At the upcoming 2026 General Chapter Convention of Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, we will be considering an overhaul of our bylaws and several amendments to that overhaul. The overhaul itself is much needed, and the cross-tendency body of drafters, the Local Democracy Commission (LDC), found consensus on most important issues.
One of the amendments we will be considering is called “All Power to The Members.” Given the title of this amendment, it is worth noting that meetings of the general membership are already the highest decision-making body of the chapter, a fact that I will return to shortly.
This amendment purports to expand chapter democracy, but I believe it will have the opposite of the intended effect. Further, it represents nothing more than an attempt to expand the use of online voting in (C)DSA – an effort that has been voted down by members time and time again (see the “CB02: One Member, One Vote for National Leadership Elections” proposal, which did not pass at National Convention, and the “Increasing Member Participation in Our Chapter Endorsement Process” resolution which did not pass at our last General Chapter Meeting [GCM]). This effort has, in my view, had the opposite of the intended effect of increasing participation in chapters where its use has been more widespread.
What the Amendment Does
The amendment is quite straightforward in that it replaces all mentions of “Article IV Meetings” with “a vote of the general membership” (in Article V, “Officers”, Sections 6 and 7, which refer to the Communications Coordinator and Campaigns Coordinator respectively, in various subsections of Article VII, “Chapter Formations,” and in Article XII, “Addenda to These Bylaws”).
It is important to note here a definitional distinction between a “vote of the general membership” and a “vote of a general membership meeting,” the latter of which is synonymous with an “Article IV meeting” in the proposed bylaws revision.
What this means in practice is that important decisions relating to the election of these two officer roles, how chapter formations are created and governed, and how addenda to the bylaws are created, must go to a vote of the entire membership, presumably through electronic ballot or e-mail, since there are no other means of reaching the entire membership to deliver a ballot.
Why This is Unproductive
On its face, this amendment purports to increase member engagement on these questions. However, as has been argued a number of times before in debates about the merits of online voting, the quality of our democratic deliberation matters as much, if not more than, the number of votes. I believe that participation is best measured by the number of members who are meaningfully engaged with chapter activities and debates, not simply the number of people casting ballots.
A democratic culture must include comradely debate and discussion that gives people the opportunity to change their minds and the minds of others, and, most importantly, to have one’s mind changed. This is best done in mass meetings where discussion, nuance, and temperament can be measured, and where there are rules for keeping debate focused and comradely. While a move to online discussion would seem to open things up to more participation, the reality is that it pushes debate into a space where the most online portion of our membership will have an outsized say in the nature of the debate.
We should always be seeking out ways of increasing participation in our democratic process, but making sure that our meetings have clear stakes and outcomes that make it worth committing one’s time to attend will always be much more effective than relinquishing decision-making to passive online engagement.
What Does Robert’s Have to Say?
The well-established manual of parliamentary procedure we use in DSA to make sure our deliberations remain productive is Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR). RONR strongly recommends that steps are taken to avoid commingling in-person and absentee voting precisely for the reasons stated above, noting that it is a “fundamental principle of parliamentary law that the right to vote is limited to the members of an organization who are present in a regular or properly-called meeting” (RONR 45:56). This is a fundamental principle because the process of in-person deliberation is central to healthy democratic decision-making.
The same section of RONR doesn’t outright ban absentee voting, but it does state that the procedures for absentee voting must be spelled out explicitly in the bylaws to avoid issues with quorum and process. This amendment does not clear this bar. A “vote of the general membership” would presumably require a ballot to go to every member in good standing (MIGS) of the organization, but there are no provisions for how deliberation (if any) should be structured, how many votes need to be cast for a decision to be valid, or how long the vote must remain open.
Not all questions of process need to be worked out through the bylaws, but fundamental questions such as these really should be. If a ballot goes to the general membership, but only stays open for an hour, or if only 2% of MIGS voted, is that decision valid? Under the terms of this proposed amendment, the answer would be yes, since the rules that govern quorum and validity at in-person meetings do not apply to absentee voting of this nature and are not otherwise covered in RONR. Leaving such ambiguities unaddressed represents a major risk for the health of the organization.
Why This Amendment Would Cause a Bylaws Crisis
The proposed bylaws revision does state that meetings of the general membership “shall be the highest legislative body, and shall set the work priorities of the chapter”. But the proposed bylaws create a conflict by insisting that certain questions be voted on by the general membership (meaning all members, not all members at a meeting). This would create a conflict within our own bylaws, but even more problematically, it puts us in contravention of the National DSA bylaws.
Article 3, the “Chapters” Section 5 of the National DSA bylaws, is quite clear that in-person meetings of the general membership of a chapter must be the highest decision-making body of a chapter. In this respect, members already have all the power – which is good! The specific subsection reads: “There shall be no higher decision-making body in a chapter than a synchronous General Meeting or Convention open to all members in good standing. This shall not prevent an elected leadership body from acting between such meetings.”
It is important to restate the definitional distinction between a “vote of the general membership” and a “vote of a general membership meeting”, the latter of which is synonymous with an Article IV meeting in the proposed bylaws revision. “The general membership” means that every member in the organization must be polled, something that can only be accomplished asynchronously and remotely. Thus, this amendment proposes that the in-person, synchronous meetings not only can be, but must be, eclipsed on questions relevant to the amended sections. This is likely a substantial violation of the DSA bylaws that would create ambiguities and a governance crisis that, at best, would sap our organizational attention and resources as we navigate it.
Conclusion: What Could Happen Instead
An in-person, synchronous membership meeting can delegate its authority as it sees fit, so long as it remains the highest decision-making body. This happens all of the time in our organization; in fact, every time we create a chapter formation, we are in essence delegating some authority held in common by the general membership for a specific purpose. It’s entirely possible that a GCM could, without adopting this amendment, delegate the authority to consider a given matter via an absentee vote of the entire membership (ideally with well-worked-out rules in place for such a procedure).
However, enforcing online membership votes in the bylaws, as a requirement – even on specific questions – would, in my opinion and for the reasons outlined above, be disallowed, unnecessary, and counterproductive. We may have perfectly good reasons for referring something to an online vote of the members (as is already the case in officer elections), but these should be taken up on a case-by-case basis that clearly leaves synchronous, in-person meetings as the highest decision-making body of the membership.
The bottom line is that membership throughout DSA has, time and time and again, upheld the value of in-person, synchronous, democratic discussion, and we should do so again. We should not adopt an amendment that would damage our democratic culture, violate well-established and important norms of democratic deliberation, or put us at risk of losing our charter as a chapter of DSA by being in conflict with the national organization’s bylaws.
