The Galactic Senate: total number of senators, sectors, pods and suites?

another question that bugged me for some time:

the senate got 1024 senatorial pods
the Old Republic has lots more than 1024 sectors
and a lot more than 1024 senators

as of ROTS we have 2000 senators in the petition of 2000 alone, and that number does represent just a fraction of the senate, maybe a third, but I think quite less than that.

so how to fit everyone in the senate when having a full session? grouping more than 1 senator into the pods? that make nearly 3075 senators in total if we have 3 per pod + handmaidens and assisting personnel, if so the petition of the 2000 is more than 50% of the senate and quite something.

back to the pods: TPM crossections shows pods close to certain senatorial suits especially prepared to fit their homeworld and atmosphere. as of AOTC and ROTS we see the senate also have pods leading to a corridor and not to personalised suites. so we have pods connected to these suites and pods open for everyone to take. interesting and does that mean not every senator got a suite or how is that handled then?

any opinions?

 

pods that enter suites could be either:

A) designed for special environmental needs

or

B) have the capability to serve those with special environmental needs, but not always used as such. In which case, they could be given to senators in special committees or such...a mark of station.

another thought is that not all levels have a promenade around the outside...maybe every other level has public access pods, while the in between levels have suites to offices...this could grant a number of office "pods" to senators long serving on Coruscant, while avoiding the costs of such for senators rarely present.

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As to the number of senators per pod...look no further then Padme and Bail sharing a pod at the declaration of the Empire...it seems clear that unless you are going to be involved in the meat of floor's debates for the day, you "take a seat along the way" so to speak...and thus you may share.

I also think that unless you have a "suite" pod...which incidentally you may have ownership of for as brief as a single session...that "seating" is entirely random...if you are a general senator of the voting assembly...you find a way to get into the hall...no assigned seating...you likely vote via access code/card from any which-where...so it doesn't matter where you sit.

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So, in the end...I won't postulate as to the number of sectors...but as to senators...if EVERYONE sent their senators to Coruscant...and EVERY senator were to be present at a single meeting...I would suspect even if every seat on every pod had a senator in it...it would be "close" with perhaps the overflow observing from the corridors.

Let's remember that this structure was built for a pragmatic function of governance, not for the advent of a super crisis, nor for the ceremonial symmetry of "a seat for all senators" of a republic that probably had turn-over and addition more then any building could keep up with.

 

Probably not all the senators had an entorage with them like in TPM in the Wookiees pod it was just two of them. And as we see in the Yoda vs Sidious duel in ROTS, the senate chamber is MASSIVE so it doesn't suprise me that it can hold thousands of pods and senators. And when we saw Sidious and Yoda throw those pods you can tell each pod is pretty heavy, so it also doesn't suprise me they can hold alot of people in each one.

Good Stuff

 

There ARE just 1024 senatorial sectors, as stated on more than one occasion.

However, one sector can have multiple "associate planetary representatives" (Jar-Jar and Leia are good examples of this) and possibly other forms of shared representation, and we KNOW that the Petition of 2000 was padded by some of these multiple representatives (because it included both Meena Tills and Tundra Dowmiea ).

No further fix is necessary.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

*nods*

Look no further than the House of Commons. Members of Parliament don't have their own "seat" as such, they just sit where they feel like on a particular day. They'll usually sit in roughly the same place, but they often move around. Usually there is enough space for all those in attendance to take a seat, with maybe a few standing at the doors, but on the rare occasions where there is a national crisis that justifies ALL MPs to be in attendance, it is normally heaving from the lack of room.

Similarly, as with Bail and Padme, while I could be wrong as far as I am aware there is no "rule" that requires Government MPs to sit on one side of the House and Opposition MPs on the other. It just makes more sense that way. Its not like your own party is going to want you "fraternising with the enemy", nor the opposition party want you listening in on them. There may be a "rule" where the Speaker does not permit that kind of backhanded action though, so it could be MPs would be thrown out if they tried spying or listening in, but I expect there is no actual prescriptive rule that outright states where you can and can't sit.

The Senate is basically just the same.

 

I imagine that there would be some sort of signal to gather the senators if they needed to vote, ringing the bells for a division.
And I always thought the pod that Bail went into was either Padme's or Bail didn't go to his own pod as he wanted to talk with her. The only possibility they shared a pod was for the Loyalist Committee.

 

maybe committees share pods while individual senators have their own when possible? that depends on committee sizes, and not all members of a committee need to be present at all time. it suffices if one or two representatives are in the pod while the rest can watch it via holonet senate channel or other means and there is a rotation for senators of committees in thes pods. if other senators then want to be there, too, fine they can still come, or take one of the free corridor pods

 

Perhaps the pods are "rotated", and the number of Senators present in the Senate are actually just a small percentage of the real number; the Senate proceedings could be broadcasted via the Interweb (Sorry, Holonet) around the galaxy, and so you don't have to be on Coruscant to vote.

 

The Galactic Senate had a secondary, non-binding body called the Galactic Representative Commission. Jar-Jar was apparently a member, although temporarily given Senatorial rights by Amidala in AOTC.

