Facilitators: Matt Leslie, Orange County; Pat Gray, San Mateo County

Note taker: Valerie Face Santa Clara County

Quorum per Craig Peterson from accreditation: ¾ of the regions are represented, 64 delegates at this time (if 51 delegates available for vote we can take action).

Timekeeper: Don Eichelberger San Francisco county

Vibes: David Wass, Santa Barbara County & Gloria Purcell, El Dorado County

Affirm agenda: no changes, agenda affirmed.

Announcements:

KCM Curry: people of color caucus will meet in corner during lunch

URL was not listed in plenary packet.

Mike Wyman Marin County concern that nobody has read them, proposes that we put off until next plenary

Warner Bloomberg Santa Clara county concern that the full text is never included in minutes, and should always be included as an addenda to the minutes.

Item pulled from agenda and postponed until another plenary.

Greens Save America Discussion

Peggy Lewis & Barrington Daltrey presenters.  Break out into groups for 45 mins, discuss how to save America, return to main meeting.  Pick 3 things that Greens can do to save America.

A-- pink group: hard time narrowing list.  Top 2 are (1) GP should be the primary anti-war group and foreign policy adjustment group, (2) we need to engage the folks who are not registered green but vote green, educate them on what the GP is.  Resounding point: many people agree with us but don’t know we’re there.

B -- Jim Stauffer’s group: saving the US.  Top 3: (1) election reform based on PR (2) political education and outreach (3) political enfranchisement of all communities, ending racism and renewing civic participation.

C -- Group: public financing reform, putting the paper trails on electronic voting, media fairness where all candidates are allowed to present views, gender balance throughout government, take back our marketing – own our message, alliance with labor: living wage, universal health care, anti-consumerist values, corporate reform, strengthening local and regional communities.

D – Joe Crompton & Jean Comfort group: electoral reform, the war – PATRIOT Act, economy, education, reorganizing the GP.

E – blue group: (1) building alliances w/ countries and communities affected by our policies (2) focusing on local issues group to group and community to community – living wage, people of color, health care (3) getting back to the green movement (4) internal reform (5) electoral reform (6) living green day by day

F – group: (1) only party talking about peace justice and democratic reform (2) need strong national party focusing on 10 key values (3) broader coalitions with groups that agree with some but not all key values (4) electing greens, election reform, proportional representation.

Barrington Summary: sign up to continue working on these issues.  We are the only party that has a moral base.  We have great warriors like Cobb & Camejo working in this party – let’s all be Green Warriors.

Election of National Delegates:

Mike Wyman & Nanette Pratini presenting

(Finance committee forfeits 5 minutes from their presentation because we’re behind schedule.)

Nanette: There are 4 of 13 delegate positions and 7 of 13 alternate positions open.  Packet contains candidate statements.  We can fill vacancies at other times if we don’t fill all now.  We have an election committee to run the election.  Important criteria are listed in packet.  Diversity of current delegation noted in packet.

Mike: Jonathan Lundell, Pat Gray and Ginny Marie Case are the election committee administering the election.  We are counting on all counties to duplicate the diversity criteria and distribute it locally and recruit diverse candidates.  This cannot be guaranteed by the state or national party alone – we’re all responsible.  Put it on county agenda.

Jonathan: Delegates to this plenary are eligible to vote for GPUS delegation.  Ballots with candidates listed in random order will be handed out.  Raise hands.  The process is to rank as many candidates as you approve of, in the order of your preference, in the blank beside their name.  Do not rank candidates that you don’t approve of (that’s our NOTA).  No write-ins.  Ballots to be collected at registration table.  Show delegate card when handing in ballot – 1 vote per delegate number.  We have until 15 minutes after reconvening after lunch.

Point of process: some delegates have not received delegate cards and nobody is there to hand them out now – can we get someone?

See Craig Petersen at the back of room.

Rebecca Weiss is a candidate for alternate, not delegate.

Point of process: is this intended to be a secret ballot?  Kevin McKeown  We could label the ballots with our delegate numbers.

Jonathan:  It will not be secret to the extent that we will track who has voted and we will nag you if you do not.

Not all members of counties have to vote from the same way.

Nanette: hold questions to end, we need time for candidates to speak.  We have compiled a spreadsheet of current delegate participation if you would like to see it.

KCM: What is current diversity breakdown?

Nanette: see pg 19 of packet.

Candidate statements…some points made (not exhaustive):

Peter Camejo Sacramento: crisis re. independence of our party from dems and reps.  Never support corporate party candidates.  One person one vote – every green is equal.  Have disagreements but always respect the opposing point of view.  OK to work for a non green party candidate as an individual, but don’t make this the focus of the party.

Tim Fitzgerald Tuolumne: not present – Nanette read selections from his statement in the packet.

Leslie Bonett, Oakland, Alameda county: one of the original alternates appointed in 2002, didn’t know what to do and other delegates didn’t tell her, saw that we weren’t using all 13 votes so just started voting; others approved.  Some alternates never vote so she emailed them.  This became a personal project, proposed standards of participation.  Also need a more formal procedure to allow alternates to know when to vote.

Hank Chapot: not present, Mike Wyman read his statement from packet.

David Silva Tulare: not present, Nanette Pratini read highlights of his statement from packet.

Donald Letzer, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles county: student, not much experience but really wants to help, you don’t get used to the water by just sticking your toe in.  Running for delegate but would also accept alternate.

Budd Dickinson: worked on GP for 20 years, does a lot of work on platform committee, has been an alternate for 4 years now, has been active and responsible, co-chair of national platform committee, door-to-door energy conservation salesman.  I want to focus on unity in the GP.  It’s important to heal the wounds of the past year.  Also want to grow the GP in CA and other states.  Educate about 10 key values.  Also bisexual – diversity.

David Cobb: not present, represented by Ginny Marie Case who read highlights from his bio in the packet and said we could ask her questions about David.

Kent Mesplay: not present, statement from packet read by Mike Wyman.

Forrest Hill Alameda county: has been an alternate for 4 years, shocked at what’s happening at national level after attending convention – not outcome but how it came about.  We need to work on our national internal policy.  CA deserves proportional representation on the national level.  Where are we successful in building the party – look to those states.  Support small states but don’t use electoral college as our model.  National party nearly broke – revenue sharing issues coming up.  Party needs to be independent of dems and reps, always stand for our values.

Rebecca Markusson: extremely interested in being a delegate, humbled by experience of delegate candidates but feels she has a lot to offer.  Has been involved and going to plenaries for a year.  Wants to implement GP ideals into US policy.  GP has responsibility to step in and challenge the 2 party dominated system.  We must give voters a strong, organized option to consider.  Wants to help that happen.  Very hard worker who takes commitments seriously.

Sanda Everette, San Mateo county: has been a social and environmental activist since 70’s, observer at last 2 national meetings, delegate at various plenaries.  Was amazed how the rest of the country is not like CA (using consensus, etc.).  Our state does pretty well.  Very interested in the issue of unity – heal the discomfort between 2 arms of GP, more unity with other progressive organizations, make our party be seen as a labor party.  Ran as alternate to get training, which she sees as important.

Jonathan Lundell: Committee has decided that you will be able to vote for Rebecca Markusson as a Delegate by writing her name on the ballot and putting the ranking next to it (her name was not originally printed on ballot).

Point of Process Kevin McKeown: is Rebecca the only authorized write-in, and if so do we have to fill in the arrow?

Jonathan Lundell: you have to rank Rebecca in order for the vote to count.

