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Proposal Details

Proposal ID1177
ProposalCommittee Leadership Resiliency
PresenterGreen Party of Washington
Floor ManagerJoseph Naham
PhaseClosed
Discussion02/19/2024 - 03/03/2024
Voting03/04/2024 - 03/10/2024
ResultFailed: Quorum Not Met
Presens Quorum31 0.6666
Consens Quorum0 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

Under the authority granted to the National Committee in Section 3-1.3 of the Bylaws of the Green Party of the United States and in order to promote geographic diversity as laid out in Section 3-3.1 of the Bylaws of the Green Party of the United States the Green Party of Washington State presents the following proposal for consideration by the National Committee of the Green Party of the United States, The “Committee Leadership Resilience Proposal” is an amendment to Green Party of the United States Bylaws dealing with committee leadership and governance.

As empowered by the National Committee, standing committees play a vital role in the effective operation and governance of the Green Party of the United States. Unfortunately, these committees are often understaffed and poorly resourced. These committees are sometimes unable to regularly review and approve needed bylaw and mission statement revisions, onboard and train new members, and perform other key duties in a timely manner. Additionally, committees often fail to accomplish the goal of geographic diversity in active memberships. Committees are sometimes unable to even hold regular meetings or maintain accurate meeting minutes, membership rosters, and communication with the party.

Committee Co-Chairs are volunteer positions. They are primarily responsible for coordinating the above tasks but are often over-extended and fighting competing priorities. This makes it difficult for them to perform these duties or complete them with regularity. Additionally, committee co-chairs encounter barriers when attempting to work collaboratively with other committees. This manifests as poor coordination in efforts such as when Diversity Committee and Accreditation Committee work on caucus accreditation, or when Media Committee and Fundraising Committee attempt to coordinate messaging, as well as many other similar circumstances.

When committee co-chairs are elected to the Steering Committee of the Green Party of the United States, they are placed in a position where they are responsible for ensuring their own compliance with Committee Mission Statements and Rules, Policies and Procedures. See section 4.2-7(g). This creates a perceived conflict of interest. This perceived conflict is exacerbated when Steering Committee members are placed in positions where they are both requesting and approving requests for resources from the party. Finally, Steering Committee members are left in positions where they are responsible for regular reporting to themselves. This can cause the quality, accuracy, frequency, and detail of reporting from committees to suffer.

Our committees are chronically understaffed. In an effort to prop up these committees, dedicated volunteers take on ever increasing leadership roles. This well-intentioned short-term fix ends up creating long-term problems. Instead of developing and recruiting new talent to committees, co-chairs end up trapped under multiple unmanageable workloads. Additionally, co-chairs responsible for multiple committees become single points of failure. Vast amounts of vital institutional knowledge can be lost when losing a single volunteer.

In order to address these issues and ensure the future strength and resilience of the party as a whole. We the sponsors, present the following bylaw amendments.

Addressing Findings
The original iteration of this proposal had findings approved by a vote of the Steering Committee that stated:
“The proposal is unclear with what it’s calling on the National Committee to do involving the process of 'disbanding.' The Remedy is to submit a process for disbanding and what this entails for the National Committee or any other relevant committee.” This finding is addressed in the revised sections 3-1.4 and 3-1.5.

Proposal

The following additions will be made to Section 3-3 of Article III of the Bylaws of the Green Party of the United States.

3-3.1 All committees shall have two co-chairs who serve staggered two-year terms, unless otherwise specified by the National Committee in the Committee Rules. Committees are urged to provide for gender balance and geographic diversity among the co-chairs and other officers serving the Committee.

[New Subsection] 3-3.2 No individual may serve as a co-chair on more than one Committee at any given time. Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis, by a 2/3 vote of the National Committee for Ad-Hoc and Temporary Committees.

[New Subsection] 3-3.3 In the interest of maintaining clear communication and preventing a perceived conflict of interest; and in order to ensure the impartial and effective execution of Steering Committee Duties and Responsibilities as defined under Section 4-2.7 of the Green Party of the United States Bylaws. No member of the Steering Committee of the Green Party of the United States may serve as a Committee Co-Chair during their term on the Steering Committee

[New Subsection] 3-3.4 The Treasurer of the Green Party of the United States is granted an exemption from Section 3-3.3 to serve as a Finance Committee Co-Chair as required under Green Party of the United States Fiscal Policy.

The following addition will be made to Section 3-1 of Article III of the Bylaws of the Green Party of the United States.

3-1.1 The National Committee shall establish standing committees in order to carry out its work and may create other kinds of committees according to need. The Steering Committee shall facilitate, coordinate and assist the activities of standing and ad-hoc committees as provided in 4-2.7.

3-1.2 To establish a new committee, a Mission Statement describing each committee’s general mission and duties and responsibilities must be approved by the National Committee by a two-thirds vote.
3-1.3 In conjunction with or after the establishment of a new committee, the National Committee shall approve Committee Rules, that will guide each committee’s internal operations and decision-making. Until the adoption of such Rules a Committee may meet, but may not conduct internal committee elections nor make proposals to the National Committee.

[New Section] 3-1.4 The National Committee may disband any committee at any time by a two-thirds vote. When a committee is disbanded, its authority granted under this section shall be considered void. A proposal to disband a committee may optionally detail which committee duties are to be eliminated, added to another standing committee, or returned to the National Committee. If the proposal does not provide these details, the duties will be returned to the National Committee which originally empowered the Committee.

[New Section] 3-1.5 A Standing Committee shall be automatically disbanded if it fails to elect at least one eligible Committee Co-Chair after a grace period of six months. The Secretary shall inform the National Committee when any standing committee has no elected Committee Co-Chairs. This will start the grace period to elect new Committee Co-Chairs. If at the end of this grace period, a committee has yet to elect at least one Co-Chair, the committee shall be disbanded, and its duties returned to the National Committee which originally empowered it. This does not require a vote from the National Committee.

Resources

Current committee co-chairs who fall under the scenarios detailed in these new sections of the Green Party of the United States Bylaws, shall be grandfathered into their positions for the remained of their terms, not to exceed two years.

Committees that currently have no elected co-chairs will immediately enter the six-month grace period upon passage of this proposal. The Steering Committee of the Green Party of the United States shall, under the authority granted to them under Section 4-2.7 of the Green Party of the United States Bylaws, facilitate new co-chair elections for affected committees.

No additional resources should be required. However, this proposal will create opportunities over the next two years for standing committees, states parties, and caucuses to foster new leaders to take on these responsibilities.

References

Contacts
Green Party of Washington State Delegates
  Scott Laugenour – scottlaugenour@gmail.com
  Margaret Elisabeth – margaretelisabeth@outlook.com

Bylaws of the Green Party of the United States https://gpus.org/bylaws/#03

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