WISCONSIN POLITICAL PARTIES

of these shall be a woman), a 2nd vice chairman who, simultaneously,
is also the chairman of the county statutory committee, a secretary and
a treasurer.
The constitution of the Republican Party of Wisconsin specifies that
the voluntary organization shall not "perform any of the duties imposed
by the Wisconsin Statutes on the State Central Committee or other Statutory
committees, and the State Central Committee and other Statutory com-
mittees shall retain their individual organizations and identity."
Precinct Organization: The Republican precinct committees are headed
by a chairman who shall be the Republican precinct committeeman elected
by the voters at the party primaries. Each precinct committee shall have
a committeewoman in addition to the committeeman, and such other
officers as necessary.
Wisconsin in the National Party Organization
National Committee: At the top of the permanent party organizations,
throughout the United States, is the national committee, which acts as the
governing body of the party. The national committee is comprised of one
national committeeman and one national committeewoman from each state
and territory of the United States.
Within the Republican national organization, the state chairman (in
Wisconsin the Chairman of the Republican State Voluntary Committee)
becomes an ex officio member of the national committee if the state either
has a Republican Governor, has a Republican majority in its congressional
delegation, or voted Republican in the last preceding presidential election.
The members of the national committee on the state level are selected
for each party at the party's state convention. In Wisconsin, this selection
is done at the state convention of the parties' voluntary organizations. How-
ever, selection of the Wisconsin membership of the national political party
committees is not handled entirely by the voluntary organization; it also
involves the statutory organization of the parties. For this reason, the
discussion of the national committee has here been inserted between statu-
tory and voluntary Wisconsin party organization.
The "selection" of the Wisconsin members for the national political
party committees is in the form of an instruction to the party's elected and,
therefore, statutory, delegates to the national convention. At the national
conventions, the Wisconsin delegates place the names selected by the volun-
tary state convention in nomination as Wisconsin's national committeeman
and committeewoman. The entire slate of nominations, combining the
nominations received from all state delegations, is then inserted at the
national convention into the resolution creating the party's national com-
mittee for the next 4 years, and voted on by the national convention as a
whole.
The term of the members of the national committees is 4 years, from
one national presidential candidate nominating convention to the next. The
committee serves until its successor committee has been elected at the next
national convention. The national committees of the political parties are
charged with the organization of the next national conventions of their
parties, the direction of the presidential campaign immediately following
their election, and the formulation of a national campaign program to be
carried out on the state level by the state organizations.
Statutory State Organization
State Central Committees: For each party, the statutory state central
committees consist of one chairman and "at least 2 members" from each

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