The legislature may see another caucus in the fall session, as independent lawmakers said yesterday they have gathered just enough members to form their own group.
The independent lawmakers said they wanted to act as a stabilizing force in the Legislative Yuan, where no party has a majority and partisan rancor runs deep.
Independents legislators Chen Chin-ting (陳進丁) Tsai Hau (蔡豪), Yen Chin-piao (顏清標), Chiu Chuang-liang (邱創良), Kao Meng-ting (高孟定) and Lin Pin-kuan (林炳坤) have agreed to join the caucus.
Aborigine Legislator Walis Pelin (瓦歷斯貝林) and New Party Legislator Wu Cherng-dean (吳成典) have also given their approval.
A caucus must consist of at least eight lawmakers or garner more than 5 percent of the vote in legislative elections, according to the Legislative Yuan's rules.
Chen, who was expelled from the KMT last week, said he and other would-be caucus members were to meet last night to discuss how the new group would conduct business.
Despite their different sizes, all legislative caucuses enjoy equal say in cross-party negotiations.
If formed, the proposed caucus would be the fifth of its kind and would most likely adopt the name the "Non-partisan Alliance," which was dissolved last session due to a lack of members.
Members of the old Non-partisan Alliance, who paid for the caucus' miscellaneous outlays, were awarded its helm.
"That explained why former independent lawmaker Lo Fu-chu (
Last year, Lo punched the PFP's Diane Lee (
All caucuses can send representatives to cross-party negotiations, which play a pivotal role in settling disputes over the content of bills and the order of business.
Tsai said the new caucus would commit itself to preserving political stability, although he did not elaborate. However, he labeled a proposal to raise the minimum membership for a caucus to 12 as "malignant"
"It is ill-conceived to amend the threshold, which was agreed on by all caucuses and has only been in place for one session," Tsai said. "I hope other parties would respect our wish for the sake of harmony."
Earlier, DPP and TSU lawmakers had separately suggested raising the membership threshold from 8 to 12, in a bid to draw the independents to their folds.
But seeking greater say and autonomy in legislation, the independents prefer their own caucus.
Tsai threatened to introduce a bill calling for the caucus threshold to be raised to 15 if the TSU insists on thwarting the revival of his group. The TSU caucus has 13 members.
DPP Legislative Leader Ker Chien-ming (
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS