Published in full, because an organization that touches elections shouldn’t make you ask.
| Legal form | Washington nonprofit corporation; application for recognition as a federal 501(c)(3) charitable organization in progress. |
| Members | One class of voting members, age 16 and up. Members elect the board and amend the bylaws. Electronic voting permitted. Annual membership meeting each year. |
| Board | Five to seven directors, staggered two-year terms, elected by the members. At least one seat reserved for a member under 30. Meets at least quarterly; remote attendance permitted. |
| Officers | President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer. The Treasurer may not be the President. |
| Chapters | The board may charter state and local chapters by written agreement. Chapters adopt these bylaws, use the name under license, remit a dues share, and hold charters revocable for cause, with nonpartisanship violations named explicitly as cause. |
| Finance | Administration capped at 5% of annual revenue with a fixed $8,000 floor — the framework required by the bylaws, the figures set in board policy and disclosed to members. Two signers required above a set amount. Annual financial report to members. Accountable-plan expense reimbursement. |
| Amendments | Bylaws amended by member vote. The nonpartisanship article requires a supermajority. Robert’s Rules apply by default. |
Fifteen short articles, under ten pages. Complexity in bylaws is where small nonprofits go to die. Anything that changes often — dues schedules, event formats, committee charters, even the dollar figures in our spending cap — lives in board policy, which the board can amend by simple vote and must disclose to the membership. The bylaws hold only what should be hard to change.
Nonpartisanship is in the bylaws. Deliberately. Article I says no endorsements and no positions, ever, and it takes two-thirds of the entire membership to touch it. And as an organization seeking 501(c)(3) status, the promise no longer rests on our bylaws alone: never supporting or opposing a candidate is written into our Articles of Incorporation and is a binding condition of the federal tax status we are applying for. We didn’t just promise it. We made it the law we operate under.
To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Washington by seeing that every office they create is filled by the people's choice; to present every candidate to the public on equal terms; to teach our neighbors how their governments work and how to stand for office; to inculcate a sense of individual obligation to the community, county, state, and nation; to give young citizens real responsibility and the confidence to lead; to hold ourselves absolutely nonpartisan, endorsing no candidate and taking no position; and to keep faith with our members through open books and open doors — we associate ourselves together as the League of Constitutional Voters.
The League’s annual membership meeting is the Filing Week Summit, held the second Saturday of June in Mount Vernon, with electronic voting for every member and a seated delegate from every chartered chapter. Members elect directors, ratify the coming year’s dues, receive the financial report and the Contested Ballot Report, and hear the Preamble read. The Charter Leadership Academy meets the Friday before.
Directors serve staggered two-year terms, at most three consecutive; every director completes Basic Training within 90 days of election and signs the Article I acknowledgment and a conflict-of-interest disclosure each year. Any director who becomes a candidate takes a leave of absence until the election is certified.
Bylaws: two-thirds of votes cast, with the exact text sent to every member at least 20 days before the vote. Article I (Nonpartisanship): two-thirds of all members, 60 days’ notice.