Judith Grant, Alameda county: registered Green for 5 years, grew up on west coast, grew up in conservative family, radicalized in college, now staff at UC Berkeley.  Important for students to learn different ways of thinking.  Staff coordinator of UCBerkeley Greens, member of disability caucus, lavender caucus (other leadership positions – spoke very quickly)…  Concern with dissension on national level and wants to see us work together more.

Michael Rubin: running for alternate.  Structural issues & labor issues.  Agrees with Camejo re. independence of GP as important to survival.  Structural reform needed.  Shocked in Milwaukee.  Political activist for 40 years.  Never went to conference where he was prohibited from approving agenda and voting on rules.  This happened in Milwaukee.  This must be changed.  National Labor Greens, 30 years in labor movement, wants to start Labor working group in GPCA.  Look at the platform to make it more labor-friendly.  Tremendous potential there – dems don’t do what they promise to union people.

Q&A and Affirmations:

Michael David Alameda Co.: leadership must be formal leadership – vote Camejo!

KCM Curry, Los Angeles: running for city council.  Is it possible to have a vision for us to take as Greens – what is our vision for our state?  Do you have vision for us?

Joe Compton LA: Markusson coucnty: Sacramento

Pat Woods, Marin: will you push electoral reform and IRV?  Also, how do you stand on what happened in CA after national convention re. our ballot line?  Any proposals for changing that?

Ray Glock-Gruenich SLO: Kent played a conciliatory role in how he presented his candidacy.  Vote Kent

Dave Wass, SBarbara: confused after Milwaukee.  Stuart Bechman helpful in giving guidance.  What do the candidates think are the problems with our national party?  What are the solutions?  Is it just growing pains?

Chuck O’Neill Sacramento: it’s extremely important that we be a national party.  Listen to other states and consider their needs.  Don’t go with attitude that we’re the biggest and best and everyone else will do what we want.  We have to listen to what they want too.  What about states that can’t get on the ballot?  States that can’t register greens?  How to respect these states with one person one vote?

Consuela Delgado, Santa Barbara: How will you bring unity to the GP?  How can we put our differences behind us and work in unity to be able to resolve or bring about the good that we want?

Pat Gray: can we buy 10 minutes and push the rest of the agenda back for the whole day?  Consensus.  No more questions.  Candidates to answer.

What will candidates do to build broad coalitions across county?

Mike Wyman: one minute

Leslie Bonett: there is no easy answer and that’s part of the problem.  We spent more time on process than on ideas in Greens Save America today.  We need to unify Ca.  Respect process, respect each other, respect decisions made by process.  Then go with it.  Everything is finite.  Learn from an election and make a different decision next time.

Forrest Hill: vision – string independent GP, labor, coalitions w/ environmental groups, reach beyond our base.  PR in country, need one person one vote within party.  Many ways to look at PR – where is money coming from, how many people actually voting for greens (not just registered greens).

Budd Dickinson: we are having growing pains.  It’s important to not make anybody “wrong” and not label the other person.  Nobody has the right answer.  We need to sit down together and heal.  Everybody has part of the answer.

Rebecca Markusson: a lot of questions deal with unity & working together.  I view the GP as extremely diverse.  WE can draw on a lot of different talents.  Multiple strategies that we are interested in all lead to a good place.  Growing the party, implementing change by building coalitions, or both.  Draw on our strengths, respect our strengths and work to achieve all of our goals together.

Michael Ruben: Unity – we have different political views.  We will build unity by building democracy.  Increases respect for decisions made even though we may remain divided.  We need to come up with a formula fair to CA and other states also.  Understands other states’ concern of being disenfranchised, but thinks we can work it out.  Vision – we need to understand in our future dealings that we are movingtowards a state in which people of color are the majority and we need to think carefully about that.

Sanda Everette: vision of seeing us all come together.  Went back and forth in Milwaukee and is good at understanding differing viewpoints.  Strong supporter of electoral reform IRV and PR.

Peter Camejo:  Having differences is normal.  We need conflict of ideas.  But we have to resolve differences and have people respect decisions.  Decisions must be made democratically.  How can you respect a process that doesn’t respect our voters?  People of color and the poor voted for us in high numbers.  Work with progressive dems on issues but not supporting their party.

Run by corporations and we need to get around that by IRV and electoral changes.  Need information of the Greens put out in differentlanguages (not just Spanish.

Great challenge of value of decentralization is burden of personal responsibility.  One of the great ironies was Forward 2004 but we spent election cycle looking back at what happened.  Stress that we won’t agree on minute details, but we share a grand vision and need to come together on that.

Mike Wyman:  election committee members raise their hands.  Turn your ballots in to them.  Ask them questions.  You have until the end of lunch, which will be 10 minutes later than listed on agenda.

Point of Process: Peggy Lewis, did we decide to put delegate numbers on ballots?

Mike Wyman: writing number optional.  Must have delegate card when turning ballot in.  This vote is for delegates.  Vote for alternates will happen at 4PM.

One more minute bought.

Jonathan Lundell: election will be counted according to PR voting scheme sometimes called Choice Voting or Single Transferrable Vote.  Count First Place rankings for all.  If winning candidate passes winning threshold, their excess is allocated proportionally to the 2^nd place choices on those ballots.  Everybody gets the full weight of their ballot counted.

Matt Leslie re. Quorum: There are now 75 delegates at the GA, we need 60 delegates in the room for any decision item.  Delegate card #11 is invalid.  Turn it in to Craig Peterson if you see it.

Craig Peterson & Mike Wyman fundraising pitch:

All committees to review their work plans and budgets.  Envelopes passed around for donations/sustainers, “George Bush” & “Arnold Schwarzenegger” passing the bucket.  We’ve built reserves for 3 years for presidential election.  We did a great job.  Now is the time to start building up for 2008 and 2006.  We want full participation – money from all Greens in state.

IT”S LUNCHTIME!

The rest of the schedule is 10 minutes behind packet.  Come back at 1:20 pm.

Green Focus – we have a subscription drive where if your chapter is able to sign up campus subscribers you get $5/subscription.  Subscription rates of $15-$35.  Get flyers at GROW table.

So cal convergence: 18-20 of February, San Diego State University: Leadership, Diversity and Green Issues strands of workshops.  Sign-up sheet at GROW table for workshop ideas & listserve.

Initiative petition Warner Bloomberg, Santa Clara county: initiative petition circulating conforms to most positions in GP platform (except IRV), circulated by Ted Kostas, see Warner Bloomberg to get copies for circulation & to ask questions.  There is no official party position on this – Warner’s personal interest.

Facilitators: Peggy Lewis & John-Mark Chandonia

Note taker: Valerie Face, Santa Clara County

Timekeeper: Don Eichelberger

Vibes: David Wass & Gloria Purcell (same as morning)

Media Standing Committee

Erica McDonald & Tom Bolema presenters

Scratch portion to dissolve current committee.

The subject is to separate the media subcvommittee from the communications standing committee… (EM to submit text)

Scratch portion re. co-coordinators because we need to elect co-co’s after this.

Clarifying questions:

Mike Wyman, Marin County: who are the voting members of this committee?

Tom Bolema: Intent is that ex-officio members do not vote – this will be a friendly amendment.

Orval Osborne SLO: will comm. Comm. Still exist?

Bolema:  the separation of media wg from comm. Does not affect the affect the operations of IT and clearinghouse.

Leslie Bonett Alameda: I don’t understand the basic proposal – wg to sc?  Can you give history & why you want to do this?

McDonald: committee established 2 years ago to be 3 subcommittees: media, it and clearinghouse.  Media has been operating separately for some time, and this establishes it

John Morton Alameda: difference between sc & wg?  My question is 8 members – how are they chosen?

