I will be requesting a closed session on the situation with the Fundrasing Director under 5.17 of the bylaws. “All Green-Rainbow Party meetings are open and may only be closed to non-members on
75% vote in personnel or criminal matters or if required by law.” It is my belief that everyone will be best served by keeping the exact nature of my questions about his use of social media in a closed session.

I will be requesting a closed session on the situation with the Fundrasing Director under 5.17 of the bylaws. “All Green-Rainbow Party meetings are open and may only be closed to non-members on
75% vote in personnel or criminal matters or if required by law.” It is my belief that everyone will be best served by keeping the exact nature of my questions about his use of social media in a closed session.

Some members are exploring if the time is right for Rank Choice Voting after the victory in Maine.

Besides the election proposal, what’s our plan for 2017?

Mike Heichman, former StateCom member

Choosing priorities without a discussion or people advocating doesn’t seem like it would an exercise that could set the priorities as Charlene seems to note. It could be a point to start discussions.
Ranking issues is less problematic for me because the issues change and it possible that the way the web site states the issue is not very different than others (for example if we had a statement of Citizen United) or legislature has repeal it (public finance) thus the issue might not be a priority.
Given that we have the Convention on May 13 might we have a phone meeting for State Com?

on the RCV exercise – we could get the choices down and make a really relevant choice if we RCV the choice of date for the april statecom meeting. (That’s Joyce’s practical side speaking).

Song: I could lead the song. Guess I’d better pick a key and make sure I’ve got it down. :-)

Voting on issues to find the “top three to prioritize this year” could be a highly realistic exercise. We know all these issues are important, yet groups often have to prioritize which ones to focus actions and messages on for a given time period.

The group’s vote could imply which issues “contain” or are “banners” for other issues, or just which issues people are most knowledgeable/ passionate about.

Remember, in any case, we are not making a decision, we are conducting an exercise to help people experience RCV/IRV.

ranking issues is less problematic than ranking values for what reason? I think we should get away from these all together if people are objecting so strenuously. I do so want to avoid having us look like the Judean People’s Front from the old Monty Python movie. Given the response to the original idea, I would not want to risk someone getting up and ranting about how we cannot possibly rank our issues. I think I should either make up or take some data on some frivolous thing like dessert offerings. That’s too bad, because I think the exercise to get us all more familiar with the 10 key values would be valuable without any RCV component.

about Elie’s suggestion – there is not enough information to re-assign the votes as lowest ranked candidates are eliminated.

Ian suggests that we rate our website issues:

Bailouts and Foreclosures
Clean Elections and Open Government
Climate Change & Renewable Energy
Economy, Labor & Relocalization
Education
Equity and Justice
Fair Taxes and Budgets
Healthcare
War and Peace

This also seems workable.

It is possible that the current first past the post reduces choice. I was trying to say that a 10 way race is an exceptionally large election which lengthens the time needed for the example. One would find very few races currently with 3. By keeping our examples, simple and closer what currently happens it may reduce, it is so complex how could we recount arguments. (OK, recounts may even be rarer that a contested election for the Legislature.)
The values are interconnected. Grass roots democracy without Social Justice would not be a Green success.
I am personally suggesting using one of issue pages for examples (Bailouts and Foreclosures,Clean Elections and Open Government,Climate Change & Renewable Energy, “Economy, Labor & Relocalization”, Education, Equity and Justice, Fair Taxes and Budgets, Healthcare War and Peace)
For example from Clean Elections and Open Government (write-ins might even be interesting in examining what we mean by open government) :
Public campaign financing
The Massachusetts Legislature should be made subject to the Public Meeting Law and the Public Record Law
Instant runoff (ranked-choice) voting
We support a goal of increasing ballot access

EY:“The main problem is that of a perspicuous use of language. And the resulting adventures.”

Perspicuous: Lucid, clear, understandable.

How is a lucid use of langauge a problem? Are you using ‘perspicuous’ correctly?

EY:"An incident of long ago comes to mind as do many others. At a meeting to which only GRP registered in Cambridge were invited to a meeting to talk about the Key Values of the Green-Rainbow Party, there were present in addition to myself and Aimee Smith, at least 6 or 7 people who had never attended a G-RP meeting before. Among them was a young B. U. Graduate assistant. He explained that all the values made sense to him, but that he could not accept “Feminism and Gender Equity” because he could not accept the notion that it was alright for a woman to reject his advances. "

A clear mistake.

