25 March The Government suffers a bitter defeat after ministers try to change the rules for electing the House of Commons Speaker, seen as a manoeuvre to oust John Bercow after the election; Labour MPs erupt with rapturous applause in an embarrassing defeat for the Government.
The Bennites then scheduled a special conference for January 1981 to rewrite the rules for electing the leader.
Some 11,700 delegates from across the country are to vote on numerous reforms, including rules for electing a new party president.
States generally play the principal role in setting election standards, but the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the right to step in at any time and remake the rules for electing its members.
But today, hours before Senate members began casting their ballots, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that sections of the State Constitution allowing the Senate to set its own rules for electing its officers trumped any requirements of state open-meeting laws.
Miliband has also been warned that the rules for electing the Labour party leader must be changed or his other wider party-union reforms will leave individual trade unionists with twice as much voting power as mainstream Labour party members.
The party has been close to collapse, with its factions fighting over everything from whether to give the party a new name to the rules for electing a new leader to replace Dulce María Sauri, the current party president.
THIS week's battle between Lords and Commons over the rules for electing Euro-MPs sums up neatly one defect of Britain's parliamentary arrangements: the difficulty that arises from giving an unelected upper house power to check the power of an elected lower one.
On Monday, just days before his papacy ends, Benedict is expected to issue a law that would change the rules for electing a new pope, making it possible for the cardinals to start the conclave sooner than the traditional waiting period after the papacy is vacant.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. accused the majority of performing a "magic trick" by interpreting the Constitution to allow the people, not the Legislature, to set the rules for electing members of Congress.
