[GPSCC-chat] Critique of SGA for Santa Rosa Plenary
Brian
snug.bug at hotmail.com
Fri Nov 15 22:46:26 PST 2013
Below is an unauthorized digest of Mr. Bloomberg's Complaint, created by a sometime paralegal
who prefers to remain anonymous, that I attempted to post to the gpca-forum list. I did get an
obscene response from Hank Chapot.
THE [digest of the] STORY OF AN ILLEGITIMATE “SGA” Written by Warner Bloomberg III (SO FAR)
The idea of freeing up GPCA state party meetings to allow more time for “political”
and organizing work by creating an electronic (email) Standing General Assembly (SGA)
to conduct state party business has been discussed for some years. At the May, 2012
Plenary such a proposal was presented, inspiring some (unrecorded) expressions of
concerns, but it was not voted upon. At the subsequent June, 2012 meeting of the
Coordinating Committee (CC) Michael Feinstein brought up a “Bylaws interpretation”
item which passed 10-1-1 and provided that the CC was allowed to set the next General
Assembly (GA), that the GA should be an SGA, and that it should vote on the May SGA
proposal and address the associated concerns.
An SGA was formed, by on-line vote it self-approved, and several Bylaw amendments
were voted upon reducing the voting threshold from 2/3 to 60% for ordinary decisions
and from 80% to 2/3 for other decisions, and also eliminating Regional Representatives
from the CC and replacing them with at-large Reps elected by the SGA.
At the June, 2013 Plenary, Warner Bloomberg objected to the Agenda on grounds that
section 7-3.2 of the Bylaws requires that the CC's interpretations of the Bylaws be
approved by the GA. The vote to approve the Agenda was 19-12-5, or 61%. This
failed to meet the 2/3 requirement of the Bylaws as they existed before the CC's
interpretations gave the SGA putative license to reduce the requirement to 60%. The
CC members did not dispute concerns about the lack of GA approval for its
“interpretation” of the Bylaws; they simply declared that time constraints did not
permit discussion. The CC has not put the issue on the current November, 2013 Agenda
either, even though time seems to be available.
Bylaw Section 5.1 provides that “Date and location for next [General Assembly]
meeting shall be determined by the close of each meeting.” The CC's use of
interpretation of this provision to permit amendment of the Bylaws grossly exceeded
its authority. The CC's “interpretation” was not necessary—the section is not
ambiguous, and failures to schedule meetings have been handled more prosaically in
the past. The SGA's electronic discussion and vote tabulation can not be considered
a “meeting” that can substitute for a Plenary.
More importantly, the “interpretation” went far beyond the Bylaw text to restructure
the GPCA, in effect amending the Bylaws with no approval from the GA, though
long-standing practice has been to review concerns and bring the proposals back to
the GA. There was no urgency to justify this, and the CC's votes supporting this
represented a recourse to expediency and a betrayal of trust.
In addition, the failure to submit the “interpretation” to the GA in June, 2013
violated the Bylaws. SGA “self-approval” of the CC “interpretation” that invalidly
created the SGA by violating the GPCA Bylaws was itself invalid and illegitimate.
Such shenanigans cast a cloud of illegitimacy on all SGA actions and procedures.
Unless the CC will place this issue first on the November, 2013 Agenda, GA time will
be taken up simply to get the matter into discussion. There's no need to spend time
on endorsement of a cannabis legalization initiative. The GPCA approved such a
position at the San Jose Plenary, and this GA can quickly endorse a similar initiative.
If the GA rejects the CC “interpretation”, GPCA Bylaws as extant June 4, 2013 would
need to be republished as the current GPCA Bylaws, and the GA would need to appoint
interim CC members to serve until the next GA (because the current CC members were
“elected” by an invalid process). The current SGA could be authorized to vote
on specific limited issues (e.g., candidates and ballot issues), but its authority
needs to be specified and limited by future Bylaws amendments approved by previous
Bylaws authority and procedures.
Correcting this mess will take energy and patience and persistence. But our Ten Key
Values are inconsistent with an illegitimate “SGA” operating on expediency with the
“ends justifying the means”. I thought that was somebody else!!!
From: WB4D23 at aol.com
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 17:55:58 -0500
To: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Critique of SGA for Santa Rosa Plenary
THE
STORY OF AN ILLEGITIMATE “SGA” (SO
FAR)
Written by Warner S. Bloomberg III November 15.
2013
For
years there have been discussions and draft proposals about forming
a
GPCA Standing General Assembly (SGA) that would operate electronically to
conduct administrative and other state party business, and thereby allow time
for more “political”
and organizing work at state party meetings (aka General Assemblies of
Delegates, aka GA; aka Plenaries).
