{news} Minutes from the 6-27-05 SCC CTGP meeting, quorum was met.

[B Barry]

Minutes from the 6-27-05 SCC CTGP meeting, quorum was met.

Place: Middletown Russell Public Library, 1st  Floor, Reading Room #2, 123
Broad Street,  Middletown,  CT.       Time: 7pm to 8:45pm closing
Phone: 860-347-2528           

Facilitator: Cliff  Thornton

 

Voting attendees: Central Chapter: Vittorio Lancia; Fairfield Chapter: Paul
Bassler, Richard Duffee;

Greater Hartford Chapter: Barbara Barry, Secretary of CTGP, Mike DeRosa, a
co-chairperson of CTGP,

Cliff Thornton; New Haven Chapter: Charlie Pillsbury and CTGP representative
to Green Party of US;
New London Chapter: Andy Derr, Chris Nelson; Northeast Chapter: Michael
Westerfield, a co-chairperson of CTGP; Tolland Chapter: Tim McKee and CTGP
representative to Green Party of US.

Non voting attendees:  Jeff Russell, New London chapter; and Ken Krayeske,
paid campaign coordinator.

 

A.	Preliminaries: 

1.        Introductions of attendees and chapters. Recruit timekeeper: Vic
Lancia. 

2.        Identify attendees who are NOT voting representatives. 

3.        Adoption of ground rules. 

4.        Approval of tonight's proposed agenda, no additions and
deletions: report from GPUS representatives;

Budget Committee suggestions 

5.       Approval of 5-30-06 SCC minutes  presented by Barbara Barry. 

6.       Approval of 6-12-06 EC meeting presentation by Barbara Barry. 

7.       Treasurer's report by Mike DeRosa per 6-27-06 email from
Christopher Reilly, treasurer: as of

      today, after expeditures, have about $14,000 in treasury.

 

B.	 Proposal from 6-12-06 EC meeting: vote to allow Amy Vas Nunes full
CTGP membership.

Presented by co-chairperson, Michael Westerfield and discussed by attendees:
Concencus:

to allow full membership without sanctions.

 

      C. Reports:

1.	CTGP petitioning drive so far by Ken Krayeske: 4500 signatures have
been acquired;  1000 have 

been turned in with more than 240 validated i.e. about a  24% rejection
rate.  Goal is to acquire 15,000

signatures by 8-9-06 deadline without paid help,  SCC will need to decide at
next 7-25-06 SCC meeting if paid

help will be needed to get/achieve our goal.

Strategies to achieve our goal:  petitioners the weekend of 7-7-06 and
7-8-06 at New London Sail Festival,

Suggest going to July 4th fireworks displays in our towns for more
petitioning.

      We discussed running CTGP candidates in the 2nd and 4th Congressional
districts.  Concerns were 

discussed about whether these candidates would improve or hinder our efforts
to get our state-wide candidates on the ballot by petitioning and if we
would have enough remaining effort to give due 

diligence to all candidates.  Prevailing sentiment was given by Richard
Duffee, petitioning candidate

for the 4th Congressional District: it is up to the CTGP local chapter and
CTGP to decide if candidates

should run for office or not. Paul Bassler, in my years of working in
campaigs, congressional candidates energize all CTGP campaigns.  Barbara
Barry: these types of campaigns are often an educational 

tool for anyone involved in municipal, state or federal campaigns.
Additional, some people are only

involved with political parties during campaigns.   Mike DeRosa: tactically,
CTGP can carry the petitions for the state-wide candidates and also for the
4th Congressional  District candidate.  However, the Fairfield

Chapter has to decide at their convention, it they want to run a
Congressional candidate or not..

2.	CTGP candidate events: Steve Fournier has committed to doing 2
fundraisers at his Hartford home

e.g. cookout in his backyard which can hold up to 100 people. Do we want to
do paid radio ads and

a possible TV commercial in addition to having our candidates on local
community TV programs.

       Ken Krayeske: we need a database of contributors, Chris Nelson of New
London Chapter is willing

to do this but needs  $400 to buy the software as he only works off of a
MAC.  However, they may be

people who will be able to do this for free 

       Mike DeRosa:   Dave  in Glastonbury has provided this banner for
Cliff and is willing to so any

Banner or sign for any CTGP candidate.  You can call Dave at: 860-633-9310.

       New London Chapter wants any CTGP candidate to be interviewed  for
potential CTGP approval.

3.	CTGP newspaper: email articles to Mike DeRosa at smderosa at cox.net.
4.	Our  ACLU lawsuit against the 2005 CT "campaign finance reform" law:
Mike DeRosa: got the ACLU to 

agree in writing that ACLU will pay all fees/costs incurred by this lawsuit,
including any after costs   e.g.

court approval that the defendants are allowed to require the plaintiffs to
pay defendants lawyers fees.   S. Michael DeRosa is one of the plaintiffs,
as one name is required per group, The Libertarian Party is also

a plaintiff.   All publicity is being handled by the ACLU and will be
announced in early July 2006.

       Charlie Pillsbury: the CTGP agrees with 2 of the 4 ACLU concerns:  1)
we agree that the petitioning

requirement to get full campaign funding is unconstitutional and 2) the 2
state major parties are allowed 

to pay more monies to their candidates than the other parties.   The ACLU is
also concerned about the 3)

zero tolerance for contributions from lobbyists i.e. no lobbyist or family
member can contribute to any

campaign and 4) public campaign finance caps:  allows self-funded wealthy
candidates to be exempt

from the caps but any candidate who chooses to utility the state campaign
funding, must abide by the caps.

     This violates the Helsinki accords i.e. international laws and
discourages the development and 

activities of multiple political parties  and allowing democratic chooses to
the voters.  

     Mike DeRosa: unintended benefits of other campaign finance reforms laws
have been seen. In Maine, 

more candidates were women, and independent candidates.  These candidates
reflected a broader  demographic of the population i.e. less candidates were
lawyers.

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

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