Posted on 08/30/2014 6:07:15 PM PDT by tennmountainman
yeah, I read that before. It’s kind of funny.
“Fun fact, MPs are not at liberty to resign, in order for them to get out of office a legal fiction must be employed, resigning MPs are appointed to sinecure Crown offices, which disqualify them from serving in Parliament.”
So now we know from where NY got its rule that a party’s nominee can’t repudiate a nomination, so instead he accepts nomination to a judicial office, which disqualifies him from legislative and executive elections.
Come to think of it, the Constitution doesn’t outright state that members of Congress and the President can resign, but it does indirectly say it, for the Senate and President.
Thankfully we aren’t as anal as the Brits. They don’t have a written constitution, all they would have to do is pass legislation that says it’s cool for them to resign.
This has actually caused minor problems, when Gerry Adams quit he refused the Crown office, they regard him as having been appointed to it anyway, ha.
>> So now we know from where NY got its rule that a party’s nominee can’t repudiate a nomination, so instead he accepts nomination to a judicial office, which disqualifies him from legislative and executive elections. <<
I have no idea what a "sinecure Crown office" is, but if its like the NY system where you have to get appointed to a judgeship in order to resign, then it seems pretty pointless. It's not much of a "punishment" to arrange ANOTHER cushy political job for someone if they quit the current one. Reminds me of when Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady was being pushed to resign and waited a few weeks until he could take a cushy job as a lobbyist for the ACLU and had an excuse to resign.
I'm not in favor of barring politicians from resigning in the middle of their term -- obviously there are certain circumstances where they can and SHOULD do so. We wouldn't want someone who suffered a major stroke sticking around as Senator for four years if he's unable to function.
That being said, there are way too many examples of politicians resigning because they lost a primary and want to go home and sulk rather than serve out the last few months of their term with dignity ::cough:: Eric Cantor ::cough:: or they don't "feel" like completing their term because their party lost the majority and they're a lame duck. There are also numerous examples of politicians causing problems by wasting time winning an expensive primary election, only to decide a few months later they don't want to be the party nominee, so they drop out of the race and force the party to name a last minute replacement. One of the worst examples was in Illinois back in 2008, when Tim Baldermann forced his opponents to spend tons of money to compete against him in a primary, then decided a month later he didn't want to be the nominee because he didn't "realize" campaigning for Congress would be a full time job. The IL GOP had to then nominate Marty Ozinga as an 11th hour replacement, and he got clobbered by the Dem.
There need to be laws on the books to punish politicians who decide for "personal reasons" to either resign early or decline the party nomination they sought. There would be a narrow list of criteria that politicians could evoke to leave office early or drop out of a race early, and if they didn't meet that criteria, there would be ramifications. I like Impy's suggestion of forcing them to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the special election needed to select a replacement candidate.
(and hey, while we're at, Ahnuld should have been forced to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of TWO pointless "special elections" he called for ballot referendums, considering he could have avoided wasting all that money if he had just waited a few months until the regularly scheduled election to put them on the ballot)
Thank you, I am starting to understand.
They use 2 different offices, with nominal pay (it has to be an office of “profit”).
Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds and Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. Neither office has had actual duties for centuries.
http://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/chiltern-hundreds/
Thank you, Between you and a few others, I am starting to understand.
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