Yes, of course I can see how working in politics, of *any* country's political system, can give one a special insight (that's why I asked about Canada just now, even though I should have asked about the United Kingdom, instead) as well as your obviously having such an interest in the subject in the first place. On your side of the pond or ours. I understand. I was not trying to bring our respective experiences into light, in the wise of bragging about them like I did. It's just that after that remark about "low-level activism", I kind of got offended. I put a lot of effort into what I have done politically--just as you have I'm sure!---and being proud of myself and the accomplishments I have made it did not feel very good to have some of you assert the system was dysfunctional. I felt as if you were just short of saying "Geeze, Hacker, why do you bother to participate in it when it's such a sham?" Perhaps I *took* the remark the wrong way; if not, I still should have just ignored the precise wording, and taken it in stride, and heck, maybe you did not really intend it as an insult after all. And, even worse, if you were/are right about that & I did not listen, I'm obviously not the scholar I had thought I was. (Actually I am not, come to think of it, I am a college dropout and not a graduate. So at the end of the day I guess I really don't know $h*t compared to most politically active people, in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada or....wherever.)

I wasn't intending to belittle what you do. I've known plenty of young people who got involved in politics. One friend of mine from university, who I long since lost touch with unfortunately, is now an MP (I once shared a hotel room with her actually, but sadly we never slept together. But I digress.). I'm no longer involved in politics myself and can't see ever wanting to be again, but nevertheless I think it's great that you are. We need more bright young people who are willing to take an interest (although in truth I'd prefer to see them getting wider experience before getting elected to high office, but that's another issue...). 'Low-level activism' was simply a statement of fact. There's nothing wrong with what you do and all power to you for doing it, but what you do is right down near the bottom rung of the political ladder. As such it's not especially relevant to the bigger picture issues that I thought you wanted us to be talking about. I would have let it slide except that you first started us off talking about the Maryland electoral board only to then have a go at us for focusing on minutiae.

But anyway, I like you Hacker and I wasn't offended by what you said, just a little irritated by how obtuse you were being. It's all cool, most of the denizens here are far worse, and they certainly never apologise afterwards

After looking at the House of Lords website, I found it from the UK Parliament website, I am still a little lost as to the remaining utility of the House of Lords.

All legislation in the UK is originated in the Commons. It has an initial readin on the floor of the House and then passes into standing committee phase where it gets srcutines in more detail, with amendments proposed etc, before then having a 2nd reading. What survives from this is then passed to the Lords. The Lords has a very different purpose to the US Senate. Its function is as a chamber which provides more detailed scrutiny and proposes amendments which smooth off the rough edges of proposed legislation or highlights potential drawbacks which hadn't been spotted in the earlier stages of the process. Its powers are very limited relative to the lower house. The Lords can propose amendments to bills or in extremis they can reject them altogether. The latter power is seldom used and can be overruled by a vote in the Commons invoking the Parliament Act. In practice you seldom get the Lords rejecting a government bill but it does happen, and sometimes they can kill legislation in other ways by delaying its passage and causing it to run out of time to pass the Commons before the end of the session.

Composition of the Lords nowadays is primarily life peers appointed by the government of the day, who serve until death. There are also still a small number of the old hereditary peers but these will not be replaced by their sons when they snuff it, so in effect they're just life peers like the rest, kept on after the rest of the hereditaries were removed because they were old hands with a lot of useful experience. Now, the mechanism for selecting the Lords is a somewhat controversial subject, and every few years it rears its head with some kind of proposal for reforms, but it never really seems to go anywhere because ultimately there are no easy solutions which would necessarily improve things. It is of course open to corruption and cronyism. Selling peerages to rich supporters is a time-honoured tradition of all governments, though they'd all deny it, and so is the tradition of simply putting old MPs out to pasture in the Lords, often as way of buying them off by convincing them to vacate their safe seat to make way for some favoured young candidate from the party machine. Then there's also the obvious fact that it's not actually democratic. It's hard to get around the fact that a chamber that nobody voted for is lacking in legitimacy to some extent. Most of the people advocating Lords reform want directly elected peers. It's an attractive idea in many ways, but there are problems with it, which I'll come to.

