Filling out my Writers Guild strike ballot the other day, I had a disturbing realization: I'm officially entitled to vote for both a writers and actors strike even though I'm neither a writer nor an actor. Why do skuzzy outsiders like me have so much clout?

The answer, of course, is that guilds and unions like the WGA, SAG and AFTRA traditionally have gained muscle by building as broad a membership as possible. You can become a proud member of SAG if you've worked as an extra for three days or had a speaking part in a commercial or video (provided they're SAG shows). Almost everyone I know seems to belong to SAG, along with practically every member of my family.

I like actors, mind you. That's why I believe that working actors, not all of us riff-raff, should be allowed to control their own guild.

I'm aware that the easiest way to start an argument in this town is to advocate "qualified voting." Though more than 1,000 working actors like Ben Affleck, Glenn Close, Charlie Sheen and Kevin Bacon recently signed a petition proposing that only working actors should have the vote, SAG also has many activists, including its president, Alan Rosenberg, who insist this position is somehow undemocratic. "I'm totally against the idea," he said. "It disenfranchises people who are already marginalized."

"Marginalized," in his lexicon, apparently means unemployed. A waiter who once did a commercial but hasn't worked since is therefore "marginalized." SAG has some 120,000 members, most of whom are definitely marginalized. But Rosenberg and his allies who control the guild's 71-member board believe that all members, whether they're working actors or not, should be able to call a strike.

Rosenberg himself is a working actor and he and his executive director, Doug Allen, who used to represent football players, clearly are ready for their closeup now that Patric Verrone has finally relinquished centerstage. They believe they can improve on the deals carved out by the writers and directors guilds.

The danger of their hardlining is that it could split their guild. Top stars like Tom Hanks and George Clooney have made it clear they're reading from a different script: The town has been shut down for a long time, and it's time to get to the bargaining table and make a deal, they declare. Studios are stalling important projects because they fear a possible SAG work stoppage.

Hence a number of influential SAG members believe that an actor should have to make at least $1,000 a year, or be fully vested in the SAG pension plan, to qualify for voting privileges on a strike. In other words, they're asking, "Why put the fate of the entertainment industry in the hands of people who have nothing to lose?"

This is an issue, I realize, that has reappeared in many forms and in many unions over the decades. A generation ago the newspaper industry in New York was essentially decimated due, in part, to the obstinacy of a guild supposedly representing reporters, when the reporters, in fact, constituted just a small minority of its membership.

Now that it's the actors' turn at the bargaining table, will the wannabe thesps be gracious enough to let their colleagues -- their working colleagues who make a living from acting -- determine the fate of their guild?

It's a delicious irony, in a sense: Those folks who have always yearned for the spotlight finally have it. How will they behave in the glow?