The parliament of Papua New Guinea voted in late November to extend to 30 months, from the current 18, the “grace period” following the installation of a government during which no-confidence motions are not permitted (see The Australian).
Note that the term of the PNG parliament is five years. If this measure is confirmed in a final vote set for 5 February, it would mean for fully half the term of parliament, there would be no effective responsibility of the government to parliament.
Most (all?) classifications of the world’s political systems–including some published under my own name–have PNG among the parliamentary democracies. However, calling this system parliamentary is becoming increasingly inaccurate.
Shugart and Carey (1992) refer to a hybrid type in which the assembly selects the executive, which then is not subject to confidence, as “Assembly-Independent”. PNG is trending that way, though not completely, as there will remain periods in which parliament may engage the responsibility of the government.
(I recall that there also exists a period leading up to an election in which no-confidence moves are not allowed.)
There is a period of 12 months before the next election date when every vote of no confidence is destructive. Until the 12 month rule kicks in, every VNC must be constructive. The grace period for a new government seems to operate whether it is during the constructive or destructive VNC periods.
I suspect, sadly enough, this is part of a broader Pacific trend where constitutional amendments and prorogations are being used to subvert parliamentary supremacy.
Seed planted by Alan — 26 December 2012 @ 19:19
Is the US Cabinet considered an “Assembly-Independent” system, as the members of the cabinet need confirmation by the Senate, or does Assembly-Independent refer only to (at least nominally) parliamentary systems?
Seed planted by Chris — 26 December 2012 @ 19:31
The US Senate has no role in selecting the head of the executive branch, which rules out the US as assembly-independent.
If the contingent procedure were ever used to pick a president, then we might have basis for a conversation…
Seed planted by MSS — 26 December 2012 @ 21:28
Why would Papua New Guinea would implement such a strange form of parliamentary democracy? A government formed from the assembly, but can’t be dismissed until the current 18, and now after 30 months in power.
Would a constructive vote of no confidence be better than the government must last a minimum term with in parliament?
Does the country have the possibility of early
elections? If it does, then this would mean a government would just simply call elections if it could not get it’s agenda passed through parliament.
Does Papua New Guinea have the problem of having elections every 5 years as the problem and perhaps the term of parliament should be shorten to 3 years as that would preclude the need for snap elections as most governments would try to survive a full term, and abolish any minimum that a prime minister is immune from votes of confidence. This seems like a disaster, a government not accountable to parliament, perhaps a minimum of 10% of parliamentarians could be required to initiate votes of confidence.
Seed planted by Suaprazzodi — 26 December 2012 @ 23:28
So perhaps then the Ford Presidency could be considered a minor deviance into Assembly-Independent governance?
Seed planted by Chris — 27 December 2012 @ 03:56
The grace period was originally 6 months, which was not unreasonable as a stability measure. Moving to 30 months goes way beyond anything that can be called reasonable.
When the duelling prime ministers crisis came to an end there was a general undertaking that there would be less constitutional gambling. Sad this idea didn’t fall under that promise.
Seed planted by Alan — 27 December 2012 @ 04:47
I would say it does not shade over into assembly independent governance at all, Chris. Ford was not elected by congress. He was nominated by the sitting elected president and confirmed by congress as VP, then subsequently became president under the succession provisions. His selection as VP could have been vetoed, but then Nixon would have offered up another candidate. Shugart and Carey (1992) have an extensive discussion of why confirmation by the legislature is fundamentally different from initiation and appointment by it.
There is no mechanism in the US whereby congress can initiate the choice of head of the executive. Even under the contingent procedure, in the event the electoral college lacks a majority, the range of candidates has been set by the preceding competition for electoral votes.
Had the Democratic congress in 1974 insisted on a Democratic president, or a coalition cabinet, then I would be willing to say this case was an assembly-independent-leaning interregnum. It would then have been similar to Bolivia in the 1980s and 1990s, whereby congress exercised discretion among the candidates for president when none had won a majority of the popular vote. (Obviously, as in the USA, the range of candidates had been set already by a popular contest; again, Shugart and Carey have an extensive discussion of this.) In several cases, the Bolivian assembly elected the second or even third-most popular candidate, and did so as part of multi-party coalitions, which involved partners receiving portfolios and policy concessions. This is the essence of assembly-independent government: coalitions created in the legislature to choose an executive that then is not subject to confidence.
Bolivia and now Papua New Guinea both shade over in that direction, albeit from different directions (the former from presidential, the latter for parliamentary).
