[Pnp-wg] Floor Rules proposal
Steve Kramer
scooter@guisarme.net
Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:12:44 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, Steve Greenfield wrote:
> From: "Steve Kramer" <scooter@guisarme.net>
>
> "The GNC is composed of representatives elected by the state parties. Every
> Green has input."
>
> If this is the premise of your disagreement with the floor rules Owne
> proposed, than your whole case collapses. This statement is simply untrue.
> If you are really writing as a rep from Maryland, the best you can say is
> that this is what happens in Maryland. I could run you down a list of 20
> states where only a handful of Greens have any input, and even that is
> speculative at best since I can run you down a list of at least 10 states
> where nobody has the slightest idea who is or isn't a Green.
>
> When are we going to get serious about the task we were given? Last year
> Ohio sent at least one delegate to Milwaukee who was and still is openly not
> a Green, for no other reason than they did not have enough Greens in their
> whole state to fill out their delegate allocation. That's reality. In 2004,
> a very large state was assigned more delegates than they had available
> members. I'm betting they weren't the only ones.
>
> There is no way we're going to get anywhere as a party if we don't start
> trying to be as productive as we can with the real-world party we have, not
> the utopian party we hope to someday become. The first step in doing that is
> acknowledging the facts about the party we have. With all due respect, your
> statement is a fantasy.
Even if your principal assertion was a fact - and I do not agree that it
is - I believe you've just proven my point.
First, concerning Maryland, I can assure you that this is the case.
Virginia Rodino and I were elected to the GNC at the most recent State
Assembly; I am serving my second and final term. We were elected by STV,
and every Green in Maryland received at minimum an invitation to the
Assembly and instructions on how to receive an absentee ballot. I
recognize that not all state parties are able to do it - it cost us a
non-trivial amount of money - but it is clearly the intention behind the
GNC.
If this is not happening, the correct answer is to issue proposals to
reform the GNC. Louisiana, for example, has such a proposal before that
body right now. The correct answer is not to take a body that meets once
every four years for a specific task and turn it into a surrogate GNC -
especially since it is ad hoc in nature and therefore has no future
accountability for its decisions...and also especially since the vast
majority of the problems you cite apply to that body (and yes, should be
corrected), and not the GNC.
>> During the bulk of
>> their term, every Green may petition their state party at any time during
>> the year to have a resolution taken to the GNC - indeed, that is the whole
>> idea of the "bottom-up" structure.
>
> What is this about? Is this in GPUS bylaws? Because I've read the bylaws of
> almost every state in GPUS over the last 6 months and either none of them or
> practically none of them provide for this mechanism. So GPUS has no means of
> enforcing a concept like this. Again, if you do it in Maryland, please just
> say this is the process in Maryland. And again, even the notion of it
> depends on having some way of knowing who is a Green, which is a problem
> that has not been solved, and which many people on this very committee
> insist cannot be solved. So this is another fantasy.
Well, I have no idea how it is done in New York, but a "bottom-up"
structure is in fact the norm for Green politics worldwide. It is
possible for a resolution to originate in a Local, be vetted by a state,
and be considered at the national level. (It need not and in fact should
not be "enforced by the GPUS".) Just recently, as a member of the SC, I
can say that we considered the placement on the GNC voting queue of
proposals that clearly originated with the Green Party of Broward County
(Fla.) and the Green Party of Philadelphia (Pa.) So it may not be as
fantastic as you believe.
>> At any time, a state may place up to three representatives on the GPUS's
>> Platform Committee. Input on the platform is immediate and ongoing, not
>> just once every four years.
>
> And if the actual Green voters don't like the platform, they have no way to
> say so or try to change what the "panel of experts" is doing without any
> grassroots input at all. Unless their directly elected delegates are allowed
> to say something just once every four years, which is probably not often
> enough.
Again, their directly elected delegates are seated on the GNC, and as
such, they have the final say on the work of the Platform Committee, just
as they do on every other standing committee of the GPUS. I know of no
state, off the top of my head, that uses a mechanism to place delegates on
the GNC other than election, but I will be sure to ask around.
