Redefine regional convention districts and terms of appointed State Committee representatives

[Please note that this proposal was originally submitted Sunday, September 9.2012.]

Sponsors: Merelice, Norfolk County, and Nat Fortune, Franklin County

Vetting: Administrative Committee has vetted

Background: 

Regional conventions are currently organized by county and are the source of most State Committee reps. Most counties exist only on paper and have no electoral, legislative, or fiscal responsibilities for StateCom reps to monitor as a team.

  Regional conventions are one of three ways that GRP members can be elected/appointed to the State Committee, and this particular method was developed to provide proportional representation of GRP members on the State Committee.  

This proposal changes the basis of regional elections from counties to State Senatorial Districts. In this way, GRP members could work together to have possible influence on their common State Senators, providing some electoral glue which does not exist in counties.

In addition, this change would mirror how StateCom delegates are elected every four years as part of the presidential primary election. With 40 senatorial districts, it would be impractical to implement proportional representation unless several districts were combined. To reduce the number of regional conventions from 40 to 12, it is suggested that 8 regions combine 3 state senatorial districts (= 24) and 4 regions combine 4 senatorial districts (=16).

It is further proposed that the terms of proportional representatives mirror the four-year terms of the delegates elected as part of the presidential primary election. This would reduce the burden of conducting regional conventions every two years.

 Changing the basis of defining the regions and terms of office is a bylaw change and requires 2/3rds approval.  

Text: 

The bylaws of the Green-Rainbow Party will be changed to redefine the regions which are the basis of regional conventions. Instead of being based on counties, 12 regions will be based on the 40 State Senatorial districts. Further, the terms of the State Committee representatives to be appointed as a result of these conventions will change from two years to four years, to run concurrently with the four-year terms of state committee delegates elected as part of the presidential primary election.

Financial impact: no immediate impact; less cost for conducting less frequent regional conventions.

Implementation:

A request will go to CDLC to make recommendations -- with input from local chapters and GRP members -- regarding the best combination of districts to constitute 12 regions rather than 40. When the regions are defined, current appointed State Committee representatives will be assigned to the redefined regions, their terms will be automatically extended to four years, and the proportional allocation of 60 statecom reps. will be recalculated for the new regions.

Do you like this suggestion?

Showing 2 reactions

David Spanagel commented 2012-09-22 15:44:22 -0400
As preparation for discussion of this proposal, I would find it helpful to see a graphic representation (a map) of where all current State Committee representatives actually live. Maybe this is something we could construct on the spot in the meeting tomorrow?
Michael Heichman commented 2012-09-22 09:43:45 -0400
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS
1. A major problem for our party is that we donât have enough leaders, who are willing to do the work. Instead of having the result of increasing the leadership of the party, I am concerned that this will reduce the numbers of leaders, especially in areas of the state where our party is currently the strongest.
2. This proposal does not increase the number of StateCom from the current number of 60 elected by counties. I am unclear from this proposal whether members will be elected by the 12 regional conventions (which would mean an average of 5 per regional district) or from the 40 state senate districts (which would mean an average of 1.5 members per senate district).
3. This proposal is silent about the potential impact of diversity in our leadership.
4. The current active leadership of the party is from 3 or 4 areas (Berkshires, Pioneer Valley, Worcester and Greater Boston). This means that it will be much easier for our members to be elected from areas that have few active members and much worse, will make it more likely to exclude those who want to be active from areas where our party is the strongest.

Mike Heichman