A dual mandate is the practice in which elected officials serve in more than one elected or other public position simultaneously. This practice is known as double jobbing in Britain and distinguished from double dipping in the United States (which refers to being employed and collecting retirement from the same public authority at the same time.)
For example, suppose a candidate wins a seat on a local authority at an election. If the same person then wins a seat in the national legislature in a separate general election, this is a dual mandate.
Dual mandates are sometimes prohibited by law. For example, in federal states, federal office holders are often not permitted to hold state office. In states with separation of powers, members, whether elected or not, of the executive, legislature, and judiciary are separate. In states with bicameral legislatures, one cannot simultaneously be a member of both houses. The holder of one office who wins election to another where a dual mandate is prohibited must either resign the former office or refuse the new one.
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A member of the European Parliament (MEP) may not be a member of the legislature of a member state.[1] This dates from a 2002 European Union decision, which came into effect at the 2004 European elections in most member states,[1] at the 2007 national election in the Republic of Ireland,[1] and at the 2009 European elections in the United Kingdom.[1]
Originally, MEPs were nominated by national parliamentarians from among their own membership.[2] Prior to the first direct elections in 1979, the dual mandate was discussed.[2] Some advocated banning it, arguing that MEPs who were national MPs were often absent from one assembly due to being at the other.[2] The early death of Peter Kirk was blamed by his election agent on overwork resulting from his dual mandate.[3] Others countered that dual mandate members enhanced communication between national and European assemblies.[2] The Eurosceptic Danish Social Democrats supported compulsory dual mandate, to ensure the state's MEPs expressed the same views as the national legislature.[4] The government of Denmark supported compulsory dual mandate, while the other eight members supported optional dual mandate.[5] The 1976 law preparing for the 1979 elections expressly allowed the dual mandate.[6] In 1978, Willy Brandt suggested that one third of MEPs should be national MPs.[7]
Dual mandates are rare in Australia. It is illegal to be a member of any state parliament and the Australian parliament simultaneously. A member of a state parliament seeking federal office must resign before seeking election to the Federal Parliament. It is possible, but unusual, to be a member of a local government and another parliament. Since 2004 Clover Moore has been both the independent member for Sydney in the NSW Parliament and the Lord Mayor of Sydney.
In Canada, dual mandates are rare and frequently barred by legislation; section 39 of the Constitution Act, 1867 prevents a Senator from being elected as a Member of Parliament; similarly, s. 65(c) of the Canada Elections Act makes members of provincial or territorial legislatures ineligible to be candidates to the House of Commons.
In other circumstances, an elected official almost always resigns their first post when elected to another. They have occurred occasionally when the member was elected to a second office shortly before their other term of office was due to expire anyway and whereby the short time frame would not merit the cost of a special by-election. For example, Jenny Kwan, a Vancouver city councillor was elected to the provincial legislature in May 1996, six months before the expiry of her term on City Council. She held both offices simultaneously for that period of time. A year earlier, in 1995, the British Columbia legislature had debated a "Dual Office Prohibition Act" which failed to pass second reading.
It is common for the MPs of the Finnish Parliament to hold a mandate as a member of their local municipal council as well. 79 per cent of the MPs elected to the parliament in 2011 were also municipal council members.[8]
The dual mandate is a common practice in the French Fifth Republic (1958–present) and holding up to five offices at once is at least theoretically possible in the French system. Known as cumul des mandats, an individual French politician may simultaneously hold offices at any combination of the communal, departmental, regional, national, and European levels.
In Hong Kong, dual mandate is common for members of the territory's Legislative Council, who serve concurrently as members of one of the territory's eighteen district councils. Before the abolition of the two municipal councils in the territory in 1999, it was not uncommon for politicians to serve concurrently at all three levels.