Good questions!
Seed planted by MSS — 27 December 2012 @ 15:55
The 18th century framers seriously did consider having the President elected by Congress. That would have been an “assembly independent” system. The provision for Congress choosing among the top three finishers if there is no Electoral College majority is a vestige of those early deliberations.
Seed planted by Ed — 27 December 2012 @ 16:27
Yes, Ed, that is absolutely true.
This, by the way, is an important sub-theme of my next book! (More on that to come.) It is also something discussed in the Mission Statement since the blog’s early days (see link near the top of the left sidebar).
Seed planted by MSS — 27 December 2012 @ 16:48
From what I’ve read, then, it seems that an assembly-independent system was the intention of the Framers (up to the passage of the 12th amendment, that is).
Madison’s journal of the Constitutional Convention indicated that he didn’t think any candidate would ever get a majority in the electoral college, and that it would serve as more of a nominating body for the House to choose the executive. The original rationale for having each elector choose two candidates, one not from his own state, was that they assumed that each elector would vote for a favorite son with one vote, and that if each elector had only one vote, it would mean Congress was choosing between only the favorite sons from the three largest states.
Of course, everything seems to indicate that the Founders believed that politics would be non-partisan when they were writing the Constitution, then promptly went out and formed factions in favor of and against the Constitution; this factionalism essentially prevented the US from becoming an assembly-independent system as it appears it was original intended.
Seed planted by Chris — 28 December 2012 @ 01:48
I believe many state governors were elected by the legislature when the US constitution was written and popular election was restricted to New York. That would tend to confirm Chris’ theory.
Seed planted by Alan — 28 December 2012 @ 03:23
As it happens I have the Larson and Winship edition of Madison’s notes with me, and I reading them slowly.
It does seem that the intention from the start was that the President would be independent of the national legislature, and there were some objections on those lines to the idea of just having Congress select him.
It is true that there was a big blindspot in not anticipating organized political parties, as political blocks of some sort had already been organizing and contending in the colonial assemblies.
However, the 18th century in general was a historical low point for popular participation in government, or even for constitutional forms such as hereditary monarchies. The only contemporary examples of small “r” republican government the framers had to work with Poland, Venice, Switzerland, and very much on paper but not in reality the Netherlands. None of these for various reasons provided good models for choosing the executive. There was also the Electoral College that selected the Holy Roman Emperor.
Representative institutions, where they were functioning, were not very representatives, and the leading example, the British Parliament, was also an example the framers were trying to avoid emulating.
There doesn’t seem to have been any enthusiasm for popular election of the executive, and this would include the ersatz version of popular election that evolved in the U.S. But the first of these dates to 1828, by which time most of the framers (but not Madison) were dead.
Seed planted by Ed — 28 December 2012 @ 03:32
Poland was a monarchy, although the crown was elective. Some states of the Holy Roman Empire were oligarchic republics like the cities in the United Provinces.
Seed planted by Alan — 28 December 2012 @ 04:38
We can score assembly-independence by three variables:
(a) how long (as a percentage of the assembly’s term) does it have to “put up with” a cabinet/ H.Gov who has lost the majority’s support?
(b) how wide is its choice of nominees? Widest would be “any citizen”, ie the Swiss Federal Assembly. Narrower might be “any MP” (Irish Dail? South African Assembly?). “The three candidates with the most Electoral Votes” is quite narrow (being reduced from the top five in 1808), and “the two with the most popular votes” (Chile pre 1973) is narrower still – a fortiori if constitutional convention overlaying the formal law is “Congress must choose the candidate with the most popular votes unless satisfied that s/he is a Marxist who is likely to overthrow the Constitution”.
US confirmations (Cabinet by Senate, new VP by both Houses) are also narrow in this regard since only the President can initiate a nomination. Congress still has strong influence – vide the Fortases, Haynsworths and Borks – but it would probably be viewed as improper for a Rep or Senator to actually put forward names to the President. (Alastair Cooke writes somewhere that the Democrats in 1974 warned Ford not to nominate a Vice-President who might later run for President, since this would give a never-elected incumbent an unfair advantage in the GOP primary and the general. Hence Nelson Rockefeller, who had once been considered presidential material in the 1960s but was “unelectable” in the 1970s because he’d gotten divorced and remarried…)
(c) What quota and or quorum of votes the legislature needs to approve the H.State’s nominee or elect its own. A simple plurality (after exhaustive balloting has failed to elect anyone with 50%) is easiest, eg South African President and ACT Chief Minister. Approval (or election) by 50% of MPs voting up or down, or by an absolute majority, is slightly harder (eg, Ireland, and Queensland Parliament when electing a replacement Senator to fill a casual vacancy). Hardest of all would be a super-majority, especially if the threshold doesn’t reduce after days of balloting.