EY:"I leave it to the imaginations of people who saw her in action devote the next hour to taking him gradually to pieces. "

This is not a complete sentence. I’ll pretend it is one, and that the meaning is that Aimee made a second clear mistake, and thus lost most of her audience because she couldn’t resist publicly castigating a person, when all that was called for was clarifying what our values are. OK. So BU student made a mistake, Aimee made a mistake, therefore what? We should avoid training exercises because we might make a mistake?

I don’t claim we are better persons than Aimee, but perhaps we can reliably use any opportunities within training exercises better than you imply she did then.

EY: “None of the new people ever showed up to another meeting.”

So Aimee lost focus, and alienated strangers. This teaches us what?
Take no risks in training exercises?

EY: “If someone wants a valid example of how RCV works, start by going to the word “example.” What is exemplified by the choice?”
Why should I care?

“Why not select the parts of your body whose loss you would suffer least: navel, gall bladder, nose, pubic hair, chin, tail bone, head hair, perineal raphe, appendix ,bladder, thyroid gland. In order of preference of course. But this is silly. Because it treats the individual person as an assemblage rather than as an ecological system. So if I want an example I do not set up a system of values to indicate hierarchy. If one seeks examples make sure you have a workable one. Otherwise, you set up ridiculous situations. "

Contemplating ridiculous situations in an exercise can led to significant, non-ridiculous, learning. What is important is the learning, not necessarily the ‘answer’ the exercise reveals. 6 times 10 equals x -4; 7 times 9 equals x-1; 8 times 8 equals x. How meaningful is the value x holds? It’s trivial. Yet arguing that that avoiding this exercise because it doesn’t matter what x equals missed the larger point that doing exercises such as this silly one can result in real learning.

“I have no serious objection to people holding up the G-RP to ridicule.”

Why have you now changed the subject? We were talking about ridiculous situations as training exercises, now you’ve changed the topic to ridiculing the GRP.

“At their last State Committee meeting they tried polling the delegates to rate their 10 values in a preferential ballot!” “They thought it would help them to understand what they believe in.”

Why should we worry what others, hearing only of a training exercise, think of us? Anyone acting foolish enough to judge a party based on the topic of one training exercise is probably not worth arguing with.

“We do have candidates who seek election. "

How is this relevent?

So are you saying that because we might have candidates, we should avoid talking about ten key values in a training exercise? Doesn’t that limit our training exercises unnecessarily? People will ridicule GRP even if we never crack a joke within an exercise. Avoiding humor in our exercises will not win elections.

One could make use of an actual election, knowing or having heard names as does the actual voter.

As for example;

“Elections
In 1998, Joseph Kennedy II announced his retirement after six terms in what was then the 8th District. Capuano entered a crowded 10-way Democratic primary—the real contest in this heavily
Democratic district, which was once represented by John F. Kennedy and Tip O’Neill. The early front-runner was former Boston Mayor and US Vatican Ambassador Raymond Flynn. However, Capuano won the primary with 23%, largely due to large turnout in Somerville, all but assuring him of election in November.¹¹¹² He easily won the general election in November, taking 81 percent of the vote. He has been reelected seven times, never dropping below 80% of the vote. Since his initial run for the seat, Capuano has been unopposed in all but two reelection bids; he faced a minor-party candidate in 2006 and an independent in 2012. To date, he has only faced a Republican once, during his initial run in 1998.

elements/candidates_table

Candidate Vote Count %

Michael E. Capuano 19,446 22.9%
Raymond L. Flynn 14,839 17.5%
George Bachrach 12,157 14.3%
John T. O’Connor 11,092 13.1%
Marjorie O’Neil Clapprood 10,446 12.3%
Christopher F. Gabrieli 5,740 6.8%
Charles Calvin Yancey 4,437 5.2%
Sussan M. Tracy 2,858 3.4%
Thomas M. Keane, Jr. 2,150 2.5%
Alex Rodriguez 1,802 2.1%
All Others 21 0%
Blank Votes 3,157

Total Votes Cast 88,145"

Or more reasonably show how it would work out for an election for Mayor with four or five randomly chosen names,

Elie Yarden
SC Delegate MA

What might be better topics for an IRV/RCV exercise? Ian, this time the link worked, thank you.

