[statecom-discuss] Mike Heichman's statement for the SPWG meeting

[Mike Heichman]

Members of the State Committee:

I hope to see many of you tomorrow in Worcester for the SPWG meeting.

Below is a copy of my statement.

Mike Heichman



TESTIMONY BY MIKE HEICHMAN
For the SPWG meeting on May 6, 2007

I. SPWG

Thank you so much to all of the members of SPWG and all of you who have 
come together today to help build and move our party forward. I believe 
that the work that we do together is essential to our efforts to do our 
part to improve the lives of the people of this Commonwealth and beyond.

I want to thank the members of SPWG for agreeing to play a major role in 
this important task. I was impressed with the membership of this 
Committee-a combination of people who are currently active and those who 
have been more active in the past

Reflecting on and evaluating our history and our practice is an 
essential task for our party. I believe that it is also very important 
that this effort not be a one-time shot. Instead it should become a 
“permanent committee”.

RECOMMENDATION #1: As part of its report, SPWG will come up with 
recommendations on how the party (through this committee) should 
continue this process of reflection/evaluation and making future plans.

I was also very pleased when Boston City Councilor, Chuck Turner, who is 
the most impressive person that I have ever know and worked with, 
decided to represent the Rainbow Caucus in the work of this committee. 
Unfortunately, I was disheartened to learn that Chuck has resigned. Our 
party must be about diversity! And for this wonderful person and leader 
to so quickly resign from the work of this committee is disheartening. 
We must do more than just acknowledge his absence.

RECOMMENDATION #2: I call on SPWG to conduct an internal investigation 
of the resignation of Chuck Turner from this committee. The purpose is 
not to cast aspersions. The major purpose is to have a deeper 
understanding of what happened in order for SPWG and the party to have a 
deeper understanding of our process so we can better move forward in the 
future. (This is certainly consistent with SPWG’s mission.)


II. Internal Operations of the GRP

a. “Why can’t we get along?”

An African-American named Rodney King was beaten by the LA Police. 
Unknown to the police, someone had witnessed and recorded the event with 
his video camera. Despite the video, months later the jury came in with 
a verdict of not guilty. The result was a major riot. During the riot, 
Mr. King came out and addressed the press and asked a very important 
question, “Why can’t we get along?”

Fellow members of the GRP – “Why can’t we get along?” I believe that 
this is an essential question. While I do not know of any videotape 
evidence, a member of the public who would read our archives would find 
a great deal of mean spirit and cruelty.
How many members have left our party and/or refuse to get more involved 
because of this internal violence and disrespect? Some people have given 
so much to our party. Yes, none of them are perfect or above 
constructive criticism or accountability. However, it is painful to see 
them being so disrespected.

Emma Goldman asked, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your 
revolution.” We are not going to grow our party unless we develop a 
richer spirit. If we can’t do a better job of getting along with each 
other and having more fun, we are not going to get more people to become 
part of our party.

RECOMMENDATION #3: SPWG will lead an investigation of the reasons why we 
have so much divisive conflict and misbehavior in our party and come up 
with a list of recommendations on how we can both lessen the incidents 
and intensity of misbehavior and increase the positive spirit of party 
building.

b. The State Comm.has some major structural problems.

The State Committee is wasting a lot of time and is loosing members who 
have lost patience about having their time wasted. This is true for many 
reasons. Some of them are:

i. The State Comm. has lost its sense of its major functions. I believe 
that these functions are:

a. the making of policy between conventions
b. improving communication and coordination
c. evaluating the progress of the party
d. Instead of focusing on the above, it often spends time debating the 
wording of endorsements (currently the function of Adcom) and debating 
the wording of our positions on issues (the function of the Platform Comm.)
e. Additionally, every delegate should be expected to be an active 
member of a statewide committee.

ii. The State Committee needs to improve its internal coordination. 
There is an inadequate amount of advanced preparation for our 4 
meetings/year (both collectively and individually). On the day of the 
meeting, our facilitators often come unprepared to facilitate the 
meetings and some of the individual members come with unprepared.

iii. Sometimes the State Comm. often meets without a quorum or there 
will be a “pretend quorum”. This is an incredible waste of time, as well 
as being disheartening. The State Comm. needs to change its quorum rule 
to make it easier for those who do attend its meetings to be able to 
conduct its business.

iv. The consensus process is working very poorly and is wasting a lot of 
time. The State Comm. should modify the process of running its meetings 
and making decisions. It should enter a period of improving its advanced 
planning, experiment with different ways of conducting its business, and 
reflecting on the new practices

v. The new vetting process is not working. Initiators of proposals 
should be encouraged (not required) to vet their proposals to the 
appropriate committee(s). Committee should be encouraged but not 
required to vet these proposals. We should go back to the old system of 
expecting that members of State Comm. will …

a. read the proposals well before the meeting.
b. offer their support by co-sponsoring if they are in agreement.
c. share their concerns with the sponsors with a mutual attempt to 
resolve concerns before the meeting.