Cross-cutting this is a different axis of “formal legal rules” vs “effective constitutional practices”. The UK or Canadian Commons or Aust or NZ Reps can, in theory, only vote out a PM once a year, by rejecting Supply; but in practice, if tonight a majority of ALP parliamentarians were to present a letter to the Governor-General saying that they have replaced Julia Gillard as their leader with Bill Shorten, I would bet money (following the Qld December 1987 precedent) that Ms Bryce would immediately ask Gillard to resign, and commission Shorten. This may actually be quicker than a system where a specified percentage of MPs have a legal right to petition for the House to be convened to debate a motion of no confidence.
Likewise, the Norwegian Parliament, like the US Senate, is not subject to dissolution and can only vote yea or nay to Cabinet nominees proposed by the Head of State. But it would be seen as grossly improper for the Norwegian King to persistently nominate a conservative PM if Labour and the Left had a majority in the Storting. Whereas the US President is seen as perfectly entitled to repeatedly propose nominees from his own ideological side, and see how many of them get through, even if the opposition party has a majority in the Senate.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 29 December 2012 @ 03:04
Tom
I know we have been here before but I continue to insist there is no norm (as you seem to be saying) that Westminster cabinets are only responsible to the parliament in terms of supply.
Seed planted by Alan — 29 December 2012 @ 06:47
Legally, Alan, in terms of explicit constitutional provisions. There is nothing in the Aust Const that says “Cabinet nominees must be confirmed by X house of the legislature” or “the prime minister is elected by the lower house” or even the India/ Caribbean/ Malta compromise of “The Prez/ GG shall appoint the MP s/he considers best able to command the support of the lower house.” As commentators like Donald Horne and Gareth Evans have noted, on paper the GG has the legal powers of an Ottoman sultan.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 29 December 2012 @ 22:55
Actually no. Ottoman sultans who misbehaved were deposed with alarming, and invariably terminal, frequency.
But ‘norm’ is not about law. The Westminster norms are usually not part of any written law but they are followed all the same.
So, what is your authority for a once a year norm of responsible government?
Seed planted by Alan — 30 December 2012 @ 06:10
French executives at local government level seem to be assembly-independent, in that they cannot be removed from office by a vote of the municipal council once elected by that council (a new mayor may be elected if the incumbent has died or resigned, or they have died, or been rendered ineligible for office by criminal conviction or assuming an office incompatible with that of mayor, e.g. president of general council or a region)
However a certain number of councillors can force an early election by resigning, and a hostile majority refusing to accept any of the mayor’s recommendations usually leads to the latter’s resignation in any case.
Seed planted by DC — 31 December 2012 @ 10:55
Until recently, New Jersey alone among the states did not provide for a Lieutenant Governor. In the event of a vacancy in the Governor’s office, the President of the State Senate would serve as acting governor, without standing down from his legislative role.
This created the potential of an “assembly independent” situation where if the elected Governor died or resigned, the State Senate would effectively have chosen his or her successor. As it happened, in the late 1990s and the 2000s, for various reasons there was a number of vacancies in the Governor’s office, to the point where Richard Codey, the State Senate president, pinch hit enough to compile a length of service as acting Governor equivalent to a normal gubernatorial term, and eventually was allowed to drop the “acting” part from his title. Though the experiment worked fairly well, New Jersey then aligned its succession provisions with those of the other 49 states.
Seed planted by Ed — 31 December 2012 @ 16:31
Alan, in this context I am talking about “law” in the sense of the subset of norms that can be written into a constitution. “Political actors shall behave decently, with propriety and a sense of reciprocity and fair play” is a very good norm but it is not one that can be given any discernible effect by writing it into a Constitution. “The Senate shall have a term of 7 years unless sooner dissolved by the Executive Cabinet”, by contrast, is.
No Australian court will hear a complaint that the Governor [General] commissioned the “wrong” party leader to form a minority govt. They will, however, issue an order invalidating an Order in Council attempting to spend moneys not appropriated by Act of Parliament, or invalidating such an Act if it originated in the Senate rather than the House, or invalidating an administrative decision purportedly made by a Minister who has not been an MHR or Senator at any time within the preceding four of five months.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 31 December 2012 @ 22:56
Tom
I repeat, what is the authority for this doctrine? Evatt? Hasluck? Dicey? Bagehot? Clark? Quick and Garran? Someone, somewhere must have said that the government is only responsible to the parliament once a year?
