On September 10, the California legislature passed AB 477. It sets up internal operating rules for the Green Party. The Green Party has been using the Peace & Freedom internal rules ever since the Green Party qualified in 1992, because until now, the California election code only had internal rules for the four oldest parties (Republican, Democratic, American Independent, and Peace & Freedom). The election code has said that other parties should just choose one of those four. But now there are five parties with their own internal rules in the law (or there will be as soon as Governor Brown signs the bill).

This bill gives the Green Party the authority to designs its own districts for electing party officers. Each district would elect members to the “county council”, but the districts could actually be portions of counties. Here is the text of AB 477. The bill has another part that has nothing to do with the Green Party. The other part of the bill deals with voters who forgot to sign the outer envelope of their mailed ballot when they returned it to the election office. The bill gives them a chance to correct the error within eight days.