Report from the GPUSA Congress.

• Author: Bagley, Freedom/Sean
• Position: Green Party USA

[This is edited from the author's full report to the Monroe County Green Party Caucus. --Editors]

Friday July 20, 2001, the first day of the gathering, was involved with credentialing of delegates. The process was a confused and contentious duty and ended up proceeding well into the evening. Due to the issue of the Boston Proposal, no action during the entire Congress was devoid of delay and politicking. In the process of credentialing, potential delegates were asked to verify their number of GPUSA members and to ensure that they were elected by the body they were sent to represent. i understand and agree with both of these decisions but greatly wish that all had been previously informed of this necessity.

One thing i disagreed with is that members on waivers were not counted (for the first Time in GPUSA history) as part of the delegation to be represented. Monroe County Green Party (MCGP) did not lose any voting rights due to this decision but i still felt that it was improper. The rule was enforced for all other delegations as well. The reasoning for the credentialing committee decision was fear that false locals and vote stacking could occur due to the contentiousness of the Boston Proposal issue. Apparently someone had seen an email in which groups were urged to set up false locals using new waiver members and also urging new waiver members to join at the last minute to increase BP votes. Even i had been trying to sign up members to increase our locals vote and while doing so i informed folks of the waivers option. i personally decided to stop recruiting at the beginning of July. The only new member i signed on waivers ended up paying student dues as well. If the credentialing process had been clarified to the delegates prior to the Congress i feel that no waiver disenfranchisement need have occurred. A touch of the absurd had me, a waiver member, carrying the vote for my local excluding waiver members. My local, state party, and state (GPUSA) caucus have since formally protested this disaffiliation of members.

When it came time to credential the IN Caucus delegates, Tom Brown presented a list of 71 current GPUSA members in the state which he collected from contacts and from information forwarded by GPUSA. The GPUSA computer file only had 41 members listed; so Tom spent hours going through copies of checks and found many discrepancies with the official files. We need more accurate records kept of the membership base in the future. In the end, the IN Caucus was given 6 votes based on 60 members (excluding waivers). The votes were marked 4.5 and 1.5 based on the percentage of respondents to the IN poll...