Subject: That the Green Party of Los Angeles County request that the GPCA develop a process for review of GPCA CC regional representative elections
From: Mike Feinstein

Background/Introduction:

In order to address how Regions choose their GPCA CC representatives, the GPCA should develop a clear process that is
- standardized
- transparent
- non-politicized and
- applied equally to all

To accomplish this,

- every county and region should have on-file, in one place on the state website, the processes that each use to choose their GPCA CC Regional Representatives

- every time an appointment is made to the GPCA CC, it should be reviewed for conformity in light of these process (rather than having such review be driven on a person-by-person based complaint process)

- each appointment should be accompanied by a description of the process followed, including outreach, educational materials, meeting process and decision-making results.

To further ensure that this review process is non-politicized and to remove the potential for conflict of interest,

- the CC should have no role in determining the validity of a Regional Representative election, because of the conflict of interest the CC would have in choosing its own members

- the By-Laws Committee should have no decision-making role in determining the validity of a Regional Representatives election, because the By-Laws Committee is itself appointed by the CC and is exposed by extension to the same CC-based conflict of interest

- by By-Laws Committee, however, could play an advisory role by offering its opinions

In place of these bodies, the GPCA should employ an

- Independent professional parliamentarian, whose only job for the GPCA will be to review all Regional Representative appointments

The role and powers of such an independent parliamentarian should be discussed, with the following options (and others) considered.
If the parliamentarian feels there is an issue with how a Regional Representative election was helped, then he/she could
- consult with Region and pursue informal resolution, with a report made to GPCA CC and GPCA GA

- formally question the process, and have the final authority to make a ruling, with a report made to GPCA CC and GPCA GA, and with the right of appeal to GPCA GA

- formally question the process, and have the final authority to make a ruling, with a report made to GPCA CC and GPCA GA, and with no right of appeal to the GPCA GA

- formally question the process, not have the final authority to make ruling, but instead would make recommendation to next GA (and would allow newly appointed Representatives to remain their position until the next GA)

- formally question process, not have the final authority to make a ruling, but instead would make recommendation to next GA (and would not allow newly appointed Representatives to remain their position until the next GA)

Note: the issue of keeping someone in their seats indefinitely after their term is over is problematic in its own right, and maybe should be settled outside of this process, perhaps with a limit of a period of a few months maximum, after which the seat would become vacant. This would provide a region more incentive to fill there seats. For example, the Central Valley Region at-large seat term ended last September and that region is only conducting a vote now to fill it.

Proposal: That the Green Party of Los Angeles County request that the GPCA develop a process for review of GPCA CC regional representative elections, that is

- standardized, transparent and applied equally to all
- formally independent of the Coordinating Committee and By-Laws committee, and
- that is brought back for the Fall 2005 General Assembly for consideration