Right to Life Caucus Organizing Convention

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Once again- I am an amateur at all this still so please bear with me...

We are here to form the Right to Life Caucus. The agenda of this convention should be to-

1- determine membership
2- determine governance structure
3- determine leadership
4- determine platform

I propose first that we exist as a caucus within the Regional Protection Party.

Also if you could please sign in if you are a member

clarence

[TJ in Oregon]

x TJ in Cleve

[TJ in Oregon]

Some general thoughts on organization:

1. We'll need a chairman. What do you guys think the term length of the chair position should be? Four months? Two months? Six months?

2. Maybe we should have a vice-chair. I don't think it makes sense to have a whole bunch of officers when we have a grand total of six people so far. It also doesn't make any sense to have regional chairs since we have 4 Mideasterners and 2 Southerners and no one else.

3. The RPP question: I agree it makes sense to take advantage of the new caucus law, even if it does limit our membership to RPP'ers. We could also have a bylaws provision proclaiming honorary membership to people from other parties if they wish to join.

4. After reading the Senate Bill, I believe we have the ability to endorse other candidates beyond our official membership by this provision:

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Thus, I think we ought to allow non-members to seek our endorsement (perhaps we could automatically grant this to honorary members if the situation were to present itself).

Thoughts?

[tmthforu94]

2 things - I like the idea of a vice-chair. I also think we should actively make endorsements, though I'm not sure if we should support someone if they're unwilling to join this caucus - keep in mind this is a single-issue caucus. So meh.

[TJ in Oregon]

People are only allowed to officially join one caucus. Though in general, I agree, we obviously should only endorse pro-life candidates.

[tmthforu94]

People are only allowed to officially join one caucus. Though in general, I agree, we obviously should only endorse pro-life candidates.

Eh, I think their should be a higher limit. Shoulda been paying attention during debate.

Pro-life, no exception. I think we should also list in detail our beliefs. For example, do we want to push legislation at the federal or regional level?

[ZuWo]

X ZuWo

[ZuWo]

People are only allowed to officially join one caucus. Though in general, I agree, we obviously should only endorse pro-life candidates.

Eh, I think their should be a higher limit. Shoulda been paying attention during debate.

Pro-life, no exception. I think we should also list in detail our beliefs. For example, do we want to push legislation at the federal or regional level?

I believe we should treat abortion as a regional issue here in Atlasia. If we pushed pro-life legislation on the federal level there would be the risk that the left majority in the Senate would start to pay attention to this issue and pass legislation that is against our cause.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Regarding regional v national... we can address that in part 4 of the convention with platform

For part 2, what is everyones opinion on governance? Do we need a Chair and a Vice Chair? My proposal is we have both

[ZuWo]

Regarding regional v national... we can address that in part 4 of the convention with platform

For part 2, what is everyones opinion on governance? Do we need a Chair and a Vice Chair? My proposal is we have both

I agree with your proposal. As long as we're a relatively small caucus, a chair and one vice chair should suffice.

[RI]

RPP only? I'm a sad panda.

[ZuWo]

RPP only? I'm a sad panda.

That's unfortunate. The Act really shouldn't have been passed this way. Why should only members of one party be part of a caucus?

But anyway, I think we could make you an honorary member or something like that if you wish.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Yes let's have honorary members from all parties.

Is everyone unanimous on the Chair and Vice Chair structure?

[CLARENCE 2015!]

We'll leave 12 hours for objections to having a Chair and Vice Chair and if that is unanimous we will move to nominations

[TJ in Oregon]

Also, note that to officially be registered in a caucus, you must register as such in the New Register Thread rather than just stating your membership here. There is some contention about whether or not this is required, however, our RG has made it clear he intends to require doing so (and the law itself is somewhat ambiguous about it).

[Yelnoc]

RPP only? I'm a sad panda.

That's unfortunate. The Act really shouldn't have been passed this way. Why should only members of one party be part of a caucus?

But anyway, I think we could make you an honorary member or something like that if you wish.

As I have mentioned in other threads, the current law does not require this.  So realisticidealist (and anyone else) could join until (and unless) the law is clarified or replaced.

[TJ in Oregon]

What I was thinking of doing was writing into our bylaws an equal status granted to anyone who wishes to be a member of the caucus regardless of whether or not they are officially recognized by the RG. We could then write into our bylaws that we would automatically give our endorsement to any members of the caucus regardless of whether or not the RG recognizes them as such. We could let anyone join as an "honorary member" or "observer" just as a title while making no distinction whatsoever inside the caucus between them and registered members.

It would allow us to create a caucus that is functionally bi-partisan yet afforded the same rights as a party caucus. The only catch would be that we would need to keep at least 5 RPP'ers in the caucus and follow any guidelines the RPP enacts. Most of the RPP wants to have officially bipartisan caucuses anyways so they would be very unlikely to enact a rule to close the loophole.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

Agreed... great idea

[RI]

Would I need to post in the New Register Thread if I were only an "honorary member"?

[TJ in Oregon]

Would I need to post in the New Register Thread if I were only an "honorary member"?

Well, maybe

The law is mildly ambiguous about that but I think it's implied meaning is that members need to be of one party. You may try it and see what happens but I wouldn't bother. I think with the current law it would work best to keep track of membership ourselves, besides having the RPP members register there so we can become "established".

Anyone else have thoughts on how we should handle this?

[Pingvin]

I want to join (NCP)

[CLARENCE 2015!]

There has been no objection to a Chair and Vice Chair format. At this time we can open the floor for nominations for both positions

Who is interested?  Personally, I will be running for Vice Chair

[ZuWo]

I'd like to see TJ as our Chair.

[TJ in Oregon]

I'll run for Chairman, though I think it may be a good idea to write our bylaws first before electing a chairman. Perhaps a platform as well?

[TJ in Oregon]

I made a draft of some bylaws. What do you guys think?

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