Lower Columbian Federal Assembly

The Federal Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Lower Columbia. It is often referred to as the Assembly. Its 512 members are directly elected by Lower Columbian citizens and apportioned by state populations, both key differences from the upper house of Parliament, the Council of States.

Article II of the Constitution of Lower Columbia defines the composition and powers of the Assembly. Its main role is to make federal legislation, and while all bills it passes must also be passed by the Council of States, as the popularly-elected house it generally meets little opposition from the Council. Each Lower Columbian state is entitled to at least one Assemblyman and is represented in proportion to its population, although no state currently has less than four Assemblymen. The Lord of the Assembly, who presides over the chamber, is appointed by the King based on election results and is chosen from whichever political party has the best chances of commanding a majority in the Assembly. Together with the Lord (or Lady) of the Council, the Lord of the Assembly is one of the leaders of Parliament, and therefore one of the few elected members of the Cabinet of Lower Columbia.

Elections and terms
Assemblymen are elected by eligible voters in each parliamentary constituency. All elections for the Assembly use instant-runoff voting, which tends to give smaller political parties slightly more representation than they would receive under a plurality voting system. Polls in each constituency remain open until 8pm local time, and vote-counting begins immediately after the polls close; constituencies usually report their vote tallies before midnight on Election Night.

As required by the Constitution, the Assembly serves terms no longer than five years, although few parliamentary terms have ever reached that statutory limit. Assemblymen, like all members of Parliament, can serve no more than five terms in total, whether or not they are consecutive. They can therefore serve a maximum of 25 years in the Assembly (but the average among five-term MPs has been close to 20 years in recent decades).