Erik, I agree that the Green Party's organizational capabilities far exceed that of what has been realized to date; it would be highly beneficial to our movement to have a state level party with the resources to credibly engage in the public sphere. That said, I don't see why this requires us to pick and choose among credible candidates for statewide public office. Taking a neutral position of endorsing all qualified candidates does not prevent the party from vigorously promoting, encouraging votes, or donations to our candidate(s). It also puts the state party in the position of being at odds with our leading candidate. If we endorse one candidate, and another winds up earning far more votes for whatever reason, the state party is going to look foolish (at best). That said, if we had a formal, grassroots process including a series of debates and appearances by candidates across the state, analogous to what the GPUS attempts to do with the Presidential nomination, that would be different. Newer folks might not realize this, but the SGA and the centralization of decision making power at the state level is a relatively new thing. It used to be the case that policy decisions were made in a decentralized fashion via direct democracy at the local level: proposals would be circulated to recognized county level locals, considered at monthly local Green Assembly meetings conducted via consensus with fallback to super majority votes as defined by local rules, then considered adopted once a sufficient number of locals had endorsed them. This process properly enshrined decision making power in the locals, in "the body of the whole" and ensured that all active participants in the Green Party were aware of, and engaged in, the policy making process, and that the state level organization was properly accountable to the locals as the source of institutional authority. No SGA was required. This process, by the way, also fostered a vibrant and active statewide Green Party that regularly produced relative successful candidacies such as the Camejo campaigns, Laura Wells' record breaking campaign for state controller, etc. Thomas Leavitt On Feb 16, 2018 4:27 PM, "Erik" <erikrydberg34@gmail.com> wrote: GPCA could be a fundraising power house that sends out thousands of donation asks and puts on events for candidates. I am not willing to accept GPCA in its current state of do nothingness. If we aren’t helping our candidates win then why do we even have a state party? The point is being missed by many in this thread. Our Primaries were taken from us by capitalists that wanted to limit their competition in General Elections. Our response has been to do nothing and make no preparations to organize prior to the primaries. The “Primaries” are our new “General Election” and we need to start treating it as such because if we don’t get into the Top Two the election cycle is over for us. We need a pre-primary process to organize otherwise we will continue to lose even when we have great candidates because our state party doesn’t lift a finger to help them. This is bigger than the 2018 Elections. We need this process for the future if we want to win statewide elections. I am going to do everything in my power to turn this party into a functioning political party that actually wins state seats. We’ve proven we can win on the local level. It’s time to step our game up and change with the modern times. Doing nothing as a state party is the worst thing we can do. On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:43 PM james clark <faygodrinkit@gmail.com> wrote:

Also note, that several candidates had been putting out the word since last year, building networks, campaigning, strategizing etc. Do you have any policy ideas? Maybe you and Feinstein should have a public debate prior to any vote on endorsement takes place? I would love to help facilitate one here in Sacramento if the two of you are up for it.

To claim that people haven't been doing work, just because they haven't done it for you is disingenuous, and ignores the teamwork it took to get these candidates in the ballot. Instead of putting candidates against each other, why not support each other, as I'm seeing several candidates doing?

Further such a process should have been done prior to candidates getting their names on the ballot. Once there they are there. There's no changing that, thus making this process meaningless. Not to mention having a small group of deligated decide for the party who will run violates the value of decentralization.

My big question though, if splitting the vote is such a concern, why are late to the game candidates trying for offices we already have candidates for??

On Feb 16, 2018 2:36 PM, "james clark" <faygodrinkit@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Erik, many of us have been working to help the candidates that had already stated intent to run, and have chosen to focus their efforts on those who have the best chances of success, and best represent green values. How do you think they got their signatures in??

On Feb 16, 2018 12:35 PM, "Thomas Leavitt" <thomleavitt@gmail.com> wrote:

...

I'm abstaining, but I'll point out that we're not going to have one candidate, we're going to have however many appear on the ballot. Further, whatever decision we make here will be functionally irrelevant to upwards of 95% of the voters casting a ballot for one of our candidates (or any of them), as they'll never hear about it. The "resources" that the state party can provide to any endorsed candidate are almost non-existent. City Council candidates in my town regularly raise upwards of $20,000 on an individual basis; that exceeds what I believe was our entire budget for the state last year, approaches our entire "aspirational" / Plan A budget for this year (based on what I recall seeing), and certainly exceeds whatever financial support we can provide to a candidate. It's unlikely that we'll even be able to afford anything as basic as sending a postcard listing our endorsements to every registered Green in the state; even if we could somehow manage that, said voters would still only amount to a small percentage of the total vote for our candidates. Along those lines, even spreading our endorsements via email and social media will still only reach a tiny percentage of even the registered Greens, let alone the vast mass of Democrats, No Party Preference voters, and others who might be inclined to vote for our candidates.

Again, if we have candidates running for multiple statewide offices, any one of them could serve to get us over the 2% threshold. Historically, up and down the ballot, we've often run well above that, and it seems to me that we'd have an argument for having exceeded the threshold even if we had two candidates running on our party line, each of whom only gained about 1% of the vote, for any such office...

