Month: June 2013

The case for non-partisan presiding officers

The other night I watched the procedural wrangling in the Texas Senate as Democrats tried to stop the GOP from ending Wendy Davis’ filibuster of Senate Bill 5, which would have forced most of the abortion clinics in the state to close.

The special session of the legislature was going to end at midnight, so the Republicans were desperate to stop Davis. Over the course of the proceedings, GOP senators lodged three points of order in a bid to break the filibuster. Two of the points of order dealt with germaneness, while the other objected to the fact that Davis had a colleague help her put a back brace on. All these points of order were ultimately sustained by the President of the Senate, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

The problem is that Dewhurst is a Republican, and so he had a vested interest in breaking the filibuster. Indeed, there was a strong aura of partisanship in the way he and his deputy conducted themselves in the chair. The three points of order against Sen. Davis were arguably trivial, and he may have ignored Sen. Leticia Van De Putte when she tried to move the adjournment. He also declared that the bill had passed, even though the votes weren’t tallied until after the midnight deadline (though he changed his tune a few hours later, stating that the bill had failed because he hadn’t signed it “in the presence of the Senate” before midnight).

Unfortunately, this sort of partisan behavior from a presiding officer is hardly unprecedented in American politics. From Washington DC to the state capitals, presiding officers are usually active members of the majority party and are expected to deliver its agenda. Regardless of which side of the aisle they hail from, it seems that the temptation to bend the rules in favor of their party colleagues is often too strong to resist.

This approach stands in marked contrast to that found in Britain. When a new Speaker of the House of Commons is elected, they immediately sever all partisan ties. This political neutrality persists even after they step down: if they choose to take the customary peerage, they sit in the House of Lords as Crossbenchers. Freed from the bonds of party loyalty, the Commons’ speaker is expected to be an impartial umpire who serves the whole house. They must be particularly diligent about protecting the rights of the Opposition as well as those of backbenchers from all parties. When exercising their rare casting vote in the event of a tie, convention dictates that the speaker must always vote to give the Commons another chance to consider the matter before a final decision is taken.

Sadly, I don’t see us adopting a British-style speaker any time soon since both the GOP and the Democrats are eager to have as many advantages as possible when they’re in power. 😦

What’s in a name?

One of the problems I’ve had to face when writing the Khamtir books is the issue of pharaonic names.

Egyptologists usually refer to a king by his birth name plus an ordinal number to differentiate him from similarly named kings (e.g. Ramesses II). This convention is also used in a lot of historical fiction set in ancient Egypt, but I’ve been reluctant to follow suit. For starters, it would cause confusion since the three kings who play a role in my novels would all be called ‘Ramesses.’ Also, there is an increasing amount of evidence that suggests that their reigns overlapped to some degree. In my books, I use the chronology proposed by Ad Thijs. He believes that the reigns of Ramesses IX and Ramesses XI may have overlapped, and when Ramesses IX died, Ramesses X replaced him on the throne and ruled alongside Ramesses XI for a brief period of time. Once Ramesses X was dead, Ramesses XI was finally in control of the entire country. Trying to use ordinals in these circumstances would be rather nonsensical.

The birth name (left) and throne name (right) of Tutankhamun. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The birth name (left) and throne name (right) of Tutankhamun. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

Confusion aside, the ‘birth name plus ordinal’ system is also anachronistic. Although Egyptian kings had five names, their prenomen (also known as their ‘throne name’) and their nomen (also known as their ‘birth name’) were used the most. So the main pharaoh in my books, Ramesses XI, would have been known to his contemporaries as  ‘Menmaatre – Setepenptah’ (which can be translated as ‘The Justice of Re Endures – Chosen of Ptah’) and ‘Ramesses – Khaemwaset – Meryamun – Netjerheqaiunu’ (which translates as ‘Re has fashioned him – He Appears in Waset – Beloved of Amun – Divine Ruler of Iunu’). It has been theorized that a king’s names served as a sort of ‘vision statement’ for his reign. Some kings even changed them as their reign wore on, perhaps to reflect changing circumstances.

When I need to refer to Ramesses XI in dialogue or narration, I use the first part of his throne name: ‘Menmaatre’ (though I may opt to use the abbreviated form ‘Menmare’ instead). It’s not difficult to pronounce, so it shouldn’t be a stumbling block to anyone. If I need to be very formal, I’ll add the second part (known as the epithet), but I decided to translate it in order to avoid overloading the reader with strange words. 🙂 I know of at least one author who actually translates the entire royal name, but in that case, the king was only mentioned in passing in a short story. Referring to ‘King The Justice of Re Endures’ throughout an entire novel would get old quickly!