Jim Stauffer Santa Clara County (bylaws): see bylaws for this… WGs deal with public at large, SCs deal with internal matters. Sec 6-1.1 of bylaws.  6-1.4 covers membership (ex-officio members don’t vote).

Erica McDonald: to clarify, we are going to be following the bylaws that already pertain to SCs

Michael Borenstein El Dorado: standing committee recommends to CC for appointments for their committees.  8 people are recommended to coordinating committee.

Erica McDonald: we will be meeting this afternoon, so join us if interested.

Bob Marsh Alameda: are members appointed by CC after the SC’s recommendation?

Michael Borenstein: CC respects committee’s wishes.  The CC affirms members.

John Martin: Where is the democratic process in this?  How does the committee select those it recommends?

Jim Stauffer point of process: this is standard procedure, so this issue should pertain to bylaws discussion, not jus thtis committee.

Barrington Daltrey: there is a procedure for polling counties to see who they want on a committee, spelled out in the bylaws, so it’s more democratic than it looks.

Affirmations & Concerns:

Michael Borenstein El Dorado: affirmation this is a success story via growth.  Ad hoc at 2002 LA plenary, then grew to effective status, so they were incorporated into communication committee, they are now so effective that they deserve to be a SC.  Commends key members of committee (Erica, Tom, Cafiero…).

Barrington Daltrey Riverside: lots goes on behind the scenes.  I raised concerns about the proposal and they were very good about understanding & correcting concerns.  They did a good job and should function better as an official SC.

CONSENSUS REACHED

Platform - Foreign Policy Plank

Chuck O’Neill, Sacramento & Shane

Why is there a foreign policy in a CA platform?  This bigger question should be taken up elsewhere.  How much detail do we want?  Has to be some balance…  Requests for changes always add detail.

Friendly corrections that need to be made:

1)      and a wage adequate for living is grammatically incorrect

that provide a living wage that don’t jeopardize workers damage workers or interfere with their environment… (get final text)

2)      paragraph 5 we believe the un should be used for its intended purpose…

the committee didn’t like “impartial” – delete it.  Also change article from “an” to “a”.  This will require some fundamental changes in the UN charter starting with the elimination of veto power for any member and the democratization of the general assembly (get final text)

Clarifying Questions:

Ray Glock Gruenich Santa Cruz: democratize the general assembly – can we just use the phrase to postpone further debate re. what this demodratization would look like?  (leave details open)?

O’Neill: we’re not trying to specify this now.

Victoria Ashley Alameda: I appreciate having something re. UN in here.  Support and endorse conventions… this will require fundamental changes – do we not support and endorse without the changes?

O’Neill: support & endorse its purpose, however we believe changes are needed – we don’t like the way it is now.

KCM Curry LA: #5 2^nd line to maintain world order – uncomfortable with “world order”.  More comfortable with “world peace” or something along those lines.

Sanda Everette San Mateo: 2^nd paragraph “recalcitrant nations” recalcitrant needs clarification – some people may not know meaning.

O’Neill: “recalcitrant” removed – just say “undemocratic”

Jan Arnold Alameda: problem with saying UN should be used for intended purpose because I think the reason we have 5 permanent veto power security members is because they won WWII and they were to block anything not agreed to these winning powers.  I agree with removing veto power, but we should remove “for its intended purpose”.

Gloria Purcell El Dorado: this is a bit off the content.  I just want to ask people not to refer to “bullet” points.  Keep our language in line with our purpose.

Elizabeth Green LA: what is independent source of financing – rich families, #5, the independent source of financing? #2 UN forces to maintain peace and enforce – violent force, or can we change that to encourage? #3 does democracy mean consensual democracy or the kind we have in the democratic party #4 military foreign aid should be discontinued…cash payments – to dictatorships also? Improvement of democracy & general living standards – 10 key values or coca cola. Punishment – capital punishment or reformed & restored to health?

O’Neill: Independent source…enforce and punishment – it’s an issue of how detailed we want to be.  Adding detail re. capital punishment makes it longer and lots of people don’t like that. Democratic: we’re not defining democratic, we want more democratic than it is.  We’re not getting into that many specifics.  Maintan peace & enforce resolutions – violent force, or diplomacy?  I think it would be up to the GA’s process re. what action to take.  If you have 2 sides fighting that won’t stop, it seems to me that you have to get in between them.  (The UN, not just US)  Police Planet, not Police State.

Affirmations & Concerns (all first, then respond):

Joseph ___, Ventura: concern that we are unilaterally endorsing all UN conventions.  Friendly amendment point 5: If those changes are met, then we would unilaterally endorse … Dues: my personal opinion that oil for food program hurt Iraq more than helped them.  I would like to see reform first, and have support be contingent upon that in anything that goes against our core values.

Javita from Tulare: they should be punished as individuals: We should state whether we promote the death penalty because it’s such an important point that you cannot leave it out of here.

Wilson Sheele Yolo: proposal needs a lot more work. There needs to be more time on this.

Ray GG Santa Cruz County: friendly amendment.  I share the concern re. “world order”.  Maintain world order makes it more aggravated for me.  Ask “maintain world order” struck, insert “support world peace and justice”.  ACCEPTED.  Affirmation 1 – international court and UN do things we don’t agree with but this is talking about further democracizing the UN, so it’s a positive step. Affirmation 2 – international criminal court. Our secretary of defense has already confessed to a war crime.  Recommend impeachment.

Kendra Gonzalez Ventura: clarifying question #5 par 2 first line ideal UN should require that all nations be represented by approved democratically selected representative – “approved” by whom?  All the people in the country?  Electoral process?  Affirm the issue of abiding by or supporting UN resolutions – not all resolutions are green-like.

Fred Hosea Alameda: friendly amendment.  Legalese: This policy incorporates by reference all relevant values…defined within the party platform and authorized by the party. #2 follow-up offering: I’m international protocol co-co and we might be able to serve as staff to platform committee to coordinated what’s going on with respect to this.  This could become one of our working agenda items.

J-M Chandonia: what do presenters want to do –we’re almost out of time?  Listen to concerns, then straw vote

Pat Wuertz (sp), Marin: 2^nd sentence of item 5 is that we believe that the UN should act as a democratic multilateral body to support world peace and justice. (friendly amendment)

Barrington Daltrey: we don’t support all US laws but we abide by them.  A convention is a sort of international law.  There is a sort of draconian war on drugs.  I’m not sure we want to inadvertently agree to support a whole wide range of things we might have no interest in supporting.

Elizabeth Green, Los Angeles: add support of the CETA end discrimination of all women – support that.  We believe that the UN should act as consensual multilateral democratic…  US should help by paying dues on time…add abiding by the Geneva Conventions. #3 I think if UN collapsed the NGOs would still be able to continue with the good missions that they have.  I’d like to have further study on budgeting on how much is required. #4 exchange “enforce” with “encourage” in point 5. #5 We need to add something that is not in the national plank either – that once the military is gone and all we have is a defense department, the defense department should then be nonprofit and all profits should go to victims of violent crimes.

J-M Chandonia straw poll: do we want to buy more time to finish this item now, or do you not want to buy more time?

Points of process: what happens does it go back to committee?

J-M: yes

TIME NOT BOUGHT.  RETURNED TO COMMITTEE FOR MORE WORK.  Comments to be submitted to Chuck to make sure they were recorded correctly.

SC/WG meetings.  Come back at 4:10 pm.

Announce delegate elections before election code discussion.

GPUS Delegate Election results:

Jonathan Lundell presenting

GPUS Delegation had 4 open seats.  Peter Camejo, David Cobb, Forrest Hill and Kent Mesplay elected.