Seed planted by Alan — 01 January 2013 @ 03:32
Alan, politically responsible 24/7/365 because Ministers are legally responsible when supply comes up for renewal. Likewise Senators, who enjoy six-year terms, take the trouble to attend party branch meetings in between elections, because down the track it is the party members (or at least their delegates) who can move that Senator up or down (or off) the party ticket, under the Electoral Act. In neither case do political actors ignore or spurn the people who can legally remove them from office at some future time, even if that time is some way in the future.
Someone – Vernon Bogdanor, I think – explains this at length in relation to the UK: That legally, only the Queen can dismiss a Prime Minister. Not the Commons, not the majority party’s caucus. I am in no way saying that non-legal norms are inferior or unimportant – only that they are not the sort of norms that judges will enforce via writs of mandamus, or declarations, or orders for damages, etc. “Don’t drive 61 km/h in a 60 zone” is a legally enforceable legal rule. “Don’t abandon your aged parents to starve” is not (in Australia and the US, unlike Singapore) a legal rule. Even though most of us would agree that the latter is more important to society.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 01 January 2013 @ 08:19
For the third time, what is the authority for proposition that ministers are only responsible to the parliament in terms of supply?
In Queensland in 1987, which you mention, the governor did the precise opposite of what you claim.
The premier asked for a reconstruction of the government. The governor answered that those changes should be discussed in cabinet and in the parliament before he could agree to them. There was no mention of supply, no you can keep going while the money lasts.
The governor was also extremely specific that he could not dismiss a premier against his will except after a parliamentary vote, although fascinatingly the palace disagreed with him.
In the vast majority of cases where a premier loses the confidence of the parliament they resign or seek an election. Anything else, even to as extreme a figure as Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, is politically untenable.
Seed planted by Alan — 01 January 2013 @ 09:44
It seems to me that “politically untenable” is quite a bit different from being contrary to law. Or norms.
I’m fascinating by this discussion Tom and Alan are having, even if I can’t–so to speak–adjudicate it in any way.
Ed: that information on New Jersey is very interesting.
Seed planted by MSS — 01 January 2013 @ 15:56
Alan and I have stated our positions so I’ll turn to the more on-topic NJ subthread. Did that rule mean that the State Senate could – by replacing its presiding officer – also remove and replace the Acting Governor? Or was it more like the consensus interpretation of the federal presidential succession Act – that the House Speaker, on becoming Acting President, automatically vacates her House seat but then can’t be removed as AP by the HoR (other than by it electing a new incumbent President via the “majority of State delegations” procedure? Otherwise, if “the Speaker” meant “from time to time” rather then “whomever is in the chair the moment the presidency and vice-presidency are both vacant,” you’d have either a violation of the separation of powers clause OR an absurdity (HoR elects AB as Speaker; President vacates; AB becomes Acting President and thereby vacates Speaker; HoR elects EF as new Speaker; EF immediately replaces AB as Acting President – and vacates Speaker; and so in, in a loop).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 02 January 2013 @ 00:31
Johannes Bjelke-Petersen was not a moderate political figure. In the course of a long and undistinguished career he declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties for the 1971 South African Springbok tour, he replaced a dead Labor senator with a Coalition patsy and helped precipitate the 1975 constitutional crisis, attempted to re-appoint a state governor who had endorsed the Coalition in the 1975 federal election (the palace declined his advice), attempted to have Elizabeth II declared (both infelicitously and unconstitutionally) to be Queen of Queensland, banned all street demonstrations of any kind, and repeatedly endorsed the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Amusingly enough it was Joh who amended the Queensland constitution after 1975 to entrench the office of governor and the governor’s capacity to act independently in a constitutional crisis. In 1987 he found himself hoist on his own constitutional petard.
The Bjelke-Petersen definition of politically untenable is perhaps a tad narrower than it is for most of us, but when the time came he resigned. Admittedly there was a certain amount of bluster before he did.
Admittedly Joh did argue to the governor at one point that he could continue as premier without parliamentary support until supply (the funds voted by the parliament to carry on the government) ran out.In other words he put to the governor, and had rejected, the precise position that Tom advances.
