ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how decision-making authority is distributed between the local governments that are members of the Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs). It also deals with whether the local governments allow or are mandated to include non-local government individuals on the board of the RIGO. The chapter presents a framework for understanding how RIGOs provide for membership and representational rights among their respective local governments. While the prior scholarship had coalesced around a simplistic perception of one-member, one-vote structures, the evidence presented shows a rich and complex body of strategies that balance institutional membership and population proportionality. Distributing or allocating voting rights between local governments on their decision-making board(s) is an important yet often misunderstood dimension of RIGOs. The research on how local governments in the United States share their decision-making authority is quite outdated, limited or normative. Membership is afforded to local governments in RIGO bylaws; however, representation is eventually authorized to people.
