Green Party of the United States - National Committee Voting

Home	Vote	Results	History	Contacts	Admin
	National Committee Voting

Login

Proposal Details

Proposal ID	83
Proposal	Change Fiscal Policy to permit donations to the maximum applied by law
Presenter	DC Statehood Green Party, Green Party of South Carolina, Green Party of Connecticut
Floor Manager	Marnie Glickman
Phase	Closed - Adopted
Discussion	04-19-2004 - 05-10-2004
Voting	05-11-2004 - 05-17-2004
Presens Quorum	Two Thirds of Active Accredited States/Caucuses
Consens Quorum	Two Thirds of Yes and No Votes

Background

At the founding meeting of the Green Party of the United States in Santa Barbara, California in 2001, the following wording was adopted into our fiscal policy regarding donations from individuals. THIS IS THE CURRENT POLICY:

Individuals: Contributions from individuals will be accepted, to a limit of $10,000 per year per contributor. Contributions in excess of this amount must be returned and no cash contributions will be accepted. The names of all individual contributors will be public. Contributions are not tax-deductible. This limit is subject to a sunset clause at the first meeting of the Green Party following the 2004 elections. The Coordinating Committee must vote to continue this policy, or the limit will revert to $5000.

Since that time, the Green Party has recruited a number of donors who contribute to the $10,000 maximum each year, and at least one or two of them have indicated they would contribute more if we would accept their money.

The above limit of $10,000 was an increase from the previous limit of $5000. The proposal had been to increase it to the legal limit, which was $20,000 then. Concerns were expressed that we could influenced by large donors and that the lower limit provides a benefit in our media and campaign work.

The sponsors of this proposal believe that with an annual income of a half million dollars or more, and with the strong separation between our fundraising operation and those of our platform, that the increase creates no threats to our values. We do not believe that the Green Party should wait until after the elections later this year to evaluate this system. The challenges are great this year and we could use the extra income for this election cycle.

Proposal

We propose that the above wording in the fiscal policy be replaced by the following:

Individuals: Contributions from individuals will be accepted in amounts as permitted by law and all excess contributions will be returned. The names of all individual contributors will be public. Contributions are not tax-deductible. This limit is subject to a sunset clause at the first meeting of the Green Party following the 2008 elections. The Coordinating Committee must vote to continue this policy, or the limit will revert to the levels in effect prior to this policy.

Resources

None

References

Contact person: Dean Myerson

The voting software used by the Green Party of the United States is free software, licensed under the General Public License v2 (GPL).