Does anyone else find it surprising that the only multipartisan debate of gubernatorial candidates that, has chosen to exclude Green Party candidates who have expressed an interest in attending, is being held on the U of M campus in Minneapolis sponsored by the student fee funded Student Legislative Coalition?
David Boyd, the executive director of the SLC, claims that he and the board could not concieve of a way to include the Greens without displaying a partisan bias while still excluding the Constitution, Libertarian, and other minor party candidates. He seems to have missed the news from 2000 that the Greens are now a major party in Minnesota. He claimed in a meeting today with concerned Green Party students, campaign staff, and myself(unaffiliated with any Green campaign and invited by students)that they only wanted to invite candidates who could raise enough money to be viable. Asked what that figure was, he said they didn't really have a figure but he would assume around 5 million for a statewide race. It was pointed out that Jesse Ventura raised and spent between 600 and 700 thousand much of which he was able to raise due to 300 thousand in state matching funds-the same sum the Green candidates are eligible for this year. He also said that they only wanted to invite candidates that had shown that they could get a minimum of 15% public support, demonstrated through a previous run for office. This would disqualify Republican Brian Sullivan who is in the debate since Brian Sullivan has never run for public office before. He then stated that they also required evidence of statewide name recognition. Asked what they had used as evidence of statewide recognition for the candidates they did invite he could not provide an answer. Later today by phone, Mr. Boyd was asked by Lani Hogan from Campus Greens of MN- to provide minutes from the meeting or some published or noted evidence of these criteria being established by the board of the Student Legislative Coalition or the organization and he said that no published guidelines or written documentation existed. Mr. Boyd has recently been a board member of the DFL Feminist Caucus, something he also discussed during the meeting. He expressed at the meeting he was willing to work with the Green candidates to include at least the top two candidates if he could find an impartial way to do so without including alot of other candidates. He stated that to do otherwise might be a violation of the groups 501(c)3 status. Seeing that Ken Pentel and Nick Raliegh, the two front runners for the Green Party nomination, have been included in every other organization's multipartisan debate they have asked, it seems this task is not as insurmountable as Mr. Boyd makes it seem. I think it is in the interest of both the Green Party(which shares many of SLC's goals) and the Student Legislative Coalition(if for no other reason than to maintain their student fee income) to see this situation come to an amenable end. The SLC recieves student fee funding from students on all four U of M campuses. The Greens have extraordinary support not only on the twin cities campus but on the Duluth campus as well. Recently students have been working to form campus green chapters at Morris and Crookston. The debate is scheduled for the evening of April 17th at the Ted Mann Concert Hall. See SLC website for more detail- http://www.umnslc.com/ This email sent to the Minneapolis issues list at the request of U of M Campus Greens students. Thanks, David Strand-Loring Park LET GREENS DEBATE! If you would like to support the call for an inclusive debate at the U of M in Minneapolis please call the SLC at (612)624-5598 or email any of the following contacts:(note some of the student government officials were just replaced in Wednesdays elections and this info from the SLC website does not yet reflect those changes) Pleae copy email messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so I can forward them on to U of M Greens for their record of support. Board of Directors Chair; UMCSA Legislative Affai Kevin Poppel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Board of Directors VC; MSA President Dan Kelly, Jr [EMAIL PROTECTED] Professional Staff Executive Director David Boyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Board Of Governors UMDSA President Kari Amstutz [EMAIL PROTECTED] GAPSA Legislative Affairs Chair Tracy Street [EMAIL PROTECTED] Vice-Chair Student Senate; PROXY Shawn Lavelle [EMAIL PROTECTED] Student Senate Chair Chris Frazier [EMAIL PROTECTED] VP UMCSA; PROXY Brent Massmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] GAPSA President Patrick Pederson [EMAIL PROTECTED] UMDSA Legislative Affairs Chair Amber Benning [EMAIL PROTECTED] UMCSA President Steve N. Brandt [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSA Legislative Affairs Chair Brianna Halverson [EMAIL PROTECTED] MCSA Legislative Affairs Chair Cody Specketer [EMAIL PROTECTED] April 17-UofM Student Legislative Coalition Candidate Forum, 7:00PM, Ted Mann Concert Hall, UofM. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
