The US Senate is poised to hold a vote of no-confidence in the US Attorney-General today. No confidence votes have a different meaning in a Presidential system to a Parliamentary one, in the latter it can bring down a government, ironically, because of poor separation of powers; it cannot in a Presidential system.
The most famous no-confidence vote in Australian Parliament is the one that brought down the Gorton Government. The lead up of events involved the resignation of Malcolm Fraser as Minister for Defence, and journalist Alan Ramsey yelling out "you liar" during in parliament. A no-confidence vote was brought against Gorton and ended up 33-33. Gorton cast the deciding vote and declared the position of leader vacant.
No-confidence votes in the US system do not bring such dramatic results. In fact, I could not find an instance of a no-confidence vote being performed in the US House of Representatives.
Bush's comment on the proposed no-confidence bill was
:
They can try to have their vote of no confidence, but it's not going to determine - make the determination, who serves in my government. There's been no wrongdoing.
There is probably good reason to believe that the Attorney-General's office has violated the Hatch Act; but the prior sentences are correct.
The US Executive Cabinet is appointed by the President, but without Senate approval they are just nominations:
and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law:
That the US Senate is holding the vote of no-confidence suggests that their approval of Gonzales has been removed. The no-confidence vote is symbolic in the US, as it is in the Australian system, but in the US it has less capability to bring about a dramatic change.
From the party political point of view, it wedges several Republican Senators who must choose between loyalty to the President as a leading member of their party, or their conscience, which surely must recognise how poorly administered and highly politicised the Justice Department has become.
Charles Schumer said as much
:
If all senators who have actually lost confidence in Attorney General Gonzales voted their conscience, this vote would be unanimous.
Then again many of the elected Republicans, in the House and Senate, have tried to distance themselves politically from Bush, who languishes in the low 30% of popularity. This may be a chance for them to publicly slap Bush's Administration on the wrist.
I suspect a more successful policy, from both a political and good governance stand point, is to continue to act as a check and balance on the Bush Administration and hold inquiries into their conduct of executive affairs.
A no-confidence vote in a Presidential system will not restore good governance, the legislative energetically overseeing the executive will.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