Seed planted by Alan — 02 January 2013 @ 05:42
@Tom w/ regards to 25,
I’m not 100% certain as to the NJ situation, but as far as I’m aware, in most state legislatures, as well as the federal House of Reps, presiding officers are elected for two-year terms and cannot simply be replaced by a majority vote. If John Boehner were to lose the confidence of the majority of Reps after tomorrow’s vote, for instance (something not outside the realm of possibility), or even if mass resignations/special elections resulted in a loss of majority, the presiding officer would continue for the remainder of that particular two-year Congress/Legislature.
Indeed, while not the case in New Jersey, in most states the presiding officer of the state upper house is directly elected by the people and would preside over the chamber even if he had the support of absolutely none of the members (though most have rules allowing members to change the rules with two-thirds votes, so as to eliminate the powers the presiding officer has other than those directly granted by the state Constitution). This is also the case for the VPOTUS, who could, if he wished, preside over every single session of the Senate without the Senate being able to stop him (though they could remove most of the chair’s powers).
Seed planted by Chris — 02 January 2013 @ 18:00
Also, Tom, the Acting Governor did not give up his seat in the Senate to serve as governor, so it was an entirely different situation to that of the federal Presidential Succession Act.
Seed planted by Chris — 02 January 2013 @ 18:29
This departs further from the thread, but there is a little noticed anomaly with the Presidential Succession Act.
Article 2, Section 2, Clause 6 of the Constitution states:
“In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”
It was unclear whether the Vice President became President upon a vacancy in the office or President, or only acted as President. The idea that the Vice President became President was established by the precedence of John Tyler’s successfully drawing the president’s salary in 1841, and then more definitively by the 25th Amendment.
However, it seems clear from the rest of the clause that the other officers that federal legislation puts into the line of succession are only to act as President. And neither Tyler’s precent or the 25th Amendment really covers this instance.
The Presidential Succession Act is quite clear that if the Speaker of the House fills a vacancy in the office of the president, that person becomes President, resigns from the Speakership and Congress, etc. But this seems to contradict the plain language of the part of the Constitution enabling Congress to legislate in this matter.
According to the 25th Amendment, a Speaker of the House or President Pro Tempore of the Senate, in a circumstance where the Presidential Succession Act had to apply but if they were only acting as President, could nominate a new Vice President, who then would become President upon approval from both houses of Congress!
This would also happen to allay most of the concerns usually raised about the Presidential Succession Act, regarding the appropriateness of legislators becoming President directly from the legislature, by a means other than the presidential election process.
Seed planted by Ed — 02 January 2013 @ 21:26
I suppose it would be unkind to mutter anything about how to draft a constitution. So I won’t.
It doesn’t seem to me there is any case at all for a member of the opposition party to become president by succession, ever. If the presidency and vice-presidency both fell vacant tomorrow it’s hard to see how a Boehner administration could function legitimately. Ditto a Pelosi administration between 2006 and 2008.
The legislative offices further down the list, like the president pro tempore of the Senate, are even less persuasive.
Seed planted by Alan — 03 January 2013 @ 00:07
Alan, I agree completely. A modern presidential democracy would establish a “failsafe” mechanism of holding early elections, unless the vacancy came very late in the original term.
So, yes, “mutter” on (though we are indeed pretty far from PNG and “grace periods” now).
Seed planted by MSS — 03 January 2013 @ 18:23
Really I am muttering about language and drafting rather than the actual provisions. It seems to me the citizen should be able to read a constitution with a reasonable chance of understanding what it means. Nineteenth century constitutions like Australia and Canada do not reach that happy standard, specially with the quaint habit of leaving out the prime minister and the concept of responsible government.
However, as various comments upthread show, if the presidential succession provisions ever had a plain meaning (which I doubt) it is obviously long since gone. Is the speaker an ‘officer’ for the purpose of succession? Is the succession permanent or only until there can be an election? What actually happens during the seconds when the speaker is no longer speaker but not yet acting president?
There are some problems with the substance of the South African constitution, the authoritarian relationship between parties and MPs, the lack of a time limit on votes of no confidence which enabled the ANC to argue simultaneously that a national censure oft he President was a stunt that should not get parliamentary time but that the ANC censure against the opposition premier of the Western Cape was an urgent matter that must be debated immediately.
However if you read the South African succession provisions you know what they mean:
Admittedly its a bit simpler to provide for a parliamentary presidency rather than a popular presidency.