 

I think the Delegation of Two Thousand is a pretty good vehicle to get us to an upper limit for the Senate, when you combine it with the supermajority that favors Palpatine in ROTS.

A 'Supermajority' in Earth politics usually means a 2/3rds vote for or against. Now if the Delegation with it's 2,000 signees is politically powerfully enough to get noticed, but not enough to overrule Palpatine's supermajority that'd vote for him if he suggested painting all cats a bright pink color, then that suggests that the 2/3rds is approximately 4,000 or so, for a total of 6,000 Senators/Representatives.

I'm sure there's plenty of reasons I'm wrong, so let's hear them.

 

Senate pods are like Doctor Who telephone boxes -- bigger on the inside.

 

If you take the 1024 number...that's roughly 6 senators to a pod.

That's reasonable, I think...I'm trying to remember how many were in the pod when Padme petitioned the Senate in TPM...Her, Panaka, Palpatine...was there a handmaiden? I think there were 3 or 4 on the Trade Federation pod...so if you fit those comfortable...I think 5 or 6 to a pod could be done...you could squeeze 6,000 in there.

What's scary is that for a building that size, they could seat MANY more then that in a more pragmatic fashion.

OOU: It really is an interesting shift, because thematically from the visual of the film, you're to get this echo-y cavernous sense of immensity...a scale which one would infer to the size of the Republic and consequently the number of senators...but when you look at a number like 1024, and the postulation of 6000 "squeezing" into that hall, it kind of undercut that.

a 6000 seat arena in our world is rather tiny relatively speaking.

 

Has it ever been established that a senator must be physically present to vote or debate on an issue? Instantaneous cross-galaxy holographic communication seems to be a norm for the higher levels of galactic government, might that alleviate some of the seating snafu? Senators could be "present" at sessions via hologram transmission from their home planet or even from somewhere else on Coruscant. Or maybe that's too much of a security issue? Or maybe difficult given stellar conditions ("move the ship out of the asteroid field so we can get a clear transmission")?

 

Remember, Padme "risked" returning to Coruscant to be present for the military creation act vote.

Also...Padme entrusts Jar Jar with Senatorial powers in her absence...if she could just vote via holonet from her ship on tatooine, I think she wouldn't have left it to Jar Jar.

I think for the sake of above-board monitoring, as well as the sincerity of physical presence to influence the matter...you have to be in the Senate Hall to cast a valid vote.

 

Good catches, guess that busts my bubble.

Now the TOTJ senate chamber, that place was huge; it could probably fit all the sector representatives in no problem. What was the reason they don't use that anymore by the PT?

 

They get a new building? Maybe the traffic noise was too much as IIRC it was open-air.

EDIT: The wook says that it was damaged or destroyed in The Great War, it was also smaller than the current building.

 

from the new clone wars campaign guide:

1 senator and 1 or more associate represenatatives for each memberstate: be it a single world, guild, corporation, an entire sector

senators: voting members of the delegation, entitled to a single vote, can introduce legislation, call for revision or amanendments to existing legislation

associate representatives: can, too, be voted as surpreme chancellor (!!!), work in committees like senators, have no vote, can vote in absence of a senator when senator declares represenative for the time "acting senator"

senate factions: as of the clone wars there are two factions: the Core faction and the Rim faction... no formal identiy or membership... but act as political parties...

guide states, many republic member states ARE corporations or otherwise traditionally nonpolitical entities

and there is a minimum size for a corporation to get represenatation... those too small send representatives to influence senators

during the clone wars palpatine replaced many of the justices of the surpreme court... 5 out of 12 stayed, the others he replaced

the surpreme chancellor can bypass the senate and all the legislative procedures if he wants, but only with the agreement of the senate speaker (Mass Amedda). also the senate speaker has more powers within a senate session than the chancellor, while outside, the chancellor has more options

surpreme chancellors serve a 4 year term.. he can be reelected. palpatine was allowed to stay in office more than the usual 2 terms, by senate vote prolonged.

Palpatine orders more clone troopers post geonosis than the initally ordered by sifo dyas...

damn this guide has a lot about politics and positions etc. and how the republic works




more spoilers in CW continuity topic, clone related stuff in the GAR numbers discussion

 

Incredible, I didn't expect that much fluff about the workings of the Galactic Republic. Looks like they confirmed a lot of information that had been indirectly suggested prior. The most fascinating is the Supreme Court - have we ever seen the existence of the Court in the Clone Wars era Republic before? (I'm fairly certain we've seen it in the NR).

 

there is a lot more I didn´t post

 

Maybe it was rendered forever uninhabitable from all the senators pantsing their pants when Exar Kun left.

Maybe it is the same senate chamber. I don't remember ever seeing the bottom of the movie senate chamber, so it could just have been enlarged and built upwards until the previous central platform was invisable.

 

Not the same, according to CCW. The Senate Hall from KOTOR was still in use as late as 1000 BBY, but the Grand Convocation Chamber is the location from the PT.