We will be handing out ballots for GPUS Alternate.  There will be 8 open alternate seats because Peter and Forrest were unexpired alternates.  You need to rank candidates in the order of preference.  If you thin, someone should not be an alternate, do not rank them.  Tim Fitzgerald, Hank Chapot, Lutzer, Grant, Everette, Rubin.  Budd Dickinson and Bonett are not on list.  They are already alternates.  David Silva chose to only run as delegate and not as alternate.  The deadline for turning these in is 5:30 PM.  We’ll get set up in booths at the back to collect these.

Nanette Pratini -- Current diversity: 6 women, 12 men, 8 color, 6 lgbtiq, 12 north, 6 south.

Jonathan Lundell: In the ballots we just counted for delegate there was one ballot where 2 candidates were ranked as 6 with no 7.  We counted both ways and it made no difference, but please check these so we can count properly.

Election Code Review:

Jeanne Rosenmeyer, Jim Stauffer, Warner Bloomberg and Gerry Gras presenting.

Jim Stauffer: In the Greens Save America exercise lots of groups emphasized IRV.  SF just had an IRV election.  This is a watershed opportunity.  Some counties already have enabling legislation.  Some counties interested but wanted to see how SF did.  We now have a working example in an election that went well.  This is window of opportunity to push IRV.  We will discuss this in ERWG tomorrow.  If interested, come to our meeting!

Gerry Gras: Kaleb Kleppner & Steven Hill will get a certificate from GPCA for all their work.  Much Bay Area participation in this effort.

Jeanne Rosenmeyer:  Last plenary we brought a draft, took questions and comments.  Q’s and A’s are tabulated in packet.  In order to meet legislative deadlines we need to submit a draft bill very shortly.  Our plan is to submit essentially what we’ve got.  We know we have to deal with these issues: #1 – nothing said about write-ins, we need standard language. #2 – language re. bylaws in re. delegates to national nominating convention. #3 clean up language. #4 ranked choice ballot for presidential primary as if using IRV, but we’re not doing IRV.  We want the raw results from this so we know second choices for multiple rounds of voting at national convention. #5 Question as to DTS voters is unresolved.  Curent language has primary open to registered Greens only.  We could allow either way (default elections code).  Inclination is for this, but we should schedule discussion at future plenary.  #6 Code section written to say that Coordinating Committee is our Central Committee, but if we go to standing GA we have to include it in the code. #7 Refers to bylaws by which we select delegates to convention.  Those bylaws still need to be written (before next pres election). #8 We will not address removal of county council members in this code.  It might not even be legal.  We don’t want to address that in this code.

We will eventually submit a final version.  Back-and-forth between us & legislature, etc.

Questions:

Michael Borenstein El Dorado: as I understand this process you find a legislator to submit this to, then their aides and staff do back-and-forth?

Jeanne Rosenmeyer: latest advice is to submit it to the elections committee directly.  Then it should be nonpartisan.  Elections, Constitution & Reapportionment Committee.

Michael Borenstein El Dorado: once it gets to that body, can they answer some of our outstanding questions (removal of county council, etc.)?

Rosenmeyer:  I believe so.  They send to legislative analyst office (lawyers) for review.

Ellen Mason LA County: Why was the part taken out about removing county council members?  Because the county is a legal structured designed to be part of the state, the local members have no way to hold members accountable re. representing county to state.  State must take responsibility.

Bloomberg:  This may be an issue that we have to look at as a state party.  Some things belong in general code legislation, while others are best not in election code.  How we self-govern is probably one of the things that should not be in election code – must be undone by further legislation if that happens.  We need to look at our county bylaws and see if we need to address on that level.

Kevin McKeown LA: strongly support flexibility re. who can vote in primaries.  Fervent hope is that a large and powerful party can open up primary in future.  Second: Camejo said we need to have a way to have electors more accountable to what voters wanted.  Election code must mandate that electors vote in line with what the primary voters wanted.  Third: removal of county council – state law only allows recall of elected officials who receive a salary.  Therefore we should write it into the election code as there is no other way to do this.

Gloria Purcell ElDorado: Kevin’s point re. presidential convention – given controversy we’ve had I think we need to hold off.  Perhaps we should say delegates to convention (if we have one)…  The concept of delegates, when voters have already voted, is unpleasant.

Jon Morton alameda: I’m getting disturbed by this stressing the fact that the state party wants to removed county councils.  Please explain how this top-down centralization is green.  Decision should be made by constituents in counties.  If we need to address in bylaws or election code let’s do it, but not give more power to the state.

Tian Harter Santa Clara: I want to hop on the vote’em out bandwagon.  An election would be an improvement over current apathy.  We need a paragraph about our symbol being the leafy G so people know we’re the leafy G party

Michael Rubin alameda: question – I could not hear when the report was given what the status over the final say over who controls the ballot.  State Central Committee is final arbiter in P&F.  We need to make an official decision – CC, election, who is final arbiter? Second comment – I strongly believe that people who are members of a political party should decide the candidate.  Oppose the idea of people not in the Green party voting in our primary.

Jeanne Rosenmeyer: Statewide candidates are not included in this section – addressed in other sections of code.

Cat Woods Marin: 2 things. #! IRV vs. PR There is already a proposal for one person one vote which means delegate system would be obsolete.  Seriously consider this. #2 DTS voters being included in the elections, especially in the primary, is really dangerous.  Lots of people do this so they can pick which primary they’re voting in.  We don’t want to invite infiltration.  At least make them re-register Green.

Jeanne Rosenmeer: We’re proposing that we have flexibility in future, not do right now.

Ray G-G Santa Cruz: concern & affirmation.  Concerned about going to legislature at all on this.  When we had constitutional initiative by which voters amended constitution & adopted open primary, supreme court declared it unconstitutional as parties are private associations that cannot be regulated by state.  We don’t want to waive right to be a private association so that if legislature does not give us what we want, we have reserved our right to go to court and say it’s not the state’s business how we do this based on such and such a case…  The form in which we tender this to the legislature should put them on notice as to how we wish to do this.

Ed Daliva San Diego presenter

Comments received today would be hard to accommodate.  Also a number of you feel plank would be inappropriate.

Proposal:  straw poll as to how many feel plank would be appropriate.  Kill if inappropriate.  If appropriate, we’ll take comments to be incorporated in a version for a future plenary.

32 appropriate

10 inappropriate

75% think appropriate, therefore we will take comments.

Changes made so far:

Pg 11, #9 has been stricken. #10 first sentence stricken. #10 second sentence “have congressional endorsement norm” phrase deleted. Change in title “Secular Government” (not “Secular Principles”) (pg 11). #4 has been changed based on submission: “an end to public funding of school vouchers … (get official text re. proselytizing in schools)

More comments:

Kevin MCKeown LA: those issues kept LA from supporting.  With these changes you have LA’s vote on current .

Nanette PratiniRiverside county: this is an original plank, not a revision.  Ditto to LA

Jesse Kosinski Ventura: 2 concerns. #1 on 2 there’s something else added that talks about historical value.  I don’t think we want to rewrite declaration of independence.  Not sure how to word, though.  In #1, only a secular purpose, “no government laws should have only a religious purpose”.  In #10, any private organization…bigotry…access to private property.  Does this permit freedom to assemble on private property? (Yes)  Then we’re in favor.

Gloria Purcell El Dorado: likewise we support the prosecution of hate crimes based on… insert “diligent” (diligent prosecution).

Bob Marsh alameda: us bill of rights guarantees… quote the part that guarantees this, or remove it.  In item 7 an end to the use of religion as a justification – a justification is a thought process, and bill of rights has freedom of conscience as a key.  I would urge removal.  Overall, at 12 or 13 I thought religion was nonsense, my liking of this is a red flag, and this could be viewed as very insensitive to people of faith.  I’m concerned about tone of plank.