RECOMMENDATION #4: SPWG will investigate (maybe a questionnaire to 
members of State Comm.) the operations of the State Committee and make 
recommendations on how it can become a more effective body.

c. The Committees need to be strengthened.

I’m sure that all of us want to create a program so that our party can 
be more effective and also to grow. However, do we have the 
institutional structure, materials, etc. to support the growth of our party?

Thousands of hours were spent last year in support of our slate of 
candidates. How has this led to the growth of our party? While I believe 
that the past campaigns and candidates should have done more (and still 
can do more) to bring more people into the party, the fault lies with 
the party more than the past campaigns.

How much of the following conditions changed since the last election?

1. During the campaign, we did not have a membership brochure. 
(Additionally, for most of the campaign, we did not have a common piece 
of campaign literature, which was about the party and our 4 statewide 
candidates.) These omissions drove me crazy! It is now 5 months since 
the last election. We still don’t have a membership brochure? If we are 
serious about growing the party, we need a membership brochure and we 
need to have it translated into different languages (I suggest that we 
start with Spanish.)

2. We need to improve our website. I had heard that this was happening. 
Is this true? If so, when will it be ready?

3. We often hear that some members of our party condemning our 
candidates (and other members of our party) for ideological deviations. 
While I believe that the requirement for membership in the party or to 
be an endorsed candidate should only be for people to agree that they 
are in general agreement with our 10 key values and in general agreement 
with our platform, I believe that there are others who want to have a 
higher standard for our candidates. Regardless, the important point to 
emphasize is that we do NOT have a functioning platform. After the 
election, the Platform Comm. had two meetings and decided to focus its 
attention on creating issues documents (an excellent idea!). My 
understanding is that the Platform Comm. has stopped meeting.

4. I believe that we should be a party that has many foci (electoral, 
building the “movements” for peace, and economic, ecological and social 
justice, creating and strengthening local chapters, etc.). I believe 
that many/most of us believe that the electoral focus is an important 
part of what our party should be doing. As the Interim Coordinator of 
CDLC, I want to share my concern that unless more people get involved in 
this committee that we will not have the human resources to make and 
implement plans for a successful 2008 election season.

5. As I write this there is a major annual event going on in Jamaica 
Plain-the Wake Up the Earth Festival. There have been times when we have 
had a table. Potentially we could have had a table this year. However, 
we would have nothing relevant to “put on the table”. I know that SPWG 
will focus much of its attention on building and supporting a political 
program that we can “put on the table”. However, we also need some 
materials. We need a membership brochure (discussed above). We need 
buttons, bumperstickers, party shirts, etc. We also need to publish 
party newsletters, and even better, a party newspaper on a regular 
basis. Is there any significant movement on these fronts currently 
taking place?

6. Etc.

RECOMMENDATION #5: SPWG will call for the immediate re-establishment of 
our committees. SPWG will call on all committees to meet on a regular 
basis. SPWG will encourage all delegates to the State Comm. to join and 
become active in at least one statewide committee. SPWG recognizes that 
our party cannot wait until SPWG “finishes” its business. SPWG also 
recognizes that we cannot grow our party unless there are ample 
structures to involve both existing and new members.


III. Our Political Program

I write about our political program last because I believe that will be 
the primary area of SPWG’s discussions and work. While coming up with a 
political plan for our work is essential, I believe that we will not be 
successful in growing our party, no matter what we decide to do 
publicly, unless we strengthen our internal operations.

While coming up with a strategy is about making decisions and focusing 
our attention and limited resources more wisely, we should also be very 
wary of saying “NO” to members of our party. As long as members of our 
party are operating in accordance with the 10 key values (which we must 
agree is open to interpretation), and in general agreement with our 
general platform (which is unfinished and terribly out-of-date), then 
they should have at least our tolerance if not our active blessings.

