[Procedures] Been thinking about the state comm structure...

[James O'Keefe]

Hi all,

I am beginning to think that the current state comm. structure and meeting 
frequency and local structure is too cumbersome and not grassroots enough.  
From the (albeit little) information I have seen:

o  State comm. members are not reporting back to their local chapters and are 
too some degree disconnected from the locals.

o  County conventions are difficult to organize (especially now that Bristol, 
Plymouth and the Cape and Islands are concentrated into one district) and are 
too infrequent to build the connections between locals.

o  It is not possible to hold county conventions to fill vacancies.

o  The method of selection (STV-PR) is too cumbersome.  The fact that surplus 
votes are allocated randomly may not lead to repeatable results in a recount is 
another factor.

o  Having locals beyond the size of the actual city/town seems to limit our 
growth not encourage it.

Based on those assessments, I would suggest that we open up a structure review 
process in the first half of the year that starts by getting feedback from 
members as to how they view the current system and then put forward 
modifications to the the state committee or 2003 convention to occur before the 
next county conventions.

I will throw the following suggested changes for discussion only.

1.  Keep the state mandated 80 seats elected at the 2004 presidential primary.

2.  Replace the PR seats with seats elected by city or town GP locals in 
whatever form they choose so long as all members are notified of vacancies.  
The formula would be at least one state committee member from every city or 
town that has an active GP chapter in that city or town.  Additional seats 
would be allocated based on the number of members based on the following 
schedule:

      1-100 registered GP members - 1 seat
    101-200 registered GP members - 2 seats
    201-300 registered GP members - 3 seats
      etc....

These seats would be appointed for terms of two years.  Filling vacancies would 
be easier since it is down at the city/town level.  I know this could lead to 
500+ state comm. members [80 (4 year) + 351 (min from each town) + 100 or more 
based on current number of voters in certain cities/towns].  My feeling is we 
should be so lucky.  More than likely most city/towns won't get organized and 
if this provides an incentive for them to get organized, great!  We can always 
adjust the formula later.

The required minimum number of women state committee members from that city or 
town would be equal to (Number of state comm. seats / 2) and rounded down.  So 
if 1 seat then no minimum number of women are required; 2 seats, 1 is required; 
3 seats, 1 is required; 4 seats, 2 are required; etc.

My suggestion is to elect all state comm. members in that city or town "at-
large" (i.e. not separated into to different gender lists) using cumulative 
voting (http://www.fairvote.org/cumulative/index.html) s.t. the women's list is 
filled first from the women running and then the men's list is filled second.

3.  Keep the diversity seats, but as top up seats to existing representation.  
So if we set a goal of 25% people of color and 20% of elected members are 
people of color, then we only need to add sufficient seats for people of color 
to ensure that 25% of state comm. members are people of color.

4.  Have the state committee meet every two months or as decided by the state 
committee.

5.  Define GP locals as only city or town locals with a minimum number of 
members who meet regularly.  The state party will not express any preference as 
to how a local should organize at a lower level, but leave that to the 
city/town local.  Regional locals will not be prohibited, but left to locals to 
decide whether and how they want to form them.  Regional locals will have no 
influence on the election of state comm. members (since that is a city/town 
local function), or any power over state party decisions.

So that is it.  Comments and observations are most welcome.

peace,

Jamie