From Merelice (a copy/paste of her e-mail due to difficulties with her posting online).

When the original proposal came before the State Committee, the sponsors considered whether to reduce the number of regions from 12 to 10 or to 8. It seemed wiser not to reduce the number by one-third. Further, it seemed that larger regions of five senatorial districts would be geographically more remote and unwieldy.

My main question is whether larger regions with more state senators will provide the political glue that prompted this exercise in the first place. My other question relates to how effectively proportional representation will be implemented with larger regions in which reps could be geographically clustered instead of spread out.

Regarding splitting municipalities, this is inevitable — at least in the case of Boston which has so many state senatorial districts. However, for regional conventions, it has usually been the practice for regions to combine so it is possible to keep municipalities intact for those conventions.

I believe it would be helpful to pass the current changes, even if only to put on record that there will not be regional conventions in 2014 as would be the case under the former system.

On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Merelice wrote:

Greetings,

Pasted below are brief explanatory notes about the bylaws changes to be voted on tomorrow (see agenda item at 10:30). Please refer to the links provided in the agenda to review both the bylaws and the proposed new regions based on State Senatorial Districts. Thanks!

Merelice

State Committee meeting, October 20, 2013, old business

Brief explanatory notes about the bylaws changes that follow [copies of this will be provided at the meeting]:

Overall: This is to honor the GRPs efforts to supplement the Mass.-mandated Senate-like process of electing two State Committee representatives from each of 40 State Senatorial Districts at the presidential primary every four years. These are “elected” representatives.

The goal is a Representative-like process of proportional representation which to date has been based on Massachusetts counties. The State Committee voted to change from the county basis to State Senatorial Districts (1) to provide political cohesion on issues within a region and (2) to provide compatibility and acquaintance with the State Senatorial Districts in which members can officially run for election. In addition, the terms of office for these “appointed” proportional representatives have been increased to the same four years as the elected representatives.

Section 8.5.2

First paragraph is an update

Second paragraph simplifies how the number of proportional representatives is determined. The original intent was to match the number of elected representatives (potentially 80), with a minimum of 60. Since there has never been more than two officially elected representatives, this simply sets the number at 60, a number that could be increased when the GRP seats more than 60 elected representatives.

Third paragraph and list of regions identify the newly proposed regions based on State Senatorial Districts instead of counties. It also reduces the number of regions from 12 to 10 and provides a simpler explanation of how the proportion of representatives from each region is determined.

Fourth paragraph eliminates how proportional representatives can be removed from the State Committee because this is covered in another section of the bylaws (plus the reference to regional convention should be State Committee).

Fifth and last paragraph reflects the change of office terms to four years and adds GRP chapters as a potential source of recommendations for filling empty seats on the State Committee.

This is a test post. I’m entering this because the have been reports that comments are not posting online.