Defining the scope over which a vote can be taken I'm looking for the name of something that likely is defined somehwere in Robert's Rules of Order or in some other standard in parliamentary procedure. Before a vote can take place, there must be a minimum number of voting parties present first. This term is called the quorum, and without it, no vote can take place. But what about a term defining the extent and scope to which the group may take a vote on? For instance, the Senate cannot get together and vote on whether or not Bulgaria should legalize marijuana, because Bulgaria is outside of their defined scope. The board of a local homeowner's association cannot convene and take a vote on how many illegal firearm their homeowners can possess, because thats a legal issue outside the scope of the homeowner's association. Whereas quorum defines the number of people required for a vote to take place, I'm hoping there is a word or phrase that defines the scope/domain over which votes can be taken. Does such a word of phrase exist in law and/or governance?
Jurisdiction the authority of a court or official organization to make decisions and judgments A body that acts within the scope of its jurisdiction can expect that its actions will be upheld by the courts - whether that body is the US Congress or a local softball club.
The Declaration of Independence is often cited (along with the Federalist Papers) when the court is attempting to justify a particular interpretation of The Constitution by looking at the intent of the drafters. For example, in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission 576 U.S. ____ (2015), in establishing that the people have ultimate sovereignty quoted the Declaration of Independence: Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... Following that (after also quoting some text from the Constitution), Justice Ginsberg concludes: In this light, it would be perverse to interpret the term “Legislature” in the Elections Clause so as to exclude lawmaking by the people, particularly where such lawmaking is intended to check legislators’ ability to choose the district lines they run in... As a second example, Justice Scalia, in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges 576 U.S. ___ (2015), refers to the Declaration of Independence: This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.
Testing the law means running a case under that law and having a court rule on it. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary does not give opinions on whether a bill proposed or an act passed by the legislature is legal or not - they decide controversies that arise under those acts. The executive is obliged to follow the law so if they do something the law prohibits or don’t do something the law requires then someone with standing (usually someone affected by that act or omission) can take them to court and seek an order for them to stop (an injunction) or to do what they are required to do (a writ of mandamus). In the present situation, it’s my understanding (and I may be wrong) that Parliament has enacted a law that requires the Executive (in the person of the relevant Minister of the Crown) to request an extension from the EU if Parliament has not approved a Brexit deal. Testing the law would mean the Minister not doing that or stating an intention not to do it. A person with standing can then petition the court for a writ of mandamus requiring the Minister to do it. If the Minister still refuses they would be in contempt and subject to being gaoled until they did.
An obvious example would be a contract that gives possession of something to someone else. It's normally legal to use some reasonable amount of force to protect or prevent trespasses against property you own, but if you give possession of that property to someone else you can lose that right. For example, you can use force remove a guest who refuses to leave real property you own, but can't use force to remove a tenant even if they broke the terms of your contract. In most jurisdictions you'd need to get a court order and have the police use force if necessary remove the tenant.
This is a non-justiciable political question. See Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993) (a case involving a federal judge with the surname Nixon, not the U.S. President who resigned on August 8, 1974; Nixon at the time of his conviction and removal from office was a federal district court judge in Mississippi). In other words, it means whatever the U.S. House of Representatives, in voting on the impeachment, and the U.S. Senate, in trying the impeachment, decides it means. But, since U.S. Senate trials of Presidential impeachments must be presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States (see U.S. Constitution, Article I, § 3, clause 6), so that particular judge's opinion regarding what it means may have some influence on the proceedings. The procedures aspects of an impeachment set out in that clause states that: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
You are looking for extraterritorial jurisdiction: As the term indicates, it connotes the exercise of jurisdiction, or legal power, outside territorial borders. This can include nations claiming jurisdiction over crimes in nearby bodies of water and to specific categories of crimes (such as sexual offenses against underage victims) committed by or against citizens while abroad. Wikipedia has a summary, including a few different nations' application of extraterritorial jurisdiction. The Cornell Law Review has a very extensive essay, What is Extraterritorial Jurisdiction?
