Chapter 10-I-c
State and National Congresses
With some prototype nuts and 'bolts'


In the prototype legislative hierarchy we have imagined, (see org chart), State Congresses will unify the efforts of the District Congresses, and a National Congress will unify and manifest the democratic will of the entire organization.

We have thought that State Congresses should be composed of representatives elected from and by the District Congresses, as well as representatives elected directly from the Local Groups.

Let’s posit, for the purposes of illustration, and to engender discussion, that each District Congress shall elect from among its members one State Congress representative for every 25 of its own members, and that each Local Group will elect one State Congress representative for every 100 of its members.

These formulary numbers might need to be lower in the early stages of the organization’s development, but provisions must be made to easily scale them to a growing membership. If the organization grows to the point where some States have hundreds of thousands of members, (which will be necessary for this organization to develop the political power to fulfill its purpose), then other numbers must be used to prevent State Congresses from being composed of so many representatives that they are unwieldy to a size that inhibits the orderly conduct of business.

For example, if a State has only 4000 citizen-members, the formulary numbers cited above would produce a State Congress with only 46 representatives. (4000 members would elect a total of approximately 160 representatives to the various District Congresses, one for each 25 citizen-members of Local Groups. The District Congresses would then elect 6 representatives to the State Congress, one for each 25 District Congress representatives, and the Local Groups would directly elect approximately 40 State Congress representatives, one for every 100 Local Group members).

These formulary numbers are likely set far too low for this membership population level. A State Congress with only 46 members will not provide enough diversity of representation. But these numbers might be entirely suitable for much larger population levels. Through study and deliberation, and through consultations with scholars and other experts, an optimum size for State Congresses at various and expanding population levels must be established, with provisions made for formulary representation numbers that will produce Congresses at or near that optimum size.

Provisions must be made to easily adapt these formulary numbers to not only a growing membership population, but to uneven growth from State to State. Populous States might possibly grow to hundreds of thousands of members, while other States have only a few hundred, (or even a few dozen), members.

We won’t try to outline our ideas to accommodate these requirements for scalability here, but suffice it to say that although they may be necessarily relatively complex in their detail, fair and equitable formulations can (and must) be provided. This is not a big problem, (although it is fairly complex in detail), and there are many ideas that we can build on.

All these prototype ideas are applicable to the National Congress as well. The principles are the same. The representational scheme must be proportional to the desired optimum size of the Congress, and it must be scalable to various and rapidly growing population levels.


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