Can a city mayor be a member of the national parliament in your country?

[Jan H]

I don't know what the legal status is here in Canada, but I'd still have a problem with it. Being a mayor for any large-ish city tends to be a big job. Maybe you guys just have much smaller cities, but if the mayor of my million-person-city was also an MP, I'd not be pleased, regardless of the commute.

Like I said, it depends a lot on the size of the cities. We don't have any multi-million cities. Brussels (1 million inhabitants) is divided in several municipalities, each with their own mayor. When I say "smaller cities", I mean up to 50.000 or so. Above that, I can't think of many examples of mayors also being MP. The only one I know of is the mayor of Antwerp that I mentioned before.

It also depends on how the democracy in your country works. In Belgium, a lot of the legislative work is prepared by the coalition government (federal or regional), and the job of the members of parliament, especially the ones from the parties that belong to the coalition majority, is often just to show up and vote in favour of the proposed laws. The power of individual MPs is quite limited because of party discipline...

Executive jobs cannot be combined, for instance government ministers cannot be city mayor at the same time. They can be elected to a city council though, but then they have to get themselves replaced. We have municipal elections coming up in a couple of weeks, and several government ministers are running. I believe even our prime minister is running in his home town of Mons. Some of the minsiters are saying they will be quiting their ministers post when they can become mayor, but others are just running to support the local branches of their parties (ps. our municipal elections are also based on party lists and proportional representation; in Flanders, the mayor is not elected directly, but selected from the council members of the parties that can form a coalition majority)

I'm not saying I approve of all of this, btw...

 

[lovett]

There's an interesting story I read recently on the subject:
Le scandale des collectivités locales (in French)

As a matter of fact, the National assembly does have a voice when it's a matter of defending personal interests. Members of parliament constantly threaten to oppose any rationalization of the territorial organization proposed.

As a result, France is the country with the most territorial collectivies in the world: 36,700 municipalities, 5,000 agglomeration bodies, 101 departments, 26 régions, with no restrictions on their fields of power. As a whole, the whole thing produces 600,000 elected representatives in the country, a world record.

Their cost constantly grows and the National government has absolutely no power on them. 95% of the deputees (members of the National assembly) share their responsibilities with a local mandate. And when they vote the budget, it's a priority for them to make it sure they won't receive less money from the government for their municipality, department or region.

This is a beast. A beast no one has the right to talk about because both left wing and right wing politicians live on it, and wouldn't survive without it. It's time for another revolution!

I see.

So there are some problems caused by the system. But I'm not convinced that the system would be better scrapped then reformed. The local base of French politics has a lot of very salutary functions and the problems do not, quite honestly, seem to cut very deep.

I think the most obvious function is that of finding and training future national politicians. Your parties can't really do that on their own, because they're not that deeply institutionalised. Unlike the UK, for instance, the parties have not been around long enough and do not have the appropriate campaigning apparatus to enable them to find and train future leaders on their own. But every system needs to do this somehow. The French system just does it quite like the American system; politicians prove themselves on a local stage before heading national. If you cut out the local stage -if you made it impossible for politicians to have a local base- France would have no obvious training grounds for political advancement. That's not a good thing; such grounds cut out bad candidates and make good candidates better. In the UK they do this directly; party higher-ups decide if candidates are any good. In France this is done through the electoral system; local electors decide if a prospective politician is any good. Obviously, there are pros and cons for each system, but as France can't simply wish itself into deeply institutionalised parties it needs some form of local training ground. It needs advancement from local government.

Local government obviously has costs. And, in France, one of those costs is clearly a proliferation of elected positions. This could be trimmed. But (pace the article you post) I don't think it at all obvious that the operational costs of such government are being lead by the grasping nature of local politicians. Again, Deputees do what the Government tell them to do. The Government and the President hold all the powers of patronage and. if they fall, the Assembly goes with them. Consequently, it is the government's decision what direction local budgets go in. And the government, although it consists of politicians with their own local power bases, certainly takes a national perspective. I just don't see why they would accede to unreasonable levels of bloat in local government spending.

