hanuman wrote:I haven't purchased House of Steel as yet, unfortunately. My budget is very limited.
Anyways, wrt the Imperial House of Lords - is that 5 per planet, 5 per star system or 5 per unit of the Empire?
587 Peers seem a very low number. I'm not arguing, it's Mr Weber's realm. Just an observation...
MaxxQ wrote:hanuman wrote:I think that's the number *only* for the SKM (Manticore, Sphinx, Gryphon, and maybe San Martin... Basilisk?), in which case, that seems about right. I don't recall what the total population would be between all those, but I doubt it's more than 10 billion.
Besides, I think it would devalue peerages if they were handed out like popcorn.
I think the four planets have a combined population of 6 billion - but that doesn't take into account Lynx, which also belongs to the Star Kingdom.
Still, the reason I think the number of peerages is low, is that ALL the families that survived the Plague were granted Deeds of Nobility. I assume that'd have been one title per family. Now, if 30% of the original 50 000 colonists survived, there'd have been 15 000 survivors. If we go by an average of two parents and a generous three children per family, there would have been 3 000 surviving families. If we go by the second number of 100 000 original colonists that I've seen mentioned, then the number of newly-noble families double to 6 000. That is just if we take original colonists into account. The Plague happened 50 years after landing, so what kind of numbers are we talking about then?
Hanuman, since you haven't read
House of Steel, here's what I think is probably the most relevant section to the point you've raised in this post.
HOS, page 253 wrote: when the Constitution was adopted, converting shareholders into peers of the realm, the membership of the House of Lords was fixed at fifty, with seats granted based on the order in which the original colonists had invested in the expedition. That is, a "baron" who had been among the very early investors (or whose parent or grandparent had been) would be seated in the Lords in preference to a "duke" whose investment had come later. This rule of seniority within the Lords continues to this day, which helps to explain the influence of Michael Janvier, who was "merely" Baron of High Ridge but whose direct ancestor had been only the sixth individual to invest in the colony expedition. In the years since the founding, the number of seats in both the Lords and the Commons have been adjusted several times to reflect the SKM's growing population base, but even today, not all peers hold seats in the House of Lords, by any means.
The old colonial territorial and administrative districts were also transformed at the time the Constitution was ratified. The existing geographically defined units were retained, but they became duchies, rather than the previous "districts" and the senior noble in each duchy became its hereditary governor. This created some problems, since the senior peer in one existing "duchy" might be an earl or even a baron, rather than a duke. The constitutional solution adopted was to create the title of "magister," which applies to the senior peer (and governor) of any duchy, regardless of his hereditary rank. Although one magister may take precedence over another when seated in the House of Lords, all magisters are equal before the law when acting as the administrators of their duchies.
Certain later peerages, at the time of their creation, are specifically created as voting members of the House of Lords, and exactly who is seated and how the rules are adjusted as population grows and shifts has been the have been the subject bitter political confrontation. In that regard, High Ridge's fight to prevent the San Martin peers from being seated can be seen as another chapter in an ongoing continuum of "resizings" of the Lords. It doesn't happen on the same
basis that the House of Commons is reapportioned, and it doesn't happen on the basis of regular censuses, but it
does happen.
Whether a peer is
seated in the House of Lords as a voting member doesn't mean (1) that an unseated peer doesn't have an important political job to do (one of the "magisters" mentioned above, for example) or (2) that even an "unseated" peer doesn't have the right to come before the House of Lords and speak to a particular issue. (see below) The distinction between "seated" and "unseated" peers is really a matter of whether or not the peer in question has (A) a vote in the House of Lords and (B)
the right to introduce or sponsor legislation in the House of Lords.
The Constitution was set up this way in order to prevent the House of Lords from growing into a huge and unwieldy monstrosity. And the reason it was seen as important to prevent that was that the drafters of the Constitution wanted to ensure that the House of Lords remained a viable political entity, since it was supposed to be the conservator of the original colonists' political power. That is, the House of Lords was intended — and designed — from the beginning to be and remain a small enough body that it would remain capable of exercising
effective legislative power.
