The USCA Congress, known inside the country as the Congress of the Commonwealth, is the main legislative body of the USCA government. The Congress is made up of two houses: the House of Government, consisting of members directly elected by the people of the USCA, and the House of Labor, consisting of representatives from all the sanctioned labor unions of the USCA. All representatives are elected for two year terms. These houses can meet either separately or together as one unit, provided both houses agree to do so. If they meet together, any measure put before the Congress can be passed by a simple majority vote of all representatives present, as opposed to requiring the majority of votes in each house separately under normal circumstances. This is potentially useful in cases where the houses are divided- if, for example, 65% of the members of the House of Government support a measure, but only 40% of the members in the House of Labor support it, it would not be passed. If they were meeting together, however, the votes of all congressmen would combine to pass it with a 52.5% majority vote.
Each of the individual 13 commonwealths of the USCA send an amount of representatives to the House of Government that is proportional to their population, similarly to the old US House of Representatives. Since the commonwealths themselves were drawn to have roughly equal populations, however, they all end up sending nearly the same amount of representatives to the Congress, except in cases of massive population shifts from one commonwealth to another. For the House of Labor, every legal trade union in the country sends a number of representatives proportional to their membership divided by the total membership of all unions in the House. Each union is guaranteed at least one seat in the House, regardless of its proportional size. For each individual union, at least half of the members sent to Congress must be directly elected by the whole membership of the union, as opposed to being directly appointed by union leadership. This restriction does not apply to unions which only have one member in the House.
The House of Government is led by the Secretary of Government, elected by a majority vote of the House's members. Similarly, the House of Labor is led by the Secretary of Labor, elected by a majority of that house's members. The Congress as a whole is led by the General Secretary, elected by a majority vote of the entire Congress. The vote for General Secretary can be carried out either in separate meetings of each house or with the whole Congress assembled, but in either case only a majority of the whole Congress is required (so, for example, if 65% of the House of Labor voted for a candidate and 40% of the House of Government voted for them, the candidate would still be elected General Secretary because they earned a majority of all the votes cast in total). None of the secretaries are elected for a set term, and they can be replaced at any time by a majority vote of their respective house. However, they cannot be simply recalled- there must be a replacement elected, to provide for continuity of government. The positions are never vacant except in the case of death or resignation. If the office of General Secretary is vacant by any reason, the Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Government jointly exercise the powers of the position until a replacement is elected.
The Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Government both preside over their respective houses, but at any time the General Secretary can choose to preside in their stead. When the Congress meets as one unit, the General Secretary always presides, provided they are available. The General Secretary also has powers beyond their role as leader of the Congress- they are the executive and head of government of the entire nation. Any bill passed by the Congress must be signed by the General Secretary and at least one of the Secretary of Labor or Secretary of Government before coming into effect. If a law is passed by a two-thirds majority of each house, however, it becomes law automatically without this requirement, though the secretaries can still sign if they choose.
List of Congresses[]
The main purpose of this article is to list the various Congresses, their party composition, and their leadership. Though membership often changed during the course of each individual Congress, due to member deaths or resignations, the membership listed below represents the composition of each Congress at its beginning.
1st Congress[]
April 10, 1930-April 10, 1932
Membership[]
| Anarcho-Syndicalist | Communist | Socialist | Socialist Labor | Other/Unaffiliated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House of Government | 27 | 249 | 455 | 99 | 20 | 850 |
| House of Labor | 56 | 104 | 469 | 135 | 86 | 850 |
House of Government
House of Labor
Note: Most members of the House of Labor identified with their union over any specific political party, voting mostly as union leadership instructed. However, many were either officially or unofficially aligned with different political organizations and ideologies, and that association is what is listed here.
Leadership[]
General Secretary: Norman Thomas (S)
Secretary of Government: Victor L. Berger (S)
Secretary of Labor: Bill Haywood
2nd Congress[]
April 10, 1932-April 10, 1934
Membership[]
| Anarcho-Syndicalist | Communist | Socialist | Socialist Labor | Other/Unaffiliated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House of Government | 41 | 286 | 411 | 75 | 37 | 850 |
| House of Labor | 94 | 95 | 453 | 146 | 62 | 850 |
House of Government
House of Labor
Note: The Socialist Party, lacking a straight majority of seats in the House of Government, formed a coalition government with the Socialist Labor Party.
Gains/Losses:
Government: Communist +37, Anarcho-Syndicalist +14; Socialist -44, Socialist Labor -24
Labor: Anarcho-Syndicalist +38, Socialist Labor +11; Socialist -16, Communist -9
Leadership[]
General Secretary: Norman Thomas (S), until March 25, 1934 [Resigned- elected president]
Secretary of Government: Victor L. Berger (S)
Secretary of Labor:
Bill Haywood, until June 1, 1932 [Retired]
William Green, from September 5, 1932
3rd Congress[]
April 10, 1934-April 10, 1936
Membership[]
| Anarcho-Syndicalist | Communist | Socialist | Socialist Labor | Other/Unaffiliated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House of Government | 43 | 419 | 296 | 48 | 44 | 850 |
| House of Labor | 148 | 114 | 367 | 175 | 46 | 850 |
House of Government
House of Labor
Note: The Communist Party came 6 seats short of an outright majority in the House of Government, but managed to cobble together a majority coalition with members of several minor communist-aligned parties.
