Talk:Legislative council

Odd edits to article

I just reverted a bunch of edits by User:Novem Linguae that incorrectly confuse the term with a Parliamentary Counsel Office and reflect a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of a legislative council in American English.

In the United States, writing bills is only one of several roles of a legislative council. In most states, the primary role of the council's staff is to act as a think tank attached to the legislature. They engage in in-depth research of major public policy issues and write papers that will help guide debates over future legislation. Writing bills is a secondary and relatively minor role. That stands in stark contrast to a Parliamentary Counsel Office, where writing bills is the primary role.

It is true that in a small minority of states like California, writing bills is one of the primary roles of the legislative counsel. However, California is the exception, because it has other government agencies that regularly conduct in-depth studies of various public policy issues and write lengthy papers, like the California State Auditor, the Little Hoover Commission, and the California Law Revision Commission. --Coolcaesar (talk) 22:31, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Coolcaesar, thanks for the feedback and sorry for any misunderstandings. Looks like I was too bold here.

How would you suggest we work the U.S. House and U.S. Senate offices of legislative counsel, who exclusively focus on bill writing, into our existing articles? They seem to write a lot of USA's bills, but do not have articles and are not mentioned much on Wikipedia. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Just remembered to circle back to this. I think the easiest way would be to create appropriate articles at some point and then link to those articles from Parliamentary Counsel Office. --Coolcaesar (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll try to do that as time permits. Thanks for the feedback. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. If you have any secondary sources or ideas for secondary sources, feel free to share. So far I'm only finding significant coverage in 1 CRS report. User:Novem Linguae/Drafts/Senate Office of the Legislative Counsel –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:07, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Hong Kong

Hong Kong's LegCo should be placed under sub-national, which despite Hong Kong has (or had) high degree of autonomy , National People's Congress override some court ruling of HK, and most recently, inserted Hong Kong national security law into the HK legal system. Matthew hk (talk) 23:02, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

You have apparently misunderstood what's national and what's subnational. The mere fact that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (as opposed to the National People's Congress themselves) acted against the territory... alone.. won't turn the Legislative Council of the territory subnational. The British parliament have retained the powers to legislate for the crown dependencies and that won't turn those legislatures from national to subnational too. This parliament retained the right to legislate for some Commonwealth realms way into the 1980s; and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is still the court of last resort for many Commonwealth realms and practically all overseas territories. 223.197.192.15 (talk) 11:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Hong Kong is commonly refer as a typical example of sub-nation. If HK is a nation, then NSW LC should placed as national LC.... Matthew hk (talk) 18:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, in case you did not know, since in 1997 HK is part of China and this fact is widely recognized. HK has high autonomy (until 2014? 2019?) does not means it is independent nation. Please read also Basic Law which mention HK is part of China, as well as the function of National People's Congress in the context of HK legal system. Matthew hk (talk) 00:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

You are obviously confused with what's "sub-national". Would you suggest that the IOC have been wrong to call those committees of countries which aren't sovereign states "national olympic committees" (NOCs)? Why would calling something "national" would mean where it is located is, in your words, an "independent nation"? Is Scotland, e.g., an "independent nation" to have a national museum, a national library, national galleries, a national theatre, and so on and so forth? 223.197.192.15 (talk) 10:44, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Meaning of the term "under the prerogative" is unclear

This article uses the term "under the prerogative" many times without ever directly clarifying which, what, or whose prerogative is being referred to. It's implied to be related to the British Empire, but the corollary implication that no other government or body can have prerogatives seems erroneous to me.

I think a bit of elaboration is warranted:

1. In the History section, on the (royal?) prerogative (writ?) (power?) of the British Empire (UK?) to establish legislative councils.
2. In the "Established under the prerogative" notes for many countries in the legislative council tables, on what authority that prerogative derived from.

SirBlackAxe (talk) 22:58, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I've added a wikilink to the Royal prerogative in the United Kingdom. All of the references to the prerogative are to the British royal prerogative, as indicated by the flags for each of those bodies, showing the Union flag in the canton. I don't think that an article of this nature should turn into a detailed discussion on British constitutional law, which is what is needed to explain the prerogative. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)