>> In the Republican or Democratic Parties, the
>> RNC or DNC is a group of elites, selected by a group of elites. There is
>> no input from the registered voter in the process.
>
> This, too, is untrue. All delegates from both parties are party regulars,
> and are in most cases the ranking officers of their town and county party
> machines. To get those positions, they had to be elected by their own local
> party rank and file at their annual elections, be it party caucuses or
> state-operated ballot-booth elections. It's all dependent on turnout, and
> it's usually not a high-interest race, but you can't say they have no input
> from the registered voters. They have more input from registered voters than
> we do. The winners then reward themselves by naming themselves as electors
> on the various candidates' nominating petitions that are participating in
> their presidential primaries, so they can all go to a big quadrennial party
> in some big, sinful city, for which you can't really blame them. If you look
> at the list of names of the 2004 Green Party convention delegates, and then
> compare those names to the lists of local and state party officers, you'll
> see that we do the exact same thing, with one big difference: only a handful
> of states in GPUS actually have Green voters electing delegates, either
> directly in primary booths or caucuses, or indirectly by electing party
> officers who then name themselves electors. This is one of the big things we
> need to improve, and this committee should be making recommendations on how
> to do it.
I agree with you that for the purposes of electing Delegates to the
Presidential Nominating Convention, we must give clear guidelines to
states that a full poll of all Greens must be attempted in some fashion,
and that the proportional results of that poll should be used to allocate
Delegates. That was included in our interim report. (However, there is
one question we did not resolve with respect to that: should we *suggest*
the method by which states elect their Delegates, or should we *require*
it in some fashion?)
I also agree that *indirectly*, Republicans and Democrats may do as you
say...but it is *indirect*. Democrats, for example, did not go to the
polls to select their Chairman, nor, I believe, was Howard Dean placed on
the DNC in the first place by the voters of Vermont. (Elected to the
Governorship, yes, but nowhere on that ballot did it give express
permission for him to be a member of the DNC as well. Party elites made
that decision.)
>> That's pretty much it. In fact, they may not be the best qualified to do
>> anything else. Say you have eight delegate slots, and your best eight
>> platform experts are all in favor of Smith for President, who only got 50%
>> of the vote in your state. In that case, you are not sending your eight
>> best people on the platform - you are sending at most four. They would be
>> very qualified to nominate the Presidential candidate. They would not be
>> very qualified to discuss the platform. If you want input on the
>> Platform, don't wait - send a rep to the Platform Committee, at any time.
>> In fact, send three.
>
> Well, that's about as elitist an analysis as any I've ever seen. Platform
> Committee should be a meritocracy and the voters be damned. Excellent. I'm
> glad we're a party where the grassroots decides what goes on, instead of
> elites like the other parties.
Excuse me, but how does New York decide who to place on the GPUS Platform
Committee? Are names drawn from a hat? Or do Greens in New York actually
consider the credentials of those Greens they are sending, and the
reasons why they might be considered good for the job?
In Maryland, for example, we approved Robin Hahnel to the GPUS Platform
Committee. He was nominated by his Local, the Southern Maryland Greens,
and was approved by the MGP-CC, which consists of elected representatives
from all of Maryland's Locals. Dr. Hahnel is a professor of economics at
American University, and is one of the developers of the theory of
participatory economics; his most recent book is _Economic Justice and
Democracy_. His impressive resume was indeed taken into account when we
considered his approval.
If this is too "elitist", then so be it.
>> The Presidential nominating delegates are there for a particular reason,
>> and that's to nominate the Presidential candidate.
>
> We have an annual convention, and one out of four falls in a presidential
> election year. That's no reason why all other customary annual convention
> business has to be suspended. Quite the contrary. It's the same 119 people
> that conduct business online conducting business at the other three annual
> conventions, and the nominating cycles are the only chance we have for a few
> different people to show up with an opinion, grassroots support, and a
> chance to vote. We should embrace the presidential nomination conventions as
> a powerful grassroots check-and-balance on our day-to-day operations.
