Minister of the American Council

  

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A Minister of the American Council is a politician and member of the American Council, the upper legislative body of the Conference of American States, serving as a representative of their respective member states.

A Minister of the American Council serve as representatives of member states of the CAS and are appointed by the governments and heads of state/government of their native countries to serve as the Minister of the American Council for their home countries and serves as the highest-ranking diplomatic representative and figure of their nations within the CAS. Within the council, the Ministers are part of a 15 member body and are responsible for reviewing all legislation passed by the lower American Parliament from resolutions to bills and other legislative pieces. If they approve of it, it advances to the American Secretariat, the executive body of the CAS, and if they veto it the parliament is forced to either amend the legislation or scrap it completely. As members of the council, the ministers wield significant legislative powers and serve as a bridge between the American Parliament and Secretariat. Unlike MAPs, Ministers of the American Council are appointed by the heads of state or government of their respective countries and are typically approved by the legislative bodies of their home countries, specially the upper house for nations with bicameral legislatures.

Appointment

Unlike members of the American Parliament, Ministers of the American Council are not elected in transnational parliamentary elections or in national elections in their home countries, but are instead appointed by the heads of state of government of their nations. Candidates to serve as the minister for their country must apply and be reviewed by the nation's acting leader and be approved by the cabinet as well in order to become the nominee. After becoming the nominee, the candidate for the minister must be testify to make their case in front of the national legislature (specifically the upper house for bicameral legislative bodies) and have a slight majority at least of members of the legislature in order to be approved to serve as the country's minister. The process is long and a significant amount of oversight is given as the position is highly valued by the governments of all CAS member states as the minister will act as the highest-ranking representative to the CAS outside of the head of state/government, which acts as a member of the American Secretariat.

Ministers serve to represent both their nations and Pan-American interests. While the ministers will represent their nations and voice their concerns during council meetings and voting on legislation, they ultimately will represent Pan-American interests and for the welfare and benefit of the CAS and its people. As per their responsibilities, the concerns of other member states can and will be voiced by their restive ministers and will be debated upon in order to reach a compromise in the event of a legislative deadlock occurs. Compromise is highly valued in order to prevent national interests from interfering with Anglo-American/CAS interests.

The political affiliation of the council ministers are often times members of the same national parties as their country's incumbent heads of state and government and within the context of CAS politics will be a member of the political group/Pan-American political party that their national party is affiliated with in the CAS. Exceptions do exist and usually occur due to the incumbent government being led by a multi-party coalition government as seen in members such as Kingdom of Sierra whose representative in the council is a Democratic-Republican while the incumbent government is lead by the Social Democrats.

Term limits and replacement

Generally speaking there are no fixed term limits for Ministers of the American Council as their tenure can be brought to an end in three ways; resignation, replacement by their nation's head of state or government, and stepping down once a new government takes power in their country and plans to nominate a new minister in their place. An example is in 2015, Jennifer Granholm had replaced Jennet Kennedy with Ayaan Omar as Minister of the American Council for Superior once Granholm and her Liberal Democratic government took over in October of 2015 succeeding the previous United Conservative administration of Alexander Harper. The same move was repeated in February 2017 when Daniel McComb had nominated Michael Curtis to serve as Sierra's Minister of the American Council and was approved by the Senate and replaced Evelyn Sullivan who served as Sierra's Minister under the premiership of Steven Hong and Preston Bolivar of the Democratic-Republican government of 2008-16.

See also

• American Council