As I say, certain peerages — like Honor's original title as Countess Harrington – specifically carry a seat in the House of Lords with them when they are created. Depending on the nature of the peerage, that guarantee of a seat in the Lords may be restricted only to the first holder of the title. That is, the original peer's heirs would
not be seated in the House of Lords. Other peerages (and Honor's was an example of this)
do carry an hereditary seat in the Lords, which is why her cousin Devon was still seated in the Lords after her official death.
Such peerages are rare, however, and the right to a seat in the Lords is normally attached to a newly created peerage only when the peerage is a reward for
substantial military and/or political service to the realm. (That is, new peers don't get seats just because they were granted a title for political contributions or ambassadorships.) Moreover, the right to a seat in the Lords attached to one of these peerages
does not supersede the Lords' collective right to decide who or who is not seated there. That is, Honor, despite the fact that she was granted a seat along with her initial peerage, could be
denied her seat following her duel with Pavel Young.
Note that in the case of the San Martin peers, the House of Lords was specifically
denied the right to refuse to seat the initial San Martinos. That's because one of the conditions of San Martin/Trevor's Star's joining the Star Kingdom was that San Martin would be granted a certain number of seats in the Lords and that the first "flight" of San Martin peers
would be seated. Now, the House of Lords could refuse to seat a
future San Martino, but they couldn't refuse to seat any of the first group. That's the real reason why the Lords were so resistant to allowing the general election after which the new peers could be appointed. They couldn't use their "refuse to seat" power to prevent the new peers from destabilizing the existing cozy political arrangements within the Lords' membership.
Peers cannot be confirmed, whether they will be seated in the Lords or not, until after a general election. That's because each Parliament's House of Commons gets to create only a single slate of peers immediately after the MPs have taken their own seats, and they cannot create more than a certain percentage of the current Lords in a single Parliament. Neither the Crown nor the Commons has the power ever to
decrease the number of peers seated in the Lords, and the decision to adjust the number of seated peers upward requires the consent of both houses of Parliament and the Crown. Obviously, there's usually quite a bit of political horsetrading involved whenever the size of the Lords is adjusted.
Any new peer is expected to appear before the Lords to make his or her “maiden speech.” In the case of inherited or newly created peerages which carry a seat in the Lords, this is regarded as the first step in assuming the peer’s share of the Lords’ corporate legislative power. In the case of peerages which
do not carry a seat in the Lords, this is regarded more as a formal introduction of the new peer to the legislative body which represents his/her “interest” in the Star Kingdom’s governance. Remember that I said above that only seated peers can vote on legislation and that only seated peers can
introduce legislation, but
any peer has the right to appear before the Lords during the
debate over any action to be taken by or legislation before the Lords. This does not constitute an unlimited right to filibuster or to gas away on every single decision of the House of Lords, and it can be curtailed. A simple majority of the Lords can deny an unseated peer’s right to appear before it if that decision is concurred in by the Crown.
Without the Crown’s concurrence, it requires a two thirds majority of the seated peers to deny an unseated peer the right to appear on the floor of the Lords during a debate. However, time allocations in debates do not grant unseated peers the same amount of time as a seated peer. That is, the total amount of debate time allocated to the (collective) unseated peers is only about one quarter of the total amount of debate time allocated to the (collective)
seated peers. So if there are 587 seated peers and 1,500 unseated peers (I’m simply pulling a number out of thin air for the unseated peers in this instance), and if the total time allocated/available for debate is say 200 hours (twenty 10-hour days), the seated peers would be allocated 150 of those hours (15 minutes each) whereas the
unseated peers would be allocated 50 hours (2 minutes each).
