Tag Archive: politics


Electoral Reform Bill Passes 67-0

Filed under: Daily Updates, Knesset — 1 Comment
March 11, 2014

Following the opposition boycott of the planned 23-hour session, Speaker Edelstein re-opened up the session as planned at 10 AM. Chairman Rotem (L.B.) blasted the opposition’s boycott. Minister Liberman (L.B.) pointed out that it is ridiculous that Labor and Meretz leaders proposed many of the measures in the bill including the raising of the threshold and today are boycotting the vote. He discussed the 29 committee meetings on the bill and the 253 experts that participated in the meetings. Speaker Edelstein announced that all coalition MKs removed their objections. All of the opposition objections were removed because the objecting MKs were not in the building.

You can read more about the content bill here: https://knessetjeremy.com/2014/03/09/electoral-reform-bill/

Government Bill passed its second reading 67-0 and third reading 67-0.
Knesset Bill passed its second reading 67-0 and third reading 6-0.

MK Hoffman (Yesh Atid) got up after the voting to thank everyone who worked on the bill.
Minister Lapid (Yesh Atid) also spoke from the podium and thanked the people who worked on the bill.
Speaker Edelstein closed the session and said they would re-convene for the presentation of the Haredi Draft Bill at 1 PM.

The only coalition MK who did not vote is Presidential candidate MK Rivlin (Likud Beitenu) who purposely decided to fly to London in order to miss vote. The 52 opposition MKs went through with their boycott.

The official Knesset protocol will show that not one MK gave a speech against the bill and not one MK voted against the bill.
Electoral Reform (for good and for bad) is complete.

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National Referendum Bill

Filed under: Daily Updates, Knesset, Other — 7 Comments
March 9, 2014

The Basic Law: National Referendum will be the third of the big three to be voted on this week.

It has the least objections and requests for MK speeches.
Unlike the other two bills, this bill has no coalition objections.
The opposition decided to focus most of their efforts on the other two bills.
The bill is meant to prevent Israel from giving up her sovereign territory.

  • The National Referendum Bill will be a special election day to decide if to approve or repeal a Knesset decision to give up land that is currently under Israeli law. That applies to all of pre-1967 Israel and post-1967 areas that have been annexed such as the Golan Heights and Eastern Jerusalem.
  • The National Referendum is only implemented if the Knesset approves a decision to give up land that is currently under Israeli law. That decision is then put on hold until the results of the National Referendum.
  • 80 MKs can vote to decide against going to a National Referendum.
  • All Israeli Citizens 18 and up can vote, all other election laws apply.
  • Because it is a Basic Law it is illegal to bypass this law by a temporary measure, executive order, emergency provision, etc.
  • To change any aspect of this law or to add an amendment you must do so through an additional Basic Law, meaning a minimum of 61 MKs.
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Electoral Reform Bill

Filed under: Daily Updates, Knesset, Other — 4 Comments

The first of the the three bills up this week for a vote is the Electoral Reform Bill.

The proposed law includes changes to Basic Laws which require 61 MKs to approve.

This bill is a merger of two bills that will change the executive and legislative branches of government, the third branch (Judicial) will not be touched.

Here are some of the main changes that you will find in the Electoral Reform Bill.

* There are many “objections” from both the coalition and opposition that if passed would change the bill.

  • Raising electoral threshold from 2% to 3.25% (4 seats).
  • Outlawing Ministers without portfolio.
  • The maximum number of Ministers including the Prime Minister will be 19.
  • After the government is formed, additional ministers can be appointed with 70 MKs approving.
  • Deputy Ministers will be limited to four.
  • If 61 MKs request a no-confidence motion it must be voted on within a week.
  • Changing the structure and importance of no-confidence motions in various ways including forcing opposition to display a list of ministers and guidelines for an alternative government.
  • Six changes to the Party Funding Law, including allowing a single MK to break off if his party merges with another party and allowing two parties that ran on a joint faction to split right after elections without any penalties.
  • The “Mofaz Law” allowing 7 MKs of a large party to break off is abolished.
  • Publication of government expenses on the internet in a budget year where no budget was passed.
  • Increasing time a new government has to submit a budget to the Knesset after an election to 100 days.
  • Lowering the number of items that need to be published in the official Government Gazette

Update

* I was going to present all speeches on the bill. Due to the opposition MKs decision not to discuss the proposed law from the Knesset podium and the coalition MKs speeches that did not actually discuss the bill – I decided against it.

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Panels Poll: Likud Beitenu 30, Labor 21, Bayit Yehudi 15, Yesh Atid 12, Meretz 11

Filed under: Knesset, Polls — 4 Comments
March 7, 2014

Panels conducted a poll that was broadcast by Knesset Channel 99 on Mar 6 2014.

Current Knesset seats in [brackets]

30 [31] Likud Beitenu

21 [15] Labor

15 [12] Bayit Yehudi

12 [19] Yesh Atid

11 [06] Meretz

08 [07] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ

06 [11] Shas

04 [06] Movement

04 [04] Hadash

03 [04] Ra’am-Ta’al

03 [03] Balad

03 [–] Strong Israel

00 [02] Kadima

62 [61] Right-Religious

58 [59] Center-Left-Arab

Knesset Jeremy Analysis: 9 seat difference. I don’t remember the last poll that had Labor within a single digit margin of Likud Beitenu. Bayit Yehudi rebounds to reclaim third place. UTJ with an interesting 8 seats puts them ahead of Shas. Strong Israel passes the current threshold for the second time this month. Ben Ari said in an interview on Thursday that although he might not run, his Strong Israel Party will run in the next elections despite the planned threshold increase. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/288446#.Uxj4uvnm6T8

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The three most important bills of the 19th Knesset

Filed under: Daily Updates, Knesset, Other — 9 Comments
March 3, 2014

The three most important bills of the 19th Knesset are expected to come up for their third readings this month, before Knesset goes on recess March 19th. The National Referendum Bill, The Haredi Draft Bill and The Electoral Reform Bill are expected to all pass. Each one of these bills will have a big impact on the country. What is in each bill, what is not in each bill? KnessetJeremy is planning to return to its 18th-Knesset format and give you a summary of each MKs speech in the plenum. It should be a lot of fun.

Jeremy

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