So why don't we change ? Well, there are a number of factors here. While it's certainly true that a lot of peers are useless political appointees or rich donors who are mainly in it for the cachet, most are not really like that. My old professor, Philip Norton, was elevated to the Lords in the year I graduated. He's arguably the world authority on Parliamentary government and British constitutional practice. A useful man to have as part of your upper house, especially when constitutional issues are at stake. There are highly distinguished scientists in the Lords, leading businessmen, bishops, former government ministers with decades of experience in the great offices of state (not all of the ex MPs are time-serving hacks). What the Lords brings to the table is a wealth of experience across the broad range of issues that legislation is likely to cover. This enables them to give deep scrutiny to proposed bills and provides a really useful function in filtering out a lot of bad legislation that might otherwise get through the more fevered atmosphere of the Commons. If the Lords were to be directly elected it would fundamentally altar the character of the 2nd chamber. Many would argue that this is not before time, but it's certainly true that most of the enormous reservoir of experience that the current Lords possesses would be lost. It's probable that what we'd end up with is simply more of the same kind of career-minded politicians that we see in the Commons, with a greater degree of partisanship and a much more antagonistic relationship with the Commons.

The lack of democratic legitimacy is not necessarily a problem. It would be if the Lords was more powerful, but since ultimate power resides in the Commons, which is elected, then the lack of a specific mandate for the Lords is not quite the travesty that it might be. The peers are fully aware of their lack of legitimacy and know that they can only push it so far. This means that mostly they stick to their function and it works reasonably well. Elected peers would most likely be much more assertive. This may make the country more difficult to govern (although as an American you'd probably see this as a good thing).

JimHackerMP wrote:We learned in high school (a public one believe it not, not a private one, they had a western history class) that the Magna Carta required the King of England to summon a Great Council, and come to it, cap in hand, to ask their "permission" for tax increases. And that eventually it was called Parliament, and divided itself into a House of Lords and a House of Commons.

Why did its members divide into the two current "houses" of Parliament, back in the middle ages/that era?

Your history classes were a bit wrong, but close enough.

The concept and practice of Great Council (Magnum Concilium) predates Magna Carta, and it was one of two bodies that a King would call up (the other being the King's Court). Originally it consisted of the clergy, nobles and knights of the shires. The knights were 'common' and the others 'lords', but they all met together.

The growth of the influence of the Great Council came with Edward I, as part of his desire to unite England Wales and Scotland (and he only failed with the latter) - using the Council as a place where subjects and their representatives could air grievances directly to the Crown (and so be less prompted to rebel).

In 1295, towns ('boroughs') got to elect burgesses as well to the first 'Model' Parliament. The original Magna Carta had by then been overturned and a couple of different versions come and gone, but in 1297 a new version was agreed and this is the one that is still (in very small portions) in force. But even then it was more of an effect of reality than of the Carta itself that money for wars (the 1296 Scottish War in this case) was dependent on agreement with Parliament on their grievances.

By the 1340s the burgesses met with the knights and the clergy met with the nobility to form the two houses, although the naming of them as Lords and Commons was a Tudor innovation 200 years later (the individuals were described as 'lords' or 'commons' members before then).

And what is its enduring utility, that is still exists? There have been other countries which have abolished their upper house (New Zealand for example).

Also, I do promise not to argue with your answer, OK?

Basically it's a means to make radical change less likely. It has been fettered by the 1911 Parliament Act (in that it can't hold up legislation for more than a year if it has been put forward as a majority position at a general election - only a month for money bills).

They have a large minority who are not in a political party (as well as a couple of dozen bishops/archbishops, there are about 200 'cross-benchers' who are nominally independent), which means that no political power can have a majority alone. They also tend to revise legislation, and rarely initiate it (but that can still happen).

Over time they have lost a lot of their powers and responsibilities (the judicial function was separated out to a Supreme Court about 10 years ago, although several members of that are also Lords).

Basically, we would reform it further, but no-one can agree on exactly how to do it, and what the effect would be. It's less powerful largely because it is less democratic, so if it were made more democratic (and if it were elected on PR, that may arguably be more democratic than the Commons is), then it would seek more power, and cause a constitutional crisis, or at least a large shift.

On a recent ballot paper I voted on (the EU Parliamentary elections, which are contested by national or regional parties in each nation), there were 13 parties standing, all but one with multiple candidates (although these were on an already selected slate so we voted for a party as a whole). That was a kind of PR election, using D'Hondt (so the largest three parties got 1-3 seats of the 6 available).

