[jason taylor]

An upper house containing representatives of the clans, great families, alberghi, titleholders, guildmasters, whatever. Each representative is the emissary of his sponsor rather then voting on their own. That is a chief or elder or moot chooses him or her on whatever basis they desire and if they wish they send orders to them by courier or communications device. It is theoretically legal for chiefs to represent themselves though few do. This is modeled on the UN where the Ambassador actually votes at the orders of a given chief executive.

As a follow-through there could be hired firms that specialize in providing emisaries and they could handle several House's interests at once, much like a stockbroker.