legislatures

72:2.4The leg­isla­tive di­vi­sion em­braces three houses:

72:2.51. The up­per house is elected by in­dus­trial, pro­fes­sional, ag­ri­cul­tural, and other groups of work­ers, bal­lot­ing in ac­cor­dance with eco­nomic func­tion.

72:2.62. The lower house is elected by cer­tain or­ga­ni­za­tions of so­ci­ety em­brac­ing the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, and philo­sophic groups not in­cluded in in­dus­try or the pro­fes­sions. All cit­i­zens in good stand­ing par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion of both classes of rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but they are dif­fer­ently grouped, de­pend­ing on whether the elec­tion per­tains to the up­per or lower house.

72:2.73. The third house—the el­der states­men—em­braces the vet­er­ans of civic ser­vice and in­cludes many dis­tin­guished per­sons nom­i­nated by the chief ex­ec­u­tive, by the re­gional (sub­fed­eral) ex­ec­u­tives, by the chief of the su­preme tri­bu­nal, and by the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers of ei­ther of the other leg­isla­tive houses. This group is lim­ited to one hun­dred, and its mem­bers are elected by the ma­jor­ity ac­tion of the el­der states­men them­selves. Mem­ber­ship is for life, and when va­can­cies oc­cur, the per­son re­ceiv­ing the largest bal­lot among the list of nom­i­nees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body is purely ad­vi­sory, but it is a mighty reg­u­la­tor of pub­lic opin­ion and ex­erts a pow­er­ful in­flu­ence upon all branches of the gov­ern­ment.

70:12.2While prim­i­tive au­thor­ity was based on strength, phys­i­cal power, the ideal gov­ern­ment is the rep­re­sen­ta­tive sys­tem wherein lead­er­ship is based on abil­ity, but in the days of bar­barism there was en­tirely too much war to per­mit rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment to func­tion ef­fec­tively. In the long strug­gle be­tween di­vi­sion of au­thor­ity and unity of com­mand, the dic­ta­tor won. The early and dif­fuse pow­ers of the prim­i­tive coun­cil of el­ders were grad­u­ally con­cen­trated in the per­son of the ab­so­lute monarch. Af­ter the ar­rival of real kings the groups of el­ders per­sisted as quasi-leg­isla­tive-ju­di­cial ad­vi­sory bod­ies; later on, leg­is­la­tures of co-or­di­nate sta­tus made their ap­pear­ance, and even­tu­ally su­preme courts of ad­ju­di­ca­tion were es­tab­lished sep­a­rate from the leg­is­la­tures.

70:12.3The king was the ex­ecu­tor of the mores, the orig­i­nal or un­writ­ten law. Later he en­forced the leg­isla­tive en­act­ments, the crys­tal­liza­tion of pub­lic opin­ion. A pop­u­lar as­sem­bly as an ex­pres­sion of pub­lic opin­ion, though slow in ap­pear­ing, marked a great so­cial ad­vance.

33:8.1On Sal­ving­ton, the head­quar­ters of Neb­a­don, there are no true leg­isla­tive bod­ies. The uni­verse head­quar­ters worlds are con­cerned largely with ad­ju­di­ca­tion. The leg­isla­tive as­sem­blies of the lo­cal uni­verse are lo­cated on the head­quar­ters of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions. The sys­tems are chiefly con­cerned with the ex­ec­u­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive work of the lo­cal cre­ations. The Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns and their as­so­ciates en­force the leg­isla­tive man­dates of the con­stel­la­tion rulers and ex­e­cute the ju­di­cial de­crees of the high courts of the uni­verse.