At the May 2012 San Francisco Plenary, such a proposal was placed on the
agenda by the Bylaws Committee as part of an overall revision of the GPCA
Bylaws. The proposals were
discussed during the Saturday morning session, and numerous concerns were
expressed. The Presenter (Michael
Feinstein) then separated the SGA part of the proposals from
the
others and called for a vote on the non-SGA proposals. When a vote was taken, those draft
Bylaws amendments received only about 50% support –
well under the 80% required for a Bylaws amendment.
That
discussion and vote was held on May 12, 2012. No record of the discussions and
concerns is included in the record of decisions for that Plenary. However, Michael Feinstein placed what
he characterized as a Bylaws interpretation on the agenda for the next meeting
of the GPCA Coordinating
Committee (CC) on June 4, 2012 (night before the Primary Election). The operative language of the proposal
was as follows:
“…the
CC interprets the existing bylaws that allow it to set the next GA, to set
the
next GA as an SGA based upon the SGA proposal of May 13, for the following
purposes: …voting upon the
individual sections of the SGA proposal , to address the outstanding concerns
from the San Francisco General Assembly (and in the process allow the SGA to
conduct its review of the CC interpretation).”
The
proposal was approved by the CC on a 10-1-1 vote. Based on this vote,
a
SGA was formed. As part of its
activation, an on-line vote was conducted self=approving itself and various
amendments of GPCA Bylaws were assertedly enacted; including revision of GA
voting procedures to reduce the previous 2/3rds threshold for ordinary decisions
to 60% and to reduce the voting threshold for policy matters and Bylaws
amendments from 80% to 2/3rds. The
SGA also eliminated the Regional Representative members on the Coordinating
Committee and replaced those with an all at-large CC elected by the
SGA.
At
the June 2013 Napa Plenary, I objected to the Agenda on the ground that
the
supposed CC Bylaws interpretation was required to be presented to an actual GA
for confirmation or rejection. As
expressly noted at the beginning of the proposal considered by the CC on June 4,
2012:
“Bylaws
7-3.2 Bylaws Interpretation specifies that ‘In cases of bylaw ambiguity or
procedural disagreement, the General Assembly shall decide for itself the
meaning of its bylaws or or the appropriate procedure to be followed. Between General Assembly meetings, the
Coordinating Committee shall decide these questions subject to review at the
next General Assembly meeting….’
After
discussion, the vote to approve the Agenda was 19-12-5, or 61% for
approval. Under the GPCA Bylaws as
published on June 4, 2012, the Agenda would not have been approved as less than
2/3rds; but because the Facilitators used the SGA changes, the Agenda was deemed
to be approved by a vote above the “new” 60% threshold. Of particular note, the CC members did
not dispute any of the concerns about its failure to allow the GA to affirm or
reject the CC’s Bylaws “interpretation”; instead they argued that there simply
was not sufficient time to add it to the Agenda given other matters that had
been scheduled for the Meeting (e.g., adoption of a budget). But the vote to approve the Agenda, even
using a disputed threshold, did not resolve the objection – it only left it off
the GA Agenda and the objection remains unresolved. (In Robert’s Rules of Order terms, the
item was “tabled”.) And the CC
again has failed to place this issue on the Agenda for the current November 2013
Plenary (where the expediency excuse of “not enough time” will not be
credible).
The
GPCA Bylaw that supposedly was “interpreted” by the CC was: “Section 5.1. Regular Meetings. Section 5-1.1 Meeting frequency. The General Assembly shall meet at least
twice a year. Date and location for next meeting shall be determined by the
close of each meeting.” So there
were many problems with
the
CC June 4, 2012 “interpretation” of this (or any other) Bylaw as an excuse to
grossly exceed its authority to restructure the GPCA through what amounted to
the CC making Bylaws amendments – which is only allowed to be done by a General
Assembly of Delegates.
First,
there was no “ambiguity” in the Bylaw.
And although it was argued that
the
“interpretation” was needed because a date and location for the next GA had not
occurred at the May 2012 Plenary, that circumstance has occurred many times in
the past and the CC simply has recruited a host and proceeded with the
scheduling of the next Plenary on that basis. So the “interpretation” not only
violated the Bylaw it purported to interpret because the language of the Bylaw
itself was plain, the “interpretation” also was
unnecessary.
