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Congressional Record—Senate S8015
January 1, 2021 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S8015 Whereas, in February 2019, the Department (B) guarantee unfettered humanitarian ac- (C) support credible efforts to address the of State announced that it would withhold cess and assistance to the Northwest and root causes of the conflict and to achieve some security assistance to Cameroon, in- Southwest regions; sustainable peace and reconciliation, pos- cluding equipment and training, citing cred- (C) exercise restraint and ensure that po- sibly involving an independent mediator, and ible allegations of human rights violations litical protests are peaceful; and efforts to aid the economic recovery of and by state security forces and a lack of inves- (D) establish a credible process for an in- fight coronavirus in the Northwest and tigation, accountability, and transparency clusive dialogue that includes all relevant Southwest regions; by the Government of Cameroon in response; stakeholders, including from civil society, to (D) support humanitarian and development Whereas, on December 26, 2019, the United achieve a sustainable political solution that programming, including to meet immediate States terminated the designation of Cam- respects the rights and freedoms of all of the needs, advance nonviolent conflict resolu- eroon as a beneficiary under the African people of Cameroon; tion and reconciliation, promote economic Growth and Opportunity Act (19 U.S.C. 3701 (3) affirms that the United States Govern- recovery and development, support primary et seq.) because ‘‘the Government of -
Constitutional & Parliamentary Information
UNION INTERPARLEMENTAIRE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION CCoonnssttiittuuttiioonnaall && PPaarrlliiaammeennttaarryy IInnffoorrmmaattiioonn Half-yearly Review of the Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments Preparations in Parliament for Climate Change Conference 22 in Marrakech (Abdelouahed KHOUJA, Morocco) National Assembly organizations for legislative support and strengthening the expertise of their staff members (WOO Yoon-keun, Republic of Korea) The role of Parliamentary Committee on Government Assurances in making the executive accountable (Shumsher SHERIFF, India) The role of the House Steering Committee in managing the Order of Business in sittings of the Indonesian House of Representatives (Dr Winantuningtyastiti SWASANANY, Indonesia) Constitutional reform and Parliament in Algeria (Bachir SLIMANI, Algeria) The 2016 impeachment of the Brazilian President (Luiz Fernando BANDEIRA DE MELLO, Brazil) Supporting an inclusive Parliament (Eric JANSE, Canada) The role of Parliament in international negotiations (General debate) The Lok Sabha secretariat and its journey towards a paperless office (Anoop MISHRA, India) The experience of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies on Open Parliament (Antonio CARVALHO E SILVA NETO) Web TV – improving the score on Parliamentary transparency (José Manuel ARAÚJO, Portugal) Deepening democracy through public participation: an overview of the South African Parliament’s public participation model (Gengezi MGIDLANA, South Africa) The failed coup attempt in Turkey on 15 July 2016 (Mehmet Ali KUMBUZOGLU) -
Is a British Senate Any Closer Now? Or Will the House of Lords Still Go on and On?
