SC Call Notes — November 27, 2004
Participants:
SC – Gwen Wages, Greg Gerritt, Jody Haug, Gray Newman, Jo Chamberlain, Jake Schneider, Maya O¹Connor, Peggy Lewis, Marc Sanson
Abbreviations used:
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting Committee
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
DRC = Dispute Resolution Committee
FC = Fundraising Committee
FEC = Federal Election Commission
GP = Green Party
IC = International Committee
LC = Lavender Caucus
NWC = National Women’s Caucus
PEC = Presidential Exploratory Committee
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]
Published Agenda
Draft Agenda
2 hours 10 minutes
5 min – facilitator, timer, note taker (Greg)
5 min – Ohio recount (Lynne)
10 min – National Women’s Caucus – next steps for NWC – Morgen, Holly, Amy on call
15 min – staff reports (Brent, Emily)
20 min – FINANCE Portfolio(Jake, Marc, Kara): Finance, FundCom
5 min – Voting Queue – synchronize two fiscal proposals?; other
5 min – GPUS thank you letters to candidates
20 min – Listserv questions
5 min – SC FTF meeting
Portfolio reports:
5 min – ELECTORAL (Gray, Jo): CCC, Office Holder Network, PCSC, Legal Team
5 min – POLICY (Greg, Gwen): Platform, Peace, Intnl, DC, Strategic Plan
5 min – OUTREACH (Peggy): Media, Green Pages, Merchandise, Campus Greens
5 min – INTERNAL (Maya): Personnel, Dispute Resolution; (Greg): BRPP
DRC ready for intake?
5 min – INTERNAL (Jody): Accreditation (with Maya), ComCom, Event Planning
15 min – Executive Session
*****
Portfolio review
Elections Portfolio
CCC will be having call on Sunday. They will discuss whether Political Director Brent McMillan should be the one updating the elections data base regularly as part of his regular daily tasks and a potential opening on the CCC. Officeholders have had preliminary discussion about meeting this winter.
Policy portfolio
Greg reports. Peace committee has membership issues that they seem to be slowly figuring out and they are starting to work on Jan 20 events.
Lynne Serpe from the Cobb/LaMarche campaign joins us to discuss OH recount. 3 phases 1. Raise enough money to actually do the work and file the paperwork. That is going well. 2. Litigation. Federal judge, as expected denied early recount, so recount and meeting of electors be simultaneous rather than recount before meeting of electors. 3. Organizing volunteers. Need about 2200 to cover every precinct, have over 1000 already. Have regional coordinators for most of the state.
Lots of organizations are coordinating, Jesse Jackson will do a rally on 28th.
Considering filing for recounts in NM and NV. Checking out Green support for such efforts. Likely to go forward. Badnarik is willing to join efforts, Nader declined.
Lynne leaves the call.
National Women’s Caucus Joined by Morgen D’Arc and Holly Hart
Morgen sent to SC members her notes from the meeting. As they match mine well, I include her notes on the topics covered around the NWC rather than mine. This is followed by a note forwarded by Holly including the letter from an AC member to the NWC about the concerns the AC originally had. (See Addendum below)
Morgen D’Arc, Co-Chair:
I want to say that The National Women’s Caucus (NWC) is very happy and gratified in attaining accreditation . We are eager to move the Party forward for women.
We want to thank the Steering Committee for your support, advice, guidance and action in accomplishing this great achievement for women and the whole Party.
Now that we are accredited, we want to let you know that NWC CC is already preparing to carry out our obligation to the CC to amend our bylaws. We had a meeting the day before the vote became final and discussed specifics to do this.
To that end, we are here to inform you of our next steps and some concerns that need to be resolved to begin this task.
We would appreciate that our being here both to show our willingness to fulfill our post-accreditation obligation and the concerns we raise be recorded in the minutes.
I want to introduce Holly Hart, NWC delegate to the GPUS CC. She will describe our concerns and take it from here. Amy Beck, Alternate Delegate, is also on the call. She is just observing for her role as alternate. Amy did not attend after all.
Holly will address the following on the SC call.
Our concerns follow.
1) The NWC agreement to complete the bylaw amendments in 90 days was dependent on the Accreditation Committee giving their approval to our draft bylaw amendments that were submitted October 4th, nearly two months ago. The AC has not yet fulfilled their responsibility of approving our amendments so we can move forward. We cannot begin to fulfill our obligation until the amendments are approved by the AC. We bring to your attention that the 90 days cannot start until the AC provides this. From the beginning, our starting the process was always dependent on the AC’s approval. We cannot move ahead without it. The 90 days should not therefore start until we receive this approval.
2) We want to be clear that the AC made a request for only three bylaw amendments. Since that time the one relating to finances was rendered not necessary because it was being handled by the Finance Committee on the GPUS level. It is a given that we will adopt the GPUS rule. Therefore, there are only two bylaw amendments that are relevant for the NWC to amend to satisfy our 90-day agreement.
We want to be clear about this because, we saw various elements brought up in the CC discussion that do not pertain at all to our agreement. We have heard rumors of other requests the AC has brought up way after our review. But none of them were officially presented to the NWC at any point. We want to make sure everyone is on the right page with this. Again, the 90-day agreement was based on only the three bylaw amendments submitted to the NWC from the AC on August 23.
The three amendments are:
. Financial clause to adhere to GPUS policy. (Note: We accept GPUS policy as adopted by the GPUS next month.)
. Timing of elections.
. Clarify the appeals and reinstatement process for members not in good standing.
