[Procedures] RE: RE: [Green-Rainbow] diversity seats

[Jamie O'Keefe]

Hi all,

One thing I will point out is that due to the way the Greens elect state 
committee members at (currently) county conventions, at least in areas where 
there are multiple seats available for that gender, it is far more likely for 
non-white straight men to get on than the standard one seat per district the we 
have in most elected offices.  The bylaws specify that we use STV-PR (Single 
Transferable Vote - Proportional Representation), which means that a candidate 
only needs to get roughly 1/n of the votes (where n is the number of seats 
available), to get a seat.  

That is not to say that it is perfect (there are many districts where there is 
a male seat and a female seat, but there are others (East Middlesex, Suffolk, 
Hampshire) where the number of seats available is larger and so you need less 
than 50%+1 to actually win a seat.

Sadly, even where the Greens have rigid requirements that half the seats be 
female, we haven't been able to fill all of those seats.  And this where are 
members/voters are about 45% female.  I think in this case we don't do enough 
to encourage women to run and take on positions of leadership, though it is 
likely to be more than that.  Likewise, while the Greens are a youth party in 
terms of membership (58% are 30 or younger, 80% are 40 or younger), the folks 
stepping forward to run for these seats tend to be older.  So in addition to 
working at expanding our diversity among people of color, LBGT folks and those 
with disabilities, the Greens could do a great deal more to make our leadership 
reflect our membership.

peace,

Jamie

Quoting Jamie O'Keefe <jokeefe at massgreens.org>:

> Quoting Gil Obler <greengil at attbi.com>:
> 
> > For instance, I would support the practice of relying on diversity
> > caucuses within the Green-Rainbow movement and party for finding
> > and nominating the candidates. I am not sure how to write this idea
> > into a bylaw. But I tend to think that if we work to create stronger
> > caucuses such as the Lavender Greens LGBT caucus, they will
> naturally
> > produce and push candidates for the state committee.
> 
> We have county conventions, why not have caucus conventions and have the
> 
> caucuses decide how to fill the seats for their caucus.  Isn't that the
> 
> decentralized approach?
> 
> peace,
> 
> Jamie
> 
> James O\'Keefe
> Green Party Candidate for Massachusetts State Treasurer
> jamesokeefe.org
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peace,

Jamie

James O\'Keefe
Green Party Candidate for Massachusetts State Treasurer
jamesokeefe.org