Warner Bloomberg Santa Clara: affirm all Marsh comments.  I submitted handwritten comments.  Biggest concern was statements that made sweeping statements about things that I could guess about that certain laws and public policies have been religiously motivated.  Example funding for family planning in US and international aid.  Funding decisions are not themselves, on their face, religiously stated.  Neutrally stated from legal point of view.  We have to be very careful about accuracy of what we put in platform or ithurts our credibility.

Michael --- Alameda County: Language and tone – give results of this to Greens with positive connections to traditions of faith to get their reaction, bring back feedback.

Wil Yeager Venice: item #4 end to school vouchers period.

Ray G-G Santa Cruz: re Marsh on bill of rights, typo.  Guarantees freedom of and from establishment of religion.  Needs to be rephrased to reflect those dual clauses of 1^st amendment.  More basic and very important to me is the last phrase of item #1 which now reads should have only a secular purpose – not correct legally and bad politics (offensive).  Suggest “all government laws or acts must be justified by a secular purpose”.  (People can have dual reasons, secular and religious.)  Finally I’m troubled from a political perspective by Secular Government Principles title.  No good solution.  I’m in a peculiar position because my commitment is faith-based.  I’m an atheistic Quaker.  I don’t have a good solution to how to get around that, though.

Tian Harter Santa Clara: my understanding of 1^st amendment is it has a clause that says freedom of religioun, I missed freedom from religion.  Right to petition government for redress of grievances 5^th clause – bound up in public trust – and I would like to see an introductory paragraph that says something to the effect that there are religious traditions that cause harm, and we oppose those, but we approve of Hippocratic oath that says first do no harm.

Elizabeth Green LA: make sure we don’t strike “we are endowed by our creator” clause from declaration of independence.  #2 should be stricken…

Support adding principles to platform.  Not offensive.  Suggestion on #7 add justification to deny scientific and health info from children in schools.  Berta Alantis from San Francisco.

PRESENTERS WILL TRY TO INCORPORATE COMMENTS AND BRING LANGUAGE BACK TO ANOTHER PLENARY.

National Party Discussion

Peter Camejo and Forrest Hill presenters

Camejo:  we want democracy in our party – the will of the membership should prevail, while respecting the views of those not in the majority.  I’ve asked David Cobb to join in the development of this ad-hoc committee.  Want to have a proposal for next national convention.  We have a strong tradition in US of one person one vote.  Doesn’t mean we can’t have commissions with overrepresentation for a purpose, but for decisions such as president of US, we’ve been opposed to the electoral college & US Senate because they’re set up to prevent direct control of people.  Current system is extremely skewed.  I didn’t realize until the issue of our presidential candidate arose.  If we had primaries in every state, the winner in most states should be nominee.  We can’t have extreme abusees of overrepresentation for smallamount of people.  We need to integrate small states & protect them while still respecting one person one vote.

Second part of committee will work on independence of Green party.  How we are a political party – not a focus group or advice group to the democrats.  We want to replace the democrats and republicans.  Doesn’t mean we’re stupid – we do work with them, and do care.  Our decision to be a party is based on the fact that we’ve come to different conclusions than they have.  It’s a concept of building an organization controlled by the people and not money.  We need to have a formula giving total rights to GP members to follow their beliefs.  We shouldn’t condemn those who work for the democrats as individuals or subgroups of Greens.  Utah party split in two, one wing expelled the other – we don’t want that.  Maintain unity.  The party does not endorse people who choose to run under the corporate dominated two party system.  Period.  Influence our presidential candidates.  Don’t have our candidate urging a vote for lesser of two evils.  I don’t think co-chairs of party should help raise money for dems and reps.  You speak for the party as a whole.  If you want to do that you can be a Green but you should not be a national co-chair.  Some Greens clearly favor voting for Democrats.  Maine legislative rep can have personal view supporting a Democrat, but party position has to be independent of Democrats and Republicans.  Questions…?

We want to have representation of the two major current points of view on this on the committee.  Independence question is crucial.  Lack of working principle will tear us apart.  We should never tell Greens not to act on their beliefs.  Have any belief system you want as long as you agree on building the party.

Questions:

Ray G-G Santa Cruz: I support Peter’s remarks and want to makeone qualifier.  Talking about not endorsing candidate from another party.  I think there are occasions, which we should pick carefully, when we are not running a candidate where we might consider endorsing a Peace and Freedom or Libertarian candidate.

Peter’s all for having our own opinion as long as we don’t support a Democrat.  Cobb did not suggest this.  Suggested taking it easy in battleground states.  This state selected a process that was in place for three years, nobody bothered to look at it.  If we’re going to be a party we need to be a party.  An independent candidate is not a Green candidate.  It would be wrong for the Green party to endorse them.  No southern friends concerned about safe states.  They wanted a Green candidate on the ballot.  Tired of hearing that delegation didn’t vote in accordance with primary.  First round vote was exactly in accordance with this.  Camejo released delegates on second ballot.  Peter ran as president, not independent vice president.  We’ve got to respect the rights of people in states without primaries.  Chuck O’Neill Sacramento.

KCM Curry Los Angeles: I stopped being a democrat.  One thing that has bothered me since changing party and working in Ghana.  Chaos and non-green drama not seen from Nader/Camejo side.  I was for the unity agreement.  I had to yell and scream so Cobb would let someone else on stage.  I saw a lot of inconsistency.  I’m concerned that people didn’t see the whole reason people stopped being Greens – disenfranchisement of African Americans.  Don’t support a party that is into corporate money.

Jim Stauffer Santa Clara: Looking back at the election and all that could be done better…  We put a favorite son candidate in the primary.  It’s an old school practice that doesn’t tell voters who their vote is going to.  Inconsistent with our principles.  This topic should be discussed along with all the others.

Alex Walker Santa Clara: What is this all about?  2004 election.  It’s over.  We still have a governor to get rid of, a state and a world to save, let’s move on for the sake of the planet.

Kendra Gonzalez Ventura: I would like to have seen all progressives coalesce under GP banner.  I understand coalition building and think it’s absolutely vital.  However with Camejo’s name recognition, would he consider running as a Green in the future?

Carlos from San Francisco: Internal democracy, to be effective, has to be regulate din sch a way that every active member understands the rules.  In Milwaukee the negotiations were so cumbersome that a lot of people in the party did not understand what the rules were.  There were not uniform codes of conduct, uniform codes to elect delegates, what happens when delegates vote different from voters.  No clear guidelines.  Both sides can argue that they were right.  We have to have respect for diversity, not just ethnic diversity but accepting that people think differently from you.  Defend those who disagree with you.  Clear rules, uniform rules of election, simple enough to be understood by all.  I’m 57 and never voted for a Democrat.  But if you have a good democrat, try to work with them and tell them that their principles apply to the GP.

Petty Kotee from SLO: In theory not endorsing dems is great, but in our state senate campaign we had a fake green so we had to sort of endorse the dem because the green was put up by the republicans.  Needed for clarity to voters.  Like the non-endorsement concept, but also like endorsing Greens and not independents.  Need some flexibility sometimes.

Jovita from Tulare: We need to be true to our beliefs as a Green party.  Lesser of two evils compromises our beliefs.  Evil is evil.  If you do that people will say we’re just like the dems and reps.  We need to be true to our beliefs.