In the UK for full Parliamentary elections, it is strictly FPTP (yes, that is most votes wins). In some seats 35% of the vote can be enough to win (if it is a 3/4-way marginal). Usually where there are a lot of candidates, the minor ones do not get many votes at all, and the main national or regional parties get the vast bulk of the vote between them.

In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the national assemblies are elected by some form of PR like system, and in Scotland and Northern Ireland local government is elected using STV. The London Assembly uses PR, but the rest of UK local government is first past the post, even in multi-member elections (the first 2 or 3 are elected, and parties will put up as many candidates as there are seats and they can muster up).

My dissertation was done on Lords reform. Back then I came up with what I naively thought was a completely novel idea, but of course it's been around for ages. It's still an interesting one though. The idea would be that rather than electing or appointing our lords, we select them at random from the electoral roll and have them serve in effect as some kind of grand 'people's jury'. This neatly gets around the problem of democratic legitimacy (in fact I suspect the electorate would love the idea) and also avoids the problem of having two elected chambers full of party politicians at odds with each other. It would also force the drafters of legislation to really make their case before a group of ordinary citizens.

It's a lovely idea, but almost certainly unworkable and likely to create a disastrous mess.

Yes, good start with the Magna Carta, Parliament, Glorious Revolution, prime minister, cabinet, etc. We'll take it from here...

It was like leaving the kids with the keys to the Ferrari...

Well, it was a wild ride while it lasted...where is my Chinese workbook...

OK long post, hope I can cover enough ground here:

Wow, that's a lot of information! Thanks! I'll be spending a while digesting this. It's easier for me to ask someone, especially online, than look the whole thing up in a book. It's hard enough for me to read stuff all at once, and I tend to take a while to read a book anyway.

And it's all cool. Yeah I guess we can all get our dander up. I mean, hell, it's important stuff, I suppose that's when arguments get the most heated, when important issues are at stake. Maybe I did not appreciate that you were speaking out of concern for the U.S. or thought of it at the time. At least thank you for being understanding about it, and for showing enough concern to have put it out there. And very glad to hear you say that Sassenach, means a lot to me.

And I have thought about what you were saying, or trying to convince me of, before. I do realize there's stuff in the system that's corrupt, really, but my reaction was more like, well, we've solved way worse problems than this before (civil war, slavery, legal racism [not all of it], er, well heck I could list a lot of big problems if I sat down & made a list). Why are some of the details, as critical as they may be, unsolveable even under the current system? So I think I agree with what you are saying in principle, I really did try to listen, but if your core message went past me, it was probably out of a fit of optimism. But in politics, optimism sometimes disappoints.

What *does* worry me is the gerrymandering however, as I pointed out. In MD, as in many or most likely most states, it is done by a very carefully and corruptly crafted constitutional process between the Governor and the State Legislature. It can actually be taken to court in Maryland. But that usually does not help. At the end of things, the most recent revision of the legislative and congressional districts in our state was challenged via petition by a lot of conservative republicans (the whole idea behind Gov. O'Malley's redistricting plan was to gerrymander out as many Republicans--as well as Democrats he does not like--as possible). Once the petition to challenge the redistricting plan received enough signatures and was submitted, it got put on the next election's ballot as a question (vote YES/NO). And the voters, who often have no clue what's really good for them (hate to say that, not very optimistic, no?) did not reject O'Malley's plan so it became officially in place. I was pretty annoyed. The ratio of Democrats to Republicans in both chambers is like 70% to 30%....enough to override every single veto of any Republican who through some fluke gets elected Governor. Our last republican governor couldn't do anything he wanted to get done, or stop the General Assembly from doing anything it really wanted to do. So there is clearly some stuff that you pointed out that yeah, has to be worked on.

I cannot (for reasons I'll get into some other time) get directly involved in politics. As far as my only attempt to do so, at the tender age of 20 (now 35), in a non-partisan primary (isn't that a stupid concept?) I always think that if I knew then what I know now---or had reaaaaaaly thought of it carefully before signing the papers and paying the $15 filing fee at the county Board of elections---I would have just supported someone running, rather than run myself. If I had won by some strange freak of electoral miracle, OMG that would have been scary. But rest assured, I simultaneously knew (like Orwell's concept of "doublethink") I wasn't going to be voted for by too many people because I was 20 and now want to get elected to an important local board that not only spends the biggest chunk of state and local money.

