One-Chamber Legislature

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

A one-chamber legislature is comprised of an assembly.

The assembly is a chamber that represents the people. Votes in the assembly are allocated based on population. The assembly drafts, edits, and proposes new laws or resolutions or amendments to existing laws or to the constitution of that level of government.

A one-chamber legislature shall be used for legislatures in the lowest level of government. Members of the assembly, or representatives of the people, shall be allocated votes based on their popular support in the last election. The candidates for the legislature must be presented to all the voting districts represented and their popular support shall be computed as the sum of all the votes they received from all the voting districts combined.

Intent:

To keep the lowest level of government simple and responsive to the people.

This proposal does not intend to rename existing legislatures, only to propose an improvement in the way one-chamber legislatures operate if they are not already operating this way.

Discussion:

In a one-chamber legislature for a county or province, the assembly represents all the people in that county or province.

In a one-chamber legislature for a city, sometimes also called a city council, the assembly represents all the people in that city.

The assembly drafts, edits, and proposes new laws or resolutions or amendments to existing laws or to the constitution of that level of government. The local assembly for a county or province or city can propose amendments to the local constitution or charter.

Terminology

Another term for one-chamber legislature is uni-cameral legislature, and the idea of using a one-chamber legislature is also called unicameralism. This proposal is not intended to propose using a one-chamber legislature where it isn’t needed, only to propose a way for it to operate where it is needed or already exists.

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