Concilium Daoni

The Concilium Daoni (lit. "Common Council") is the primary legislative body 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. As a legislative body, is responsible for creating and amending any provisions of the laws of Urcea, organized as the Consolidated Laws of HMCM's Kingdom and State, with the exception of the guild law, which is amended by the Gildertach. 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.

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.

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.

Efforts to centralize and increase the powers of the Daoni had considerable legal hurdles. Although the authority of the Apostolic King increased in the realms he ruled, those realms - be they the core parts of the Urcean Kingdom itself or the duchies of modern Gassavelia, Canaery, or Ænglasmarch - had differing internal structures, and the Daoni's authority extended only to those lands considered Royal. The lands of the Duchy of Transurciana also enjoyed significant autonomy and protection from Royal laws. These jurisdictional issues prevented the Daoni from asserting itself in a meaningful way until the aftermath of the '75 Rising. That rebellion in Gassavelia lead many in Urceopolis to reevaluate the governance of the peripheral territories, leading to the adoption of the Jurisdiction Decree in 1685, which incorporated all of the King's possessions into the Daoni and began the process of legal reform in Urcea that would not be complete until the Administrative Reform Act of 1892. Despite these momentous changes, the Daoni remained primarily 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, which is considered to be the date in which the modern history of the Daoni begins.

There have been two s during the modern history of the Daoni - once during the Second Great War, lead by the National Democratic Party, and once during the Final War of the Deluge, lead by the Union for National Solidarity.

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 2000 Urcean elections, and the fifth year election, such as the 2015 Urcean elections. 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 2010 apportionment, each seat was pegged to 2,683,204 Urceans.

2020-30 allocation
A map of the Concilium Daoni's constituent districts for the decade of the 2020s.

Officers
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 Chancellor rarely serves as presiding officer of the Daoni in the modern era, delegating the responsibilities on a rotating basis to members of the majority party.

Party leaders
Each party in the Concilium Daoni elects a leader, who almost always is also the leader of their respective party. The leader of the majority or government party is almost always the Chancellor and Temporary President. 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. The party leaders informally use a numbering system based on the size of their minority - with the leader of the largest opposition party being "First Minority Leader" and the like. During a, the leaders of the secondary parties are referred to by the official title "Deputy Chancellor for the State of the Realm". These are also typically ordered by the number of members, like the minorities, except if a party was previously in a coalition with the governing party, in which case they take order of precedence.

Non-voting officers
The Secretary of the Concilium Daoni, an office which serves as the head administrative post of the body who serves as the pleasure of the Chancellor and Temporary President, is empowered by the legislative law to speak on the floor of the Daoni and is the only non-member who is authorized to do so, although in the modern era this prerogative is unused. In addition to the Secretary, the Journal Clerk of the Concilium Daoni is the other non-voting prominent officer. The Journal Clerk is responsible for taking the official record of all business before the Daoni and also reads the title of each bill before the Daoni and also calls the roll for voting. Like the Secretary, the Journal Clerk is a political appointee of the Chancellor.

Procedure and rules
By custom, the Concilium Daoni meets in a single year-round session that is not formally adjourned until December 31st, and accordingly each term in office fully encompasses five legislative sessions. This practice began in the 19th century as a method to assert the independence of the chamber, as the Procurator and Apostolic King of Urcea are both empowered by law to call a session of the Daoni at any time. In practice, the Daoni meets on Tuesday through Thursday each week, with weeks when the budget is being considered lasting longer and into weekends, while weeks before vacations are typically shorter. Even during budget votes, the Daoni does not meet on Sundays by both custom and by a part of the legislative law. During days in which the Daoni does not meet, a single member of the Majority Party - usually a local Urceopolitan representative, if available - will "gavel in" a nominal session of the Daoni and immediately "gavel out". These nominal session days include the Daoni's vacation periods, which occur in the first two weeks of April, throughout all of August, and during the last two weeks of the year.

Unlike some other legislative chambers abroad, the proceedings of the Concilium Daoni are largely strictly set forth, and accordingly procedural votes are a somewhat rarity with the exception of pro forma votes on s, which are nearly always defeated by the majority party and are used by the minority party to make political statements.