DSA’S NATIONAL STRUCTURE

DSA and its chapters

DSA is structured so that all of its organizing and its most noticeable political activity happens at the chapter level. But we need a way to bring all those chapters together, so ultimately DSA is a nationally run organization: the national DSA website (https://www.dsausa.org/) is where you go to become a member, learn about national projects, or read DSA's magazine, Democratic Left. DSA is governed by the elected National Political Committee (more on them below) and run by a small number of paid staff, including our National Director, Maria Svart. National DSA then shares with each chapter a list of its members as well as resources and organizing tools. DSA also has national priority campaigns -- currently, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a National Electoral Committee, and the Democratic Socialist Labor Commission -- which help chapters organize around particular issues and coordinate common activity across chapters nationwide.

DSA also organizes national identity- and issue-based working groups, helping to bring together DSA members and link them to major social movements, including an Abolition Working Group, an Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus, and a Religion and Socialism Working Group. A full list of these national working groups and the national priority campaigns can be found at https://www.dsausa.org/get-involved/.

THE NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMITTEE

DSA’s national political leadership is the National Political Committee (NPC), a sixteen-person body which functions as the board of directors of DSA and are elected every two years by the delegates to DSA’s National Convention. Every DSA local is entitled to send a certain number of delegates to the National Convention, based on the local’s size. There are also “at-large” delegates to represent areas where there are no active locals.

The DSA Constitution requires that eight slots of the NPC be reserved for women, genderqueer, or nonbinary people, and that at least five of the NPC slots be reserved for people of color.

The NPC conducts long weekend meetings three or four times each year. However, the NPC elects a five-person NPC Steering Committee, which meets more frequently, both in person and by conference call, to conduct DSA national business in between full NPC meetings.

The NPC guides and leads the implementation of DSA’s major political and organizational goals, which are broadly defined every two years by the delegates to the National Convention. The NPC gives instructions to the national staff about how to carry forward DSA’s day-to-day work. The NPC creates task forces and committees to guide particular areas of DSA’s political work. The DSA Constitution gives the NPC the power to charter DSA locals and commissions, as well as DSA’s Youth Section.