In the Republic of Ireland, the dual mandate of local councillors having Oireachtas seats was abolished by the Local Government (No. 2) Act 2003, an amendment to the Local Government Act 2001.[9] Attempts to include it in the 2001 Act failed after a rebellion by Fianna Fáil backbenchers;[10] the 2003 Act passed after a compensation package was agreed for those losing out.[11] The 2001 Act prohibited being a member of multiple county/city councils, or multiple town councils, or both a town and city council.[12] Brian O'Shea was a member of both Waterford City Council and Waterford County Council until 1993. County councillors are allowed to sit on a town council,[13] and many do so. The 2003 Act provides that a candidate elected simultaneously to a forbidden combination of local councils has three days to choose which seat to take up, with the others being considered vacant.[14]
Per the Spanish Constitution, legislators in the regional assemblies of the Autonomous Communities are barred from being elected to a seat in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Cortes Generales. More precisely, regional legislators can run for the seat, but if elected they must choose between the regional and national parliaments. Nevertheless, members of lower tiers of the Spanish decentralized structure, such as provincial councillors or members of local councils, including mayors, can and have held seats in the Congress of Deputies. The rule barring regional legislators does not apply to the upper house of the Cortes, the Senate: in fact, regional legislatures are entitled to appoint a varying number of members from their ranks to the Senate, according to the population of the region. Currently, the Autonomous Communities appoint 56 Senators, the other 208 being directly elected in general elections.
In the United Kingdom, prior to the 2009 European Parliament elections, there were a small number of members of the European Parliament who were also members of the House of Lords[15] As it is impossible to disclaim a life peerage, it has been ruled that peers must take a "leave of absence" from the Lords in order to be an MEP.
There have also been members of the House of Commons also holding seats in the devolved bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The November 2009 report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life into the controversy surrounding MPs' expenses noted that "double jobbing" was "unusually ingrained in the political culture" of Northern Ireland, where 16 of 18 MPs were MLAs, compared to one Scottish MP being an MSP (First Minister Alex Salmond), and no Welsh MPs being AMs.[16] The Committee recommended that Westminster ban multiple mandates from the 2011 assembly elections.[16] Parties in Northern Ireland agreed to a ban from the 2015 elections.[16]
At a lower level, it isn't uncommon for people to hold seats on both a District Council and a County Council. Several MPs have also retained their council seats until the expiration of their term.
The practice is banned by the constitutions of many U.S. states, but as of 1992 it was still legal in Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York.
In April 1984, Governor of Florida Bob Graham received legislation that passed unanimously in both houses of the Florida Legislature that would forbid public officials from receiving retirement pay and regular pay simultaneously for the same position.[17]
In August 2008, Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich proposed legislation that would prohibit dual-office holding as part of changes to the state's ethics bill, stating that "dual government employment creates the potential for a conflict of interest because a legislator's duties to his or her constituents and his or her public employer are not always consistent." Critics, such as Representative Susana Mendoza, called the actions "spite" on the part of the governor.[18]
Fulfilling a campaign pledge that he had made when first running for the New Jersey Legislature, Jack Sinagra sponsored a bill passed by the New Jersey Senate in 1992 that would ban the practice. At the time that the legislation first passed, there were some twenty elected officials who served in the New Jersey Legislature and another elected office, including Assemblyman Bill Pascrell, who was also mayor of Paterson, New Jersey; State Senator Ronald Rice, who also served on the Newark City Council; and Assemblyman John E. Rooney, who was also mayor of Northvale. These officials protested the proposed ban as interfering with the will of voters to elect officials as they see fit.[19] A newspaper called former State senator Wayne R. Bryant the "king of double dipping" because he was collecting salaries from as many as four public jobs he held simultaneously.[20]
Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine signed legislation in September 2007 that banned the practice statewide, but the 19 legislators holding multiple offices as of February 1, 2008, were grandfathered into the system and allowed to retain their positions.[21] As of the effective date of the prohibition, the grandfathered politicians were:
Senators:
Assembly members:
In February 2001, Jean Schmidt introduced legislation in the Ohio House of Representatives that would forbid public officials from receiving a government pension while still serving in office.[22]