I do not agree. This has never been customary for the Greens and indeed,
business is conducted at these conventions - by the committee assigned to
that business. It's also not "the same 119 people" - these delegates, as
I have said before, are elected, and I believe most are term-limited in
some fashion. There is turnover at the top, and it is healthy for our
Party. I believe to say otherwise is simply not true. It's reminiscent
of what I was told when becoming involved in GPUS politics in 2002;
certain Greens about the "powers that be" or "ruling clique" at the top of
the GPUS - refering to the Steering Committee. It's now 2005, there has
been a 100% turnover in the composition of the SC...and still, the *same*
voices mutter darkly about the *same* "ruling clique". It is a simple and
unfortunate fallacy, and I would hope that none take it seriously. (For
those who still believe it, however, there will be five seats open on the
SC next month, including my own...and I believe I am the only one eligible
to run again.)
>> after all, there are
>> scenes of mostly ersatz "platform fights" on the floor of the Democratic
>> National Convention practically every time.
>
> Those days are long over. This is the single thing reporters decry the most
> when covering major conventions. A great way for us to distinguish ourselves
> from the "stage-managed" conventions of the majors is to let ourselves have
> a big democratic free-for-all. A rowdy democracy is a thriving democracy.
> The reporters would go nuts with joy if they ever found themselves sent to
> cover a noisy and unpredictable party convention.
Mostly true, but there are the occasional moments still - mostly out of
range of the cameras.
As for the rest, it can basically be summed up as "you're wrong", mostly
by flat assertion, to which I will save some time and sum up my reply as
"No, I'm not," with equal certainty. However, if it is in fact this way,
then you have an excellent case for reform, which you should be able to
take to the voters in some fashion and work from there. To suggest that
the Presidential Nominating Convention should be the place to is to
suggest that those elected because of their partisanship should, once
every four years, pass full judgment on the work of elected Greens from
the states and caucuses, subverting the entire "bottom-up" process which
has been at work over that time, in a single, unaccountable, top-down,
winner-take-all session. While some powers that pertain directly to the
Presidential race should possibly be granted, I would not be in favor of
such a sweeping process as described in the proposal.
>> However, we - thank goodness
>> - do not do things like the major parties.
>
> No matter how many times you repeat that, it doesn't make it true. And more
> importantly, we don't do anything the way we claim we do, and nothing in
> conformity with the set of principles outlined in the "Democracy" section of
> the GPUS platform. So we're more like them in some ways than we ever should
> be, we're less like them in other ways that we should be more like them, and
> we're not at all like us as our KV's, press releases, and platform describe
> us.
>
>> We are much more open and
>> democratic. This should not be viewed as a group of heroic democratic
>> citizens attempting to challenge the view of cloistered and isolated
>> elites; this is more like the International Committee telling the Finance
>> Committee how to spend money. Good Greens all, but not doing the job
>> they're supposed to - and not helping the Green Party by doing so.
>
> These statements are internally contradictory. You're saying that we don't
> have isolated elites, and then immediately following that by saying that the
> "experts" should be left alone by the rest of us. If we are open and
> democratic, then the International Committee SHOULD be able to tell the
> Finance Committee how to spend money, if they have reason to do so. And
> let's not get all hung up on the pretense of expertise. First of all, we
> don't actually have any actual experts that could pass "voir dire" on our
> procedural committees. And committees routinely tell each other what to do,
> primarily due to the fact the same 12 people are on every committee. A good
> case in point is we have a pair of reps on this very committee who are in
> the process of circumventing part of this group's charge in favor of the
> PCSC.
>
> In summary, let's not have this group make recommendations based on an
> imaginary Green Party. The Presidential Nominating Process is a real process
> that nominates real candidates for real elections. If we don't take a hard
> look at where the real Green Party isn't living up to the creed of the
> imaginary, utopian Green Party we dream of, we're violating the charge we
> were given when the NC voted to form us and put us to work.
