be considered separately in your approval process. Amendments should also be concerned with the content of the Platform, rather than the style of writing, unless it is a style correction for clarity concerning the content. Rewrites of entire sections of the platform will not be accepted.

C. Amendments must include information on exactly how they replace, add, re-order, change or remove language from the specific section of the Platform to which they apply. A written explanation of your intent would be beneficial and greatly assist the Platform Committee in processing your proposal.
If your amendment changes existing language in the Platform, please include the original wording of the text you propose to replace, followed by your proposed wording.

D. If your amendment is intended as an addition to the Platform, you must still indicate the chapter, section or sub-section to which it applies. For example, if your amendment is an addition to our stand on monetary reform, indicate that it is intended to be placed in Chapter IV, Section I, Sub-Section 2. Sub-section 2 contains three additional paragraphs “a.” through “c.” You may then indicate that your amendment would be a new paragraph under sub-section 3 by denoting it as paragraph “d.” Since others may also wish to add to this sub-section, your amendment may ultimately be denoted by another letter.

The Platform Committee will determine the final designation for the location of each amendment when it prepares Platform amendments for submission to the GPUS NC.

E. Any proposed amendment that does not follow the required formatting above will be returned to its author(s) for correction and will receive no further attention from the Platform Committee until the corrections are made.

IV. Approvals and Contacts

A. Proposed amendments must receive the approval of your caucus or state party governing committee and your state platform committee if you have one, or in the case of a GPUS committee such as EcoAction, of the committee as a whole.

B. Proposed amendments may only be submitted by a caucus, state party or committee co-chair. The co-chair must include the date and manner by which it was approved and their own phone number and contact information.

C. Proposed amendments must include the name(s) and contact information for the author(s) of the amendment.

D. Proposed amendments must include the contact information for a designated contact person who will act as a liaison between their caucus or state party and the Platform Committee. Preferably this should be one of the authors of the amendment. If not, the liaison should be someone knowledgeable of the proposed amendment who can work with and be available for regular communication with PlatCom throughout vetting, processing, and editing the proposed amendment.

V. Submission

A. Send the proposed amendment to platformamendments@gp.org.

B. The committee may return a proposed amendment for revision or correction. The committee will indicate where and why the necessary changes need to be made.

C. A proposed amendment may also be returned to the state/caucus from which it was received if vetting or major edits of the proposed amendment merit further review.