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Senators test their power

LEGISLATION granting children access to life-saving medical treatment on June 23 became the unlikely flashpoint for the new power dynamics of the Senate. The Children’s Life Fund (Amendment) Bill had just seven clauses. But it revealed, in extensive detail, the willingness of opposition and independent senators to test their limits within the early days of the 13th Republican Parliament. Called upon on no less than three separate occasions was Senate President Wade Mark to break tied votes during an unusually long committee stage of the legislation in which senators put forward changes. On all these occasions, all the independents voted as one; and on all these occasions, all the independents sided with the PNM. It was a marked departure from the Parliament’s previous incarnations. Making this new 15-15 status quo even more unusual and extreme, however, was the fact that, in the end, the overall legislation was passed without objection, notwithstanding committee stage objections. Uncontroversial, it seems, is the idea that children in need should be assisted by the state. But controversial is the scope of the Senate’s power to check the will of the elected House of Representatives. Dramatised this week was not just a power struggle between the new government and the new opposition and independent benches, but also a disagreement over the appropriate scope of senate power itself. One of the biggest bones of contention in the sitting related to executive power: a move to give a minister final say, including in urgent cases, in approving the funding of treatments abroad. The non-government senators, in raising such fervent objections to relatively anodyne legislation of narrow applicability, were arguably more concerned with pushing against the strength of the new government, which has been given a three-fifths majority in the House by the electorate. With this week’s proceedings, the Senate has signalled that majority is no guarantee of the success of far-ranging government bills. When she made her first parliamentary speech on May 23, the Prime Minister sensed coming storms and threw down the gauntlet, sardonically remarking of President Christine Kangaloo’s new line-up: “The independent senate bench of the last two parliament terms has been amongst some of the (weakest) in our history and I trust that in this dispensation, in this 13th Parliament, that we will get some true independence.” Ms Persad-Bissessar, seeing what has played out this week, might be fortified in her views. Under the Constitution, senators cannot vote down finance bills. But as shown on Monday, they will not hesitate to prolong sittings and to attempt to force showdowns on all manner of other legislation, even those facilitating children’s healthcare. And the old taboo against caucusing among independents might be a thing of the past. The post Senators test their power appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.