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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	124
Proposal	Determination of Term Completion of Steering Committee Members - Remain State Delegate
Presenter	GPUS Bylaws, Rules, Policies & Procedures (BRPP) Committee
Floor Manager	Greg Gerritt
Phase	Closed
Discussion	02/14/2005 - 03/06/2005
Voting	03/07/2005 - 03/13/2005
Result	Failed
Presens Quorum	31 0.6666
Consens Quorum	54 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

BRPP has spent the past few weeks dealing with the issue of continued co-chair
service on the SC if a co-chair lose his or her status as a CC delegate by being
voted out by their state or by moving to another state or any other circumstance.

The central issue dividing the CC - and the BRPP - is whether or not to allow SC
co-chairs to serve out their full elective terms if and when they lose their seat as a
state CC delegate. BRPP’s solution is to present these two competing bylaw amendments
each stating one of the positions. They are exact opposites. One calls for allowing a
co-chair to finish his or her term on the SC even if he or she ceases to be a CC delegate.
The other requires a continuing CC delegate status in order to continue to serve as an
SC co-chair.

Passage for either must meet a 2/3 threshold. We hope one or the other will
receive enough votes for passage although that is of course not assured.

This leaves the many details of how the measure will be instituted as unanswered,
especially if the CC votes to allow co-chairs to finish their terms regardless of CC
delegate status. Recently California floated one such scheme and the BRPP has been
examining this and other schemes. But the fact that there are various ways to approach
this and then various ways to flesh out each approach makes deciding if we even will
allow service without delegate status essential to clarity of purpose.

The permutations of details are too many and varied to try to present them in one
chunk because many of the details would depend on which one of the two overall
organizational imperatives reflects the pleasure of the CC.

It is not too unusual to present a general bylaw and later fill in the rules of execution,
much as in government a constitution is general and fleshed out by more specific laws.

Each time the CC has tried to deal with this (there have been such two attempts
over the past few years) one of the problems has been that we don’t just divide up on
two sides. We divide up into a dozen factions that all believe different things should
happen, some agreeing in some respects, some in others, but nothing approaching a
2/3 majority on anything. This is because of all the permutations and the lack of a
decision on whether to allow service without CC status in the first place.

By submitting two simple and opposing bylaw amendments we hope the CC can
decide the central question and then institute a service scheme in a new and separate
bylaw amendment once the central issue is decided.

The revised bylaw would read:
The Steering Committee (SC) of the Green Party of the United States shall be composed of nine members: seven co-chairs, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. Co-chairs
shall be selected from and elected by the Coordinating Committee (CC) of the Green Party of the United States for terms of two years, with a limit of two
consecutive terms.

After election, co-chairs must remain state delegates to the CC in order to continue to serve.

The secretary and the treasurer shall be drawn from the membership of the affiliated state Green Parties and shall serve two year terms without term limits.

As to the actual voting, although delegates might choose to vote “no” to both it is expected that most will be voting “yes” on one and “no” on the other.

Two “yes” votes would not make any sense, but if somehow that occurs en masse
and both amendments get 2/3, the whole vote will be considered void.

The amendments to the bylaws are both simple one-sentence additions but the
implications to either winning will be many and varied. We have included two essays
with this proposal, one supporting each side to lay out the issues.

BRPP was by no means unanimous on this “competing bylaw amendments” approach.
And there will also be at least one minority report accompanying this proposal as well.

Proposal

Article IV of the GPUS Bylaws relating to election to the GPUS Steering Committee shall be amended to read:
After election, co-chairs must remain state delegates to the CC in order to continue to serve.

Resources

None

References

GPUS Bylaws - http://www.gp.org/documents/bylaws.html

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