 

[Cutlass]

Like I said, it depends a lot on the size of the cities. We don't have any multi-million cities. Brussels (1 million inhabitants) is divided in several municipalities, each with their own mayor. When I say "smaller cities", I mean up to 50.000 or so. Above that, I can't think of many examples of mayors also being MP. The only one I know of is the mayor of Antwerp that I mentioned before.

It also depends on how the democracy in your country works. In Belgium, a lot of the legislative work is prepared by the coalition government (federal or regional), and the job of the members of parliament, especially the ones from the parties that belong to the coalition majority, is often just to show up and vote in favour of the proposed laws. The power of individual MPs is quite limited because of party discipline...

Executive jobs cannot be combined, for instance government ministers cannot be city mayor at the same time. They can be elected to a city council though, but then they have to get themselves replaced. We have municipal elections coming up in a couple of weeks, and several government ministers are running. I believe even our prime minister is running in his home town of Mons. Some of the minsiters are saying they will be quiting their ministers post when they can become mayor, but others are just running to support the local branches of their parties (ps. our municipal elections are also based on party lists and proportional representation; in Flanders, the mayor is not elected directly, but selected from the council members of the parties that can form a coalition majority)

I'm not saying I approve of all of this, btw...

France may be set up in such a way as for that to work. The US, really not. Being a member of Congress is really too time consuming to be the mayor of even a very small town. Very few members of Congress really even live in their home districts. They have to maintain 2 homes. And don't end up spending much time in their home district. A mayor of a smaller town may not be a full time job, but it requires some time, and a lot of availability.

 

[Arwon]

well the NSW state Govt. have just passed legislation prohibiting this due to the re-election of Sydneys Lord mayor


http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2012/04/05/article/No-more-government-dual-roles/TTDHVNAHVU

I am not totally sure of their reasoning, as I live in Victoria the state next door

The reason is just to screw Clover up.

I think federally you can. Joanna Gash is mayor of the Shoalhaven and member for Gilmore. Though she isn't recontesting her federal seat.

 

[Old Hippy]

I think federally you can. Joanna Gash is mayor of the Shoalhaven and member for Gilmore. Though she isn't recontesting her federal seat.

Ahhh, that explains my confusion, i thought she had a seat in Qld. and was unaware she was not recontesting. As of the 10/9/12 she was quoted as saying she defied critics to lanch a high court challenge...

a week is along time in politics or something

 

[Yeekim]

No, not possible in Estonia.

 

[JohannaK]

We have this in Spain. For small cities mainly, but we do. Oriol Junqueras is the leader of his party, mayor of his town and member of the Catalan Parliament, for example.

 

[Winner]

Yes.

(Stacking offices and getting 2-3 salaries per month is a favourite pastime of our politicians. The former mayor of Prague is a shining example of that.)

 

[really]

Thanks. Could you tell me what country you live in? I'm really interested to know the common practice from a country to another.

I'm in Ireland. As a small country all power is in the national parliament.

If a member of a town/city/county council or a member of the senate or European parliament gets elected to another role they must resign from their original seat within a specified period.

The town/city/county council will pick someone as a replacement to sit on the council until the next election - usually it is someone from the same party as the person leaving.
The councils have limited powers.

If an MEP leaves his seat the person he had formally nominated as his successor when he stood for election is given his seat.

If a member of the national parliament leaves his seat a by-election is held in his constituency.

There was an interesting case during the last government where the then government delayed as long as possible holding by elections as their majority was very small and they expected to loose the by election.

I think double jobbing (dual mandate) was being eliminated in Northern Ireland as well - Ian Paisley had seats in Belfast, London and Brussels at one point.

