Today we're going to look at the structure of a political party

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Today we're going to look at the structure of a political party. The purpose of doing this and creating an assignment on us is to let you know the opportunities that are available to people who wish to get actively involved in the political process. Now, that political parties are always in need of help, you can pick whichever one you want. But most people don't understand what they do, how they're organized, or how to get connected. And I hope this lecture and this assignment will help you to gain that knowledge and perhaps put it to use. Now, as an introductory set of ideas, I'll mention that you might want to think about learning more about the political parties by perhaps going to the national website of a political party. And you can see the way it's organized and structured there. But that's just background that won't help you very much at the local level. Political parties have an interesting type of organization. And in fact, political parties are not. And I emphasize not even mentioned in the constitution. It doesn't mean they're unconstitutional. It's simply means that they're not mention there. So there's no regulation or guidance of how a political party should be organized. And in reality, what we have for our major political parties, we really have 50. Democratic Party is one for each state, 50 Republican Party is one for each state. And in many cases, third parties organized at the state levels too. So the political parties are these 50 organizations that come together in an alliance once every four years to run a presidential campaign. But for day-to-day activity, most of what goes on is that at the state and in fact sometimes at the local level. So let's, let's take a look at how that works. I'm going to pick my state, Virginia, and pick one of the political parties and explain how it's organized. Now I'm going to be dealing with Republican Party, but the Democratic Party structure in my state is very similar. And in fact, for the purpose of this assignment, remember you can't use the Republican Party of Virginia because I'm already doing it for you. But this is a pattern that will apply to virtually any party in any state and you just have to find out how yours is organized. Okay? Now in the Republican Party of Virginia, like most political parties at the state level, there's an official document that describes the regulations and structure under which a party operates. Here, we call it the party plan. It may be called in some place the party by laws or some other name, but Party plan is a fairly typical name. And when you're researching state political party, you want to go on their website and look for that document, the bylaws, the party plan, and it will give you the structure for where you live. Now, taking a look at Virginia, the way we have it, we start at the state level and at the highest level, the state level further Republican Party in Virginia. We have what we call a State Central Committee. Now, the State Central Committee is the governing body for the political party in the state of Virginia. Who's on the State Central Committee? Well, the State Central Committee is made up of the chairman of each congressional district political party. I live in the sixth congressional district. We have a chairman for the sixth congressional district, he's a member. But also there are people elected from each congressional district. And they also serve on the State Central Committee. So these are elected a party officials who meet together periodically, usually four times a year, and set policy for the Republican Party. Now, there's also a state party Chairman that's a full time job. Being on the State Central Committee. That's a volunteer thing. You don't get paid for it and and it's not a full time job. You occasionally meet together, but you're strictly a secondary role. You have another job. But the state party chairman and that becomes a full-time job. And in addition, the state party chairman, there's a staff that runs the state party. You have to have people to keep the office open to keep the records, keep them Financial Affairs going, right. And these people are party staff. There are hired by the party and they have a full-time job. Now that lets the structure of the party at the state level. Now, we can go down one notch. And we go to the congressional district level. In the state of Virginia, we have 11 congressional districts. Your state may have more or they may have fewer. But the, the idea is at the congressional district level, you'll have another layer or layer, a party organization. And here you have a chairman. And the chairman of the Congressional District party is elected by the convention, which takes place in the political party in that congressional district once every two years. Now, the District Chairman has the role of both being the chairman of the district or whichever district he's in and serving on the State Central Committee. But you also have a committee. The committee that runs the political party at the district level is made up of the chairman of each individual unit. For example, if you're the chairman of the county political party, you have a seat on the on the congressional district committee. If you're chairman of a city political party, Have a seat there. And so that committee becomes the committee that runs the affairs of the political party at the level of a congressional district. And then if we go down one level further and come down to the local, and this is the entry point for most people. Now, in Virginia, we have what we call a unit committee. The unit is either a county or a city. Now, in Virginia, we have an unusual situation. If you're in a city such as Lynchburg, you don't live in a county. If you live in a county surrounding Lynchburg, for example, I live in Amherst County. We're not in any way incorporated town or city. So you belong either to a county or a city. Most other states don't work that way. But in our system, you're a part of the county political organization, of the city political organization. You have a chairman for the county or the city. And the way the chairman is elected, as we use something called a mass meeting ordinarily. And the mass meeting is a meeting that is open to the public, held every two years typically. And at that mass meeting, several things will happen. Anybody can come. And if you say that you're in accordance with the philosophy of the party, you can ask to be elected to the unit committee and a certain number of people will be elected to the unit committee. You can ask to be seen as a delegate either to the congressional district convention, which would elect the Congressional District chairman, or to the state convention. And in the state convention course, you take care of the business statewide. Sometimes we pick candidates. For example, a state convention could pick a candidate for governor or senator if the party wants to go that way. You can be elected to one of the conventions or both. And you can be you can be elected as a member the unit committee. And at that meeting, you will elect the unit chairman, which will serve for two years. So all of those things are done locally and there's no particular limitation on the mass meeting. Anybody who's in accordance with the beliefs and philosophy of the party can go. And so I would encourage everyone, if you're interested in one or the other of the political parties, attend the mass meeting sometime find out how parties are organized locally at your level. And if you're so inclined, you may wish to become involved with party. The interesting thing about this is that in our system, no matter what political party we talk about, whether it's Democrats, Republicans, or any third party. One thing you can always be sure of. They need more help at every level. And they're always willing to welcome new people to ask you to help. Simply helping putting a yard sign in your yard or putting a bumper sticker on your car make and doesn't on your car doesn't make you a member of the committee. You can volunteer and help. Sure. But you have to be elected to be a member the unit committee. Now that won't be too hard to do if you show an interest in the party. But the parties are there of a welcome new help. And I encourage you if you have an interest in this, please look at that. Why? Because to have a viable functioning republic today, you really need to have active political parties. And political parties always need more help. So if you wish to become interested, involved, and participate, the door is wide open. Entry is not difficult. And I encourage you to at least think about doing that. And at a very minimum understand the structure so that you can do this paper. As a final point, I would encourage you to, if you're still unclear, after looking at the document, contact one of the local party officials and ask them to explain to you in person, give them a call. Ask them how does the party function at our level? And you'd be surprised how much you could learn and hopefully put to use.