Gains/Losses:
Government: Communist +133, Anarcho-Syndicalist +2; Socialist -115, Socialist Labor -27
Labor: Anarcho-Syndicalist +54, Socialist Labor +29, Communist +19; Socialist -86
Leadership[]
General Secretary: Harry W. Laidler (S)
Secretary of Government:
Victor L. Berger (S), until April 20, 1934 [Defeated in election]
Earl Browder (C), from April 20, 1934
Secretary of Labor: William Green
4th Congress[]
April 10, 1936-April 10, 1938
Membership[]
| Anarcho-Syndicalist | Communist | Socialist | Socialist Labor | Other/Unaffiliated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House of Government | 61 | 533 | 193 | 32 | 31 | 850 |
| House of Labor | 150 | 278 | 288 | 89 | 45 | 850 |
House of Government
House of Labor
Gains/Losses:
Government: Communist +114, Anarcho-Syndicalist +18; Socialist -103, Socialist Labor -16
Labor: Communist +164, Anarcho-Syndicalist +2; Socialist Labor -86, Socialist -79
Leadership[]
General Secretary:
Harry W. Laidler (S), until May 5, 1936 [Defeated in election]
Earl Browder (C), until May 5, 1936
Secretary of Government:
Earl Browder (C), until May 5, 1936 [Elected General Secretary]
Caleb Harrison (C), from May 7, 1936
Secretary of Labor: William Green
5th Congress[]
April 10, 1938-November 2, 1939
Note: This congress was filled with much strife and instability due to extra-legal interference on the part of General Secretary/President Browder and his ruling Communist Party. In mid-1938, Browder used the military to disband the House of Labor indefinitely, declaring that the institution had been corrupted by pseudo-reactionaries who were conspiring to bring down the state. He subsequently declared all parties but the Communist and Socialist parties to be secret reactionary collaborators and thus guilty of treason under the USCA Constitution. These moves tightened his control over the state apparatus immensely and allowed for the drafting of a new constitution which reformed the Congress and made the country a one-party state, with the Socialist Party kept around as a clearly government controlled "opposition" in order to maintain the façade of democracy. This government continued to claim unbroken continuity with the old one, and so officially the 5th Congress was considered to extend into the new regime, being replaced by the 6th Congress on the regularly scheduled date of April 10, 1940. De facto, however, the Congress as it had been known was disbanded for good when the new constitution came into effect on November 2, 1939. The membership listed below represents the houses at the beginning of this congress.
Membership[]
| Anarcho-Syndicalist | Communist | Socialist | Socialist Labor | Other/Unaffiliated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House of Government | 48 | 561 | 198 | 15 | 28 | 850 |
| House of Labor | 149 | 267 | 334 | 64 | 36 | 850 |
House of Government
House of Labor
Gains/Losses:
Government: Communist +28, Socialist +5; Socialist Labor -17, Anarcho-Syndicalist -13
Labor: Socialist +46; Socialist Labor -25, Communist -11, Anarcho-Syndicalist -1
Leadership[]
General Secretary: Earl Browder (C)
Secretary of Government:
Caleb Harrison (C), until June 8, 1938 [Died]
Francis Waldron (C), from June 23, 1938
Secretary of Labor: William Green, until August 8, 1938 [House of Labor forcefully disbanded]
Under 1939 Constitution[]
Under the 1939 USCA Constitution, the structure of the Congress was greatly changed. The House of Labor was officially eliminated. The House of Government was essentially maintained, but it was simply called the Congress as it was now the only house of the institution. The office of General Secretary was separated from the Congress- while he could still preside over sessions (he could do essentially anything he wanted as a de facto dictator) and was still elected by a majority of Congress, the office was now mainly a separate executive position more closely resembling the old United States President. The election process was also changed so that the General Secretary was elected for four year terms, with no possibility of recall or replacement by the Congress during that time. The position of Secretary of Government was abolished in favor of the office of Speaker of the Congress, a much less powerful position with no direct input on the governance of the nation besides presiding over meetings of the Congress.
5th Congress (continuation)[]
November 2, 1939-April 10, 1940
Congress
Membership[]
| Communist | Socialist | Other Opposition/Unaffiliated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Congress | 880 | 100 | 20 | 1000 |
Leadership[]
General Secretary: Earl Browder (C)
Speaker of the Congress: Francis Waldron (C)
Lists[]
| No. | Name | Took Office | Left Office | Party |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Victor L. Berger | April 15, 1930 | April 20, 1934 | Socialist |
| 2 | Earl Browder | April 20, 1934 | May 5, 1936 | Communist |
| 3 | Caleb Harrison | May 7, 1936 | June 8, 1938 | Communist |
| 4 | Francis Waldron | June 23, 1938 | November 2, 1939 | Communist |
| No. | Name | Took Office | Left Office | Union/Alliance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bill Haywood | April 11, 1930 | June 1, 1932 | Industrial Workers of the World |
| 2 | William Green | September 5, 1932 | August 8, 1938 | American Federation of Labor |
| No. | Name | Took Office | Left Office | Party |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Francis Waldron | November 3, 1939 | (1940+) | Communist |
Control[]
| Congress | Party in Control |
|---|---|
| 1930-32 | Socialist |
| 1932-34 | Socialist (in coalition with Socialist Labor) |
| 1934-36 | Communist (in coalition with minor parties) |
| 1936-38 | Communist |
| 1938-39 | Communist |
| Congress | Party in Control |
|---|---|
| 1930-32 | Socialist |
| 1932-34 | Socialist |
| 1934-36 | Socialist/Anti-Communists |
| 1936-38 | Socialist/Anti-Communists |
| 1938 | Socialist/Anti-Communists |
| Congress | Party in Control |
|---|---|
| 1939-40 | Communist |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
