Verbal Text from:
A QUESTION OF UNION
Union Civics Series: #3
Reseune Educational Publications: 9799-8734-3 approved for 80+
Union, as conceived in the Constitution of 2301 and developed through the addition and amalgamation of station and world governments thereafter, was structured from the beginning as a federal system affording maximum independence to the local level. To understand Union, therefore, one must start with the establishment of a typical local government, which may be any system approved by a majority of qualified naturally born inhabitants. Note: inhabitants, not citizens. The only segments of the population disenfranchised for such elections are minors and azi, who are not counted as residents for purposes of an Initial Ballot of Choice, although azi may later be enfranchised by the local government.
An Initial Ballot of Choice is the normal civil procedure by which any polity becomes a candidate for representation in Union. The Ballot establishes the representative local Constitutional Congress, which will either validate an existing governmental structure as representing the will of the electorate, or create an entirely new structure which may then be ratified by the general Initial Electorate. Second of the duties of the Constitutional Congress after the election is to assign citizen numbers and register legal voters, i.e., all voters qualified by age and citizen numbers to cast their ballots for the Council of Nine and for the General Council of Union. Third and final duty of the Congress is the reporting of the census and the voter rolls to the Union Bureau of Citizens.
Subsequent Ballots of Choice and subsequent Congresses can be held on a majority vote of the local electorate, or by order of the Supreme Court of Union after due process of law. In such a re-polling of the local electorate, all native-born residents and emigrated or immigrated residents are eligible in that vote, including azi who hold modified citizen status.
Within Union, the Council of Nine represents the nine occupational electorates of Union, across all Union citizen rolls. Within those occupational electorates, votes are weighted according to registered level of expertise: i.e., most voters in, say, the Science electorate are factored at one, but a lab tech with a certain number of years' experience may merit a two; while a scientist of high professional rating may merit as high as ten, depending on professional credentials achieved far this purpose—a considerable difference, since the factors are applied in a formula and each increment is considerable. An individual can always appeal his ranking to peer review, but most advances are virtually set with the job and experience.
When a seat on the Council of Nine falls vacant, the Secretary of the Bureau regulated by that seat will assume the position of proxy until that electorate selects a replacement; or the outgoing Councillor may appoint a different proxy.
Members of the Nine can be challenged for election at any time by the filing of an opposition candidate with sufficient signatures of the Bureau on a supporting petition.
Recently the rise of rival political parties has tended to make the vacancy of a seat the occasion of a partisan contention, and a challenge to a seat almost inevitably partisan. This has rendered the position of Secretary potentially more vulnerable, and increases the importance of the internal Bureau support structure and the administrative professionals which are necessary for smooth operation through changes in upper-tier administration.
The Councillor sets policy in a Bureau. The Secretary, who is appointed, frames guidelines and issues administrative orders. The various department heads implement the orders and report up the chain through the Secretary to the Councillor and through the Councillor to the Council of Nine.
The Council of Nine can initiate and vote on bills, particularly as touches the budget of the Bureaus, and national policy toward outsiders, but a unanimous vote by the delegation of any local unit can veto a law which applies only to that unit to the exclusion of others, which then will require a two-thirds majority in the General Council and a majority of the Council of Nine to override. The principle of local rule thus takes precedence over all but the most unanimous vote in Union.
A simple majority of the Nine is sufficient to pass a bill into law, unless overridden by a simple vote of the General Council of Union, which consists of one ambassador and a certain number of representatives from each world or station in the Union, according to population.
The Council of Nine presides in the General Council: the Council of Worlds (meaning the General Council without the Nine) can initiate and pass bills with a simple majority, until overridden by a vote of the Nine.
The Council of Worlds presently has seventy-six members, including the Representatives of Cyteen. When the Nine are present, i.e., when it is a General Council, the Representatives of Cyteen originally might observe but might not, until 2377, speak or vote, which was the concession granted by Cyteen as the seat of government, to run until the population of Union doubled that of Cyteen—a figure reached in the census of that year.
Certain entities within Union constitute non-represented units: these are Union Administrative Territories, which do not vote in local elections, and which are subject to their own internal regulations, having the same sovereignty as any planet or station within Union.
An Administrative Territory is immune to local law, is taxed only at the Union level, and maintains its own police force, its own legal system, and its own administrative rules which have the force of law on its own citizens. An Administrative Territory is under the oversight of the Bureau within which its principal activity falls; and is subject to Bureau intervention under certain carefully drawn rules, which fall within the Territorial charter and which may differ from Territory to Territory.
No discussion of the units of Union government could be complete without a mention of the unique nature of Cyteen, which has the largest concentration of population, which constitutes the largest section of any given electorate, which is also the site of Union government—over which, of course, Cyteen has no jurisdictional rights; and which is the site of three very powerful Administrative Territories.
Certain people argue that there is too much Union government on Cyteen, and that it cannibalizes local rights. Certain others say that Cyteen has far too much influence in Union, and point out that Cyteen has always held more than one seat of the Nine. Certain others, mostly Cyteeners, say that the whole planet is likely to become a government reserve, and that the amount of influence Cyteen has in Union is only fair, considering that Cyteen has become the support of the whole government, which means that Union is so powerful and the influence of the Nine so great on the planet, that everyone in Union has a say in how Cyteen is run.
Another point of contention is the use of Cyteen resources both by Union at large and by Administrative Territories, which pay no local tax and which are not within Cyteen authority. The Territories point out that their economic return to the Cyteen economy is greater than the resources they absorb; and that indeed, Cyteen's viability as a planet has been largely due to the economic strength of the several Territories on Cyteen. . . .