Speaker Mike Johnson has once again lost a battle against hardline conservatives for control of his own House floor — and he has no clear way out.
A small group of GOP hardliners, led by firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, effectively seized the floor from Johnson this week, refusing to allow him to move on their own party’s priorities until Republican leaders come up with a plan to pass President Donald Trump’s federal elections overhaul bill.
By Tuesday afternoon, Johnson was forced into one of the most humiliating possible positions for a House speaker: He conceded he could not regain control of the chamber and instructed members to leave Washington early. It’s the second straight week that GOP leaders have had to scrap their plans, this time losing out on nearly an entire week’s agenda.
Like in a bowling alley, when the ball doesn’t trip the sensor and the pins don’t reset…canada has that for government?
I want one!
Pretty much. If the current party in power is not able to gain sufficient support for confidence motions (there are a number of things that qualify as a confidence motion, the budget being a big one) Then the Governor General (the official representative of the King / Queen) can offer control to another party if they ARE able to gather that support, or simply call an election.
Technically the (currently King) is our head of state, but for most functions our Prime Minister fills that role. The current government losing confidence of parliament is one of the functions where the King still holds de facto power in addition to de jure power.
Note that while they are titles held by the same person, the titles of King of Canada and King of the United Kingdom are legally distinct, and while referring to his role in Canadian governance, it is appropriate to refer to Charles III as King of Canada specifically, and inappropriate to use his other titles in that context. Mostly because the King of the United Kingdom has no role in our government, but the King of Canada does.
Hereditary monarchy is silly (derogatory)
It’s called a “confidence vote”. It’s not every bill, and I forget what makes it confidential, but if budgets and big things don’t get passed parliament has no confidence in the government and an election happens. The two states of governance are A: a majority government where the ruling party has enough votes to pass anything they like. And B: a minority government that would have to make concessions and entice the other parties to vote with them. Minority governments are better IMO because they theoretically represent more people.
Generally, budgets and throne speeches are considered automatic confidence votes. Other than that, the House can either propose a non-confidence vote or the Government can designate a vote to be a confidence vote. Generally, the games of chicken over confidence votes happen a lot in minority governments.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/procedure-and-practice-4/ch02-4-e.html
Iirc, it’s when the governing party proposes a bill and it fails to pass, it triggers a vote of confidence, and if that vote goes against them, then there’s an election. Or the governing party can ask the governer general (represents the king… Yeah, I know) to call an election.
One thing I’ve never understood: y’all declare you have no confidence in the government but you have enough confidence to trust it to run a fair election?
It’s not the citizens having no confidence in the government, it’s the other members of parliament. If the government cannot get a majority of MPs to support their bill, they have lost the confidence of parliament, which will trigger and election (or technically could have the GG assign government to another party who DOES have the confidence of parliament, though to my knowledge that has never happened, but it is a tool in their toolbox).
Our federal elections are run by Elections Canada, which reports to parliament as a whole, not to the Government of Canada. It is a non-partisan agency. We have a similar setup in the provinces with each having their own provincial election agency. I am unsure how it is handled in the territories.
Elections are held by Elections Canada, not the governing parties. There are constitutional laws that must be followed for elections, such as spending, how long campaigns last for, how/where voting stations are covered, etc.
The Constitution Act, 1982 doesn’t lay out how elections or electoral finances or voting or campaigns, etc are to be handled. The Constitution only says that elections have to happen every 5 years (s.4 of the Charter and s. 50) and anyone who can vote can be a MP/MPP/MLA (s.3 of the Charter), the conditions to suspend elections (s.4(2) of the Charter), and how many and how ridings are created for Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia(s. 40), and electoral officers (s.83) for Ontario and Quebec. The ridings and the electoral officers are subject to federal or provincial law.
Section 51(1) does lay how to readjust the ridings.
On a fun fact about the Constitution. Many people think it takes 7 provinces with 50 percent of the population to change the Constitution. Certain sections can be changed with a simple vote in the House and/or Provincial Legislature to change.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/FullText.html
How elections are run is decided by either the Elections Act at the Federal level or a Province’s version of the Elections Act.
Just another way the US is an Alpha Democracy. (as in, still full of bugs that got fixed in later versions.) At least I live in California which does a great job on elections.
There are many layers and interpretations of confidence there that you mix up. I’m assuming this works somewhat like where I live. Its the confidence that the government is in a functional state/working somewhat efficient vs the confidence of fair elections. There are mamy ways where parties can essentially block progress or the government in general. That’s somewhat fine and can be an important instrument to use (especially when in the opposition). But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the people causing it want to get rid of fair and free elections. Some kind of “shutdowns” and other grind locks can be very detrimental to a government and there need to be a mechanic to be able to solve them. In this case: We have no confidence the current parliament with the current distribution of seats is working as it should be. We tried everything, we need to restart.
Since it’s a quite drastic process, it’s not something invoked lightly.
That’s a good answer. I was just going to quote Elections Canada: “Elections Canada is the independent, non-partisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums.”
Under the current circumstances, with an administration that’s actively working to restrict and gerrymander away the voting power of anyone who’s not on their side, and firing many of the nonpartisan government employees who might get in their way by refusing to rig the process and results, I don’t think we can have enough confidence in our government to call a vote of no confidence, even if it were in our Constitution.
The government doesn’t run the election, especially if they are not in absolute majority
It’s a vote on something that the government must pass to keep control, such as a budget; if they don’t get the votes, then it’s “no confidence in this government” therefore now the GG calls the rest of the leaders in to try to form another government. If that fails, then the GG forces an election. Elections are entirely separate from governance and changing the rules is very difficult so it doesn’t get fucked up easily.
We have rules too, but the despot in chargge tramples on the rules, and his toadies in Congress and on the Supreme Court let him. He already had Musk and his DOGE goons get rid of most of the career government workers who normally carry out the rules. Elections are supposed to be run by the various states, and that’s given us hope for changing control of Congress at the midterms in November, but he is trying to wrest control of the whole election process.
In any other shithole country with these problems, the world would deploy UN observers to help keep your elections fair. I think it’s going to have to get worse to get better.
canada chucks another ball down the lane?
(is joke i know you press the button and wait for the employee to walk down the gutters and kick the pin resetter and then run away because kicking pin resetters has killed a lot of people but it’s how you get them to work)
The moment a bill doesnt pass it instantly triggers our government dissolving and a new election, up here.