Coordinating Committee - History

The Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of California (GPCA CC) goes back to the founding year of the GPCA. The GPCA was founded in Sacramento on February 4th, 1990. At the May 1990 General Assembly in Fresno, a provisional GPCA CC of ten individuals was chosen, pending creation of a more formal, ongoing GPCA structure.

That structure was created at the August 1990 General Assembly  in Arcata. Delegates approved a bylaw passed to establish a GPCA CC of twenty members, with 14 coming from 10 GPCA multi-county ‘regions’, and six picked at-large by the General Assembly. The four regions with the most Green voter registrations were to get two GPCA CC representatives each, while the other six regions each got one.

This procedure was in use until it was modified at the January 2002 General Assembly in Los Angeles. Delegates there approved a change to 16 regional seats from 11 regions, and four at-large seats. Under this approach, regions had between one and three seats, depending upon how many registered Greens were in each region.

Then at the October 2009 General Assembly in Cotati, this was changed again, with a two year trial run with 12 members from 11 GPCA 'regions' and 14 picked at-large through an on-line vote to staggered two year terms, seven each year.  This was continued an extra year at the December 2011 General Assembly in Los Angeles.

Next in June 2012, the GPCA Coordinating Committee made a bylaws interpretation that placed all of the seats as at-large, with those elected to a regionally-selected seat as of May 2012 remaining in office until the end of their term, pending approval of a bylaws change to make all of the CC seats at-large. In March 2013, the Standing General Assembly approved a bylaws change to make all of the CC seats be at-large, 24 in total, with six men and six women elected annually to staggered, two year terms, elected by ranked choice voting.

GPCA CC terms were originally created to be eighteen-months. But in the late 1990s, this was changed to twenty-four months. The regionally-elected terms were staggered, with regions choosing their representatives at different times over each twenty-four month period.

The GPCA CC meets on monthly teleconference calls - traditionally on the first Monday of each month, as well as on Friday nights before GPCA General Assemblies, and at an annual GPCA CC retreat.

Two GPCA CC members are chosen as Co-coordinators for the group and two as alternates. Both positions are gender-balanced.