Diet of Edury

The Diet of the Commonwealth (ytrfe) is the legislative body in Edury, holding the supreme legislative competence in the Commonwealth. It is bicameral, made up of the Senate as the upper house, and the Assembly as the lower house. Each house meets in a chamber in the Palace of the Republic in Godenhaven.

The Assembly is the house in which legislation originates, where the Lord-Magistrate sits when sitting in legislative session, and the house which sets the government budgets. It is made up of 200 or more regular members, and the Lord-Magistrate, who sits as the Assemblyman-at-Large. Each Assembly-person elected in a mixed-member proportional preferential system, where constituents vote for both local representatives and elect parties. The Assembly is filled first by approximately 100 members who represent districts of 300,000 people, and are then filled with party-appointed members to match the percentage each party received in the partisan election.

The Senate approves legislation sent to them by the Assembly, sits with the Assembly in joint sessions to approve appointments to Cabinet, and confirms treaties on the advice of Cabinet and the Assembly. It's members are elected in multi-member preferential districts, with each member representing 600,000 people. The districts are drawn along cultural and geographic lines, and the amount of members each one elects is changed every 10 years.

History
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Assembly
The Great and Noble Assembly of Burgesses (ED: Ðe Great and Rightwise Ledemeet of Boroughmen), is the lower house of the Diet. Referred internationally as simply the "Assembly", it is the primary organ of the legislature. Legislation is introduced and voted on in the Assembly, from which it is sent to the Senate. Members of the Assembly are referred to as "burgesses" (ED: Boroughmen).

The Assembly took its modern form in the early 1800's during and after the Eduran Revolution as the successor to the de jure informal Assembly of Estates. While the institutions of the Senate and the Daar were preserved by the revolutionaries, they were made very clearly ceremonial and secondary to the new Assembly and the Lord-Magistrate.

Presidium of the Assembly
The Presidium (ED: Grootfolootgasoot) is the executive board of the Assembly. It is made up of the Lord-Magistrate, the Reeve, and three ministers (ED: Thanes) of the Lord-Magistrate's choosing. All ministers have the right to sit on the Presidium, but only three at a time do. Typically, the ministers chosen to sit are chosen because the day's debates pertain to one or more of the minister's fields. Of the members of the Presidium, only the Lord-Magistrate and the Reeve have votes as members in the Assembly.

Officers of the Assembly
The Lord-Magistrate is the presiding officer of the Assembly. Their duties as a member of the legislature are to lead the Assembly in its parliamentary procedure, enforce the code of conduct, and control the agenda. These powers are why the position of Lord-Magistrate (ED: Lord Deemer) evolved into the chief executive of the country. The Lord-Magistrate's sweeping authority to choose three members of the Presidium from a pool of hand-chosen ministers, plus their enforcement of the daily agenda, makes the Lord-Magistrate the person who steers the Assembly.

To counter-act some of the power of the Lord-Magistrate, at least as it pertains to Assembly meetings, the second-in-command of the Presidium and the Assembly is the Reeve. Typically chosen as the most personally popular or longest-serving Burgess in the governing coalition, the Reeve controls the flow of debate (prior to 1934, the Reeve is the officer who chose which members would speak in debate; after an electronic system for claiming the right to speak was installed, this is no longer the case.) The Reeve is responsible for most of the actual enforcement of the code-of-conduct of the Assembly; it's them who censure or eject Burgesses who violate this code, rather than the Lord-Magistrate. Despite usually being a member of the governing coalition, the Reeve is not an appointee of the Lord-Magistrate, but is elected by the members of the Assembly. The person elected is typically either the longest-serving Burgess, or, the most well-liked person by the general membership. This has cemented the Reeve's role as an impartial guide for courtesy and conduct for the membership personally, if not always politically. However, when the Lord-Magistrate is unable to lead the Assembly, the Reeve takes that role, as well as the political trappings which come with it.

The Seneschal (ED: Senshalk) is the sergeant-at-arms of the Assembly, although is not an elected Burgess, but a hired 'employee.' They lead the procession of Burgesses at the beginning of a legislative session, and are the chief ceremonial officer. The Seneschal also carries the ceremonial mace.