[GPCA-SGA-Votes] Discuss ID 157: Bylaws Amendment: Clarify Notice Requirements and Reset Quorum at a Minimum of 50% For Standing Committees’ Voting Membership

Thu Feb 22 10:34:34 PST 2018

To your question, yes. In the committee meetings I attend we often get 4 people and we often do not get to 5.

I really want us to keep this simple.

I can imagine scenarios in which your more complex proposal could be gamed by people who sit out two meetings, trigger quorum to be lowered and then would show up anyway and dominate the votes.

Eric Brooks
SF, CA

From: gpca-votes [mailto:gpca-votes-bounces at sfgreens.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Leavitt
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 12:55 AM
To: GPCA Discussion List for SGA Votes <gpca-votes at sfgreens.org>
Subject: Re: [GPCA-SGA-Votes] Discuss ID 157: Bylaws Amendment: Clarify Notice Requirements and Reset Quorum at a Minimum of 50% For Standing Committees’ Voting Membership

Understandable, although I don't see how this qualifies as significantly more complex. The only difference is that you have to determine the numerical basis for a quorum monthly (or over whatever period you desire, it could be quarterly, I suppose) via a "quorum call", which is pretty trivial in practice. It actually makes things much more flexible:

If only 5 people respond, then your quorum could be defined as 50% (3, rounding up) +1 under the current formula, and get you to the same target as the proposal (4 members), or just 3 members (50% rounded up), and offer greater flexibility than the current proposal. The potential for abuse of smaller quorum thresholds would be mitigated by the target is derived from a count of members who have actively indicated that they are engaged. As a side effect, it would strongly encourage active participation by all appointees by making absenteeism not an effective blocking tactic.

That said, the benefits are much greater when you're dealing with 20-30 person committees who could easily have a dozen inactive members in any month, where fixed quorums based on total "book" membership would lead to complete paralysis.
Is the margin of inactivity so narrow that a simple change from 5 to 4 members for quorum (which I read as the effect of this request in most cases) would result in significant benefits?
Regards,
Thomas Leavitt

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 6:35 PM, Eric Brooks <brookse32 at hotmail.com<mailto:brookse32 at hotmail.com>> wrote:
I’d be fine with us adopting a more complex approach in the future, but we do need a quick simple change now so that we can get the committees functioning immediately. The reason we didn’t go for a member reduction is that different committees have different numbers of members, and different numbers of voting members.

Eric Brooks
SF, CA
Media Committee

From: gpca-votes [mailto:gpca-votes-bounces at sfgreens.org<mailto:gpca-votes-bounces at sfgreens.org>] On Behalf Of Thomas Leavitt
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2018 5:23 PM

To: GPCA Discussion List for SGA Votes <gpca-votes at sfgreens.org<mailto:gpca-votes at sfgreens.org>>
Subject: Re: [GPCA-SGA-Votes] Discuss ID 157: Bylaws Amendment: Clarify Notice Requirements and Reset Quorum at a Minimum of 50% For Standing Committees’ Voting Membership

I'm ambivalent, as I've seen plenty of gamesmanship on committees, and qourums make it that more difficult--but committees that are non-functional for extended periods due to lack of quorum is a major liability as well, and can be a "game" all its own.

I'm curious as to why simply reducing the size of committees to be more realistic considering resources available was not considered instead? Fear that quorum requirements would be even harder to meet, even with less people required in absolute terms?

FYI, the way the GPUS Platcom handles this is dynamically setting quorum based on "active membership" (responses to quorum calls and posts to the mailing list). That prevents inactive members from impairing the committees ability to get things done, while imposing a minimal set of expectations for engagement, and letting people tune in and out as they feel able. Is there an obstacle within our bylaws to adopting an approach like this?

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt

On Feb 21, 2018 3:16 PM, "Nassim Nouri" <nassim1nouri at gmail.com<mailto:nassim1nouri at gmail.com>> wrote:
I strongly support this decision.

We are all busy and it's understandable that committee members can’t make every call, every month. However this fact shouldn't bring the critical work of our organization to a halt.
The current quorum requirements have already proven unrealistic based on the level of participation we have.

Nassim Nouri
Green Party of Santa Clara County
Clearinghouse Committee Co-Coordinator

On Feb 21, 2018, at 11:26 AM, Steve Breedlove <srbreedlove at gmail.com<mailto:srbreedlove at gmail.com>> wrote:

To address your concern, James, committees, WG, etc are all responsible to the GA. When mundane b.s. can't be addressed month after month because of chronic absences we have to be willing to recognize that a party is an organization that exists to do work. This is a simple solution. Also in this proposal is clarification for meetings that are regularly scheduled don't require notice. This is because the problem has been noted as people not being in meetings and having an unrealistic quorum that castrated the committee.  Now there's no excuse.
I support this proposal.