The thing is the original US constitution was an exercise in modernity, It was meant to understandable and largely succeeded by the standards of the eighteenth century. But drafting has moved on in the last two centuries.
Seed planted by Alan — 03 January 2013 @ 21:29
Akhil Amar here http://tinyurl.com/7xvhqyf
Matt Yglesias here http://tinyurl.com/czl7f8z
Round’s two cents here http://tinyurl.com/au7rnxz
Seed planted by Tom Round — 04 January 2013 @ 00:20
Way, way off topic, but more on the debate about debating a motion of no confidence in South Africa.
Seed planted by Alan — 04 January 2013 @ 02:23
In most Westminster countries, the selection of the Prime Minister is by the Chief of State, and in their best judgement on who they think would be best to form a government, not necessarily the largest party in the assembly, may be the second largest party, but usually whoever is best able to form the government. The government need not to have it’s support confirm once the PM is sworn in, it is just implicit unless the opposition is opposed, and wins a vote of no-confidence. This is negative parliamentarism. This system of government serves the Anglosphere countries except the U.S very well. It’s easy, it’s simple, there is nothing like parliamentary democracy.
The question about South Africa is, Would it had been better if South Africa had a directly elected President, and a Prime Minister. Would that arrangement worked better than having a blended Prime Minister/President? I wonder how that is going to evolve when South Africa’s party system fragments, and the ANC is not the dominant party anymore. It may take South Africa 50 years to get there, but eventually it will be voted out someday in the future.
Seed planted by Suaprazzodi — 04 January 2013 @ 05:53
The argument in this very where Tom advances a bizarre and unorthodox view of Westminster suggests quite strongly that Westminster is not nearly as simple to operate as many political scientists think. Westminster is in fact so complicated that I would happily ditch it in favour of a system like South Africa’s, although I would have a separate head of state with ceremonial functions.
The South Africans had the same advantage and the same curse as the Americans. No-one really cared about the presidential election provisions, in Cape Town or in Philadelphia, because they knew who would be president under any system they chose.
Seed planted by Alan — 04 January 2013 @ 08:44
@35, I believe the President of SA has to receive a majority vote in the lower house to be elected, and also a majority vote to be removed. So once the ANC drops below 50% (at the rate they’re going, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen in 2019 or so), it would likely move to a coalition-driven Westminster system (like in New Zealand).
As far as I can tell, everything about the SA system is Westminster except for the fact that the PM is also the head of state and that the President must give up their seat in the House upon election, and South Africa followed a Westminster system before the 1984 move to a parliamentary-elected and accountable Head of Government and State.
Seed planted by Chris — 05 January 2013 @ 07:12
I don’t think you can classify the Cape Town model as Westminster. Schedule 2 provides for election by exhaustive ballot until a candidate has a majority of the votes. The President must resign after a no confidence vote. There is a separate procedure for impeachment, although not described as such, on specific grounds, which requires a two-thirds majority.
Westminster has the bizarre unwritten conventions that I say are law and Tom says aren’t. Westminster is negative parliamentarism where the government does not require an absolute majority or an investiture. The Cape Town model eliminates both negative parliamentarism and the complex set of Westminster conventions.
I’d suggest one reason the Mbeki removal caused so little disturbance to the polity is the clarity of the constitution.
There is also a rule that if the presidency is vacant and a new president is not elected within 30 days the acting president must dissolve the National Assembly.
Seed planted by Alan — 05 January 2013 @ 09:29
Chris @27, thanks for clarifying that. I didn’t know US Speakers had fixed 2-year terms (though this does fit the overall tenor of the US system better than at-will presiding officers). The Australian Constitution (and’ as far as I know, the States’ Constitution Acts) says explicitly that a House Speaker/Senate President can be removed from office by a vote of that chamber. Since the Australian document often copies the intended effect (less often the specific wording) of the US precedent, I’d always lazily assumed that the chair serving at pleasure was the common law default setting.
An argument can be made for making the presiding officer irremovable by that chamber – so he/she isn’t seen as beholden to the majority bloc – but only if he/she has been elected by that chamber to the chair at some point. An ex officio chair who has never been elected by that assembly seems undesirable. Having said that, the UK Peers managed for seven centuries with the chief justice-come-justice minister as their ex officio chair. But the House of Lords is utterly non-replicable.