The main problem is that of a perspicuous use of language. And the resulting adventures. An incident of long ago comes to mind as do many others. At a meeting to which only GRP registered in Cambridge were invited to a meeting to talk about the Key Values of the Green-Rainbow Party, there were present in addition to myself and Aimee Smith, at least 6 or 7 people who had never attended a G-RP meeting before. Among them was a young B. U. Graduate assistant. He explained that all the values made sense to him, but that he could not accept “Feminism and Gender Equity” because he could not accept the notion that it was alright for a woman to reject his advances. I leave it to the imaginations of people who saw her in action devote the next hour to taking him gradually to pieces. None of the new people ever showed up to another meeting. If someone wants a valid example of how RCV works, start by going to the word “example.” What is exemplified by the choice? Why not select the parts of your body whose loss you would suffer least: navel, gall bladder, nose, pubic hair, chin, tail bone, head hair, perineal raphe, appendix ,bladder, thyroid gland. In order of preference of course. But this is silly. Because it treats the individual person as an assemblage rather than as an ecological system. So if I want an example I do not set up a system of values to indicate hierarchy. If one seeks examples make sure you have a workable one. Otherwise, you set up ridiculous situations. I have no serious objection to people holding up the G-RP to ridicule. “At their last State Committee meeting they tried polling the delegates to rate their 10 values in a preferential ballot!” “They thought it would help them to understand what they believe in.” We do have candidates who seek election.

The link is http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/ele16/state_election_cand_16.htm
Other possible instructive information may be found on this link as well.
To me spending 15 minutes on an example to overweight it in comparison to year end Treasurer’s report.

Of course we could pick more time, if the committee reports are in writing and committees that members shouldn’t expect reports were noted (as such Fundraising & Finance,Action Committee. and Legislative Committee)

Ian, We can eliminate such misunderstanding by explaining, as we begin, that this is an exercise; that the objective is not to rank, but to practice ranking and practice thinking about these values.
Also, the link you provided did not work for me.

Please remember those that are not versed in in Green Theory may misunderstand the ranking of the Key Values.
If the exercise is required by an organization that uses ranked choice voting for officers, I am suggesting that we avoid using something that cause a misunderstand. Thus I suggested ranking some our suggested implementation of the values which could be found under issues.
Having 10 choices seems unnecessarily complex. How many positions had more than three in 2018 (http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/ele16/state_election_cand_16.html)

I like the exercise too. I think Brian is right, we are not trying to “elect” one value as the most valuable, rather are trying to get everyone to think about them, and and also understand RCV better at the same time. I know that there are times in my life when some of those values were more pressing than others due to current events or personal circumstances, and that might be the only way to interpret any “election results”. Brian & Charlene – if I can help with any of this exercise in real time, let me know.

Ian and Elie,

“The 10 key values should be held nearly equally and interrelated. This why they are key values. " The key piece of this is ‘held’. We don’t ‘hold’ these values as well, as closely, as we should – we barely know them, when we should be able to explain how they relate to our current work.

We can improve our familiarity with these key value and our familiarity with IRV/RCV via exercises such as the one suggested. Objecting to rating them on the basis that they should be ‘nearly equal’ misses the point, which is that we need to become more familiar with them. Certainly rating them is arbitrary, but here it is useful.

To illustrate my point, can you figure out, in the IRV/RCV exercise proposed, what is distinct from IRV/RCV as conventionally practiced? I couldn’t, until one of our guests pointed it out. Hence the value of practice exercises.

I like the song in the agenda. Who will lead? Anyone have a guitar? Doesn’t sound like the chords are too difficult….

I suggest removing the 1:45 item on the agenda sooner rather than later.
And invite other views of the matters. I look forward to discussing the function of exposing the values implicit in the Green Party’ agenda for action, but doubt that this context provides a suitable occasion.

“1:00pm – Adam Friedman (presentation) . . . . .

Comment: Timely and needed, for planning 2017. Since this is a meeting of the G-RP State Committee, the presentation should take no more tha 5 – 8 minutes as a review of what is already known. Delegates and alternates as well as people new to the Party should read up on it before arrival. Let us use our speaking time effectively rather than indulge phatic speech with arbitrary time limits.

1:45pm -IRV for Favorite Key Value of the quarter? . . ."
Ian Jackson’s comment is polite and even kind.

The blunt truth is that the example is ridiculous. RCV is being proposed as a democratization of choice for electing people, or parties to positions of political power and securing a more ‘scientific’, rather than ‘interested’, vesting of individuals with decision-making power. It proposes to extend the voter’s field of meaningful choice of individuals in election, instead of arbitrarily limiting the voter to “Is it in my left or my right hand?” sometimes known as the choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

We might want to consider a different example for IRV ( for example: Public Funding of Election, Donation Limits, Corporate Personhood, IRV, National Popular Vote interstate compact) The 10 key values should be held nearly equally and interrelated. This why they are key values.

We might need more time on a year end treasurer’s report.