Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

[Johnny1A.2]

A fairly ordinary legislative body, but with the twist that every legislator is issued a certain number of vetoes, like a Roman Tribune. At any time, for any reason or none, a legislator can exercise one of his vetoes and unilaterally stop whatever is under consideration for that legislative session (however long until the next election). The catch is that each legislator has a finite number of those for his entire career, and when they're used up, they're used up.
Of course, once the vetoes are used up, the usual parliamentary tactics and normal methods of operation would still be available.

This would probably give new members some additional trading power, since they haven't used up all their vetoes yet. It would force a new member to consider whether to use up his vetoes now or save them. Saving them risks losing them if you lose an election and aren't in the parliament anymore, using them up early uses them up early.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

So, only people who succeed on American Gladiators, and can handle their hallucinogenics?

You're catching on.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

A fairly ordinary legislative body, but with the twist that every legislator is issued a certain number of vetoes, like a Roman Tribune. At any time, for any reason or none, a legislator can exercise one of his vetoes and unilaterally stop whatever is under consideration for that legislative session (however long until the next election). The catch is that each legislator has a finite number of those for his entire career, and when they're used up, they're used up.
Of course, once the vetoes are used up, the usual parliamentary tactics and normal methods of operation would still be available.

This would probably give new members some additional trading power, since they haven't used up all their vetoes yet. It would force a new member to consider whether to use up his vetoes now or save them. Saving them risks losing them if you lose an election and aren't in the parliament anymore, using them up early uses them up early.

That sounds like there will be interesting back room deals to get people's veto as well as amendments to bills to shut up holdouts. Interesting stuff.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

A fairly ordinary legislative body, but with the twist that every legislator is issued a certain number of vetoes, like a Roman Tribune. At any time, for any reason or none, a legislator can exercise one of his vetoes and unilaterally stop whatever is under consideration for that legislative session (however long until the next election). The catch is that each legislator has a finite number of those for his entire career, and when they're used up, they're used up.
Of course, once the vetoes are used up, the usual parliamentary tactics and normal methods of operation would still be available.

This would probably give new members some additional trading power, since they haven't used up all their vetoes yet. It would force a new member to consider whether to use up his vetoes now or save them. Saving them risks losing them if you lose an election and aren't in the parliament anymore, using them up early uses them up early.

There's a variant of this implied in the background of David Brin's short story "The Warm Space". Legislators get a certain number of "peremptory commands", orders that can only be blocked if they're completely illegal, per electoral term; misuse of this, of course, can lead to defeat in the next election.

(In the story, humans are a despised minority in space, because the cyborg and mechanical citizens can tolerate much greater extremes in environment without the need for expensive life support; all they really need is power and a sufficient supply of liquid helium to cool their processors, and in space both are easily obtained. When the first few tests of a new FTL drive result in their crews all returning dead, having apparently become violently insane during the trip, one cyborg senator uses his remaining peremptory for the term to give the job of test pilot to a human, something nobody had thought would be a good idea.

Spoiler:  

Turned out to have been an excellent idea, because the ambient temperature of hyperspace is well above the melting point of water. The cyber crews all went insane and died when their coolant evaporated. The human just needed some cold lemonade when he returned.

)

[David Johnston2]

A bicameral legislature, but one in which the upper house represents not provinces but religions as fall out from a religious civil war in the past.

[ericthered]

have we done a proper "Plutorliment" yet? A system were seats in the legislature are purchased?



I'm torn about whether seats should be bid for or whether you just buy a seat and there are as many seats as people want to buy.



The place I saw this system only used it for one of several legislatures, which probably helped with the stability. You need at least some additional balancing factors.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by ericthered

have we done a proper "Plutorliment" yet? A system were seats in the legislature are purchased?



I'm torn about whether seats should be bid for or whether you just buy a seat and there are as many seats as people want to buy.



The place I saw this system only used it for one of several legislatures, which probably helped with the stability. You need at least some additional balancing factors.

Isn't that a variation of organizing a legislative house like a joint-stock corporation? I believe several variants of that idea were mentioned.

One possible balance is that no one can contribute more then a limited amount of their own money. That requires them at least to get others on board to get a seat.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by ericthered

have we done a proper "Plutorliment" yet? A system were seats in the legislature are purchased?



I'm torn about whether seats should be bid for or whether you just buy a seat and there are as many seats as people want to buy.



The place I saw this system only used it for one of several legislatures, which probably helped with the stability. You need at least some additional balancing factors.

You could do a hereditary parliament where destitute nobles rent their seats out to nouveau riche merchants.

[jason taylor]

One I remember is that until recently (comparatively) the British Government officially ceased to exist upon the death of the monarch and had to wait for the coronation to be resurrected.

If this still continued, that would be a interesting time for bureaucratic purges, eliminating old departments and siphoning their subsidies into new ones. And whatever.

[ericthered]

So a government that routinely killed large programs every time there was a royal death? That's interesting.