No Transparency Afforded in Hearing of the Accreditation Committee
On May 2nd, 2021, the Accreditation Committee of the Green Party of the United States hosted a "hearing" for the purpose of taking the testimony of Margaret Elizabeth, co-chair of the National Lavender Caucus, as a part of their investigation on the complaint: National Lavender Caucus vs Georgia Green Party. As participants and observers were still arriving, Accreditation Committee Co-Chair Andy Ellis put the question to the Committee on whether to admit Wisconsin Green Party member, Kerri Bruss (author of this piece).
Hugh Esco is Secretary of the Georgia Green Party, the respondent to the NLC's complaint. He had joined the call from a machine without a microphone and had made no comments in the chat tool. Discussion over whether to admit Ms. Bruss to the call, led to a question of whether anyone other than members of the committee and members of the NLC ought to be welcome on the call. Apparently not even the respondent to a complaint seeking to revoke the accreditation of a state party was to have an opportunity to be "confronted with the witnesses against" them. Within minutes of the start of the "hearing", after a very brief discussion, supported by every committee member who spoke, the decision was made to deny Kerri Bruss entrance and to remove Hugh Esco from the meeting.
