Concilium Daoni

The Concilium Daoni (lit. "Common Council") is the primary legislature of the Apostolic Kingdom of Urcea. As the primary portion of the legislative branch of the Urcean Government (the other being the Gildertach), the Daoni passes nearly all laws, elects the Chancellor and Temporary President, and supervises the work of the government. It also has the power to waive the immunity of its members, and remove the Chancellor and Temporary President, members of the Concilium Purpaidá, and even the Procurator from office. It can dissolve the governing majority in a constructive vote of no confidence. The Concilium Daoni itself cannot be dissolved, and elections are held on the first Tuesday in November every five years. Its term is the same as the term of the Procurator.

Contents

 * 1 Name and terminology
 * 2 History
 * 3 Membership, qualifications, and apportionment
 * 3.1 Apportionment process
 * 3.2 2030-40 allocation
 * 4 Leadership
 * 5 Committees
 * 6 Legislative functions

Name and terminology
The term "Concilium Daoni" literally translates to Common Council, reflecting its original membership of only privilegiata and freemen as opposed to the Great Landsmeet, which sat optimates. Members of the Concilium Daoni are called Delegates, and their districts are called Delegations.

History
The Concilium Daoni was formally created in 1146 as an advisory body of the Great Landsmeet, an institution which descended from the tribal assembly of Great Levantia. Made up of privilegiata and freemen, the body was intended to serve as a method for deadlocked disputes between the Apostolic King of Urcea and the Landsmeet to be resolved. The Daoni, made up of delegates rather than high nobles themselves, was much more flexible and could meet on a more regular basis. It was given all the legal force of the Great Landsmeet in 1221, and subsequently replaced that body. During the remainder of the medieval period, it served as a body primarily aimed at approving tax measures proposed by the King. It remained a body that approved tax changes and served in an advisory capacity until the Concession of 1747, which greatly empowered the body and expanded its responsibilities. After 1747, the Daoni began to assert itself as the national legislature, and the development of the Constitution of Urcea throughout the 18th and 19th century cemented its status as such by 1845.

Apportionment process
The Concilium Daoni's seat allocation is dependent on the decennial national census, conducted by the Censors in years ending with zero. Upon conclusion of the census, typically in February of the year of the census, the Censors present their results to the Apostolic King of Urcea, who is responsible for creating a temporary Royal Commission for Allocation of Delegates. The Royal Commission is primarily comprised of leading political figures as well as notable demographers and other experts. The Commission presents its allocation plan to the Concilium Daoni by June of the census year, and allocation plans must have the final approval of the Daoni before entering into force, and if enacted the allocation plans are used for that year's election. As a result of the short work window, considerable research into potential allocation plans is done on a yearly basis by the Censors in order to aid the Commissions in creating a final plan. As a result, apportionment plans are used for two elections: the census year election, such as the 1980 Urcean Concilium Daoni election, and the fifth year election, such as the 2035 Urcean Concilium Daoni election. The Daoni is under no obligation to accept or implement an apportionment plan if the census results indicate that each extant district is still within the ten percent population deviation allowed under law for each district; it is not uncommon, therefore, for an apportionment plan to have been used for two or more decades.

Precedent under the Constitution of Urcea provides for the principle of one man, one vote with regards to Daoni seat apportionment, allowing for a deviation of up to ten percent in terms of the creation of districts. Seats apportioned by the Daoni take the name of the local area rather than a number, and by law these seats must be somewhat geographically concise in order to prevent large degrees of gerrymandering. Seats are also designed to be constrained by the borders of Urcea's subdivisions in order to best represent the needs of the constituencies. The Daoni is capped at 500 members by law, dating to the Constitutional Settlement Act of 1902. In the 2030 apportionment, each seat was pegged to 2,683,204 Urceans.

2030-40 allocation
A map of the Concilium Daoni's constituent districts for the decade of the 2030s.

Leadership
Legally speaking, the popularly-elected Procurator serves as the President of the Concilium Daoni by merit of his or her stewardship over the Royal Treasury, but the presiding role of the office has long-since become titular as the Constitution of Urcea has developed. Historically, in his stead, a temporary president was often elected by the members to preside over the meetings, though the day-to-day parliamentary procedure is no longer managed by the Temporary President. Instead, as the premiership developed, that position was merged with that of the Chancellor of the Royal Treasury, creating the role of Chancellor and Temporary President, who is the leader of the Concilium Daoni. The Chancellor and Temporary President also serves as the body's majority leader, and appoints the various officers necessary for the functioning of the body.

The various parties in the minority each elect a Minority Leader, and the Minority Leader of the largest opposition party nominally holds the office of Leader of His Most Christian Majesty's Loyal Opposition, but this title is rarely used.

Functionally speaking, the Chancellor and Temporary President as well as the Minority Leader almost always come from either the two largest political parties in Urcea.