>
> Steve Greenfield
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Kramer" <scooter@guisarme.net>
> To: <pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
> Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 11:32 AM
> Subject: [Pnp-wg] Floor Rules proposal
>
>
>> As the Maryland delegate (not as the facilitator), I'd like to go on
>> record as respectfully and strongly opposed to the floor rules proposal
>> that Owen Broadhurst outlined.
>>
>> There is some misconception about the idea of the floor rules and the
>> powers granted to the Presidential nominating delegates, which in this
>> proposal are extraordinary. In the Republican or Democratic Parties, the
>> RNC or DNC is a group of elites, selected by a group of elites. There is
>> no input from the registered voter in the process. Thus, when the
>> *elected* delegates - those to the Convention - meet, there is a necessity
>> to have them review the platform and help outline other broad initiatives
>> for the party (though in practice, they are essentially a "rubberstamp").
>>
>> This is not the case with the GNC. The GNC is composed of representatives
>> elected by the state parties. Every Green has input. During the bulk of
>> their term, every Green may petition their state party at any time during
>> the year to have a resolution taken to the GNC - indeed, that is the whole
>> idea of the "bottom-up" structure.
>>
>> At any time, a state may place up to three representatives on the GPUS's
>> Platform Committee. Input on the platform is immediate and ongoing, not
>> just once every four years.
>>
>> Delegates to the Green National Convention are selected for their
>> integrity in representing their state, and principally - and hopefully -
>> because they are *proportionally* representing the will of your state in
>> nominating the Presidential candidate.
>>
>> That's pretty much it. In fact, they may not be the best qualified to do
>> anything else. Say you have eight delegate slots, and your best eight
>> platform experts are all in favor of Smith for President, who only got 50%
>> of the vote in your state. In that case, you are not sending your eight
>> best people on the platform - you are sending at most four. They would be
>> very qualified to nominate the Presidential candidate. They would not be
>> very qualified to discuss the platform. If you want input on the
>> Platform, don't wait - send a rep to the Platform Committee, at any time.
>> In fact, send three.
>>
>> The Presidential nominating delegates are there for a particular reason,
>> and that's to nominate the Presidential candidate. As we saw, that can be
>> strenuous enough. At most, they might wish to have some input on *some
>> aspects* of the platform, as they relate to the Presidential campaign
>> directly.
>>
>> The floor rules were voted on by the GNC (then called the CC). In fact, I
>> believe there were nine separate votes, representing multiple compromises.
>> It was only after the majority of these that proposals similar to this
>> began to circulate.
>>
>> It may be understandable due to the spectacle provided by the two major
>> parties why this would be an attractive proposition; after all, there are
>> scenes of mostly ersatz "platform fights" on the floor of the Democratic
>> National Convention practically every time. However, we - thank goodness
>> - do not do things like the major parties. We are much more open and
>> democratic. This should not be viewed as a group of heroic democratic
>> citizens attempting to challenge the view of cloistered and isolated
>> elites; this is more like the International Committee telling the Finance
>> Committee how to spend money. Good Greens all, but not doing the job
>> they're supposed to - and not helping the Green Party by doing so.
>>
>> --
>> Steve Kramer || scooter (at) guisarme dot net
> ||
>> _____________________
> ===================================================
>> | __/^\__ ,-^,|
>> |/~ \_ { / | "We're working on that."
>> \/\ |! |
>> / / ) |___ Dr. Stephen Hawking, upon being shown
>> (_ \ \ / the warp drive during a tour of the set
>> ~v^ ?_,-' of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_
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>
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--
Steve Kramer || scooter (at) guisarme dot net ||
_____________________ ===================================================
| __/^\__ ,-^,|
|/~ \_ { / | "We're working on that."
\/\ |! |
/ / ) |___ Dr. Stephen Hawking, upon being shown
(_ \ \ / the warp drive during a tour of the set
~v^ ?_,-' of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_