Green Party of California

Application for Member, Delegation to Green Party of the United States
(job description)
received March 24th, 2007

Name  -  Mike Feinstein
City - Santa Monica
County  - Los Angeles County
Contact information - (310) 392-8450
mfeinstein@feinstein.org
_____________________________________________________________

1) Please list any prior or current positions, related experience, and/or personal and professional skills within of the Green Party that you have, that apply to this position.

I first registered Green in January 1990 when the ballot drive to start the current Green Party of California began; and I have been active on every level of the Green Party since November 1988, from my neighborhood to the global, and I remain so today. The list below is far from exhaustive, but gives a flavor of the range of activities that I have been involved in.

- On the local level, I have been active since November 1988, when I joined the Westside Greens. Soon afterwards, my efforts in organizing the well attended Westside Green public forums of 1989-1990, helped springboard the Westside Greens from obscurity to public visibility and effect. While tabling on behalf of my local, I have registered a couple of thousand Green voters over the years.

I have also represented the Westside Greens at national Green meetings in June 1989 (Eugene, OR), March 1990 (San Diego), September 1990 (Estes Park, CO) and August 1991 (Elkins, WV).

I remained active with the Westside Greens through 2004, when I then helped co-found a specific Santa Monica-focused local, the Santa Monica Greens, and remain active with the Santa Monica Greens today.

- On the county level, I was the first county/regional Green office coordinator, from 1989-1991 and took care of county mail and phone for about seven out of ten years between 1989 and 1999.

I was a co-founder of the Green Party Organizing Committee for Los Angeles County in 1990. After the Green Party of California gained ballot status in January 1992, I was elected to the first County Council in Los Angeles County in June 1992 and was re-elected every term since until 2002, when I took at two-year hiatus, only to return in 2004 and remain active through the present. In November 2004 I was also elected as the Co-coordinator of the Green Party of Los Angeles County, which I served til the end of my term in 2006.

- On the state level, I am one of the party co-founders of the Green Party of California. I co-organized and co-facilitated the founding meeting of the state party. I gathered over 1,000 Green registrations myself during the 1990-1991 Green Party ballot qualification drive.

Since then, I have served on a variety of state committee and working groups, including Campaigns & Candidates, Goals & Strategies, By-Laws, Electoral Reform and International. I served on the GPCA State Coordinating Committee for six years, from 1995-2001 and returned in 2006, for a term that ends in March 2008. In

September of 2006, I was also elected as Co-Coordinator of the Coordinating Committee, based upon the following platform.

I also served on both of the GPCA's State Party Restructuring Committees (1992-1993, 1999-2000).

From 1994-1998, I was the GPCA's State Clearinghouse Coordinator. I served as a correspondent for the GPCA's first state newsletter (Green Consensus) in the early to mid 1990s and in recent years, have written for the GPCA's current state newsletter (Green Focus).

I organized and hosted a GPCA state meeting (March 1990 @ LA Community College). I authored the proposal for the GPCA to join the national Green Party (November 1999). And along the way, I have documented our GPCA state party history (www.cagreens.org/history).

- On the national level, I have been active since 1989. I began by co-coordinating the national Green energy policy formation (1989-1990).

I was a founding member of the national Green Party Organizing Committee (1990). I attended the founding meeting of the Association of State Green Parties (1996), which led to the current national Green Party of the United States. I have also been an invited speaker at the founding of state Green Parties in Minnesota (1994) and Texas (1999), as well as the Campus Green Network (2001).

I was on the 1990 national Green Gathering '90 organizing committee (Estes Park, CO). In 1992, I was a member of the Media Committee, Green Gathering '92 (Minneapolis, MN). In 1996, I was co-coordinator (with Lynne Sepre) of the 1996 Green Gathering and Presidential Nomination Convention (at UCLA). In 2000, I was a member of the Media Committee, ASGP Green Party National Convention (Denver, CO). In 2001 I co-organized (with Stacy Malkan) , the press conference to announce GPUS Founding and application to FEC for Nat'l Committee Status, July 2001 (Santa Monica, CA). Overall, I’ve attended every annual national Green meeting in the U.S. since 1989 except 1993-1994

In 1995, I co-negotiated the deal with two others for Ralph Nader to appear on the GPCA March 1996 presidential primary ballot, the first major steps to Nader becoming the Green Party's first presidential candidate.

I organized both national Green officeholders conferences in the U.S. (1998 and 2003, both in Santa Monica), as well as the first-ever gathering of Green candidates in the U.S. (Green Parties of the West, 1993, also in Santa Monica). I was also a founding member of the national Green Officeholders Network.

I was a correspondent for national Green publications Green Synthesis and Green Letter in the early 1990s. I was the founding editor of the national Green Party newsletter GreenPages from 1997-2001 and continue today as the Sections Editor for both Electoral and International Green Party news.

In 1999-2000, I negotiated 90% of what became to be known as the `Boston Agreement', which led the way to consolidating different factions in the national Green movement into what became the Green Party of the United States. I simultaneously served for several years on the national Transition Committee, which established the structure on how state Green Parties are represented on the national level.