Now, high school history classes, Danivon, had a way of oversimplifying certain things. Not everything; but if you are covering a period from Greece/Rome until the present, or at least until the Renaissance at the shortest, things have got to be...oversimplified a bit.

As far as the independence of the local and state boards of elections, here, my guess as to why it is not actually NON-partisan, is because the intent seems to have been to make the thing balanced, if not actually run by board members with no affiliation whatsoever. My guess is that if they ever tried to do precisely that, they would have a difficult time finding employees, or board members. So [this is just an assumption] perhaps the People do not care if they're not partisan as long as no party actually has a numerical advantage on these boards, and those who carry out the board's policies are hired civil servants.

Ricky: not to get off topic but yes, I do realize the electoral college is actually a rather complicated concept. And arcane indeed. That's probably why we like to keep the whole rest of the system...well...as simple as it can get. To my knowledge, no state's ballot in a presidential election ever shows the names of the electors anymore; just the names of the pairs of candidates for Prez & VP. Now, as for your example of the Nixon elector in 1968 voting for George Wallace: Congress did not throw out the vote because North Carolina did not, at the time, have any laws actually binding its electors to their pledges. But they sure as hell do now! And so do a boatload of other states (but still only about half I understand). Though usually, no one goes that far, and I would at least hope that the political parties are careful in scrutinizing who gets put on their slates. If an elector in a state which does have laws binding its electors votes for someone they are not supposed to---I've heard of civil or even criminal charges are allowed to be filed against what we call "faithless electors"--Congress would have the legal authority to declare that particular vote "not regularly cast" or "not regularly given" or whatever the correct term is. Some states even have pre-printed ballots (almost makes you wonder why they do not just design robots to do it in those states?) and the electors need only to sign them and drop them in the symbolic wooden ballot box for the Governor, or President of the State Senate, or whoever is presiding at the ceremony in which the electors cast their votes for Pres & VP. And there's an image on Encyclopedia Britannica Online showing the "certificate of electoral vote" (see article II, Sec. 1 and Amendment XII) for the State of Alabama. The electors still have to sign their names on the dotted lines, and the Governor still has to write in the number "9", but next to that space it already says "George W. Bush......" and "Richard Cheney......". Pre printed, so no electors try any shenanigans, so I assume AL is one of the states in which electors are legally bound. In 2000, a DC elector deliberately cast a blank ballot. She said she did it to bring attention to DC's lack of representation in Congress. But whoever was in charge (the Mayor of Washington DC I'm guessing?) as well as Congress, counted it as a legal vote for Al Gore for President and Joseph Lieberman for Vice-President, because she still signed her name at the bottom of her ballot. And then, in 2004, some a'hole "reversed" his ballot: deliberately voted for John Edwards for President and John Kerry for Vice President instead of the other way around. Always some idiot like that but it truthfully does not happen very often.

An awesome book to read, which is fiction--but it contains a lot of fact--"The People's Choice" by Jeff Greenfield. A Republican presidential candidate dies three days after the election. His running mate is a man most Americans would not trust to program their VCR, as the author puts it. A very serious situation ensues involving the electors. But it's also a comedy and a really fast read.

Still reading the replies on the House of Lords, Magna Carta, etc...wow thanks guys.

That will keep me from typing any more for now....

On the subject of Magna Carta, to some extent it's largely a myth:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/domin ... gna-farta/

ROFL. Did Oliver Cromwell really call it that or is that just a joke by the writers of The Telegraph?

Sorry to hear you didn't get it with your lady friend, who became an MP.

BTW: I'm wondering about how many constituents does each MP represent in the UK, and in Canada [if someone is aware]?

The U.S. Constitution mandates: no greater than 1 representative for every 30,000 people. But in 1910 they fixed the size of the House to keep it from getting too big; it's now fixed at 435 members. Had we kept the original scheme, the 113th Congress would include 100 senators and 10,291 representatives. (!!!!)

I daresay we'd have to redesign the chamber, and it would look something like this [Speaker Boehner included]:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo4cFViNLes

There are approximately 650 MPs. The average number of voters per constituency (as opposed to number of citizens) is about 80000, although there is a fair bit of variance. In fact, Labour is estimated to have about a 3 or 4% in-built advantage because of the way that their vote is concentrated in urban areas where there are less voters per seat.