On Feb 21, 2018 9:27 AM, "Erik" <erikrydberg34 at gmail.com<mailto:erikrydberg34 at gmail.com>> wrote:
This proposal was brought forth by members of GPCA Members who actually sit on Committees. We need our Committees to be functional. Please vote yes.

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 11:49 PM Eric Brooks <brookse32 at hotmail.com<mailto:brookse32 at hotmail.com>> wrote:
For our many small committees even the current quorum of 50% +1 is really problematic. Half of our committees can’t make quorum because there are just not enough people serving on committees. Committees are generally made up of 8 people and that forces us to make sure 5 show up to reach quorum. This is too high a bar, and 4 is much more manageable.

And bear in mind that if a committee makes poor decisions, those can be overruled by the GA/SGA, so a 2/3rds supermajority is not needed for specialized committees.

We badly need this amendment so that we can get our committees properly functioning again.

Eric Brooks
SF, CA
GPCA Media Committee Co-Coordinator

From: gpca-votes [mailto:gpca-votes-bounces at sfgreens.org<mailto:gpca-votes-bounces at sfgreens.org>] On Behalf Of james clark
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 2:10 PM
To: GPCA Discussion List for SGA Votes <gpca-votes at sfgreens.org<mailto:gpca-votes at sfgreens.org>>
Subject: Re: [GPCA-SGA-Votes] Discuss ID 157: Bylaws Amendment: Clarify Notice Requirements and Reset Quorum at a Minimum of 50% For Standing Committees’ Voting Membership

A quorum should be no less than 66.66% of voting members. Having a smaller quorum leaves to much room for members to be excluded from important votes and decisions.

On Feb 15, 2018 12:45 PM, "GPCA Votes" <gpca.votes at gmail.com<mailto:gpca.votes at gmail.com>> wrote:
Please send your discussion comments to gpca-votes at sfgreens.org<mailto:gpca-votes at sfgreens.org>

Discussion has begun for the following GPCA SGA ranked choice vote:

Ranked Choice Vote ID #157
Ranked Choice Vote Bylaws Amendment: Clarify Notice Requirements and Reset Quorum at a Minimum of 50% For Standing Committees’ Voting Membership
Ranked Choice Vote Administrators: Victoria Ashley, Brian Good, Laura Wells, Eric Brooks, Mike Goldbeck
Discussion  02/12/2018 - 03/25/2018
Voting  03/26/2018 - 04/01/2018
Voting ends at Midnight Pacific Time

Background

This proposal has been brought forth because in recent years a number of standing committees of the Green Party of California (GPCA) have been unable to conduct any business for lengthy periods of time due to failure to reach quorum.  This state of affairs has often impeded the GPCA Coordinating Committee (CC) from fulfilling its own responsibilities per GPCA Bylaw 8-1.7 (“Request and receive reports from Committees and Working Groups, refer matters to them, and monitor and assist their work”).  GPCA standing committees are capped, for gender balance, at an even number of members, and currently establish quorum at a majority of voting members.  This proposed amendment would establish the minimum quorum at least 50% of standing committees’ voting membership.

This proposal would also clarify an ambiguity in notice requirements for calling meetings.  The language of GPCA Bylaw 9-3.1 is silent regarding notice requirements for standing committees that establish regular meeting schedules.  In practice, most if not all standing committees establish regular meeting schedules for their work year.  The proposed language would make explicit that two weeks’ notice is required for meetings that fall outside a standing committee’s regular meeting schedule, should one be set.

Proposal

That GPCA Bylaw Article 9-3 be amended as follows:

That Article 9-3 be amended from its current text:

Section 9-3 Meetings

9-3.1 Committees shall meet during GPCA state meetings, on teleconferences and otherwise as necessary to achieve the objectives outlined in its work plan. Meetings must be called with a minimum of two weeks notice to committee members.

9-3.2 The decision-making process for committees shall follow that described for the General Assembly in 7-5.5. Quorum is a majority of the committee's voting membership.

To read as follows:

Section 9-3 Meetings

9-3.1 Committees shall meet during GPCA state meetings, on teleconferences and otherwise as necessary to achieve the objectives outlined in their work plans. Meetings outside any regular meeting schedule shall be called with a minimum of two weeks notice to committee members.

9-3.2 The decision-making process for committees shall follow that described for the General Assembly in 7-5.5. Quorum shall be at least 50% of the committee's voting membership.

Sponsors: The proposed amendment has been endorsed and sponsored by the Green Party of Butte County and the Green Party of Yolo County.

Full details will be available at: http://www.sjcgreens.org/sga_vote_bylaw_interpretations

Please send your discussion comments to gpca-votes at sfgreens.org<mailto:gpca-votes at sfgreens.org>

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