Coordinating Committee Rules and Procedures Background
Coordinating Committee Rules and Procedures
Table of Contents
Article I Co-Coordinators
Article II Work Plan and Long Term Agenda Planning
Article III Meetings
Article IV On-Line Proposals
Article V Liaisons to Standing Committees and Working Groups
Article VI Appointments to Standing Committees of the General Assembly
Article VII State Meeting Planning Committee
Article VIII Personnel Committee
Article IX Strategy Committee
Article I Co-Coordinators
Currently the rules governing CC Co-coordinators are not in one place and in some cases they exist in practice but not in writing.
- Although the position of Co-coordinator was created in 2000 at the April 2000 General Assembly in Berkeley (http://www.cagreens.org/plenary/archives/agendas/0004Agd_Brk.pdf), the implementing language simply said the State Coordinating Committee (CC) will have Co-coordinators, but did not specify how many, when their terms begin and end and for how long they serve. This proposal codifies the existing, unwritten practice of Co-coordinator seats beginning and ending in February, and terms being two years (Section 1-1: Number and term).
- An extensive job description for CC Co-coordinators approved at a CC retreat in February 2001 (http://www.cagreens.org/cc/internal/admin/coco.txt). This description is shortened a bit for clarity by combining items and rephrasing, but the core responsibilities remain (Section 1-2 Duties and Authority).
- The CC currently has no approved of procedure to elect CC Co-coordinators. The last time the CC voted to approve a procedure, it was on a one time basis for the September 2006 Co-coordinator election. Since then, the CC has made it up as it goes along, without codifying any procedure. This proposal (Section 1-4: Elections) would codify some parts from the 2006 process and slightly modify others. A defined period for nominations is also added to correspond to the February date (Section 1-3: Nominations).
The election process from 2006 consisted of an IRV on-line vote by email to a person outside of the CC, who them reported the results back to the CC at the end of the voting period. This proposed new procedure would utilize a web-based voting page instead and would require a request to IT to design one, presumably utilizing the same functionality that IT used to design the voting page for CC elections held this past June. This proposal provides for a six day vote when a seat is contested and a three day vote when there is only one candidate.
Article II Work Plan and Long Term Agenda Planning
- Although GPCA Bylaws require a work plan be done by the Coordinating Committee, there is no mention of this on the CC's page for Internal rules, procedures & policies (http://www.cagreens.org/cc/internal/admin/admin.htm).
These Rules and Procedures establish a timeline for that work plan to be completed, by the end of January each year. They also establish a responsibility for the Coordinating Committee to annually project draft agenda meeting dates and agenda items over the course of the year, in order to promote long term agenda planning. This would be a new procedure.
Article III Meetings
- There is a closed meeting procedure listed on the CC internal page that has no associated record of ever being officially adopted by the CC, (http://www.cagreens.org/cc/internal/admin/confidential.txt). The procedure is unclear and/or extraneous in many places. These Rules and Procedures attempt to provide a more clear procedure by borrowing substantively from the process the GPUS Steering Committee uses to go into closed session (http://www.gp.org/documents/rules.shtml#03-02).
Article IV On-Line Proposals
- There is an on-line voting procedure listed on the CC internal page that has no associated record of ever being officially adopted by the CC, although it has been periodically in use by the CC over the years (http://www.cagreens.org/cc/internal/admin/OnlineVote.txt). Unofficially known as the 'Five Day Vote" procedure, it consists of 48 hours to discuss, 48 hours to resolve concerns and 24 hours to vote, with a 2/3 quorum requirement and an 80% approval threshold if there is not consensus.
These Rules and Procedures take a different tack. While the extraordinarily high approval threshold and short discussion period may be appropriate for emergency decisions, they are not necessarily appropriate for regular decision-making that simply happens to be taking place on-line. In those cases, a more elongated discussion period together with regular approval and quorum thresholds may be more appropriate. Hence these Rules and Procedures establish two types of on-line decision making, one for time sensitive items and one for regular proposals.
Article V Liaisons to Standing Committees and Working Groups
- The proposed revision of the process for appointing Committee/Working Group Liaisons members, which contain the duties of the liaison as they are stated in GPCA bylaws, adds clarity on the length of the term (4-2) and a process for recall if needed (4-4), and on the appointment process itself, borrowings from the existing Coordinating Committee's approach to appointing members of Standing Committees, but also allows for a consensus test so that appointments can be made in one night where consensus exists.
Article VI Appointments to Standing Committees of the General Assembly
- The proposed revision of the process for appointing Standing Committee members (http://www.cagreens.org/cc/internal/admin/CommitteeAppointmentProcedure.txt) simply reorganizes and renumbers the existing language, and then adds a 'notice of vacancy' section at the beginning that draws upon 6-1.4 of the GPCA bylaws relating to the responsibility of the CC to send out periodic notices of openings on the standing committees
Article VII State Meeting Planning Committee
- There is currently no approved of process for the Coordinating Committee to guide the appointments to and workings of the State Meeting Planning Committee (currently called the Agenda Team or the General Assembly Planning Committee). There are two previous Coordinating Committee decisions that guided this process, but both have sunsetted -- from 2003 (http://www.greens.org/cal/gap/proposal.txt) and 2006 (http://cagreens.org/cc/internal/ccmin/CC060109T.pdf).
These Rules and Procedures draw upon the 2006 document to establish the number of members and the timing of their terms, and draws upon the existing Coordinating Committee's process to appoint to Standing Committees to make appointments to the State Meeting Planning Committee. It then establishes a more clear set of duties that codify the de facto practices of this committee over the years.
Article VIII Personnel Committee
- There is currently no approved of process for the Coordinating Committee to guide the appointments to and workings of the Personnel Committee, even though such a process was mandated by the passage of the Personnel Policy by the General Assembly in May 2003 (http://www.cagreens.org/cc/internal/PersonnelPolicy.pdf).
These Rules and Procedures draw upon the existing Coordinating Committee's process to appoint to Standing Committees to make appointments to the Personnel Committee. They also establish a term length and annual time of appointment.
Article IX Strategy Committee
- In July 2006 the CC approved a proposal from Magali Offerman entitled "CC Strategy Subcommittee to create 2-year plan". The proposed Article IX Strategy Committee rephrases the text from that proposal without changing its intent, with one change - the Strategy Committee is proposed to be six members instead of eight as in the 2006 proposal.