Did Oliver Cromwell really call it that or is that just a joke by the writers of The Telegraph?

The writer is a historian. He just does occasional in-depth history pieces. I'd be very surprised if that was just a joke, his other articles have all been serious and well-researched. His article about Richard the Lionheart was fascinating too. Apparently Richard was gay, and he visited England on only two occasions in his entire life, one of which was to be crowned.

Wow. Not a very attentive King. I hope he left someone worthy in charge whilst he was away. Oh right, that was John I right? Of Robin Hood fame?

I wanted to ask you Ricky how decentralized is the Canadian federal government, vis a vis those of the ten provinces?

I ask, because I read in Luttwak's book on the coup d'etat that the Canadian government had been become over the years more decentralized; versus Washington, which has become more powerful at the expense of the states, over the years. He said that a coup d'etat carried in Washington in say, 1800, would seize merely an empty symbol. But, thanks to the gradual growth in presidential authority in the 19th century, a coup seizing control of Washington in 1900, instead, would have led to control over much of the country.

I think he is correct about the United States (he says that one of the "pre conditions" for a coup is that you must be pulling off the coup in the actual power center, where it can in truth be seized.) Truly "federal" states (early United States) cannot be seized very easily; even AFTER the new constitution created a unified republic there were still thirteen distinct power-centers, on par, together, with the one in Washington. (Which itself was a handful of buildings meaning nothing except to the People who actually lived there...who were damned few in number).

This Wikipedia article appears to give a more balanced picture. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
Not saying that the blogger said anything that was incorrect but you know how lawyers can get in only arguing on one side of things...
(As an aside, the Robin Hood film, wow, as far as presenting alternative history--that bothered me)

hacker

Canadian government had been become over the years more decentralized

Well I'll give an expert opinion, based on the theory that an expert is someone who knows just a little bit mroe about something than I do...

Canada is a confederation and the Provinces have always had clear areas of constituional authority that the federal government is supposed to encroch upon. Education (not-postsecondary), resource management etc.
However, there has ever been a dynamic tension between Ottawa and the Provinces. It doesn't seem to maater if the Provincial government is the same strip as the governing federal party, the tension and the competition over policies and spending seems permanent.
A recent ruling by the Supreme Court means that our indigenous people have gained an amount of power in resource management as well.
An important issue that demonstrates all this is the battle for the apporval of an oil pipeline from the alberta oil sands to the Pacific north west port of Kitimat. The Federal and Alberta Governments pushing for it, the BC government not willing to permit it unless 8 conditions (mostly over a share of royalties as an ongoing fee) are met. And the Native Bands generally oppossing the plan as too ecologically dangerous. Right now it seems to be a stalmate especailly as the people in BC seem to be siding with the aboriginals.

sass

because of the way that their vote is concentrated in urban areas where there are less voters per seat.

In Canada the rural areas tend to hae lower populations per riding, shortchanging the urban ridings.

Sassenach wrote:There are approximately 650 MPs. The average number of voters per constituency (as opposed to number of citizens) is about 80000, although there is a fair bit of variance. In fact, Labour is estimated to have about a 3 or 4% in-built advantage because of the way that their vote is concentrated in urban areas where there are less voters per seat.

Until now, the size of UK constituencies has been based on the population, not the number of voters. The law has changed so it would be based on voters in future boundary reviews (and in the cancelled review of 2011-12).

There is not that much variance in the populations of constituencies. The main anomalies are that Northern Ireland, Wales (and to a lesser degree, Scotland) are over-represented. Even so, England with about 87% of the population has about 85% of the seats. The other is that there are a few very small seats in the Scottish Islands, and that the Isle of Wight is one large seat.

Over time, there has been migration from inner cities to suburbs, and a regular boundary review would catch these. But on top of that, voters for different parties are distributed differently and have different turn-out rates. In Labour strong seats, the turnout is lower. The Conservatives get high turnouts in their safe seats, and also get large minorities of votes elsewhere.

Some of this could be sorted out with another boundary review, but some of it won't - it's just a pattern of how supporters of parties vote (and is not really related to how those parties act).

Labour can form a majority with as little as 35% of the vote by most projections. The Tories need closer to 40%. That's a major disadvantage.