democraticaudit.com http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=12931 Is a British Senate any closer now? Or will the House of Lords still go on and on? By Democratic Audit UK Labour enters the 2015 election pledged to make creating a British Senate a key part of a new Constitutional Convention. The SNP surge in Scotland gives much greater urgency to the idea, since a new upper House could be one of the most important components for re-binding together a fully federal UK. Richard Reid and Patrick Dunleavy read the runes on a century-old area of constitutional controversy, which just might get resolved soon. Credit: JH Images.co.uk, CC BY NC SA 2.0 In November last year Ed Miliband announced his preference for the establishment of a Senate in the UK, to replace the (still) wholly unelected House of Lords. Miliband’s proposal was for a completely new House based on the regions, to address the disproportionate overrepresentation of London-based peers in the House of Lords (BBC, 2014). Since then little further detail has emerged to flesh out this announcement, and the Labour manifesto is rather gnomic about it as well, saying only: ‘Labour is committed to replacing the House of Lords with an elected Senate of the Nations and Regions, to represent every part of the United Kingdom, and to improve the democratic legitimacy of the second chamber. It is also time to consider how English MPs can have a greater role in the scrutiny of legislation that only affects England. This includes the option put forward by Sir William McKay, of a committee stage made up of English-only MPs. -
Representing Different Constituencies: Electoral Rules in Bicameral Systems in Latin America and Their Impact on Political Representation
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Nolte, Detlef; Sánchez, Francisco Working Paper Representing Different Constituencies: Electoral Rules in Bicameral Systems in Latin America and Their Impact on Political Representation GIGA Working Papers, No. 11 Provided in Cooperation with: GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies Suggested Citation: Nolte, Detlef; Sánchez, Francisco (2005) : Representing Different Constituencies: Electoral Rules in Bicameral Systems in Latin America and Their Impact on Political Representation, GIGA Working Papers, No. 11, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/182554 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, -
Federalism, Bicameralism, and Institutional Change: General Trends and One Case-Study*
brazilianpoliticalsciencereview ARTICLE Federalism, Bicameralism, and Institutional Change: General Trends and One Case-study* Marta Arretche University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil The article distinguishes federal states from bicameralism and mechanisms of territorial representation in order to examine the association of each with institutional change in 32 countries by using constitutional amendments as a proxy. It reveals that bicameralism tends to be a better predictor of constitutional stability than federalism. All of the bicameral cases that are associated with high rates of constitutional amendment are also federal states, including Brazil, India, Austria, and Malaysia. In order to explore the mechanisms explaining this unexpected outcome, the article also examines the voting behavior of Brazilian senators constitutional amendments proposals (CAPs). It shows that the Brazilian Senate is a partisan Chamber. The article concludes that regional influence over institutional change can be substantially reduced, even under symmetrical bicameralism in which the Senate acts as a second veto arena, when party discipline prevails over the cohesion of regional representation. Keywords: Federalism; Bicameralism; Senate; Institutional change; Brazil. well-established proposition in the institutional literature argues that federal Astates tend to take a slow reform path. Among other typical federal institutions, the second legislative body (the Senate) common to federal systems (Lijphart 1999; Stepan * The Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa no Estado -
Brasilia and Sao Paulo), 2 April - 5 April 2013
Committee on Foreign Affairs The Secretariat 8 May 2013 OFFICIAL VISIT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO BRAZIL (Brasilia and Sao Paulo), 2 April - 5 April 2013 MISSION REPORT MAIN FINDINGS Strengthening dialogue with the Brazilian authorities should one of the priorities of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) in the context of the EU strategic partnership and the EU-Brazil joint action plan (2012-2014). There are currently more than 30 on-going dialogues under the EU-BR strategic partnership. A Civil Society Forum and a Business Forum take place every year, back to back with EU- BR Summitt. Yet, a true regular and structured dialogue between the EP and the Brazilian Congress is still missing. Visits of MEPs are numerous but still often ad-hoc and unbalanced with BR visits to Europe. A Parliamentary Forum that could meet before Summits could be a useful tool to structure this dialogue and to improve the EU-BR partnership. In reply to the interest shown by both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate to structure better their dialogue with the European Parliament, reflected also in the Brazil-EU Joint Action Plan for 2012-2014 the AFET delegation urged both houses to come up with a joint initiative and promised that it would be met favourable in the European Parliament. The meetings held with governmental representatives confirmed their commitment, announced at the CELAC Summit in January, to submit a negotiating offer on market access regarding the EU- Mercosul Agreement by the end of the year with due account taken of the electoral deadlines of some key players (Paraguay, Venezuela) and the impact of the last economic crisis (Argentina). -