If all that happens is that the endorsement process mirrors internal divisions otherwise present in our party, what exactly does it accomplish? Do we really want to effectively delegitimize particular candidates seeking to run for office within our party, and use the "spoiler" argument against our own candidates?!? When we had primaries, decisions about who should run were left up to registered Greens voting in our primary, except in extreme cases. Then we coalesced (generally) around whoever the voters picked, and moved on. It seems to me that the more folks running, and the broader the representation and point of view they provide, the BETTER OFF the party is, as that will draw MORE voters to us, and in turn, for races where we have less or only one candidate, lead to more votes for those folks.

It might be argued that having a single candidate makes it easier to talk to the press about "our party's candidate", but isn't it a signal of strength that we could have multiple candidates running statewide campaigns? The Democrats aren't concerned about splitting their votes, why should we be? I just don't see what purpose this process serves; folks supporting an unendorsed candidate aren't going to quit doing so based on how the SGA votes, and all it is going to do is provoke a meta discussion about the process at the local level, and lead to rumors about power plays and backroom deals, etc.

Regards, Thomas Leavitt

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 10:51 AM, Anthony Krzywicki < chefkrzywicki@gmail.com> wrote:

...

In it to win it is the point of getting 2% then, right? Doesn’t having one candidate give us a better opportunity to get that 2% ?

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 10:22 AM Nicole Castor <nmcastorsilva@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Anthony & Others,

I agree that this process should have been started at least six months ago. At this point, candidates and their teams have already done the work to get on the ballot and it is likely there will be more than one Green candidate for the offices of SOS & Governor.

If we're not in it to win it, what is the point? There is a point, actually. We will benefit from having any of the statewide candidates reaching 2%, thus securing ballot access. In addition, Green Party benefits by campaigning our platform, Key Values and the type of electoral reforms which are necessary to empower alternate parties. I do not feel it is useful to delude ourselves into thinking that we are in fact "in it to win it," because until these reforms are accomplished, we are severely disadvantaged in realistically competing to win.

I also do not feel it is useful to put so much weight on pandering to so-called "berniecrats," as it dilutes our values in specific ways which compromises what the party actually stands for. Of course such pandering has its merit in reaching registration goals, but for a race like this, we should be careful in pretending we share more in common with that core than we really do.

There has to be a party which stands firmly against war, firmly supports environmental protections, among other issues and Sanders does not reflect these values in his actions. There are already "progressive" democrats who will woo voters with compromised ideals and so rather than GP moving to the right, we stand firm, campaign and demonstrate our values to a growing population of individuals who agree, and keep our stances so that we may secure a place for them when they realize the duopoly does not serve their interests and that these voters no longer wish to compromise their values.

I will vote against the SGA proposal to endorse candidates at this point because it was brought in too late, serves little purpose and is proposed without a strategy which delegates could examine and decide upon.

-Nicole Castor GP Sacramento County On Feb 16, 2018 7:52 AM, "Anthony Krzywicki" <chefkrzywicki@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Another major concern is breaking up our parties voting base. We need to all get behind someone and that someone hopefully will reach out and get votes from independents, progressives and possibly bernicrats. Otherwise were not in itvto win it, so then whats the point? We have a such a small percentage of green voters to make a win, why should we split that?

Also i beliwve that this process should be started 6 months ago, so we could already be backing a unified candidate.

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 9:41 PM james clark <faygodrinkit@gmail.com> wrote:

> One major concern is that this process would take power out of the > voters hands to decide which candidate best represents their values. It > seems to much the DNC and their delegates picking who people get to vote > for. Not to mention at several candidates already have their names on the > ballot. > > On Feb 15, 2018 11:14 AM, "Victoria Ashley" <victronix01@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Since the vote doesn't start until late March, that would give some >> time to send out a list of all the GP candidates on the Inform List. >> >> On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 8:20 AM, John-Marc Chandonia < >> jmc@sfgreens.org> wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 10:25:47PM -0800, james clark wrote: >>> > I feel it is not in the best interests of the party to follow >>> through with >>> > this ill timed endorsement process. If we were to perform such a >>> process it >>> > should have been done prior to candidates reaching their ballot >>> access >>> > goals. To do so at this juncture will only create animosity and >>> division, >>> > and will not effect candidates placement on the ballot. >>> >>> Don't they have until March 9 to raise funds for the ballot? If >>> that's the case, we should know by the time the SGA votes who is in >>> and who is out. I agree that we should not make an endorsement >>> before >>> then, because we haven't had any process for informing Greens about >>> all the Green candidates running. >>> >>> JMC >>> -- >>> John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@sfgreens.org) >>> http://sfgreens.org/ >>> >>> -- >>> gpca-votes mailing list >>> gpca-votes@sfgreens.org >>> https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpca-votes >>> >>> >> >> -- >> gpca-votes mailing list >> gpca-votes@sfgreens.org >> https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpca-votes >> >> -- > gpca-votes mailing list > gpca-votes@sfgreens.org > https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpca-votes > -- Anthony J. Krzywicki,

*Co-coordinator GROW- Green Party CaliforniaCo-coordinator Ventura County Green Party County Council* www.venturacountygreenparty.com greenpartyvc@gmail.com instagram: greenpartyvcc facebook group: Ventura Green Party facebook group: Ventura County Green Party

*It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them. * -Dali Lama

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-- Anthony J. Krzywicki,

*Co-coordinator GROW- Green Party CaliforniaCo-coordinator Ventura County Green Party County Council* www.venturacountygreenparty.com greenpartyvc@gmail.com instagram: greenpartyvcc facebook group: Ventura Green Party facebook group: Ventura County Green Party

*It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them. * -Dali Lama

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