Peter Camejo: Thanks to al who spoke.  I do think we need to have a discussion about this.  Set aside some time at the next plenary for this.  Not clear and we need discussion.  I believe that we as a small party will need to form alliances and work with others.  Work with Peace and Freedom.  Nader was never a Green and has no plans to become one, but we endorsed and ran him.  The GP was divided this year.  I told David Cobb I would serve on his campaign committee if diversity proposal was accepted.  There were many greens that had each of the two major points of view.  How do we work to make sure we all respect that whoever won won?  Eighteen Greens signed lesser-evil statement.  All major traditional leaders of our party. Huge numbers of greens disagree.  How to handle?  My proposal is that they can do this personally, but the party must remain independent.  It was unclear at first if Nader was going to run.  I felt that Greens had to have someone to vote for in CA to leave their options open.  Then I changed my mind.  I considered it a coalition builder, not that he’s the president and I’m the vice president.

Forrest Hill:  The issues are complex and I would like to give you contact info.  Mary Beth Wuerthner will be contact person.  Email: mb-@sbcglobal.net   We’ve all seen today that there is a lot of confusion out there.  Our goal is to use the guiding principle of one person one vote to come up with a democratic system that will allow us to move forward.  New York already working on this.  We need to do the real important work of developing strong political candidates in the future….  We will bring back ideas at next plenary.

Nanette Pratini: National delegates meeting at 615 PM in this room behind the podium tonight.  We do not have Alternate results yet.  We will try to have them by the time of the national meeting.  We need six people to help – see me or Jonathan Lundell.

Buffet dinner and dance starting at 7-ish right here.  Right now break out into regional caucuses.

-end Saturday afternoon session-

Sunday December 5, 2004 Morning Session

Call to Order 9:20 a.m. :

Time Changes.

Candidates/elected Greens announcements and introductions:

Gale McGloughlin -- elected to Richmond City Council, in Richmond, California.  "I'm happy to be bringing Green resolutions and issues to the council, I'm the only progressive on our council.  I'm honored to be in this position.  I advocate for all of you to join together and get good candidates and Greens elected."

Kevin McKeown -- Santa Monica City Council.  "Six years now, mayor pro-tem for three.  We are showing that Greens can govern.  That will earn us higher offices.  Getting a Green elected changes the dynamics.  The politics in Santa Monica are progressive and Santa Monica also has resources.  We have been able to show that sustainable plans do work.  We are also setting up a Green network of office holders nationwide.  Recognize in any city that you can get people elected.  If not, get them appointed to the planning commission, the parks commission.  We need to show them what Green thinking can do.  If  you have a little bit of spare time, see about getting yourself appointed to a board or commission."

Orvil ?:  I've served on the Planning Commission for six years, ran for City Council, came in fourth out of seven.  However, we had a Green run for re-election and won and we had a Green win in Morrow Bay.

Tim Smith Sonoma:  "Sebastapol elected a Green majority for the second time.  Sam Pierce elected for the first time this time.  Craig Litwin, Larry Robertson comprise our three person majority."

Shane, re Platform Session #3

The health care presenter has phoned in as there is an illness in his family.  If you have comments, please e-mail Bob.  You can get the platform at the Clearinghouse table if you don't have it.

Facilitator introductions: Mike Wyman, Marin (Substituting for Coby Skye).

Nanette Pratini, Riverside County.

Timekeeper -- Michael Rubin from Alameda County.

Vibes -- male and female - Veronica Lopez, Dave Moss, Santa Barbara.

Barrington Daltrey, notetaker.

Standing General Assembly Discussion

Starting at 9:40 a.m.  Jonathan Lundell, Alex Brideaux.

1 hour.

Jonathan:  Discussion item, concerning the basic governing structure of the GPCA.  We expect the process will continue for quite a while.  There is no particular proposal on the table. 

Concern -- we don't have time in the plenaries and we don't have breakout sessions for things that are not "business."  This plenary is unusual because we don't have a lot of business on the agenda.

We have a jury-rigged system of polling counties.  Possibly not democratic, not easy to use.

We would like to find ways of having continuing and extended discussions between live general assemblies.  Also the decision-making seems far away from our registered Greens.  We would like to find a way to empower registered Greens.  As we become more active with the national party, there is a continuous need for input for decisionmaking at the national level.  There have been other criticisms and this is not an exhaustive list.  Generally speaking, that is the list we have come up with.  There are proposals on the table, but these are proposals as discussion-starters.  We would like today input from the attendees of the General Assembly. 

How can we enfranchise local individual registered Greens and improve our decision-making process.

Alex:  Some of us have been having discussion online of various possible solutions. 

Wyman:  Let's start with questions.

Jonathan:  We will pick and choose as to whether to respond to individual questions or respond at the end.

Tim Morgan, Santa Clara County -- What would the relationship be between the County Council and the delegates.

Jonathan:  In a sense, that's a question we are asking you.  One proposal says that right now we have one way of giving all registered Greens a direct voice -- that is when they go to the polls and elect the county council.  How can we take advantage of that opportunity?  One proposal is that the County Councils should also be the voters in the standing general assembly. 

One is saying we should use elected county councilors, the other is saying we should have delegates chosen by the counties in some other way or chosen by the County Councillors.

Alex:  Even though there is a standing body inbetween, the Counties would still have the power to appoint the delegates, but they would have longer terms.

?:  Number 3 -- there is not enough time to do work in general assembly.  I have a problem concerning bylaws, and I am sure others may have the same problem.  We are all right here.  She wants to ask questions on the bylaws.

Peggy Lewis - Sacramento.  My preference in the two models.  I've been on the CC for six years, co-co for four.  Using County Councils has problems as a standing GA.  There are not that many people on the County Councils who are interested in State Business.  I would rather see a different method of selection of the standing general assembly. Otherwise, using the county councilors is probably not effective. 

Jonathan: I think a lot of counties have a tension between the registered Greens and a relatively small group of the usual activists.  How do we balance the activist elite vs the grassroots in making these choices. 

(45 minutes remaining.)

Orin __ San Luis Obispo County:  You would keep plenaries or not?

Jonathan:  Nothing on the table would do away with plenaries, although they might have more of a "gathering nature." 

Orin -- How would the Counties have adequate time to give input into the decisions.  We need in our county at least a month to give input.

Alex -- So you are comfortable with "a month" lead time.  What would you want to do with respect to things of an "emergency" nature?  How would you prefer to have the decision making occur for emergency.

Orin -- my preference is to say no to a lot of emergency things.  With experience, a year later we know that a lot of emergencies weren't emergencies.  How would we make sure that people had input into the decisionmaking process?

Jonathan -- there will be a lot of online voting.

Alex -- but we have to figure out how to include those who can't vote online.

Joe Crompton -- In general I support the idea.  My main concern is with some of the accompanying ideas to the discussion.  In terms of moving to a steering committee, either abolishing the CC and having a 7-9 member steering committee.  I have concerns this will become undemocratic.  Through either one of these models, would either include a steering committee?

Jonathan:  I used the term steering committee, but what I meant by that was more of an maintenance committee to keep the system running.

Kat ___ Marin County, One comment was how can we get this to be better connected with the registered membership?  My answer would be to "talk to them."  I have never once been invited to a plenary, etc. despite being registered Green for many years.  So in Marin and Sonoma we are calling our registered Greens and asking for e-mail and start notifying them and inviting them to elections. 

Kevin:  I appreciate the serious and intent nature of the discussion.  Would everyone please rise?  Okay folks, a Standing General Assembly.  Okay, I have a serious question.  I'm concerned about proportionality about a standing general assembly.  One person, one vote.  In LA we have 27,000 registered Greens, one county has only nine greens.