Assessing Brazil's Political Institutions
Comparative Political Studies Volume 39 Number 6 August 2006 759-786 © 2006 Sage Publications Compared to What? 10.1177/0010414006287895 http://cps.sagepub.com hosted at Assessing Brazil’s http://online.sagepub.com Political Institutions Leslie Elliott Armijo Portland State University, Oregon Philippe Faucher Magdalena Dembinska Université de Montréal, Canada A rich and plausible academic literature has delineated reasons to believe Brazil’s democratic political institutions—including electoral rules, the polit- ical party system, federalism, and the rules of legislative procedure—are suboptimal from the viewpoints of democratic representativeness and policy- making effectiveness. The authors concur that specific peculiarities of Brazilian political institutions likely complicate the process of solving societal collec- tive action dilemmas. Nonetheless, Brazil’s economic and social track record since redemocratization in the mid-1980s has been reasonably good in com- parative regional perspective. Perhaps Brazil’s informal political negotiating mechanisms, or even other less obvious institutional structures, provide suffi- cient countervailing influences to allow “governance” to proceed relatively smoothly despite the appearance of chaos and political dysfunction. Keywords: Brazil; democracy; political institutions; policy making, economic reform; developing countries any comparative political scientists and economists now emphasize Mthe incentives for “good governance” created by a country’s set of formal political rules. Though numerous scholars judge Brazil’s political institutions to be almost paradigmatically poorly designed, the country has adopted and implemented politically difficult economic reforms, suggest- ing an apparent puzzle. One’s view of Brazil also influences judgments Authors’ Note: We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Vicente Palermo, Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Javier Corrales, Peter Kingstone, Stephan Haggard, Adam Przeworski, James Caporaso, William C. -
Unicameralism and the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850 Val Nolan, Jr.*
DOCUMENT UNICAMERALISM AND THE INDIANA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1850 VAL NOLAN, JR.* Bicameralism as a principle of legislative structure was given "casual, un- questioning acceptance" in the state constitutions adopted in the nineteenth century, states Willard Hurst in his recent study of main trends in the insti- tutional development of American law.1 Occasioning only mild and sporadic interest in the states in the post-Revolutionary period,2 problems of legislative * A.B. 1941, Indiana University; J.D. 1949; Assistant Professor of Law, Indiana Uni- versity School of Law. 1. HURST, THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN LAW, THE LAW MAKERS 88 (1950). "O 1ur two-chambered legislatures . were adopted mainly by default." Id. at 140. During this same period and by 1840 many city councils, unicameral in colonial days, became bicameral, the result of easy analogy to state governmental forms. The trend was reversed, and since 1900 most cities have come to use one chamber. MACDONALD, AmER- ICAN CITY GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 49, 58, 169 (4th ed. 1946); MUNRO, MUNICIPAL GOVERN-MENT AND ADMINISTRATION C. XVIII (1930). 2. "[T]he [American] political theory of a second chamber was first formulated in the constitutional convention held in Philadelphia in 1787 and more systematically developed later in the Federalist." Carroll, The Background of Unicameralisnl and Bicameralism, in UNICAMERAL LEGISLATURES, THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL DEBATE HAND- BOOK, 1937-38, 42 (Aly ed. 1938). The legislature of the confederation was unicameral. ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, V. Early American proponents of a bicameral legislature founded their arguments on theoretical grounds. Some, like John Adams, advocated a second state legislative house to represent property and wealth. -
Congressional Record-Senate. December 21
276 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. DECEMBER 21, Also, a bill (H. R. 2540) for the relief of William R. Beckham, Also, petition for a pension for John A. Hipkins-to the Com· of Lauderdale County, Ala.-to the Committee on War Claims. mittee on Pensions. _ . Also, a bill (H. R. 2541) for the relief of Thomas Brown-to the By Mr. TOWNE: Petition of F. W. Johnson, John Ojanpera, · Committee on War Claims. August Flood, and 365 others, of Wright County, Minn., praying ' Also, a bill (H. R. 2542) for the relief of Giles W. Bass-to the that Congress take no action to restore the greenbacks, and against Committee on War Claims. any legislation giving banks greater privileges than they now en Also, a bill (H. R. 2543) for the relief of Susan K. Bennett (for joy, and for the coinage of silver bullion now in the Treasury merly Phipps), of Madison County, Ala.-to the Committee on to the Committee on Banking and Currency. Claims. By Mr. THOMAS: Petition of James J. McDonald tothe House ·Also, a bill (H. R. 2544) for the relief of William Baugh, of of Representatives of the United States, praying that he be ad Lauderdale County, Ala.-to the Committee on War Claims. mitted as a contestant for the seat now held byW. A. JONES, First Also, a bill (H. R. 2545) for the relief of John R. Caldwell, of ilistrict of Virginia-to the Committee on Elections. Jackson County, Ala.-to the Committee on War Claims. By Mr. WATSON of Indiana: Resolution adopted by ~uffalo Also, a bill (H. -
