Word Finder - legislatures

definition

A governmental body with the power to make, amend and repeal laws.

definition

A legislative building.

In colonial days the superior judges were appointed by the governors, except in Rhode Island and Connecticut, where the legislatures elected them.

This demand has in many instances led to ill-considered legislation, has frequently ignored the prerogatives and even the existence of the state commissions, and has brought about the passage by state legislatures of maximum freight and passenger rate laws, with rates so low in many cases that they have been set aside by the courts as unconstitutional.

It called for a legislature of two branches, one chosen by the people and based on free population (or on wealth) and the other chosen by the first out of candidates nominated by the state legislatures; a majority vote only was required in each house; and Congress was to have a negative on such state legislation as seemed to the Congress to contravene the articles of the Union.

In many states the legislatures have taken action in the development of law by adopting statutory codes of procedure, and in some instances have even enacted codes embodying the substance of the common law fused with the statutes.

The legislative power is vested in a congress of two chambers - the senate, composed of 30 members (two from each province and two from the capital), elected by the provincial legislatures and by a special body of electors in the capital for a term of nine years; and the chamber of deputies, of 120 members (1906), elected for four years by direct vote of the people, one deputy for every 33,000 inhabitants.

On that date the delegates reassembled in Sydney, and debated the bill in the light of the suggestions made by the legislatures of the federating colonies.

Their power to initiate rates, conferred upon them by their legislatures, was sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court reserving to itself only the power to decide whether the prescribed rates were reasonable.

Since the close of the 10th century diocesan councils in France had been busily acting as legislatures, and enacting "forms of peace" for the maintenance of God's Peace or Truce (Pax Dei or Treuga Dei).

Canning carried against Buxton and his friends a motion to the effect that the desired ameliorations in the condition and treatment of the slaves should be recommended by the home government to the colonial legislatures, and enforced only in case of their resistance, direct action being taken in the single instance of Trinidad, which, being a crown colony, had no legislature of its own.

In 1889 the Democrats were charged with fraud in the 34th election precinct of Silverbow county, and, the dispute remaining unsettled, two legislatures were seated.

Colonial legislatures are said to have delegated powers.

The legislatures of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and town meetings in Cheshire and Grafton counties (New Hampshire) and in Windham county (Vermont) accepted the invitation, and the convention, composed of 12 delegates from Massachusetts, 7 from Connecticut, 4 from Rhode Island, 2 from New Hampshire and 1 from Vermont, all Federalists, met on the 15th of December 1814, chose George Cabot of Massachusetts president and Theodore Dwight of Connecticut secretary, and remained in secret session until the 5th of January 1815, when it adjourned sine die.

The legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut approved of these proposed amendments and sent commissioners to Washington to urge their adoption, but before their arrival the war had closed, and not only did the amendments fail to receive the approval of any other state, but the legislatures of nine states expressed their disapproval of the Hartford Convention itself, some charging it with sowing "seeds of dissension and disunion."

The least respected legislatures are those of the richest and most populous states, such as New York and Pennsylvania, because in such states the opportunities offered to persons devoid of scruple are the largest.

Three of the original thirteen have their judges elected by the legislatures, and in five others, together with Maine and Mississippi among the newer states, they are appointed by the governor, subject to the approval of the executive council, the Senate, or (in Connecticut) the General Assembly.

Quite as much must be ascribed to the want of faith in the legislatures of states and cities, which are deemed tao liable to be influenced by selfish corporations.

There has long been a demand for an amendment to the Constitution which should vest the election of senators in the peoples of the several states, and more than one-half of the state legislatures have at one time or another passed resolutions in favor of the change.

This platform was endorsed by conventions in Florida and Virginia and by the legislatures of Georgia and Alabama.

An amendment to the constitution to be adopted must be approved by a majority of the members elected to each house of the general assembly in two successive legislatures and then, at least three months after the second approval of the general assembly, by a majority of the popular vote cast on the adoption of the amendment.

The new legislature was the first among the legislatures of the states to ratify (on the 1st of February 1865) the Thirteenth Amendment.

Conditions both in Ohio and in Congress had placed him, and were to keep him for twenty years, in an attitude of aggressive and uncompromising partisanship. His Congressional district was naturally Democratic, and its boundaries were changed two or three times by Democratic legislatures for the purpose of so grouping Democratic strongholds as to cause his defeat.

The federal parliament of Canada has jurisdiction over all matters not specially assigned to the local legislatures, while the federal parliament of Australia has only such jurisdiction as is expressly vested in it or is not expressly withdrawn from the local legislatures.

