The Government, by putting the Whip on the vote in the Commons, and the Opposition, by their response to the issue.
The Cabinet can say that a proposal is just a Cabinet measure and not whip the back-benchers on the vote, but that is rare. Normally, every government measure is a matter of confidence and a defeat means a new election, as happened when PM Clark was defeated on a budget vote in 1979. He immediately advised the GovGen to call an election, which Clark lost and Trudeau père won.
ETA: this post is in response to Chronos, not the fast-typing Sage Rat.
This, by the way, is why when there is a majority, the Government always wins the vote on government bills. The PM and Cabinet wouldn’t let a matter go to a vote if the House Leader and the Whip advise that caucus support for the bill is shaky.
This is why it’s useful to quote the post you’re responding to. Editing down is fine, so long as you aren’t functionally changing the meaning of the original post.
So, the trade-off is that if they call it just a “Cabinet measure”, then the members of the party (other than those on the Cabinet, presumably) are considered free to vote their consciences?
Yes. That happened with the Mulroney Cabinet’s bill to criminalise abortion in the early 90s, and the Martin Civil Marriage Act in 2005. The PM and Cabinet put those bills forward, and all Cabinet members had to vote for them, but backbench government caucus MPs were free to vote as they saw fit.
The abortion bill passed the Commons, but was defeated in the Senate on a tie vote. The Civil Marriage Act passed both Houses and became law. However, neither were a confidence measure.
If I recall correctly, one member of the Martin Cabinet resigned from Cabinet and voted against the Civil Marriage Act.
One of the Opposition parties, the New Democrats, treated that bill as a matter of party policy and all caucus members were expected to vote for the bill. I think the Bloc did the same, but the Conservative Party did not impose discipline on the vote.
What has to happen for the government to lose a vote on legislation? Isn’t the party/parties forming the government the majority? And aren’t sitting members pretty much obligated by originally agreeing to adhere to the party platform?
Define “member” of a political party. I could fill out a change of registration form right now and poof, I’m a Republican. Tomorrow I might decide to be a Green or a Libertarian. This is how the American system works; anyone who registers as a member of a political party is, by definition, a member of that party. You don’t need to give money, volunteer time, or even vote for that party’s candidates. You can actively campaign against the party’s candidates; doesn’t matter. If I checked the Republican box on my voter registration, I would be just as much a Republican as Mitt Romney.
You apparently don’t like this system. So how would you define who really counts as a “member” of a party, who should be entitled to a voice in the party’s candidate selection? If you say that it is only the official party leadership, well, guess what? Those are elected by the party membership at large, which consists of…anyone who wants to say they are a member. So that doesn’t really solve whatever “problem” you think you have identified.
There may be good reasons to oppose the primary system, but the fact that it occasionally produces candidates that the party leadership disapproves of doesn’t seem to me to be one of them.
One would expect that in a Canadian-style system, any vote is preceded by an informal polling of the parties (or of the individual members, if that particular party doesn’t have a position on the question), and that you wouldn’t put something to a formal vote unless you were confident that you’d win it. It wouldn’t be automatic, because even if you’re the largest party, the Government is probably a coalition, and while your coalition partners probably agree with you on whatever you and they think is the most important issues, they probably won’t agree with you on your entire platform. So after the general election, you have to figure out whom you can work with to get what, and put the things you can’t get enough partners for on the back burner.
Unless, of course, you get an outright majority, and hence can form a single-party Government, and go hog-wild in implementing your entire platform. At least, until such time as a general election is mandated, at which point you’re answerable to the voters, or your party fractures internally, at which point you’d lose confidence and have a general election early.
I wish this were more true than it is. The Utah Republican Party has been fighting (and losing) a state law that requires that candidates be allowed to collect signatures to appear on the ballot in a party’s primary election, bypassing our traditional Caucus-Convention system.
Red Wiggler and Chronos, I fear that I’m hijacking this thread about nominations into a general discussion of Canadian parliamentarianism. If you feel like opening a thread, sure, but I think it best to keep this thread about nomination practices.
** Hurricane Ditka**, that seems very odd. Since the Republicans are so firmly in control in Utah, what is driving the supporters of the legislation? Is it a split in the state Republican Party?
It reminds me of a news article I read some time ago about a group of state party officials who were having a multi-state conference, and one of the issues under discussion was “do state parties still have any role to play in electoral politics?” The Utah law would seem to be an example of what they were talking about.
And this is the way it is in some states and it is wrong. It is a blatant violation of freedom of association. The party may be forced to associate with individual it does not wish to.
It appears to me that this happens way more to the Republican side than the Democratic side, our 2 major parties. I’m wondering how happy the Democratic Party would be if a white supremacist skin head racist ran as a Democrat and got the necessary amount of signatures to get on the ballot.
“I’m a member of your organization just because I say I am even though I’ve never contributed anything to your organization, I stand opposite everything you stand for and you don’t want me as a member.”
ETA: FWIW, I disagree with the court’s decision. I’d like to see more respect for a political party’s (and other organization’s) freedom of association.
Better yet, candidates should run on the party that has the platform they actually believe in and with a party that actually wants them as a candidate.
I notice you never commented on David Clarke running as a Democrat although he adheres to Republican philosophies and the Democratic party didn’t want him. Why on Earth should the Democratic party be forced to have a candidate who does not believe, support, nor endorse their platforms or the party itself, goes to and speaks at events for the opposing party, and the Democrats don’t want to be represented by him?
He still gets to be a Democrat just because he says he is and they have no say in it?
How does that not violate the Democratic parties freedom of association rights?
This was me. My state allows Independents to vote on either ballot. I didn’t think either Democrat could win the general election, although i intended to vote for the Democrat. So I voted for Kasich in the Republican primary, because I thought he’d be the best president of the lot.
I don’t think this is immoral, nor was I trying to “sabotage” anything. But because people often do choose to sabotage primaries, I oppose open primary laws. I’ll take advantage of them if they exist, but given a choice, I’d vote for closed primaries.
The only exception would be if a state ran a non-partisan primary for all candidates.
I agree. There’s no practical way to prevent it.
yes, but registering is a nuisance. In practice, requiring someone to register creates a significant disincentive to register in the “other” party to spoil the vote.
That’s very Canadian-ly courteous of you and maybe one of us will. But I thought it was important to note that there were other candidate selection systems in use around the world that appeared to be unlike our own and yet pretty effective in and of themselves.
Now, moving elsewhere, I’m not understanding (seems like I don’t understand a lot) why the Utah legislature is regulating internal procedures of the state’s GOP. Shouldn’t the parties be responsible themselves for choosing primary vs caucus vs something else for selecting their candidates?
Just as Bernie got to be a Democrat even though he really isn’t, and Trump got to be a Republican, even though he really isn’t. Until there’s a legitimate multi- (greater than two-) party system, what choice is there?
I don’t care about David Clarke. Cherrypicking a flaw in the system proves nothing.
And I notice that though you still portray the closed primary system as the majority and ‘the right thing to do,’ only 14 states have it. Seems an overwhelming majority of the states believe in the freedom to choose who one can vote for.