Now, minutes of debate time are routinely traded back and forth. That is, let’s say that of the 587 seated peers, 115 of them belong to the Conservative Association, 156 of them are currently Centrists, 141 of them are Crown Loyalists, 7 of them are New Men, 124 of them are Catherine Montaigne’s “New Liberals,” 26 of them are “Old Liberals” (who wouldn’t give Cathy the time of day), and 18 are genuine Independents. Each of these parties would be allocated 15 minutes per seated peer, so the Conservative Association would have 1,725 minutes (28.75 hours); the Centrists would have 2,340 minutes (39 hours); the Crown Loyalists would have 2,115 minutes (35.25 hours); the New Men would have 105 minutes (1.75 hours); the New Liberals would have 1,860 minutes (31 hours), the Old Liberals would have 390 minutes (6.5 hours); and the Independents would have 270 minutes (4.5 hours). Within those totals, individual peers — usually those who are regarded as the leaders of their party in the Lords — are assigned time out of the party’s total allocation. So if the Centrists have 11 peers who their party leadership believes should present the Centrist’ position in the debate, each of them might be assigned 3 hours of the total allocation, with the remaining 6 hours being held in reserve or made available to other members of the party who want to address the issue under debate. Minutes can be yielded to another speaker, and can even be yielded to speakers of other parties at the discretion of the individual to whom they have been initially assigned. By the same token, if all of the unseated peers could agree to assign every one of their collective minutes of debate to a single spokesman, in which case that individual would have 50 hours of time on the floor.
Note that in the assignment of time for debate, the time is not automatically used in 10-hour blocks. What happens is a certain number of notional 10-hour days are allocated to the debate. The total number of hours, however, may be broken up into smaller blocks spread over many more days in order to give the House the flexibility to deal with other issues as they come along.
The amount of time allocated for debate can always be extended by a simple majority vote of the seated peers. That is, if the House discovers that it underestimated the degree of debate which is going to be required — or if one party to the debate can convince a majority of their colleagues that additional time is needed
or that some individual or group of individuals has demonstrated the value of their contribution to the debate in such wise that a majority of their colleagues wishes to give
that individual or group of individuals additional time on the floor of the Lords, those adjustments can also be made.
There’s a lot more involved in the mechanics of the House of Lords, and the House of Commons has its own rules and procedures. One significant difference from present day American practice is that the
existing rules and procedures of either house are binding unless they are changed by a two thirds majority of the house where the change is to take effect. That is, a narrow majority in either house does not have the legal power to change the house’s rules for taking up debate, offering legislation, offering amendments, etc., without the concurrence of at least two thirds of its membership. To return to our hypothetical allocation of power in the Lords, the Centrists and Crown Loyalists have a combined total of 297 seats, which is a simple majority. However, they would not have a sufficient majority to change the rules of the House of Lords. If the New Liberals joined them, on the other hand, they would have 421 seats, 29 more than the 392 votes required to change the rules.
Like I say, there’s a lot more involved than I have time to get into at this point. And I won’t claim that I have all of this worked out in excruciating detail. It’s entirely possible that I have transgressed some of the above description in the books simply because I didn’t worry about checking my fundamental assumptions about how the system works while I was writing the passage in which the transgression occurs. For the most part, though, I don’t think we’ve ever seen the internal workings of the Star Kingdom’s legislature in sufficient detail for this to have really become germane to the story in any way.
The imperial Parliament will adopt similar rules/procedures, but the provision of seats in the Imperial House of Lords will be arranged on an individual basis. That is, if the Star Kingdom chooses to select its seated imperial peers on the same basis of seniority used in the Star Kingdom, it can do so. If it chooses a different basis, then it may do that. Let’s say that Montana is assigned seven peers in the new Imperial Parliament (that is, the Talbott Quadrant is assigned a total number of peers much higher than that and on the basis of population, 7 of that total are assigned
by the Talbott Quadrant’s Parliament to Montana) then Montana (which has no overt aristocracy) would probably hold an election, with the understanding that appointment to the Imperial House of Lords is a lifetime appointment, from which an individual may be removed only by death, resignation, or impeachment. Members of the Imperial House of Commons allocated to Montana (again by the Talbott Quadrant’s Parliament from the total number of seats allocated to the Quadrant) would stand for office in each imperial general election.
I hope that helps. Now I need to go get some sleep. By the way, at this hour I claim the excuse of exhaustion if anything I’ve said above makes no sense at all the way I’ve said it.
