I think Mike is making some good points. GRP candidates run courageously at a significant disadvantage in funding, volunteer support, and media coverage. We should be seeking ways to give earlier endorsements and to put the full resources of the party behind our candidates as early as possible. But if there is more than one competing candidate, each should be given an opportunity to make their case for winning the early endorsement.

Anthony Barrows will be the floor manager for this proposal on June 23.

This is only my opinion and not that of other co-sponsors, but I don’t believe that the number of candidates the party has is a product or a function of the party’s endorsement or nomination policies. In fact, if our practice is to nominate or endorse early we would be discouraging other candidates in the same race from reaching out to us.

We may not be as far away from contested primaries as some people think. If there is no primary challenge, an endorsement or nomination in June or July for a November election is not too late.

I agree that the prospect of a write-in primary candidate should not prevent the party from endorsing or nominating a candidate who has qualified for the ballot and faces no other ballot-qualified challenger. This point can be clarified if there’s confusion about this.

Dear Scott, Anthony and Merelice:

I strongly disagree with this proposal and urge you to withdraw it from consideration.

The logic of this proposal is that the deadline should be after the September Primary. After all, theoretically, there could be a write-in candidate, who is not on the ballot. According to this logic, an endorsement before the primary would be unfair to the write-in candidate.

This proposal IGNORES the reality of our party and our desire to support our candidates in a number of ways:

1. Except for the presidential campaign, which has a different process, Scott is the ONLY member of our party who is running a partisan (party) race this year. Scott is well known by his local chapter; I believe that this is the 3rd time that he has run in this district. He can afford to wait until the campaign is almost over to receive the party’s nomination.

2. This is NOT true for most of our members who are our future potential candidates.

3. Encouraging and supporting our members to run winnable campaigns for the State House of Representatives has been our #1 priority of our state party for about 5 years. We only have one person, Scott, who is running for this office this year. What does this say about our #1 priority? One of the things that it says is that our members believe (correctly) that running for partisan office is very hard for them to do.

3. This proposal would make it more difficult for future members to run. Let me explain.

Imagine that you decided to run for the State House of Representatives. You heard the call from your state party and decided to say, “YES”. You ask for support from your state party, who has encouraged you to run, and the state party says to you, “Theoretically, another member of the GRP in your legislative district might decide to run for this office. The State Party must be fair. Run the campaign the best that you can and wait until September-less than 2 months before the final election and then we’ll consider giving you our nomination” You ask for help from your local chapter. Let’s be logical. If the thinking in this proposal were right, it would be equally unfair for your local chapter to support your campaign.

4. DO WE WANT OUR MEMBERS TO RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE? (Yes, I’m shouting!) If we really want our members to run “winnable campaigns”, we had better be serious about supporting them as early as we can and to the best of our ability!

5. At this stage of the development of our party, it is foolish and destructive to our objectives to use a theoretical possibility to prevent us from providing meaningful support to our candidates!

6. In the history of the Rainbow Coalition Party, the MA Green Party and the GRP, there has NEVER been a GRP primary campaign. I do not see this changing very soon. When it does, common sense will dictate that the State Party and the local chapters will need to behave in a fair manner to all candidates.

Mike Heichman, Greater Boston Chapter, Suffolk County StateCom Member

Thank you, Elie. I will incorporate this good suggestion. The action to approve is the adoption of such a policy.

Amend; “Proposal Summary” to “Proposal:” that reads as follows; “The State Committee will take no action of endorsing or nominating a candidate
for public office until after the filing deadline established for seeking that office. In the case of a contested primary the State Committee indicate no preference, and respect the choice of registered GRP and Unenrolled voters.”

If this is the intent of the proposal state the intent, rather than write a summary of what is supposed to happen if the proposal is approved. What action is being approved?

Elie