Jonathan:  One person-one vote, the county would get the same number of votes as registered Greens, and the county could decide how to cast those votes.  This would also give the County a sense that they are speaking for

Jan Arielle, Alameda County, Oakland.  I'm on the Alameda County Council.  I'm very skeptical.  I'm thinking of 100 people or so on a list serve or e-mail list trying to communicate, trying to make democratic decisions.  Some on the list because of time, temperment, typing speed, etc., some will be more participant than others.  Basically people who don't have a computer.  We are excluding those who don't have computers.  I'm very skeptical about this working.  If nine people have 3,000 votes each, those watching the e-mail debate are going to pay more attention to the person who is carrying 3,000 votes.  I can't visualize.  If the CC is having trouble communicating and making decisions effectively between plenaries, making it larger is not very practical. 

Alex:  One of the reasons this is being brought up is that the CC does not have the authority to make decisions.  The GA is the body that has the power to make decisions.  I 'm not comfortable with making the decisions via the CC (as a CC member).  It would be best to keeping the decision making as grass-roots as possible.  If you have ideas, we would like to hear the comments.

The national CC has somewhat over 100 members and does all of their business online -- it works reasonably well.  Yes some are not adept at online access.  But others can't come to a weekend meeting

Ray Glock-Grueneich, Santa Cruz County.  I've changed my mind since I've been in line.  Because the GA is the ultimate decisionmaking body in the Green Party it is absolutely important that it be organized on 1 person 1 vote principles.  Any departure is a departure from democracy.  Any effort to meet that has organizational difficulties.  If taking the contrast between 129 registrant county vs. LA County, we are going to have either delegates with a huge amount of power or alternatively, a county council approach, an unworkeable county council.  I don't like either of those options.  I now favor having in addition to our local county councils, an elected statewide standing assembly that would be essentially apportioned on a registered basis and one delegate per district.  Some districts would be multi-county and Los Angeles would have many, many delegate districts.  The other advantage is that it gives a meaningful option to the voters in Los Angeles County.  A roster of 40 names, even informed people cannot make meaningful choices among 40 names.  By having districts you can have more of a relationship between the delgate and the voter.  The other point I want to make is that it is important to have our GAs networking, not just decision-making.  We have to have people networking and with open access.

Gale McGloghlin, Contra Costa County.  I realize the county is the basic unit by which delegates are brought forth.  We have city locals and our meetings are well attended and we have a huge Green population.  We wanted to have decisions before our body.  Counties need to give city locals adequate time.  The process has to come from the bottom up, both on electing delegates and mandating delegates.

Joe ___.  I got to California in August and getting to be a delegate was no problem.  Anyone who wants to participate should be online.  Online is a good system and we need to require people to be online.  Comments on one person one vote -- there are a lot of people who register Green who are not active and are passive numbers.  Those who are active have more interest and more say.  The vote needs to come from the local voters and not by County Councillors.  Democracy can be about people working together or three wolves and a sheep thinking about whose for dinner.  I think there are times where people who speak the loudest drown out the others. 

Michael Borenstein, El Dorado County: -- Some of the perceived problems, item 2 -- the CC polling method is new, so it still requires more participation.  I'm finding that one of our problems is people participation and not structure participation.  There are voting openings in every single standing committee or working group that we have.  The plenary makes 3-4 decision each session.  The CC makes 3 or 4 per month.  That means there would be six to seven decisions each month that your county would have to deal with.  Eg. statements in the name of the party, need 48 hour decision. 

We need more people involvement.  I would recommend that you convene online and start this process.  Have that body convene and develop their own rules to see how the online structure would work, start doing our platform online and see if your county can withstand doing the decision making.

Craig Petersen, Contra Costa -- the world does not stop just because we don't meet.  The world needs the Green viewpoint on a daily basis.  We tend to sit back and wait until the time is absolutely right and give our decision, when everyone has moved on.  We need to have a Green Presence that is ongoing and put forth on almost a daily basis.  The idea that we can get by on three or four meetings a year is not workable.  We can't continue on this way.  I would like to have the default to the County Councils make the decision.  However, the possibility of Counties being polled all the time has made the Counties see that they probably want another "body" to make the ongoing decisions.

Jeanne Rosenmier, Contra Costa County -- if we are going to go to the registered Greens, the only elected Greens are the County Councils, and that means they should take on the duties if they are willing to.

Jim Stauffer, Contra Costa -- I think you know I am involved in the Green Party hierarchy.  I'm very wary because of problems trying to "fix things."  One example -- we've had two ad hoc committees that have told us that direct proportionality, one person one vote is the way to do it.  Well, we organized the party around weighted voting.  We gave more weight to the smaller counties.  If we go to direct proportionality.  It is a major power shift to the three largest urban areas.  You end up with two different tuypes of organizations.  We already had a change that redefined the proportionality, making the CC larger, a body of 40-50 people.  Still, we only have 3/4 s of our delegate seats here today.  There needs to be discussion of the fundamental principles.  There are a dozen questions like that.  We have to answer the fundamental question of what kind of party we want to be. 

_____, Sacramento County -- I didn't read into this proposal that there would be any change in the delegates or proportionality.  One way to avoid gerrymandering the state is multi-member districts.  Would there still be a CC? Would there still be face-to-face meetings. 

Alex:  Those are questions still on the table.

___ I share the concerns of oneline, conference calls other procedural problems.  When I'm not active I get to feeling there is a lot going on that I don't know about.  When I come to the meetings I see there is a core of people who are always here and then people who come and leave.  I think having a standing assembly would be good from the point of view of having a group of people who are together enough to have a working relationship.  Working group committees have a lot of new people so you spend a lot of time backtracking for the new people, but they  don't come back. 

San Gabrielsen, San Mateo County:  So we would have a regular "state assembly" that is porportionally set up with a certain number of voters in every area?  The concern I have is the question of whether we have a representative democracy.  We elect people to represent us and then we don't trust them to represent us.  I think we need to trust the people we elect.  If we don't trust them we need to have more people to show up to do the job.

Forest Hill -- I strongly support the ideas of a standing general assembly and elected delegates.  I think the idea of having a consistent body throughout the year.  As a presenter I realize that we get different outcomes depending upon where the plenary is held.  I think we have a good proportionality right now, even though it is weighted a bit.

We need a system that allows us to move forward on important issues.  I am happy that this is being discussed.

Tian Harter, Santa Clara -- I feel that we need to be a movement party.  We don't need more people doing more.  Everytime I go on the freeway I am reminded we need people doing less driving.  I already get hundreds of emails per day.  I don't know if more e-mails would make me more efficient.  I just question the whole idea.

Matt Leslie -- Orange County.  It seems to me that we have to accept that if we adopt a standing general assembly, we are delegating decision making to those new delegates.  The justification is that there are decisions that have to be made on the fly, which suggests there is no way to consult the grass roots on that point.  Unless everyone is on the same list serve, there is no way to consult the grassroots.  The GPUS delegation was an example -- but no one has any idea what goes on in their list serve on an ongoing way.

If there were a monthly agenda and every county could consider that every month and every county was wired in together.  Of course, some decision require faster turnaround.  There are also some severe limitations to the present system.  The polling system we are using is not any more work than this model would be for counties.  The polling system is a lot of work, but it does what it is supposed to on a good day. 

Nanette:  Do we want to buy extra time from the time that was given to wrking groups.  [vote -- mostly yes].  We are going till 10:35 a.m., then

John ____, SF County.  I affirm the standing assembly idea.  It's obvious that the present system doesn't work very well.  We could only get three people here for our nine slots.  So, we do have trouble when things are far away and we are fairly centrally located.  It was a worse problem when we were working on the Matt Gonzales campaign.  I want to discourage people from having one based on County Councils.  Because I don't think they are representative bodies.  In many counties the people are not elected very democratically -- people don't know the candidates.