What should be our primary goal of our party? Our primary goal should 
never be to elect our members to public office. Our primary goal must be 
to work to bring about a major transformation of our Planet. In order to 
do this, we need to focus on 4 connecting transformations:
-the transformation of our belief system
-the transformation of our lives
-the transformation of public policies
-the transformation of the institutions that control our lives

I propose a 3-pronged strategy for 2007-8:

A. “Movement Building”

I propose that we should establish four statewide committees (Peace, 
Economic and Social Justice, and Ecological Justice). (The number 4 and 
the names of the committees are only intended to be suggestive.) After 
each committee has recruited at least 10 GRP members (the # 10 is 
suggestive), the committee will be recognized by Adcom, given a place on 
the website and an e-mail address, and encouragement to do its work.

B. Chapter Building

The Membership Comm. will come up with a plan to strengthen existing 
chapters and build new ones. The Committee will also encourage old and 
new members to join in other party projects where no chapter is in 
current existence. The State Comm. will invest in this project by 
contributing at least 50% of its discretionary funds to this project 
(Fall, 2007 and 2008).

C. Electoral

It is my belief that we are in a period where it will be very difficult 
to recruit new candidates, except for small local offices in towns, 
which require little financial and human resources. I will be very happy 
if I’m wrong about this. As long as the candidates will state that they 
are in general agreement with our 10 key values and in general agreement 
with our platform, we should encourage and support (to the best of our 
ability) those who step forward to run for office.

In addition to the above, I propose the following for 2008:

I believe that we have a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of the 
growing disenchantment with the growing corruption and evil of the 
existing political and economic system. There will be growing opposition 
to foreign wars. There will be increasing disenchantment as our ecology, 
economy and society continues to crumble.
The question for us is whether or not our party will be in position to 
take advantage of this deteriorating situation.

While I respect and support those of us who want to focus more of our 
attention locally, I also believe that there is a tremendous opportunity 
of having a focus on the larger picture. How large will depend on our 
capacity to take advantage of the upcoming electoral opportunities.

1. We should establish a small subcommittee of CDLC to coordinate the 
Presidential 2008 Campaign. While it is true that we will not have to 
get any signatures to have our candidates in the March Presidential 
Primary and to place the Green Party’s endorsed candidates for President 
and Vice-President on the November ballot, we DO need a small committee 
to do the bureaucratically necessary things to keep in contact with the 
National Green Party and announced candidates, to keep in touch with the 
Secretary of State’s office, and to plan a modest statewide campaign. 
This will not happen by itself.

2. We should establish a small and diverse subcommittee of CDLC to 
explore whether or not we can find one or more candidates to run for the 
U.S. Senate or Congress. The reason we should attempt to do this is that 
the public will continue to be directed by the media to focus on the 
national and international picture. While I do not believe that it is 
likely that we will find a candidate and have the resources to run a 
“winning race”, we have demonstrated that we have the growing capacity 
to attract significant public attention to our alternative politics 
without having much financial and human resources. We should decided 
that this will not be a priority for our party unless we can find our 
candidate(s) before the end of 2007 (preferably earlier).

3. We should encourage and support GRP candidates to run for the state 
legislature. We should provide them with campaign manuals (This will be 
done.) and endorsed candidates will be given a place on the GRP website 
and a list of GRP members who live in their district.

4. I strongly support Ron Francis’s Local Ballot Initiative. He is 
hoping that his process will find agreement to support an advisory 
question on the ballot in many districts across the state. I believe 
that his project has the capacity to bring about a growing awareness of 
the public about what our party believes in, to challenge their own 
belief system and to build our party at the local level. His project has 
already identified a small number of activists interested in this 
project and there have been two successful meetings in Somerville and 
Northampton and tentative plans for another meeting in June.

IV. Fundraising & Staffing

RECOMMENDATION #6: As part of its “final” report, SPWG will recommend 
that Adcom hire a staff person. The major purposes of the staff person 
will be to work with the Fundraising Committee (40%), the Membership 
Committee (40%) and other party structures (20%) to help implement the 
new strategic plan.

I hope that SPWG will take the time to come up with an excellent plan. 
While I know that this is a major project, I hope that many of you will 
also become more involved in the party in some other capacity. I also 
hope that it will be able to make a progress report to the July 8 State 
Comm. meeting and that some kind of “finished” document be presented, 
discussed and acted upon by the GRP’s 2007 convention, which I hope will 
be held no earlier than this October.

With Great Appreciation for your Love for our Party,

Mike Heichman
mikeheichman at verizon.net
617-265-8143
State Comm. Member, Suffolk County, active member of the Boston chapter, 
and Interim Coordinator of the CDLC