Delegate Report on the 2001 Green Congress.

• Author: Murphy, Jason
• Position: Brief Article

There have been some harsh words about the 2001 Green Gathering just held near Carbondale, IL. Some denunciations have come from those Green Congress delegates who left town right after a majority voted against the "Syracuse Proposal," which would have implemented the "Boston Proposal" (BP). The harshest have come from folks that were not there. There were indeed many harsh "shame-on-yous" made by delegates and observers on the first day of the Congress. If I may, I would like to (a) give a report on the Gathering and Congress as I saw them and (b) explain why the Gathering should evoke more hope than despair for Greens all over the country.

Many said that we had gone the whole day without ever even voting. That is only technically true. We should say that those attending voted on the Boston/Syracuse Proposal many, many, times. The day before, after a lot of hard work, the majority of the credentials committee recommended dividing up California's votes between three delegates, one a skeptic of BP, one a supporter, and one who sought renegotiation. The delegate who supported BP would have had zero votes if the majority had not compromised. Then came the most contentious moment--a proposal to acknowledge the credential committee's recommendation except in voting on the Syracuse Proposal, in which the delegates would have been apportioned based on a survey made by the California delegate who supported Syracuse. The survey only posed two options (sound familiar, Nader supporters?)--that of support or opposition to the Boston Proposal. The option of seeking another round was not mentioned. The organizer of the survey, Walt Sheasby, said that this was because renegotiation was not an option because the ASGP simply would not do it. In states where renegotiation was presented by an advocate and not dismissed, there was much support, like in Missouri and also in New York, where the vote was divided.

Why would the Congress ever dictate a delegate's vote based on a stack of shrink-wrapped, two-option, ballots from Goddess-knows-where? Without rearranging the count in California, the Boston/Syracuse Proposal would never have gotten the two-thirds majority. The credentials committee had deliberated for eleven hours to reach the compromise they reached. We would have saved a lot of time if we had gone with that committee's compromise, endorsed by the majority.

There was a move to "divide" the proposal--vote on accepting California as the committee...