Having the presiding officer of the “less numerous” House double up as the Acting President (whichever office comes first) is tolerable if the position of President does not require an immediate popular election and is solely or largely ceremonial. (These two tend to coincide.) But there’s a good argument for keeping the presiding officers out of the Presidential succession, at least when the President is both (a) the partisan chief executive, and (b) directly elected. Less so for a German, Irish or South African/ Nauruan-type president.
Having said that, if every member of the Cabinet is under-35, foreign born or unwilling to serve (or is composed of former two-term Presidents… I recall some loose talk at one point about Clinton WJ taking a Cabinet role under Obama?), the Speaker is the least-worst available alternative. I supose if the Speaker, too, got taken out by the al Qaeda dirty bomb then Acting President could devolve upon the oldest Representative or Senator under 75 (or something like that).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 08 January 2013 @ 21:25
Actually the president pro tempore of the US senate is, for reasons best known to them, always the oldest senator from the majority party and stands second in line for the US presidency pro tempore or ad interim (sorry) after the speaker. A surprising number of parliamentary republics make the chancellor or prime minister the substitute. I rather like Ireland which puts the presidency into committee.
In the 1980s Doug Anthony, the deputy prime minister, used to run the country from a caravan on the NSW north coast every January when the PM was on leave. He used to add a flagpole to the caravan.
Seed planted by Alan — 08 January 2013 @ 23:01
Congress initially designated the legislative presiding officers as first in the line of succession after the Vice President, though with the President Pro Tem of the Senate ahead of the Speaker of the House. They switched and put the cabinet officials ahead, in order of historical creation of their departments, in the middle of the nineteenth century, then switched back to the legislative presiding officers in 1947 at the recommendation of the then president.
The main usual reason given for placing the Speaker of the House third is that the position is indirectly elected on a nationwide basis (in addition to direct election from their district in most cases), the only such official other than the President and the Vice President.
Note that that the initial legislation putting the President Pro Tem ahead was done in 1792, soon after the adoption of the original constitution, when most of the attendees of the 1787 convention were alive and many were serving in Congress. The most recent legislation, passed in 1947, was passed at a time when different parties controlled Congress and the Presidency, and the Speaker of the House had evolved into a powerful partisan office. The two usual objections to the legislation are that it violates the older provisions in the Constitution, and that it provides for a partisan politician from another party to succeed a presidential vacancy. Neither prevented substantially similar provisions from being put into effect first, by a Congress where the original framers were well represented, and second at a time of split presidential/ legislative partisan control.
The objection I raised, that the constitutional language seems to indicate that federal legislation can only designate acting replacement presidents, but the 1947 legislation seems to envisage a permanent replacement, has to my knowledge not been raised otherwise. However, the 25th Amendment has rendered the point mostly moot.
Seed planted by Ed — 09 January 2013 @ 02:05
Ironically, giving the presiding officer of the “uppermost” chamber of the legislature the backup role of Acting President makes more sense with a European-style parliamentary system, especially if the President was elected by the same parliament that chose the Speaker (eg, Greece). It doesn’t substantially change which party controls the executive branch, either because the presidency is largely ceremonial (or at least doesn’t initiate policy) or because a new direct popular election must be held anyway within the next few weeks.
In the US, the President is “more like” a Cabinet officer, politically speaking, than he/she is “like” the Speaker. In Germany, or Portugal, or France, or Italy, the reverse is true.
(Likewise, in pretty much every other bicameral system, the upper house is more “removed” from the executive, whereas in the US, it’s “closer” – not only does the Senate confirm the Cabinet, but Senators have a better record at getting elected President, or at least getting their party’s nomination for President or Vice-President, than Representatives do. By my rough count, Gingrich is the only Representative (who didn’t serve as a Senator, Governor or Vice-President as well) in the last century to come anywhere close to winning his party’s nomination. The other Reps who appear on a Presidential ticket are only ever there as Vice-Presidential candidates and usually “appointed” by grace of the primary winner (Miller, Ferraro, Kemp) than earning their spot by running a close race in the presidential primary (unlike Lodge?, LBJ, Edwards – Bush I would, I think, the only “fought for it” Veep nominee whose only elective office was in the House).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 09 January 2013 @ 07:04
PS: Of course Paul Ryan is another example of a Rep who was “appointed” VP candidate, ie who hadn’t run in the presidential primary or amassed any delegates who were demanding the nominee show him/them respect or they’d stay home on Election Day…
Seed planted by Tom Round — 09 January 2013 @ 07:06
Dick Cheney’s only elective office was in the House as well, if I’m not mistaken
Seed planted by DC — 09 January 2013 @ 13:58
Dang, DC, you’re right. There goes my theory that House-only Representatives never win control of the White House… (-;
Seed planted by Tom Round — 09 January 2013 @ 18:34
Myself @40:
> ‘In the US, the President is “more like” a Cabinet officer, politically speaking, than he/she is “like” the Speaker.’