39:3.32. Law Fore­cast­ers. The in­tel­lec­tual foun­da­tion of jus­tice is law, and in a lo­cal uni­verse law orig­i­nates in the leg­isla­tive as­sem­blies of the con­stel­la­tions. These de­lib­er­a­tive bod­ies cod­ify and for­mally pro­mul­gate the ba­sic laws of Neb­a­don, laws de­signed to af­ford the great­est pos­si­ble co-or­di­na­tion of a whole con­stel­la­tion con­sis­tent with the fixed pol­icy of non­in­fringe­ment of the moral free will of per­sonal crea­tures. It is the duty of the sec­ond or­der of super­vi­sor ser­a­phim to place be­fore the con­stel­la­tion law­mak­ers a fore­cast of how any pro­posed en­act­ment would af­fect the lives of free­will crea­tures. This ser­vice they are well qual­i­fied to per­form by virtue of long ex­pe­ri­ence in the lo­cal sys­tems and on the in­hab­ited worlds. These ser­a­phim seek no spe­cial fa­vors for one group or an­other, but they do ap­pear be­fore the ce­les­tial law­mak­ers to speak for those who can­not be pres­ent to speak for them­selves. Even mor­tal man may con­tribute to the evo­lu­tion of uni­verse law, for these very ser­a­phim do faith­fully and fully por­tray, not nec­es­sar­ily man’s tran­sient and con­scious de­sires, but rather the true long­ings of the in­ner man, the evolv­ing mor­ontia soul of the ma­te­rial mor­tal on the worlds of space.

43:2.1The con­stel­la­tions are the au­ton­o­mous units of a lo­cal uni­verse, each con­stel­la­tion be­ing ad­min­is­tered ac­cord­ing to its own leg­isla­tive en­act­ments. When the courts of Neb­a­don sit in judg­ment on uni­verse af­fairs, all in­ter­nal mat­ters are ad­ju­di­cated in ac­cor­dance with the laws pre­vail­ing in the con­stel­la­tion con­cerned. These ju­di­cial de­crees of Sal­ving­ton, to­gether with the leg­isla­tive en­act­ments of the con­stel­la­tions, are ex­e­cuted by the ad­min­is­tra­tors of the lo­cal sys­tems.

43:2.2Con­stel­la­tions thus func­tion as the leg­isla­tive or law­mak­ing units, while the lo­cal sys­tems serve as the ex­ec­u­tive or en­force­ment units. The Sal­ving­ton gov­ern­ment is the su­preme ju­di­cial and co-or­di­nat­ing au­thor­ity.

43:2.3While the su­preme ju­di­cial func­tion rests with the cen­tral ad­min­is­tra­tion of a lo­cal uni­verse, there are two sub­sidiary but ma­jor tri­bu­nals at the head­quar­ters of each con­stel­la­tion, the Mel­chiz­e­dek coun­cil and the court of the Most High.

43:2.4All ju­di­cial prob­lems are first re­viewed by the coun­cil of the Mel­chiz­e­deks. Twelve of this or­der who have had cer­tain req­ui­site ex­pe­ri­ence on the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets and on the sys­tem head­quar­ters worlds are em­pow­ered to re­view ev­i­dence, di­gest pleas, and for­mu­late pro­vi­sional ver­dicts, which are passed on to the court of the Most High, the reign­ing Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther. The mor­tal di­vi­sion of this lat­ter tri­bu­nal con­sists of seven judges, all of whom are as­cen­dant mor­tals. The higher you as­cend in the uni­verse, the more cer­tain you are to be judged by those of your own kind.

43:2.5The con­stel­la­tion leg­isla­tive body is di­vided into three groups. The leg­isla­tive pro­gram of a con­stel­la­tion orig­i­nates in the lower house of as­cend­ers, a group pre­sided over by a fi­nal­i­ter and con­sist­ing of one thou­sand rep­re­sen­ta­tive mor­tals. Each sys­tem nom­i­nates ten mem­bers to sit in this de­lib­er­a­tive as­sem­bly. On Eden­tia this body is not fully re­cruited at the pres­ent time.

43:2.6The mid-cham­ber of leg­is­la­tors is com­posed of the se­raphic hosts and their as­so­ciates, other chil­dren of the lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit. This group num­bers one hun­dred and is nom­i­nated by the super­vis­ing per­son­al­i­ties who pre­side over the var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties of such be­ings as they func­tion within the con­stel­la­tion.

43:2.7The ad­vi­sory or high­est body of con­stel­la­tion leg­is­la­tors con­sists of the house of peers—the house of the di­vine Sons. This corps is cho­sen by the Most High Fa­thers and num­bers ten. Only Sons of spe­cial ex­pe­ri­ence may serve in this up­per house. This is the fact-find­ing and time­sav­ing group which very ef­fec­tively serves both of the lower di­vi­sions of the leg­isla­tive as­sem­bly.

