Our Fair Country: The Commonwealth of New England
- Thread starter CosmicAsh
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Supreme Court justices are appointed by the Prime Minister alone, there is no confirmation process. Chris Dodd was known for scandal, so it's always been assumed Dingwall did something to obtain the seat, but it has never been proven. Supreme Court justices serve for life, and can only be removed by the Senate, resign, or die.
Dingwall was, however, a high profile lawyer and worked on various courts and as a legal representative, including a stint in the Senate.
Looks like the French language policies and parties are in crises over these election results?
Is Souter held in better regards here by Conservatives as opposed to OTL?
Not really. The Conservatives have notably been supportive of French language rights. Parti Francophone, however, seems pretty dead and buried.
He's considered a moderate and a swing vote on the court. Broussard is the other swing vote. This gives the court a reliable breakdown of:
Right-Wing (4): Rodgers, Fleming, Barbadoro, Woodcock
Moderate (2): Souter, Broussard
Left-Wing (5): Dingwall, Ginsburg, Saris, MacDonald, McConnell
Interesting that Joe Kennedy III is a Labourite when his great-uncle was a very high-profile Conservative.
Well New England does have some pieces of their system that we also find in the US, and also the House elects their speaker.
The House elects the speaker. The election is similar to how the British House of Commons elects a speaker. Note that the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (major parliamentary democracies) all elect their speaker at the beginning of Parliament. The previous speaker, Richard Neal, won re-election each time unopposed. The speaker was defeated in the last election, thus an open election took place.
This has probably already been answered, but how do Senate elections work in New England?
Each election, registered parties submit a list of people to Elections New England to fulfill their slate of candidates. I/e if a province has 10 Senators, each party submits 10 names. Once the election has finished, the popular vote of the province is used to determine the Senatorial makeup of each province. For example, Province A votes 50% for Party 1 and 50% for Party 2. Province A has 10 senators, so 5 Senators are from Party 1 and 5 Senators are from Party 2. The senators in question are picked by the Lieutenant Governor of each Province.
If Province B also has 10 Senators, and the vote is 34% for Party 1, 33% for Party 2, and 33% for Party 3, then Party 1 will get 4 seats, Party 2 gets 3 seats, and Party 3 gets 3 seats.
It is this mechanism that increases voter turnout in several safe ridings, because the Provincial-wide popular vote still matters in determining the outcome of the Senate. Denying a party a majority in the Senate would do wonders to helping stall or block legislation that a supermajority in the House might pass.
Only 107 seats of the 108 are up for election at any time. The Senate President serves for life and is automatically awarded a seat in the Senate.
Since the Senate is partisan and appointed based off that, any Senator who resigns from their party or attempts to switch parties is automatically ejected from the Senate, and a replacement chosen by the party. The only one immune to this is the Senate President, who traditionally has left the party that appointed them to preside over the Senate. Joe Lieberman has rejected this trend and maintains his position in the Conservative Party.
The New England Senate's whole existence revolves around the concept of being the solemn second thought on legislation passed by the House of Commons. Due to the highly partisan nature of the Senate (it is, by design, impossible to be independent of a party in the Senate), secret deliberations and secret voting was adopted to maintain full independence from the political parties. Because Senators only serve at the whims of their political party, not having a voting record is highly important for them to maintain their seats and to be able to vote and debate their beliefs, not beholden to partisanship.
The only time the public is able to see the Senate in session is at the sitting of a new Parliament for the Speech from the Throne, or visiting Monarch. There is no public gallery. The only times Senate votes have been made public (the numbers, not how each Senator voted) have been during impeachment/parliament dissolution proceedings.
This is partly the reason the Senate is pretty much ignored most of the time. They strike down bills a bunch, but most of the time they are passed again with little issue. The Supreme Court has loads more power than the Senate.
Dang, that's a beautiful system... I wish we had that here in Canada in OTL!
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