Below are the new by-laws (edited and passed by the Steering Committee) that must be voted on by the entire caucus.

As an emergency vote, the 3-day voting period will end Friday, February 17 at 1pm Eastern Time. 

You can vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FZR9BR7

Current by-laws found here: http://ygus.org/about/bylaws/

Major changes:

1. Split elections. 2 elections held yearly (February & August) for 4 steering committee members ensures continuity instead of electing everyone at in July.

2. Implementation of dues set at $10 yearly. Dues is already a Young Greens policy, this sets a reasonable number. Will not affect voting privileges until fully setup (ie. will be in place for August elections of 4 Steering Committee members–not the elections that will happen immediately after this by-laws vote in February, if they pass)

3. Explicitly makes the caucus anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, intersectional, and politically independent in our interpretation of the GPUS Platform and in our own leading values.

4. Defines a two-tiered campus program of Young Greens chapters that receive primary support alongside affiliate chapters that are inclusive of Greens and support the 10 Key Values and Platform. 

5. More clearly defines the jobs of the Steering Committee roles and underlines that required work of these elected positions as 10 hours a month minimum. It encourages anyone running for these positions to understand the required minimum work, and allows for the removal of officers who are not putting in the minimum required work.

The Youth Caucus and the Green Party US have both endorsed the Million Student March. The Green Party is the only national party that supports all demands. Please join us on 3/30 for a conference call to organize for the march

You’ve heard the statistics, right? Nationwide education debt is at about $1.2 trillion dollars – an amount that keeps too many of us trapped living paycheck to paycheck while we make our monthly student loan payments. Meanwhile, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost US taxpayers upwards of $1.6 trillion dollars and immeasurable death and devastation to the people of the Middle East. The system is rigged to favor the banks, the military contractors, and the for-profit colleges. Don’t you agree it’s time to change the system?

The Youth Caucus Steering Committee has unanimously endorsed a proposed amendment to the GPUS platform that rejects capitalism in favor of more sustainable, just, and democratic economic models, and also calls on all Young Greens to lobby their state’s National Committee members to vote to pass the amendment.

The 12th round of negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has concluded in Brussels and unfortunately, they remain to be more of the same thing, deals for business at the cost of citizens. We, the Federation of Young European Greens and the Young Greens of the US, demand an immediate halt to the negotiations.

“TTIP, like the Trans Pacific Partnership, is another attack on democracy, environmental protection, and working conditions by global corporate elites. And that’s why on both sides of the Atlantic, social movements are fighting to stop these so-called trade ‘agreements’ that would transfer power from elected governments to multinational corporations,” says Ursula Rozum, co-chair of the Young Green of the US.