← Part of: The Council of Fifty

The Subcommittees of the Council of Fifty

Every project that comes before the Council of Fifty is worked by one subcommittee of twelve, which examines the plan at the conference and then follows the project until it is complete. This paper explains who sits on it, how its members are drawn, and how it works. It describes a working arrangement consistent with the constitution, which each community adopts through its own bodies.

Who sits on it

Three full presidencies of the same bureau

The subcommittee is made up of three full presidencies, all from the bureau the project belongs to: the presidency that presents the project, and one full presidency of each of the other two kinds, drawn from other communities. Between them they bring the three duties every bureau council holds: the Operating presidency sees that the project works and that capable businesses can carry it out, the trustees protect title and finances, and the regulators check law, standards, and compliance.

Seats	From	Chosen how
4	The presenting presidency, from the originating community	By origination
4	A full presidency of the second kind, from another community	Drawn at random
4	A full presidency of the third kind, from a third community	Drawn at random

If a trustee presidency presents a project, for instance, one Operating presidency and one regulatory presidency are drawn. If an Operating presidency presents, one trustee presidency and one regulatory presidency are drawn.

Stand in your place

Every member serves in the duty of his or her own office and bureau, which is the constitution’s rule for every president: learn his duty, and act in the office in which he is appointed (§5.1). A road is examined by transportation presidencies, a dry farm by food presidencies, and a pipeline by utilities presidencies, never by presidents from other domains.

Every Segment, equally

Every presidency holds one president from each Segment, so every subcommittee has three partnered men, three partnered women, three single men, and three single women, without any further rule.

How the presidencies are drawn

No volunteers

The two presidencies are drawn at random, never from volunteers, because volunteers would bring special interests: those who want the freeway built would put themselves forward. The advocates are already present in the presenting presidency; what the subcommittee needs besides is an objective eight. Serving when drawn is part of every president’s office.

The rules

The same bureau. The pool for each drawn presidency is the matching presidencies of that bureau in the other forty-nine communities.
Two different communities. The two drawn presidencies come from two different communities, neither of them the originating community, so every subcommittee brings together three communities.
One subcommittee per presidency per conference. A presidency already drawn for another project is set aside. Since each trustee and regulatory presidency serves a pair of bureaus, it may sit on only one subcommittee for either of them.
Recent service counts last. A presidency that served on a subcommittee at the previous conference is drawn only if no other is available.
The seat, not the person. The draw selects an office. Whoever holds it serves, at the conference and on the review panel afterwards, so the subcommittee keeps its members as presidents come and go.

The procedure

A fixed order. Projects are taken in the order they were filed.
Public randomness. When the agenda is published, a random number is taken from an independent public source at a time announced in advance, so no one can know it beforehand and anyone can look it up afterwards.
A published procedure. The operating system uses that number to draw each presidency from its pool, applying the rules above. No officer chooses anyone.
Everything published. The random number, the procedure, and the result are published, so anyone can repeat the draw and obtain the same result.

An example

Suppose Bridger’s Bureau 23 Operating presidency presents a gas field. The draw takes one trustee presidency serving Bureau 23 from one of the other forty-nine communities, say Seedskadee, and one regulatory presidency serving Bureau 23 from another, say Rock Springs. The subcommittee is those three presidencies: twelve presidents from three communities, three from each Segment, all of them responsible for utilities at home.

How it works at the conference

Tuesday afternoon. The subcommittee reads the originating community’s plan and agrees its order of presiding and note-keeping.
Wednesday. It examines the plan, questions the presenting presidency, and improves it where it can. Each evening the current draft is posted to every delegation, and the bureau exchanges send comments for the next morning.
Open sessions. Any delegate may sit in and speak, but only the twelve decide.
Thursday morning. The subcommittee decides by seven of twelve. The trustee and regulatory presidencies each record a signed finding on the plan, which goes forward with it unchanged.
If it does not approve. The plan returns home for further study and may be filed again at a later conference.

The presenting presidency presides, its presidents taking turns, one presiding while another keeps the notes. Presiding is a turn of duty, never a position.

After the conference

Each community decides

An approved plan is published at the closing plenary. During weeks 2 to 12, the same bureau’s council in each of the other communities decides, by seven of twelve, whether its community will take on its own part; at the next conference, the full Council of Fifty votes on whether to carry the project forward as a Council of Fifty project. That vote binds no community, since each has already decided for itself.

The review panel

The subcommittee’s twelve seats then become the project’s review panel, until the closing event, when every part is built, tested, and earning its keep.

It meets at each conference and reviews each part’s progress against the approved plan.
It publishes its findings each quarter: on track, delayed, over cost, or a concern about standards or compliance.
Comply or explain. Where it finds cause for concern, the owning council must publish a response by the next conference.
It has no powers. It cannot instruct any owner, spend anything, or bind any community, and it ends at the closing event.

Safeguards

Every member serves within the duty of his or her own office and bureau.
All three duties of a bureau are present, as full presidencies.
Every Segment is equally represented.
The two drawn presidencies come from two different communities, drawn at random with no volunteering.
The draw uses public randomness and a published procedure, so anyone can check it.
The review panel watches but never governs, and owners must answer its concerns in public.