These are the only amendments required by the AC and the only amendments involved when we all agreed to the 90 days.
After the SC call, Holly will send the original 8/23 language to all SC members.
3) We have a great concern about receiving a fair process with Gil Obler involved. He single handedly changed the process and disregarded accreditation rules in a way that presented the CC delegates with a proposal that was negatively dominated and so unbalanced that it contained no merits of the NWC, merits which are truly substantial. Under Gil’s direction and action, the GPUS and NWC are left with a history of the NWC accreditation that is simply not accurate and destroyed the positive efforts of the Party and NWC to change the climate in the Party for women and the perspective that the public and the media have that the Party is not women friendly.
We want someone else to be in charge of the 90-day obligation.
With Gil in charge, we are worried that our efforts to fulfill the 90-day obligation will be obstructed from both ends – from NWC trouble-making members and from Gil.
Questions:
Jody: Grace and her working together and getting proposal to us in a couple of days with their input. The financial clause not necessary. Elections amendment ok. The only one requiring attention still is the request concerning members not in good standing. They have some suggestions.
Morgen: What constitutes approval? When Jody sends her and Grace’s input in a couple days?
Jody did not directly respond but said:
We are not the AC. We will wait for the NWC to return it to us and then submit it to the AC.
Morgen: I’m just trying to get a sense of timing, so the NWC can plan on our timeline to carry it out and make our plans. It would be helpful if we knew whether it’s going to be a week, a couple of weeks or a month.
Summation NWC wants the CC to note that it will make every effort to comply with the recent resolution and produce the appropriate bylaw changes within 90 days. They ask our forbearance if working the the Accreditation Committee delays this beyond the 90 days.
Holly and Morgen sign off.
Portfolio review (continued)
Financial Portfolio
Jake starts. Fiscal Policy has been reviewed and approved by relevant committees, being sent to the voting page, will go up this week for 2 weeks of discussion and then a vote concurrent with the budget as they are so connected.
The Elections and news databases
In our efforts to reduce cost and increase efficiency we are looking into having volunteers take over the maintenance of the software that runs these, and eventually transitioning into a more easily maintained system rather than the idiosyncratic system that has been uniquely developed for us. We need a system that can be maintained without over reliance on any one person. We are feeling our way forward talking to the various people responsible for this work and how best to make that transition. We have concerns about how fast we need to move on this. We do not need this yesterday but due speed is appropriate. We have to consider what it would take to make the transition and how we keep things going while the transition happens.
Jake suggests a multi committee conference call on this topic. When the pieces are properly laid out this seems a good idea.
Letter to GP presidental/vice presidential candidates thanking them for their efforts. Marc has produced a draft which SC finds acceptable. He shall follow up and get them out.
List serve issues
Discussion of whether and how to respond to FL GP request to remove two Floridians from the National Committee list serves. Discussion centered around whether we should accept the request or wait until the CC has the opportunity to review the rules. There were multiple interpretations of the rules as written within the SC. Various issues including institutional memory and states rights were discussed.
SC voted 8 to 1 (Greg dissenting) to remove Alan Kobrin and Steven Schmidt form the COO and DX lists, but also agreed that the SC and other committees could entertain a proposal that would allow party founders and former SC members to remain on the list, and that the issue should eventually go to the CC for a vote.
Greg Gerritt will write to Steven and Alan informing them of the decision and to the relevant list keepers for implementation as well as work with Jody to draft a proposal for modification of list membership rules.
Steering committee face to face meeting:
Probably the weekend of Feb 11.
Possibly open up a session to committee co chairs who are interested in attending on their own dimes. SC will pay their own ways as well. Thinking about location: DC may be cheapest, no extra costs for staff to attend, but SF has its attractions as well. SC will finish this discussion on its list.
Outreach portfolio
Peggy reports
Media committee is unhappy with their budget. Merchandise committee has not reported back on questions SC had about their merchandise order and could it be modified. Green Pages is moving towards publication of the next issue, then will have to resolve organizational issues such as finding an new editor.
Internal portfolio
Maya reports on DRC
There is a member who is being very disruptive on DRC and threatening to derail all work of the committee. Same type of thing she has done elsewhere. We advised Maya to have real discussion with committee members as to how they want to move forward. Also asked Maya to return to efforts to promulgate rules on how to deal disruptive people on lists and in committees.
Greg reported that BRPP is looking into 3 members on committees interpretations and has a list of topics being circulated.
Jody reports that AC is currently working on MT application. Next up is OK and then a review of situation in HI and UT. Have point people designated for each case.
Communications Committee will meet on phone soon.
Events Planning/ANMC slowly gearing up. Knows it is behind the curve on planning for 2005 meeting. Gray and Maya asked to be kept up to speed even more on committee happenings.
Entered Executive Session at 8:00 PM to discuss personnel.
Addendum to notes:
Supplemental e-mail
From: “george plumb”
To: Morgenizer@yahoo.com
CC: accreditation@lists.gp-us.org, Cheetah@pdq.net
Subject: Women’s Caucus
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 14:10:44 -0400
First, that the bylaws section IV be changed to be more specific about when elections take place.
Second, in relation to the treasurer, the bylaws Section IV need to be very clear that all money needs to go through the Treasurer of the GPUS. This is because of FEC regulations.
Finally, in reference to III.3 and III.4 we would like to see the specifics of who determines a member is not in good standing, how that is determined, and how an appeal is made. What education will be offered should be further defined. The bylaws should also state the standard for deciding an appeal and if the appeal is made to an appointed person or an elected person.
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