By this I meant to say, like the Speaker in most parliamentary systems – ie, may not be wholly neutral but is still expected not to be a partisan political player. Whereas John B on Capitol Hill (like his predecessors) seems to have acquired a role somewhere between a Westminster Opposition Leader and a French Prime Minister, John B at Westminster itself seems to have annoyed a lot of his fellow Tories (including by marrying a Labour MP… now that’s bipartisan!).
Even in Australia, where the Speaker is more partisan than in the Mother of Parliaments (ie, not elected unopposed in his/her district; still attends party caucus; de facto appointed by the PrM, like an extra Minister), there have been times when the Speaker has slapped down the PrM, even dominant ones like Menzies and Whitlam.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 09 January 2013 @ 18:49
PJ O’Rourke on the 25th Amendment:
“There are also a few gimmicks and dodges in the Constitution, such as Section 4 of the presidential disability and succession amendment, which says that the Vice-President “and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” (italics my own) can declare the President incompetent. If I’m reading this right, this means that, with the help of pals in the House and Senate, Dan Quayle and the principal officers of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Elks Club can send George [HW] Bush to the bughouse and declare a national golf emergency.” (Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire US Government”, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991, p 13).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 11 January 2013 @ 04:27
The list of sitting representatives elected president is very thin: only James Garfield in 1880. A few others earlier in history had the House as their highest elected office (namely Madison), but they all had served as cabinet members. The last time a major party nominee’s highest office was US Rep was in 1924, when the Democrats nominated former Rep. John W. Davis, unless one counts Gerald Ford in 1976, who was only ever popularly elected to the House (though he had been elected VP by both chambers of Congress and was the sitting president).
As far as VPs, the most recent elected directly from the House was Speaker John Nance Garner in 1932. George HW Bush and Cheney had only served in the House, but had been high-level presidential appointees, as had failed nominee Jack Kemp in 1996. Before Paul Ryan, the most recent veep nominee from the House was Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.
Seed planted by Chris — 13 January 2013 @ 16:58
Lincoln also only served in the House (and a single term at that) at the national level (plus 8 years in the Illinois Legislature) when he was elected.
Seed planted by Chris — 13 January 2013 @ 17:00
Chris has a good summary, but omits William Miller from the list of failed VP nominees that had only served in the House. Miller was the running mate of Barry Goldwater and thus was on the receiving end of the 1964 Democratic landslide.
That makes three post-World War II VP nominees who had only served in the House (Miller, Ferraro, Ryan), all on losing tickets. But US presidential nominees have shown a consistent willingness to select as running mates politicians who really would have no chance of winning the presidential nomination of their parties themselves.
Seed planted by Ed — 14 January 2013 @ 01:34
Ed @50, don’t forget Jack Kemp (1996). However he had at one point been considered a credible presidential contender.
As I’ve noted in another place, Gerald Ford is about the closest the US has ever come to having a “Prime Minister” in the Westminster sense, in terms of career path (ie, solely through election as a district representative, and then as party leader, in the national lower house). At the other extreme, Queensland’s current Premier, Campbell Newman, comes as close to being “presidential” as one can in Australia – he has held two chief executive positions (being previously Lord Mayor of Brisbane) and has never served as a backbench or opposition member of either the State Parliament or the Brisbane City Council.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 14 January 2013 @ 03:22
BTW the “other place” herein-aforesaid was here.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 14 January 2013 @ 03:33
The extension of the “assembly-independent” period through the first half of a legislative term has been passed into law.
Seed planted by MSS — 12 February 2013 @ 00:14
Addendum to me @14: “lastair Cooke writes somewhere that the Democrats in 1974 warned Ford not to nominate a Vice-President who might later run for President, since this would give a never-elected incumbent an unfair advantage in the GOP primary and the general. Hence Nelson Rockefeller, who had once been considered presidential material in the 1960s but was “unelectable” in the 1970s because he’d gotten divorced and remarried…)”
Cooke’s ipsissima verba can be found in this BBC transcript at http://www.tinyurl.com/cd4kc7r:
Rep in The Americans: Fifty Talks on Our Life and Times (Knopf, 1980), p 121.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 07 May 2013 @ 22:08