I have maintained national candidate and officeholder for U.S. Greens since 1994 and have done the party's definitive election history back to 1985, which is on display at www.greens.org/elections, a national Green website which I help administer. I also coordinate information and administer the U.S. Green national media site www.greens.org/media and the U.S. Greens ballot status and voter information site www.greens.org/stats.

Today I am an advisor to several national Green Party working groups, including Media, International, Coordinated Campaigns and Annual National Meeting.

- On the international level, I was a founding member of the U.S. Green International Working Group in 1989 and have been active on the international Green level ever since.

I've attended more international Green meetings than any other U.S. Green, representing both the Green Party of California and the U.S. Greens at international Green meetings on numerous occasions. In the early 1990s, I played an integral role in establishing the credibility of U.S. Greens in the international Green community, visiting and corresponding with numerous European Greens in particular.

My first role as a formal U.S. Green representative overseas was June 1990 at the European Green Coordination meeting in Brussels . In 2001, I was one of three U.S. Green delegates to the Global Green meeting in Canberra, Australia, where I cast one of three U.S. Green votes in favor of the first Global Green Charter.

In 1991, I was part of the organizing committee for the first CANAMEX meeting (Greens from Canada, U.S. and Mexico) and was active in the founding of its successor, the Federation of the Green Parties of the Americas. More recently, I attended Federation meetings that coincided with the founding of the Green Party in the Dominican Republic (December 2002) and Nicaragua (November 2003).

I've written a 674-page book on European Greens (Sixteen Weeks with European Greens: Interviews, Impressions, Platforms and Personalities) and am currently working on a second international Green book, on the role of Green Parties in coalition governments around the world.

I currently serve as an advisor to the U.S. Green International Committee, and most recently I was a keynote international speaker at the August 2006 Green Party of Canada national convention, as is documented in these three videos (one, two, three).

- On the global level, I have been active since 1990, when I put forward the first written proposal regarding global Green cooperation and coordination, which I presented in Bonn, West Germany at the meeting of the European Green Coordination in 1990.

I was part of the international effort to organize the first Global Green meeting, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. I was an advisor to the first Global Green Steering Committee (1992-1994), including in my role creating the first Global Green Calendar, writing for the first Global Green newsletter and helping co-create and coordinate the first international Green email lists in the early 1990s.

Today I am a member of the Global Greens Technical Advisory Group, which is responsible for the Global Greens website, for which I am webmaster. I am also a member of the Global Greens History Working Group and in this role, am writing a comprehensive global history section of Green Parties around the world all the way back to 1972.

Finally, I am part of the twenty-member Global Green planning committee for the next Global Greens meeting, scheduled for May 2008, and towards that end, participate in monthly conference calls and organize the GG2008 information/registration page.

2) Please list any prior or current positions, related experience, and/or personal and professional skills outside of the Green Party that you have, that apply to this position.

Municipal
• City Council, Santa Monica, 1996-present
elected in 1996 and 2000
• Mayor, Santa Monica, 2000-2002
chosen by a unanimous vote of his colleagues

Regional
• Southern California Regional Comprehensive Plan Task Force,
Southern California Association of Governments, 2004-present
• Growth Visioning Subcommittee/Southern California Compass,
Southern California Association of Governments, 2001-2004
• Energy & Environment Committee,
Southern California Association of Governments, 1997-present
• Westside Council of Governments
Santa Monica representative as Mayor, 2000-2002

State
• Housing Committee,
California League of Cities, 2001-2002

National
• U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2002
• Central Cities Committee,
National League of Cities, 2002-2004

International
• ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives)
Santa Monica representative, including presentations in Johannesburg, South Africa
(World Summit on Sustainable Development, 2002) and Athens (ICLEI Global Congress, 2003).

3) Please describe your vision for serving as GPUS Delegate including addressing the job description for GPUS Delegate.

I want to ensure that our state party is well represented at the national level and that our national party grows as well, including by sharing skills and information with state parties not as well developed as California.

To ensure greater accountability between our delegation and the GPCA membership, I would work to ensure that all GPCA members who wish to know what decisions are before the national party, would have easy access to that information. As a member of the GPLAC County Council, I authored a proposal to this effect, and would encourage our delegation to pursue a similiar course:

www.cagreens.org/lacounty/2006-06/greennatlcmtecommunicate.html

PROPOSAL: That the County Council forward the following request to the Green National Committee of the Green Party of the United States
The Green Party of Los Angeles County requests that the Green Party of the United States
- develop a means by which rank-and-file members of the Green Party can receive automated information about what decisions are before the Green National Committee (including by email)
- develop a means by which rank-and-file members of the Green Party can express their opinions about decisions before the Green National Committee (including perhaps a format like that created by the GPLAC for the June GPCA General Assembly)

Pending this, I would support the GPUS delegation automatically forwarding all such information out to interested GPCA members via the GPCA County Contacts list, or some other appropriate mechanism.

Finally, GPCA Bylaws include the possibility for the GPCA General Assembly to instruct the GPUS delegation on national issues. I would work with the GPUS delegation to present for inclusion in the GPCA Work Plan, appropriate times/issues to bring to the General Assembly for its input.