[GPCA-SGA-Votes] Discuss ID 156: Bylaws Amendment: Procedures for Recall

[Linda Piera-Avila]

Apparently Mike Feinstein's emails from several hours ago are not being 
allowed through to the SGA list. I don't know why.....

So I am forwarding them so delegates have the benefit of reading them

Linda

> *From:*Mike Feinstein <mfeinstein at feinstein.org>
> *Subject:**Re: [GPCA-SGA-Votes] Discuss ID 156: Bylaws Amendment: 
> Procedures for Recall*
> *Date:*March 30, 2018 at 10:05:22 AM PDT
> *To:*GPCA Discussion List for SGA Votes <gpca-votes at sfgreens.org>
>
> Dear Greens
>
> This is thinly veiled attempt to further the internal faction fight in 
> our state party, to make it easier to get eliminate candidates elected 
> under proportional representation, who do not agree with the current 
> Coordinating Committee majority and those who support them.
>
>> Background
>>
>> Current recall procedures reserve the right to initiate and approve 
>> recall petitions to county councils, rather than county organizations 
>> themselves. This is an obstacle to fuller participation in party 
>> governance by the GPCA, as defined in Bylaw 3-1.
>
> This is not true.  Actually County Councils are the one party of party 
> governance that is subject to all registered Greens, because any 
> registered Greens can run and when the race is contested, any Green 
> can vote.   In other words, County Council elections are the one place 
> open to the fullest participation in the GPCA.
>
>> In addition to promoting clarity by complying with Bylaws 4-1 and 
>> 4-4, revising this provision would also ensure that the GPCA’s own 
>> procedures for encouraging oversight and good governance of the party 
>> organization are more consistent with two of the party’s 10 Key 
>> Values: decentralization and grassroots democracy.
>
> This is stated without substantiation.
>
> Actually this proposal centralizes power, by moving it away from the 
> county parties who represent a broad base of Greens around the state, 
> to a potentially much smaller group of people who may happen to attend 
> an in-person GA at any given point in time (as explained below).
>
>> This proposal also removes an inconsistency found elsewhere in the 
>> bylaws regarding the duties and responsibilities of both the General 
>> Assembly (GA) and Standing General Assembly (SGA) (cf., GPCA Bylaw 
>> 7-6.2(g)).
>
> Actually this text confuses the issues, as explained below.
>
>>
>> Proposal
>>
>> That GPCA Bylaw Article 8-5.2 be amended as follows:
>>
>> That Article 8-5.2 be amended from its current text:
>>
>> 8-5.2 A Recall Petition must contain the written basis for removal, 
>> be approved by County Councils representing 35% of the total number 
>> of General Assembly delegate seats, and must be received by the 
>> Coordinating Committee before it can be forwarded to the General 
>> Assembly for a vote. The written basis for recall must be based upon 
>> substantial malperformance of the duties of the Coordinating 
>> Committee as defined in these Bylaws.
>
> Again, the reason that this rule is based upon County Councils, is 
> that the county parties are elected bodies on the county level and 
> hence are the building blocks of the state party. County Councils are 
> also places where considered discussion can occur on such a serious 
> issues. The way the new rule is written, it just become a petition 
> drive effort, as described below.
>
>
>> to read as follows:
>>
>> 8-5.2 A Recall Petition must contain the written basis for removal, 
>> be approved by 35% of the total number of General Assembly or 
>> Standing General Assembly delegates,
>
> I don’t know if this text was submitted to the GPCA Bylaws Committee 
> for review as required under GPCA Bylaws, but this text now entirely 
> confuses the process and can produce unintended consequence - and 
> given that, the Bylaws Committee had a responsibility to identify that 
> to the sponsor and send it back for more work, and the Bylaws 
> Committee failed us.
>
> The current text  "A Recall Petition must contain the written basis 
> for removal, be approved by County Councils representing 35% of the 
> total number of General Assembly delegate seats “
>
> is based upon the total number of General Assembly DELEGATE SEATS, 
> because that is a number defined in the party bylaw by a given formula
>
>> 7-1.2 The total number of delegates and the number of delegates per 
>> county shall be the total of two sums:
>>
>> 7-1.2(a) Each active County Organization shall have at least one 
>> delegate seat, for a total of 58 if County Organizations are active 
>> in all of California's counties.
>>
>> 7-1.2(b) Each active County Organization shall have an additional 
>> number of delegates seats out of an additional 100 seats, equal to 
>> its percentage of registered Greens from within the county, compared 
>> to the total number of registered Greens in all counties, with a 
>> minimum of 1% required for one seat, times 100.
>
> By trying to change this to
>
> "A Recall Petition must contain the written basis for removal, be 
> approved by 35% of the total number of General Assembly or Standing 
> General Assembly delegates”
>
> creates several problems.
>
> The first is that it creates an uncertain number, by changing the 
> definition from SEATS to DELEGATES. The number of SGA DELEGATES can 
> change from time to time during the course of a year , so the number 
> of delegates needed to support a recall petition would change! 
>  Furthermore this rule doesn’t state at what time that number of 
> delegates is defined. This is sloppy work on behalf of the sponsors 
> (unless it was intentional) and the GPCA Bylaws Committee needed to 
> have caught this and sent it back for correction.
>
> In fact this rule would then incentive county parties to play games 
> with how many people are their appointed SGA delegates at any one 
> time, in order to affect the total number needed for such a recall 
> petition.
>
> Second, by introducing " General Assembly or Standing General Assembly 
> DELEGATES” instead of SEATS, this is sly backdoor method to change the 
> entire threshold for a recall, from a 35% of a large number of defined 
> seats, to 35% of a smaller number of random people who show up at a 
> General Assembly.
>
> So now under this proposal, all that has to happen is that we have a 
> modestly attended GA in one part of the state, where Greens from 
> another part of the state can’t easily attend, and then 35% of that 
> MUCH SMALLER number of delegates in attendance (compared to the 
> defined number of SEATS) can move a recall process ahead. It could 
> even theoretically happen late on a Sunday afternoon at a GA, when 
> only a small people were left, that arguably could say 35% of those 
> people remaining would be enough to start a recall!
>
> Under the current GPCA rules, recalls are NOT mean to be easy.  The 
> reason for this is that our CC elections are held under proportional 
> representation, to ensure diverse representation, including of 
> minority factions in the party.
>
> The recall rule is not supposed to be used for internal party faction 
> fights, but instead is meant to be in place in that rare case where it 
> is abundantly obvious to a very large number of Greens that something 
> must be done.
>
> Third, with County Councils, there is a clear APPROVAL PROCESS where 
> County Councils take a vote and have minutes. Now what is going to 
> happen? Now there is no ‘approval process’ in place.  Are we supposed 
> to have a change.org petition going around? Who is going to verify who 
> supported such a petition?  There is nothing in this rule that 
> describes such a process - again another reason that it should have 
> been sent back by the GPCA Bylaws Committee for more work. In fact as 
> is, this proposal is not actually implementable and is thus infirm.
>
> In sum, this proposal is poorly written, not implementable as written, 
> and is a thinly-veiled effort to aid faction fighting.  Really quite 
> sad that something like this has advanced this far.
>
> For all of these reasons, I am voting no
>
> Mike Feinstein
> SGA Delegate
> GPLAC
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