Gordon Johnson, Orange County -- sympathetic to the travel problems of General Assemblies.  My question -- what is a suitable question to bring to the Standing General Assembly vs. what we bring to an actual General Assembly?

Greg Jan, Alameda County.  1 -- we need to revisit the kind of decisions that we make.  Both here and at the CC.  I would prefer to see fewer decisions and get more work done.  I think we need to move to two or four year plans.  We should have the most important decision, a two to four year vision of what we are going to do.  You approve the plan and then people carry it out and get it done.  Let's revisit the decisions we make.  2 -- I favor elected delegates rather than County Councils.  Many County Councils are interested in local things.  3-- let's look at what other groups do, other states, European Greens.

Access to online discussion group for 10 weeks prior to the plenary.  Then at the plenary we would be more prepared.  Mail plenary packet to anyone who doesn't have email.  Incorporate comments from anyone.  Elizabeth Green, LA County.

___ Christensen -- we don't want to limit democracy and lose the benefits that come from in person meetings and opportunity for new people to come in.  We need to delegate more of the work we are taking on at the state level to local levels.  I am opposed to having the County Councils determine.  90% of registered greens are inactive.  We should limit to current active members.  In San Francisco we elected eight delegates, but the County Council had a different view.

Shane Que Hee, LA -- prefer a mixed type of model.  The people who are elected in the Green Primary need to be included in the process. The current number of delegates could be kept with 1/2 being a designated number of elected officials, a designated number from the county.  Also have a rotation of delegates month by month.  Therefore people would be accountable to the Green Party and to the the Green voters.  There were Green candidates that never asked for LA County Green CC endorsement. 

Nanette -- the committee is going to wrap this up.

Jonathan -- I will have a signup sheet.  Everyone is welcome to participate. 

Nanette -- Standing Committees and working groups.  GROW will be here.  Finance, backroom, Electoral reform other back room.  12:20 return for lunch. 

Sunday December 5, 2004 Afternoon Session

Facilitators:  Adrienne Prince/Michael Borenstein

Vibes:  Dave Waugh - Santa Barbara,  _______?____________ female vibes
Timekeeper:  Kathy ____, Humboldt

Bylaws presentation -- ongoing work --

Jim Stauffer, Ed Duliba (bylaws co-co)

P. 10 of the agenda packet.  This is just a report, not a Proposal, not a Decision item.

Jonathan Lundell, Jim Stauffer, Michael Borenstein have been the primary authors on the bylaw presentation.

Separating bylaws from rules and procedures.  It started years ago.  We got a lot of complaints because plenaries were filled up with bylaws changes.  Jonathan architected a split between procedures and bylaws. 

This has come before many plenaries.  We are now actually doing the workof separating out this document.

On p.10 we have URLs of what we have done to date. 

Don't have too much else to say.  On a separate project, bylaws has been asked to come up with a definition of what is a procedure or a bylaw.  The CC has todeal th this concern all the time.  We don't know whether this will ever come up as a formal proposal to the General Assembly.  Opening up for questions at this time. 

Ray Glock-Grueneich, Santa Cruz County.  What is the context as to what is a bylaws or a policy.  Are these treated in a different way. 

Jim:  We have two different voting thresholds in the bylaws.  Policy decision, is 80%, 2/3rds if business. 

Ray -- given that, it's evident the definition of bylaw or procedure can have consequences and I think that should come back to the General Assembly for approval. 

Jim -- the problem is you can't come up with an "absolute" definition.  Instead, we have to have examples and a case by case decision.  It defaults to the policy decision.

Adrienne -- we are on time to go to our campaign & candidates working group, our bylaws working group,  and international protocol working group.

Michael:  We will return at 3:15, for some final decision items and we will be getting reports from our standing committees, working groups. 

Facilitators:  Adrienne Prince and Michael Borenstein

New Officers, Affirmation  Mitch Smith  / Dee Brady (GROW); Erika MacDonald/Tom Bolema (Media Standing Committee)

Mitch Smith -- elected to GROW co-co position.  States the Dee Brady was and Mitch were consensed to by GROW as new co-cos. 

Michael -- does anyone have a concern to affirming these individuals as new co-cos of GROW. None -- affirmed.

Kevin --  Media Standing Committee met.  Erika MacDonald elected as coco.  Also has consensed to asked to confirm Tom Bolema as the co-co.  

No Concerns -- Affirmed.

Committee Reports

Finance Committee -- increasing training of local treasurers.  Helping locals with filing requirements.  Increased pitch towards donations such as estate planning.  Raised $600 during fundraising pitch this weekend.

Larry Shapiro, Santa Cruz.  Two pages long report.  Media Standing Committee is inviting active members.  Have five openings.  Name, two paragraphs qualifications.  Folks who participate in the February 10th call can vote.  We are also inviting local media liaisons.  Local contacts can participate in our listserve, etc.  Invitation for liaisons is ongoing.

Send to Ericasf@aol.com(?)

Jean Comfort -- liaison to GROW, two new co-cos, Fred Hosea presented concerning convergence and we had brainstorming re activators, etc.

Jim Stauffer, IT current project is moving the cagreens to a commercial server, which will improve service in a lot of ways.  Hopefully completed before the next plenary. 

Suggestions as to better use of the web, such as MoveOn and Dean.org.  IT and Clearinghouse need to get serious about making them "administration committees" via the bylaws.  Also, discussion of data base of e-mails of all registered Greens..

Shane Que Hee, Platform -- we considered four platforms, three are in the plenary packet.  Two tentative ones which were having their first read through, one on agriculture and the economy and the other on labor union issues.  Clearinghouse continues to have copies of the Platform available.  To be on committee, attend two consecutive times and be engaged in the work of the Platform Committee.  My contact information is in the plenary packet.

Fred Hosea, Alameda County.  International Protocol Committee.  Nativo Lopez from MAPA gave us ideas about working internationally with Latino communities.  Discussed supporting proposal for grass roots outreach in rural Nepal to help provide political alternatives.  Translating 10 key values into different languages, Mandarin, Farsi, working on Arabic, four or five other languages in process.

Forming a middle east green alliance, to create green culture and link people in the middle east countries.

Green Passport idea developing.

Foreign policy plank - still working on that. 

Effort to work with Palestinians to fly a kite over the wall.

Jeanne Rosenmeir -- Election Reform WG -- talked about our election code section, also implementation of runoff voting around the country.

Major success, started on time and ended on time.

Stuart Bechman, co-co National Delegation.  Thank you for the votes at this plenary.  We now have almost a full set of delegates, including our three presidential candidates.  Had a productive meeting last night.  Had discussion about the internal procedural flaws.  Financial crises the national level has.  

Michael Borenstein -- Green Issues -- rebuilding itself, broken up into action groups has voted to work on a minimum wage ballot initiative.  Almost honed down search for activiators, still looking for a woman co-coordinator. 

Michael -- this is the budget plenary.  It will be very busy.  We are also looking for a year's worth of plenaries.

Ellen Maisen -- San Fernando Valley would be willing to host in spring, in Northridge.

Larry Shapiro, Santa Cruz County -- will be considering holding a plenary or the national meeting in Santa Cruz. 

Michael -- we would love to know where we are going out about a year and 1/2, so we would welcome that if others will volunteer their counties.

Consensus that Northridge will be next plenary location.

Thank yous to Adrienne Prince, Mark Barnes, Jeannie, Nicole, Stuart Bechman for Ventura's efforts in presenting this plenary. 

Spiral Dance, closing ceremony & adjourn