The Evolving Role of Brazil's Supreme Court
BRAZIL INSTITUTE A Conversation with Justice José Antonio Dias Toffoli The Evolving Role of Brazil's Supreme Court THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS, established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a liv- ing national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to commem- orate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion, and collaboration among a broad spectrum of individuals concerned with policy and scholarship in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds, the Center is a nonpartisan institution engaged in the study of national and world affairs. It establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publica- tions and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO BOARD OF TRUSTEES Thomas R. Nides, Chairman Public members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John F. Kerry, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President, Export-Import Bank; Carole Watson, Acting Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Private Citizen Members: Timothy Broas, John T. Casteen III, Charles Cobb, Jr., Thelma Duggin, Carlos M. -
INTA Legislation and Regulation Latin America & Caribbean
INTA Legislation and Regulation Latin America & Caribbean Subcommittee Report on Plain Packaging in Latin America September 2016 I. INTRODUCTION Plain packaging refers to a regulatory measure that requires generic or standardized packaging for a consumer product, whereby all branding (including colors, logos, imagery and trademarks) is removed from the packaging, and manufacturers are permitted to print only the brand name on the pack in a standardized size, font, and color. Australia was the first country to require plain packaging for any consumer product when it passed the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act in 2011. Since December 2012, all tobacco products in Australia must be sold in brown-colored packages, with no branding except the name of the brand and variant. The United Kingdom, Ireland and France have also passed laws requiring plain packaging for tobacco products, and other countries are considering similar proposals. Governments that have enacted plain packaging laws argue that they are justified on public health grounds, because the removal of all branding will reduce consumer deception from misleading packaging, will increase the noticeability of health warnings, and will ultimately lead to less smoking. To date, the discussion regarding plain packaging has largely been limited to tobacco products, although some in the public health community have called for similar measures for other consumer products, including alcohol, sugary foods and drinks, and pharmaceuticals. In South Africa, logos and imagery have been prohibited on infant formula and similar products on the basis that they could undermine breastfeeding. The impact of plain packaging on trademark owners and consumers is significant, as manufacturers can no longer use their valuable intellectual property to signify the origin and quality of their products, and consumers are more likely to be confused and unable to distinguish between competing products. -
VENEZUELA Date of Elections: December 1, 1968 Characteristics
VENEZUELA Date of Elections: December 1, 1968 Characteristics of Parliament The National Congress of Venezuela is composed of two Houses: — the Chamber of Deputies, currently comprising 214 members elected for 5 years. This figure varies from legislature to legislature according to fluctuations in the population and to the number of "additional seats" (currently 16) allocated on a nation-wide basis so as to ensure a more accurate representation of political forces. — the Senate, composed of 42 members — 2 for each of the 20 states plus the federal district — and a variable number of sen ators holding "additional seats" (10 at present). To these senators elected for 5-year terms are added a number of life senators (3 at present), participating in their capacity as former Presidents of the Republic. On December 1, the electorate went to the polls to renew both Houses and elect a new Head of State. Electoral System All Venezuelan citizens of both sexes who are at least 18 years old and not subject to civil interdiction or political disqualification are entitled to vote, with the exception of those on active military service. All citizens between the ages of 21 and 65 who fulfil these conditions are bound by law to register on the electoral rolls and participate in the poll. Except in certain specified cases, failure to comply is punishable by a fine. 91 2 Venezuela All Venezuelan-born voters are eligible for election to the Cham ber of Deputies provided they are at least 21 years old and to the Senate if they are over 30 years old.