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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	93
Proposal	Bylaws Amendment: General Assembly quorum
Presenter	Bylaws Committee
Floor Manager	Mike Feinstein
Phase	Closed
Discussion	05/11/2016 - 06/26/2016
Voting	06/27/2016 - 07/03/2016
Result	Failed
Presens Quorum	12 0.5001
Consens Quorum	53 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

GPCA Bylaw 7-5.3 Quorum establishes quorum for General Assemblies: "7-5.3(a) A quorum exists for the purpose of opening a General Assembly when 2/3 (rounding to the nearest whole number) of the regions containing active counties are represented (http://www.cagreens.org/bylaws/2013-06-23#Section_7-5_Meetings).

The original purpose of this rule, was to promote a baseline minimum geographical distribution of delegates to achieve quorum, so that delegates would be coming from different parts of the state. This was accomplished under a formula based upon artificially-created geographic 'regions' under GPCA rules, consisting of one or more counties (http://www.cagreens.org/bylaws/regional). These regions were originally created in August 1990 as a way regionally electing part of the state Coordinating Committee by districts. But now those district elections have been eliminated in favor of electing the Coordinating Committee by proportional representation in multi-seat at-large elections.

In recent years, several General Assemblies have barely reached quorum under this formula, as quorum is seven regions out of eleven, since all eleven regions have at least one active county party (http://www.cagreens.org/ga/2016-05/delegates). This difficulty in reaching quorum comes from the large size of the state, the particular boundaries of these regions, and lesser attendance at GPCA General Assemblies over the last five to ten years (of which there are financial, political, technological and other reasons.) In addition, the regional structure is no longer in use for the Coordinating Committee elections, so the only purpose it is serving is to define quorum for General Assemblies.

The intent of this proposal is to ensure that the GPCA can make decisions at its General Assemblies, and still ensure that there is a baseline quorum number that renders a level of democratic validity to those decisions.

There are several ways of amending the existing bylaw.

- The quorum for the number of regions represented out of the current 11 could be changed from “when 2/3 (rounding to the nearest whole number) of the regions containing active counties are represented” to 3/5 or a simple majority. In this case, if as in the present, there are active county parties in all 11 regions, then the difference would be 2/3 = 7.3 or 7, 3/5 = 6.6 or 7 and simple majority 6/11 or 6. So only a change from 2/3 to a simple majority would lower the number of regions.

- The actual number of regions could be lowered by design, from 11 regions to 6 or 4, or some other number. Larger regions – especially depending upon how they are designed – can increase the chances that quorum will be reached because there will be some county with a delegate from that region.

- The bylaw could be an either/or proposition, where either of the above two options could be a way of satisfying quorum, whichever fit the circumstances at that meeting.

- The principle of geographic distribution for quorum based upon counties from within regions could be abandoned and some other approach or criteria adopted in its place.

This proposal seeks to get input on these options (and any others SGA members wish to propose), and then a draft proposal will be submitted during the discussion phase.

Note that under the current formula, quorum could be reached with only seven people, i.e. one delegate from one county in each of seven regions. The two changes about would change that from 7 to 6 in the first example, and from 7 to some other number in the second. In reality, the regionally-based quorum number doesn't affect attendance and the GPCA has never had a 'minimum number of delegates' as a basis for quorum. So this proposal does not attempt to address that issue. That is for another discussion and proposal.

Proposal

That GPCA Bylaw 7-5.3 Quorum be amended to read

7-5.3(a) A quorum exists for the purpose of opening a General Assembly when a majority (rounding to the nearest whole number) of the regions containing active counties are represented

Resources

None

References

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