[EL] Query relating to UK proposal to restrict voting on English policy to MPs from English electorates

[Josh Douglas]

Rob,

This isn't exactly the same, but three states, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and
Delaware, appoint a special committee of a subset of the legislature to
resolve election contests for gubernatorial elections.  In Pennsylvania,
for example, there is a unique winnowing process to create a subcommittee
of 9 House members and 4 Senate members that will resolve the dispute.  In
Delaware, each house chooses 1/3 of its members by ballot to decide the
contest. In Iowa, each house selects seven of its members randomly to serve
on the ““contest court.””  I discuss these in my article
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2016378>, *Procedural
Fairness in Election Contests*, 88 Ind. L.J. 1 (2013).

Josh

On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:

> The Scotland referendum was fascinating in many ways -- extremely high
> turnout, much-applauded implementation of 16-year-old voting age, deeply
> substantive debate about balance of central and local power and more.
>
> With momentum shifting toward independence, prime minister David Cameron
> and leaders of the other major parties in parliament rushed to promise
> greater devolution of power to Scotland. After the referendum vote,
> however, Cameron then proposed that this devolution of power would be
> twinned with taking power away from all MPs not elected in England from
> voting on policies limited to England.
>
> In short, Cameron is trying to devolve power without creating a regional
> government. It seems fraught with peril to me, as it would change the
> dynamics of a legislature greatly if members couldn't negotiate with one
> another on every vote -- and it could lead to a puzzling situation where
> the Labour Party had an overall majority in parliament, but a minority in
> the English-only electorates. It's also leading to ideas for reforming how
> parliament would vote on English-only matters like this one in the
> Economist that tries to introduce proportional representation for
> English-only votes without changing single member districts ("Each English
> MP's vote could be weighted according to the total number of English voters
> who backed his party, ensuring proportional representation without breaking
> the constituency link. Smaller parties without MPs could provide
> representatives for such votes (perhaps from a list published before
> general elections) to ensure proportionality."
>
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/09/labour-and-english-only-votes
>
> I was wondering if anyone knows of a precedent of a legislative body that
> doesn't allow all its members to vote on everything that comes before that
> body.
>
> Thanks,
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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-- 
Joshua A. Douglas
Robert G. Lawson & William H. Fortune Associate Professor of Law
University of Kentucky College of Law
620 S. Limestone
Lexington, KY 40506
(859) 257-4935
joshuadouglas at uky.edu
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