First, to be clear, this is almost never a state level limitation. To the extent that the link in the question implies otherwise, it is incorrect. Instead, local governments, typically a municipality or in an area that is not part of any municipality, a county, enacts land use regulations, the most common of which is usually called a &quot;zoning code.&quot; There are also usually locally adopted building codes that supplement the zoning code. A zoning code typically establishes rules regarding how different kinds of real estate can be used in different enumerated zones. Usually, there are several different zones in which residential uses are allowed and different rules apply in each one. One of the typical limitations in a residential zone is to establish the number of unrelated people who don't own the home who may live there. The purpose of such limitations is to discourage the establishment of boarding houses, group homes, women's shelters, homeless shelters, flop houses, and halfway houses in relatively low density residential zones, on the theory that these uses are undesirable in terms of neighborhood character and cause undesirable people to move into a neighborhood that lowers property values for other people who live there. More crassly, people in affluent neighborhoods want to ban property uses that make it possible for poorer people to live near them. Often the actual scope of the limitations, however, is far broader than is necessary to prohibit these particularly unpopular &quot;NIMBY&quot; (not in my backyard) uses. The drafters of zoning codes are frequently more concerned about preventing loopholes in their restrictions from being identified than about limiting property rights in a respect that most current property owners in the zone don't avail themselves of anyway. For example, in Denver, where I live, the City Council recently passed a Group Living Amendment to its zoning code easing restrictions on uses of residences by unrelated people. This measure was sufficiently controversial that members of the public used their referral powers to petition to have the repeal of the recently enacted legislation places on the November 2021 general election ballot for voters to consider repealing it. As the link in the question notes, homeowner's associations, frequently also impose limitations on this kind of use of a residence, which are often even more strict, and are frequently adopted for the same reason. HOAs have more authority to do so than local governments because as private entities, they aren't required to meet constitutional law limitations on their authority. The question is, if both parties agree to forgo any safety measures that it might be there to protect, who exactly is it hurting if one person pays the other to stay over? In simple terms: why is it illegal? Why does the government care who stays in who's house, while paying money? Is there some 3rd party that is negatively affected if the guidelines aren't followed? The third-party is the neighboring property owners who fear that the quality of their neighborhood will be reduced by this kind of agreement. I am sympathetic to these criticisms. But, they aren't barriers to enacting laws if people with the power to enact legislation disagree. The simple rule is that in the real world, legislation is not required to adhere to a liberal/libertarian ideal in which laws are enacted only to regulate matters in which someone else may arguably be harmed. Subject to light constitutional regulation, the authority of local government's to enact legislation regulating the use of property is frequently plenary (i.e. unlimited) or close to it. The government can do anything it wants that it isn't forbidden from doing by the constitution or a higher level government's statutes. Courts aren't permitted to second guess the accuracy or desirability of these legislative determinations in most cases. Many states, furthermore, have &quot;home rule cities&quot; that are expressly protected from having their legislative authority limited in many respects by state legislation. A regulatory taking, the prevents property from having any beneficial use, must be compensated by the government enacting the regulation of its use. But regulatory laws may reduce the value of property by limiting the uses to which it can be put so long as there is still some beneficial use of the property that remains available. A very light and disputed impact that is perceived to be negative, such as the one in this case, is a sufficient rational basis for a municipal or local government to enact such legislation, and many local government zoning codes do, in fact, regulate this kind of activity. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the authority of local governments to enact this kind of legislation in the United States in the face of a constitutional challenge to it, in the case of Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. in 1926, although some more extreme versions of limitations on non-related people sharing a home have subsequently been held to be invalid, mostly as a result of later enacted federal fair housing laws.
Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 17 states that &quot;The Congress shall have Power&quot; To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings which then happened in 1 Stat. 130 (1790). It is there referred to as &quot;a district of territory&quot; but more often simply as a &quot;district&quot;. Unlike territories, its existence for its actual purpose as seat of government is specifically enabled by the Constitution. Then via 2 Stat 103 (1801), DC was politically brought within the control of Congress, so that residents were no longer residents of Maryland or Virginia. In this act it is consistently termed a &quot;district&quot;.