 

[Agarwaen]

In Brazil you can't accumulate mandates. Your are either a mayor OR a deputy. In fact, if a mayor (or a governor) want to participate in any other election he must resign and leave the office for his vice before the start of the campaign.

 

[luiz]

In Brazil you can't accumulate mandates. Your are either a mayor OR a deputy. In fact, if a mayor (or a governor) want to participate in any other election he must resign and leave the office for his vice before the start of the campaign.

Correct, and I think that's a good thing.

You can accumulate a mandate with a "board role" on state-owned companies, though, which is what top politiciams use to get filthy rich legally. Guido Mantega for instance has a "board role" on IIRC Petrobras, Furnas and Itaipu, which added to his minister salary means he takes home about 70K reais (35K USD) every month. Dilma had board roles when she was Minister as well, nt sure if she can still keep them as President (the President can get filthy rich through other legal means, like travel diaries).

 

[The_J]

mmhh...interesting question. I thought not, but according to wikipedia not prohibited to be a mayor and a member of the parliament. But it's forbidden to be both the federal parliament and in state parliaments (but not all), so that should mostly prevent that somebody is in both...er...chambers (?).
On a related note, it's also not allowed to be in the federal parliament and in the european parliament, probably due to the same matter.

 

[Souron]

The US constitution may not forbid it, but various state constitutions do. You are often allowed to run for both offices (Paul Ryan is running for both VP and his US House seat right now), but I believe most states have rules where you can't hold two elected offices at once, period....so you couldn't have somebody be a mayor and a state representative, or the state auditor, etc.

Though like term limits, I imagine that it would be possible to claim that the states don't have the authority to make that restriction on federal offices. So a person could not be a mayor and a congressman, but might plausibly get away with being congressman and a federal official.

 

[bhsup]

Though like term limits, I imagine that it would be possible to claim that the states don't have the authority to make that restriction on federal offices. So a person could not be a mayor and a congressman, but might plausibly get away with being congressman and a federal official.

Well no, that is actually banned by the US Constitution. See my first post in this thread.

 

[Marla_Singer]

mmhh...interesting question. I thought not, but according to wikipedia not prohibited to be a mayor and a member of the parliament. But it's forbidden to be both the federal parliament and in state parliaments (but not all), so that should mostly prevent that somebody is in both...er...chambers (?).
On a related note, it's also not allowed to be in the federal parliament and in the european parliament, probably due to the same matter.

Member of the European Parliament is the only mandate in France which can't be stacked with another one.

There's probably a rule at the EU level preventing it. This can't be a French initiative.

 

[JohannaK]

Actually, that's possible in Spain. The same guy I mentioned before as member of the parliament, mayor of his town and leader of his party is also a member of the European Parliament. Although I'm not sure he is anymore.

 

[del62]

In Britain I think you can do both, certainly when Ken Livingstone became Mayor of London in 2000, he held his seat in Palriment for a year.

Personally I like the idea you give up your seat in parlimnent before standing for Mayoral office.

 

[Patroklos]

Mayors in the US don't have any direct policy making links to national level legislatures, so there really isn't any conflict of interest whether its allowed or not.

Also, since our Senators are no longer representatives of the states themselves (the political entity) and are also directly elected, we no longer (unfortunately) have that distinction between lower and upper houses as you describe.

I also want to point out to some say being a mayor would be full time work that that depends on the city. In a lot of municipalities the mayor himself is merely a figurehead with a city manager doing the day to day work. Of course even being just a figure head of a large city can be a full time job, but I could see a mayor of a small town pulling off being a Congressman as well.

 

[Leifmk]

Pretty sure it's not possible in Norway, not even for mayors of podunk rural municipalities where it's a part-time job (. Get elected to a higher-level office and you have to resign your lower-level one. This happened with the guy who was mayor of my home island a decade or so back; some folks joked that they only voted for his party so they could get him shipped off to the capital and be rid of him in local politics.

 

[Babbler]

Strange that the wikipedia article hasn't been posted until now.