The
“SGA” proposed by and organized under the rationale of the Bylaw interpretation,
was not and is not a “meeting”. It
is an email subscription list that conducts electronic discussions and votes on
an electronic bulletin board. At no
time is any individual at the same place with anyone else at the same time. It operates only by internet
communications. Therefore, there is
no such thing as
an
SGA “meeting” and the SGA created by the CC vote could not be a substitute for
a
Plenary.
Second,
and most importantly, the CC engaged in conduct that was unauthorized by the
GPCA Bylaws. The “interpretation”
was more than considering the GPCA Bylaws text; it created a totally new
structure in the GPCA amounting to Bylaws amendments that had not been approved
by any GA. Even the proposal for
the CC meeting admitted that there had been no consensus at the May 2012 San
Francisco Plenary. The
long-followed practice in the GPCA under such circumstances has been to review
the concerns and bring back a similar proposal or set of proposals at the next
GA. So, adding to the violation of
the Bylaws, the proposal, itself, was speculative and conjectural about what the
Delegates at the Plenary occurring just weeks earlier had been thinking either
individually or collectively. And
the CC vote failed to follow the long-standing practice of a measured
consideration of Bylaws amendments – as had been the case with all previous
Bylaws amendments proposals (i.e., there was no urgency to create a “SGA” in
June 2012). While one can assume
the “best intentions” on the part of the CC members who voted to approve the
“interpretation”, those votes also can be described as a recourse to expediency
and a betrayal of trust by those holding that office.
Third,
the CC failure to include its Bylaws “interpretation” on the Agenda for the Napa
June 2013 meeting was an additional violation of the GPCA Bylaws. That Plenary was the first GA since the
June 4, 2012 CC vote. In the
meantime, the SGA “self-approval” of the CC “interpretation” that invalidly
created the “SGA” by violating the GPCA Bylaws was itself invalid and
illegitimate. These kinds of
shenanigans are sometimes referred to as “boot strapping”. Another way of describing it is
“circular thinking” (a kind of illogic used for self-justification). Whatever words you want to call it, the
failure and then obstruction by the CC to allow GA consideration of the
“interpretation” has created a question of illegitimacy on all actions by the
SGA and GPCA decisions using SGA created procedures.
At
minimum, the Santa Rosa November 2013 Plenary needs to confront this issue. Unless the CC will relent and place the
issue as the first item on the Agenda, GA time needs to be taken just to get the
matter before the Plenary Delegates.
Then, at least an hour of Agenda time will be needed to discuss the
issues and reach either confirmation or rejection of the CC June 4. 2012
“interpretation. There is time to
do this. There is no need to spend
time on whether an illegitimate SGA should even consider endorsement of a
cannabis legalization initiative.
The GPCA approved such a position at the San Jose Plenary (which was put
on the Agenda by Green Issues Working Group at the GA in the same session when
it was approved). This GA can
quickly endorse a similar initiative (although the failure to describe the
initiative is another flaw in the proposed Agenda). Likewise, as in the past, the Plenary
Delegates can endorse candidates for state office – even with the Governor
position having two candidates (e.g., endorse both as proposed by the Alameda
County GP). Sending those
endorsements to an illegitimate SGA should be avoided.
What
happens if the GA rejects the CC “interpretation”? GPCA Bylaws as existed on June 4, 2013
would need to be republished as the current GPCA Bylaws. The GA also would need to appoint the
current (or other) CC members on an interim basis to serve until the next
GA. That would be necessary because
the current CC members were “elected” by a process created by invalid SGA Bylaws
revisions. The currently
constituted SGA could be authorized to conduct votes on specific limited issues
(e.g., candidates and ballot issues), but given how the SGA has been manipulated
to accomplish what some have characterized as a “coup”, any other SGA authority
needs to be carefully specified and expressly limited by future Bylaws
amendments approved by previous Bylaws authority and procedures.
Yes;
the situation is a “mess” and correcting it will take time and energy and
patience and persistence. But we
are a community supposedly guided by
the
Ten Key Values. Continuing the
charade of an illegitimate “SGA” makes us
a
political party of expediency with the “ends justifying the means”. I thought that was somebody
else!!!
Warner S. Bloomberg III joined the GPCA as a disaffected Democrat in 1994
and served four years as a County Council Member of the Green Party of Santa
Clara County. He also served four
years as the Coordinator of the Campaign and Candidates Working Group and served
four years as
a GPCA Delegate to the GPUS Party National Committee. He also served over a year on the GPCA
Coordinating Committee, including twice on the Budget Committee, and resigned
from the CC in 2012 in protest over the matters described above. The opinions expressed are solely those
of the writer, although they also may represent the opinions of at least other
GPSCC members.
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