Two Approaches to Law-making

Six posts ago (March 19, 2009), we discussed the difference between a kingdom (monarchy) and a peopledom (republic).

If we're looking at labels, it isn't really clearcut. Republics often end up reelecting a King under a new name: Chairman, First Secretary, Führer or President.

And most kingdoms today are more people-friendly than many republics. When an elected leader has to hold onto to power, he often does so for dear life!

Let's shift focus from the head hauncho to those who make the laws in either system. That has to be a group. The laws is too complex to be the product of any one mind.

The era of The Ten Commandments movie where the Pharaoh says "So let it be written, so let it be done" is past, if it ever existed in the first place. The Pharaoh was usually assenting to laws drawn up by priests and bureaucrats, and brought to him for approval.

That's what a legislature is: a group of people who make and change the laws. There are many names for lawmaking groups around the world: Convention, Diet, Duma, Knesset, Parliament, but they all divide up into two main types.

One is the gathering such as an assembly or congress (from "congregate") that comes together for a specific purpose and then disburses. Legislators or this type may be called delegates, deputies (means "delegates" in French, not the assistant or second in command), congressmen or women. The emphasis is not on the gathering itself but the folks back home they re-present.

Their job is to carry out their electors' instructions and then go back for more. They are not to pursue some grand design unless the electors so direct. Their mandate is limited and specific.

The second type of legislature is the talkery: the meaning of the word "parliament" (parler). In the British tradition, talking, debate and deliberation took on a life of its own.

This didn't start out with political parties, government and opposition across a floor two swords' length apart, with a mace and the other symbols we now identify with it. Those came later.

Parliament began much like a jury functions: a body that continued to meet together until it had come to a conclusion. Sometimes a voice vote might be taken, with all saying "aye!" but that simply confirmed the agreement that had already taken place.

Standing votes, filibusters, and votes of closure were not part of Parliament then. Those, too, came later.

The Speaker was so named because he spoke for Parliament to the King, the way the foreman of a jury reports a verdict. Who said what in the deliberations, how they looked at the issues, mattered not at all when they reported. They had come to a position they could stand behind.

That kind of Parliament wasn't a pushover. Taking time led to better laws. Even though he had to wait for an outcome and one that might not be quite what he wanted, was worth it to the King.

Henry VIII, no flaming democrat, put it this way: "We as Head are stronger in this body than when We are alone."

There's the word "body" again. That's why elected legislators in Parliament are called Members. "Member" used to mean part of the body, as in "dismember" or one's "private member." MP's were more than gathered delegates. They made up an organic whole.

But there came a time when Henry was not prepared to wait. With a child on the way by Anne Boleyn, he needed a divorce from his first wife, and the Members of the House were taking their time.

One day an impatient Henry burst into the House, stood to the right of the Speaker and demanded, "Everyone who's with me, stand on this side!"

That was the first recorded "Division of the House." Three generations later division had become the norm. The bloody conflict of the English civil war was eventually ritualized in the nonviolent conflict we see in Parliament today.

Conflict and devision came about in Parliament as a result of time pressure. As we saw earlier, however, Parliament was designed to work not with fixed deadlines but in an organic approach as the members take their time talking to come to a consensus.