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Here are two specific bylaws I would like to change to encourage – not discourage – folks from joining out party and running for office:4.5.4 Candidates for partisan elective office shall not have been registered as a member of a political party other than the Green Party of Colorado for at least six months prior to the date of nomination.4.5.5. Candidates for partisan political office must be registered with the Green Party for at least six months before the general election or for two months prior to the Green Party of Colorado nominating convention, whichever is earlier, in order to be eligible for nomination.We have several folks who either switched from D to G, or from Unaffiliated to G, but cannot meet our current rules to run for office because they waited too long. As Bob Kinsey correctly noted, with the date of the state primary, and thus our convention, moved up by two months, this moves the date back very early to register as a Green. The 2012 convention is March 31 - so someone must have registered Green by January 31. This is more than 9 months before the election! With the old convention dates, the two months before the convention/six months before the election were fairly well aligned. Even worse, in the Poudre Valley Green Party we have someone who wants to run for District Attorney to challenge our local good old boy network of sheriffs-DAs- judges. Unfortunately, though a long-term active Green, he had been in the Democratic party briefly (people go in and out for tactical reasons) and did not switch back until this year. That knocks him out as a candidate due to the rule you can't be in another party for six months prior to nomination - which itself is seven months before the election - so someone would have to purify themselves for an entire year! I think these hurdles are too high. Yes, we don't want opportunist party-hoppers that we do not trust to carry our banner, but if we remove the stiff bylaws requirements, they still need to get local party endorsement and state convention support, so we can still weed out folks we do not approve of. I think at this state, we need more, not less, candidates to advocate green values and green positions.Is anyone else interested in changing both these bylaws? Should I encourage our on again-off again DA candidate to keep planning to run, presuming we can get agreement to reform these bylaws?Possible candidacies in Gunnison, El Paso and Larimer County hinge on this decision.
Hi, Eric, Based on the examples of people who want to run during this election cycle, I agree with the idea of changing our bylaws. I think they should be less strict as far as length of time in the Green Party and length of absence from another party. Of course, even if our bylaws allow for people to run as Green candidates without longterm or recent Green registration, the convention-goers and their locals can still vote down their requests to run as Green candidates if the prospect truly isn't Green or is a Johnny (or Jenny) come lately that is trying to run Green for the wrong reasons. Tanya
Being relatively new to the party, I don't operate under any notion of having an opinion of mine carry great weight. But it seems that in cases of date shifting of nominating events, there ought to be in the bylaws, provisions for managing that relative to the overall general election timeline. In other words, I would not typically favor amending the bylaws to cope with an impermanent calendar revision for an electoral event, but rather, would like to see any amendments to bylaws that would be incorporated be such that they provide flexibility with respect to a modified electoral convention date in relationship to the rather fixed general election date(s), that doesn't invoke changing our reasonable and previously well-considered lead-times and vetting processes. An exception or a clause stating the time distance from our nominating convention to the general election would be more preferable by my way of thinking. But either way, whatever we need to do to put the proposal to a vote, we should do ASAP.
Thom,I am relatively new to the party too. I think you bring some great discussion to this item. Do you think that making the registration requirements a certain length of time prior to the nominating convention would satisfy what you are recommending? The issue that I see with specifying when our nominating convention takes place in relation to the general election is that it creates inflexibility in scheduling the convention. State law states that we have to have our convention a certain amount of time before the primary elections take place. I feel that it would further complicate the planning of the convention if we imposed more rules on ourselves concerning the length of time between the convention and the election. I hope I am understanding you post correctly. I feel like I may be misunderstanding something though. Jonesy
I finally was able to log on to this discussion. This appears to be a conversation between Art, Jonesy, and Bill with a smattering of other 1 or 2 time responders. Bill told me that you would receive an email when a response is posted. I have seen no such emails. This forum limits discussion for 2 reasons. It is hard to navigate and it does not notify council members. that a discussion is ongoing. If you start splitting up discussion threads as Jonesy suggested, I believe it will become even more exclusive, because it will become even more difficult to follow what is being discussed. Tom Kelly
It seems tome that it is difficult enough to build the Green Party without members jumping in and out for “tactical reasons”. I've never been a fan of messing with other paries' primaries. I'd rather everyone have the right to select their own representative candidate. “Do unto others …”. The other parties have far more members and can cause a lot more havoc in our party than our members can in theirs.
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