43:2.8The com­bined coun­cil of leg­is­la­tors con­sists of three mem­bers from each of these sep­a­rate branches of the con­stel­la­tion de­lib­er­a­tive as­sem­bly and is pre­sided over by the reign­ing ju­nior Most High. This group sanc­tions the fi­nal form of all en­act­ments and au­tho­rizes their pro­mul­ga­tion by the broad­cast­ers. The ap­proval of this su­preme com­mis­sion ren­ders leg­isla­tive en­act­ments the law of the realm; their acts are fi­nal. The leg­isla­tive pro­nounce­ments of Eden­tia con­sti­tute the fun­da­men­tal law of all Nor­la­ti­adek.

100:3.7Man can­not cause growth, but he can sup­ply fa­vor­able con­di­tions. Growth is al­ways un­con­scious, be it phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, or spir­i­tual. Love thus grows; it can­not be cre­ated, man­u­fac­tured, or pur­chased; it must grow. Evo­lu­tion is a cos­mic tech­nique of growth. So­cial growth can­not be se­cured by leg­is­la­tion, and moral growth is not had by im­proved ad­min­is­tra­tion. Man may man­u­fac­ture a ma­chine, but its real value must be de­rived from hu­man cul­ture and per­sonal ap­pre­ci­a­tion. Man’s sole con­tri­bu­tion to growth is the mo­bi­liza­tion of the to­tal pow­ers of his per­son­al­ity—liv­ing faith.

15:11.1It is on such worlds as Uversa that the be­ings rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the au­toc­racy of per­fec­tion and the democ­racy of evo­lu­tion meet face to face. The ex­ec­u­tive branch of the super­gov­ern­ment orig­i­nates in the realms of per­fec­tion; the leg­isla­tive branch springs from the flow­er­ing of the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses.

15:11.2The de­lib­er­a­tive as­sem­bly of the super­uni­verse is con­fined to the head­quar­ters world. This leg­isla­tive or ad­vi­sory coun­cil con­sists of seven houses, to each of which ev­ery lo­cal uni­verse ad­mit­ted to the super­uni­verse coun­cils elects a na­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tive. These rep­re­sen­ta­tives are cho­sen by the high coun­cils of such lo­cal uni­verses from among the as­cend­ing-pil­grim grad­u­ates of Or­von­ton who are tar­ry­ing on Uversa, ac­cred­ited for trans­port to Ha­vona. The av­er­age term of ser­vice is about one hun­dred years of super­uni­verse stan­dard time.

15:11.3Never have I known of a dis­agree­ment be­tween the Or­von­ton ex­ec­u­tives and the Uversa as­sem­bly. Never yet, in the his­tory of our super­uni­verse, has the de­lib­er­a­tive body ever passed a rec­om­men­da­tion that the ex­ec­u­tive di­vi­sion of the super­gov­ern­ment has even hes­i­tated to carry out. There al­ways has pre­vailed the most per­fect har­mony and work­ing agree­ment, all of which tes­ti­fies to the fact that evo­lu­tion­ary be­ings can re­ally at­tain the heights of per­fected wis­dom which qual­i­fies them to con­sort with the per­son­al­i­ties of per­fect ori­gin and di­vine na­ture. The pres­ence of the de­lib­er­a­tive as­sem­blies on the super­uni­verse head­quar­ters re­veals the wis­dom, and fore­shad­ows the ul­ti­mate tri­umph, of the whole vast evo­lu­tion­ary con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and his Eter­nal Son.

28:7.1The se­con­a­phim have their ori­gin and head­quar­ters on the cap­i­tals of the super­uni­verses, but with their li­ai­son fel­lows they range from the shores of Par­a­dise to the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of space. They serve as val­ued as­sis­tants to the mem­bers of the de­lib­er­a­tive as­sem­blies of the super­gov­ern­ments and are of great help to the cour­tesy colonies of Uversa: the star stu­dents, mil­len­nial tourists, ce­les­tial ob­servers, and a host of oth­ers, in­clud­ing the as­cen­dant be­ings in wait­ing for Ha­vona trans­port. The An­cients of Days take plea­sure in as­sign­ing cer­tain of the pri­mary se­con­a­phim to as­sist the as­cend­ing crea­tures domi­ciled on the four hun­dred ninety study worlds sur­round­ing Uversa, and here also do many of the sec­ondary and ter­tiary or­ders serve as teach­ers. These Uversa satel­lites are the fin­ish­ing schools of the uni­verses of time, pre­sent­ing the prepara­tory course for the seven-cir­cuited uni­ver­sity of Ha­vona.