But the people of these cessions, especially of Kentucky, were closely allied to the great up-country party of Virginia, and altogether they formed the basis of the Jeffersonian democracy, which from 1794 opposed the chief measures of the Washington administration, and which on the passage of the Alien and Sedition laws in 1798 precipitated the first great constitutional crisis in Federal politics by the adoption in the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures of the resolutions, known by the names of those states, strongly asserting the right and duty of the states to arrest the course of the national government whenever in their opinions that course had become unconstitutional.

The same term is applied to the acts passed by the state legislatures for correcting and redistributing the representation of the counties.

In conformity with this determination the various state legislatures enacted new laws or amended the existing laws to cope with the difficulty; these remained until they were in effect superseded by Commonwealth legislation.

No alteration to be made in states without the consent of the legislatures of such states, as well as of the federal parliament.

He showed the revolutionary and unpractical character of any doctrine such as nullification based on the assumption that the general government was the agent of the state legislatures.

Macaulay, James Stephen, and others, continued the struggle, only suspending it during a period allowed to the local legislatures for carrying into effect the measures expected from them.

When this was done the local legislatures saw that the slaves would no longer work for the masters; they accordingly cut off two years of the indentured apprenticeship, and gave freedom to the slaves in August 1838 instead of 1840.

But a quarrel broke out among the Republicans (1872), the result of which was the installation of two governors and legislatures, one supported by the Democrats and Liberal Republicans and the other by the radical Republicans, the former being certainly elected by the people.

The rival legislatures united, organizing under the Nicholls government, which the commission found was upheld by public opinion.

Among its recommendations was the direct political representation of natives in the colonial legislatures on the New Zealand model, and the imposition of direct taxation upon natives, which should not be less than £1 a year payable by every adult male.

The Senate consists of two members from each state, or 40 members, who are elected by the state legislatures for a period of four years.

The first principle to which he looked for national salvation was, that the"duties of governors are strictly and peculiarly religious, and that legislatures, like individuals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have acknowledged."

Many of the Massachusetts revolutionary documents, including the famous "Massachusetts Resolves" and the circular letter to the legislatures of the other colonies, are from his pen; but owing to the fact that he usually acted as clerk to the House of Representatives and to the several committees of which he was a member, documents were written by him which expressed the ideas of the committee as a whole.

Like the previous constitutions of 1776, 1792 and 1831, it was promulgated by a constitutional convention without submission to the people for ratification, and amendments may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of each house in two consecutive legislatures.

In larger or smaller numbers of cognate kindred, for shorter or longer periods of time, near or far from home, the aborigines developed their legislatures, courts, armies, secret societies and priesthoods.

Kentucky is governed under a constitution adopted in 1891.3 A convention to revise the constitution or to draft a new one meets on the call of two successive legislatures, ratified by a majority of the popular vote, provided that majority be at least one-fourth of the total number of votes cast at the preceding general election.

For several years the Anti-Federalists or Republicans had contended that the administration at Washington had been exercising powers not warranted by the constitution, and when Congress had passed the alien and sedition laws the leaders of that party seized upon the event as a proper occasion for a spirited public protest which took shape principally in resolutions passed by the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia.

Copies of the resolutions were sent to the governors of the various states, to be laid before the different state legislatures, and replies were received from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia, but all except that from Virginia were unfavourable.

He eventually became dictator, dissolved Congress (May 31, 1834) and the state legislatures, and substituted creatures of his 1834 own for the governors of the states and mayors of towns, then retiring into private life.

Similarly, the state legislatures, as well as the judges and municipal officers, were actually or virtually selected by the state governors, who were practically agents of the president.

Whereas formerly legislatures met annually, regular sessions are now biennial except in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Georgia and South Carolinaall original states.

A peculiarly notable form of this special or private bill legislation is that of dealing by special statutes with the governmental forms and details of management of municipalities; and the control exercised by the state legislatures over city governments is not only a most important branch of legislative business, but at the same time a means of power to scheming politicians and of enrichment to greedy ones.

Speaking generally, it is chiefly in the sphere of special or private legislation that state legislatures have shown their weak side, and incurred, in many states, the distrust of the people.

The basis for the government of each American city is still a charter, but since the Revolution these charters have been granted by the state legislatures, and are subject to constant change by statute.

In the early days the electors were chosen in many states by the legislatures, but by 1832 South Carolina was the only state retaining this method, and in 1868 she also dropped it.

In Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, the so-called railway belt of British Columbia and the territories, these crown lands are chiefly owned by the federal parliament; in the other provinces, by the local legislatures.

The British North America Act imposes on the provincial legislatures the duty of legislating on educational matters, the privileges of the denominational and separate schools in Ontario and Quebec being specially safeguarded.

The first session of parliament was opened on the 8th of November, but adjourned on the 21st of December till the 12th of March 1868, chiefly on account of the fact that members of the Dominion parliament were allowed, in Ontario and Quebec, to hold seats in the local legislatures, so that it was difficult for the different bodies to be in session simultaneously.