Eli Merchant is a parliamentarian, accredited with the National Association of Parliamentarians and American Institute of Parliamentarians. He lives in New York City, and has a Ph.D. from New York University. He has written a number of articles for parliamentary journals on a diversity of parliamentary subjects. While there is a wide divergence between the Congress and the average organization, the basic premises of parliamentary practice upon which they operate remain the same, Robert the author of Rules of Order having in fact modeled his manual on that used by Congress.