The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I introduced this bill:

     Re-wrote it to try to address the concerns of my colleague Ernest. Credit still goes to Lt. Governor tb75 for thinking up the idea.
Pornography Leniency Bill

1. The Pornography Restrictions Initiative is hereby repealed.

2a. No person under the age of 18 years may distribute pornographic images or videos of oneself for profit or other valuable consideration, under penalty of four to six months incarceration and a fine of no more than $3000.

2b. No person may receive pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years in exchange for money or other valuable consideration, under penalty of five to fifteen years incarceration and a fine of $100000.

3. No person may distribute pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of ten to twenty years incarceration and a fine of $150000.

4. No person may create pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of fifteen to twenty-five years incarceration and a fine of $200000.

5. No person may be charged with a crime under this law who may also be charged with a crime under the Anti-Opebo Act.

     It occurred to me recently that given the inclusion of the new section 5, we might want to revise down the punishments. That way we would have a two-tiered system, where creating or distributing pornographic images of a person who is 16 or 17 is a fairly serious crime while doing the same of a person under 16 is a very serious crime.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I introduced this bill:

     Re-wrote it to try to address the concerns of my colleague Ernest. Credit still goes to Lt. Governor tb75 for thinking up the idea.
Pornography Leniency Bill

1. The Pornography Restrictions Initiative is hereby repealed.

2a. No person under the age of 18 years may distribute pornographic images or videos of oneself for profit or other valuable consideration, under penalty of four to six months incarceration and a fine of no more than $3000.

2b. No person may receive pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years in exchange for money or other valuable consideration, under penalty of five to fifteen years incarceration and a fine of $100000.

3. No person may distribute pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of ten to twenty years incarceration and a fine of $150000.

4. No person may create pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of fifteen to twenty-five years incarceration and a fine of $200000.

5. No person may be charged with a crime under this law who may also be charged with a crime under the Anti-Opebo Act.

     It occurred to me recently that given the inclusion of the new section 5, we might want to revise down the punishments. That way we would have a two-tiered system, where creating or distributing pornographic images of a person who is 16 or 17 is a fairly serious crime while doing the same of a person under 16 is a very serious crime.

I think I can support this. I like the idea of tiers.

     So I suppose the question is, what would be a good punishment to set for the lower tier? I'd go with 60% of minimum prison time, 40% of maximum prison time, & 50% of fine, but I do not want to make such a decision unilaterally.

     For that matter, I would also like to make the fine for the lower tier a maximum, because I think that setting an exact fine amount places an unnecessary limit on judicial discretion.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I hope the Southeast Legislature will consider taking up the ConCon resolution that my administration-in-waiting has proposed.

     I figure it would be a good idea to try it again, especially with the huge number of amendments added on to the Constitution in what seems like a rather ad hoc fashion. Not to mention that third time's the charm, eh?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Here is my proposed amendment. Thoughts, colleagues?
Pornography Leniency Bill

1. The Pornography Restrictions Initiative is hereby repealed.

2a. No person under the age of 18 years may distribute pornographic images or videos of oneself for profit or other valuable consideration, under penalty of four to six months incarceration and a fine of no more than $3000.

2b. No person may receive pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years in exchange for money or other valuable consideration, under penalty of three to six years incarceration and a fine of no more than $50000.

3. No person may distribute pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of six to twelve years incarceration and a fine of no more than $75000.

4. No person may create pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of eight to sixteen years incarceration and a fine of no more than $100000.

5. No person may be charged with a crime under this law who may also be charged with a crime under the Anti-Opebo Act.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Here is my proposed amendment. Thoughts, colleagues?
Pornography Leniency Bill

1. The Pornography Restrictions Initiative is hereby repealed.

2a. No person under the age of 18 years may distribute pornographic images or videos of oneself for profit or other valuable consideration, under penalty of four to six months incarceration and a fine of no more than $3000.

2b. No person may receive pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years in exchange for money or other valuable consideration, under penalty of three to six years incarceration and a fine of no more than $50000.

3. No person may distribute pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of six to twelve years incarceration and a fine of no more than $75000.

4. No person may create pornographic images or video of a person under the age of 18 years other than oneself, under penalty of eight to sixteen years incarceration and a fine of no more than $100000.

5. No person may be charged with a crime under this law who may also be charged with a crime under the Anti-Opebo Act.

Sounds good, even though i prefer 16 to be the age.

     Well there wasn't much support for reducing the age to 16, so I decided that as a compromise we could reduce the punishments for creating or distributing pornographic images of somebody who is 16 or 17. Also notice that I specified a fine of no more than $x rather than exactly $x. This would help increase judicial discretion.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Aye on both.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Just so you guys know, my activity will be pretty sparse in the next 2 weeks. I will be on a family vacation for that time frame, and I don't know how often I'll be on. I should be returning late on the 13th of July.

     Hey, that's my birthday.

     Anyway, thanks for letting us know. Giovanni's recent appointment is fortunate, because we'll be able to continue business through that period.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Actually, let's address the petition for a Constituional Convention first. Since that is a matter of national importance, I think we should give it higher priority.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I support the Convention, both for consolidation and for the reboot.

My main reason? Since everything's already covered, all we can do is introduce minor bills/ideas- look at what we have to work with in the Legislature here. I'm glad that we passed all the laws that we did, and I think they're still interesting enough to work with, but I think having more material could make the Southeast, and Atlasia as a whole, more interesting.

     My problem with the reboot is that there are many issues for which a broad consensus already exists in Atlasia. I have given examples of legalizing marijuana & establishing free trade with Europe. I don't think it would do a service to upcoming Senates to have to deal with a large number of bills where the only real debate is on marginal details.

     Plenty of new bills can still be passed, but it requires a creative GM & creative legislators. Senator Libertas has proposed a handful of intriguing bills that offer something new, & I used one of them as the basis for a newly proposed bill today. The United States Senate & state legislatures across the U.S. manage to find new matters to deal with quickly enough that they do not need any sort of reboot, despite working at a much faster clip much of the time.

     If anything, a big reason for the Legislature's difficulty in maintaining a consistent level of discussion is that our role making laws for a sub-national entity rules out foreign policy as a subject of bills. The lack of real economic expertise also poses problems.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The Accountable Military Bill i sup for debate for 24 hours. Here is the bill in it's entirety.

Accountable Military Bill

1. Should the Southeast Militia be committed to action by executive order, except in response to a direct attack by a hostile force, it shall be the right of the citizens to petition for a referendum on the matter.

2. Should the petition gain the signatures of three registered citizens of the Southeast, a voting booth on the referendum shall be opened within fourty-eight hours to remain open for seventy-two hours, unless the Southeast Militia is recalled from the action in question within that time.

3. Should a majority of citizens who vote on the referendum vote in favor of recalling the Southeast Militia from the action in question, then the Southeast Militia shall be immediately recalled, with the withdrawal completed within two weeks of the closing of the voting booth on the matter in question.

SE Legislator Giovanni approves.


- - - -

An all out re-boot would probably not be such a great idea, all that would do is create a large number of bills that have really already been settled. What about maybe scaling back all the laws to what we have in real-time America?

     How exactly would that be different from a re-boot? It sounds to me like basically the same idea (reset our laws). If you look at the examples I gave of settled issues, the United States government hasn't enacted similar policies.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The consensus seems to be heading in the direction of simplifying our old statute, rather than scrapping everything completely, and Xahar and I have done a ton of work to that goal already: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=119804.0

So please, don't let the idea of consolidating our statute scare you, it's not as bad as it sounds.

     I suppose I ought to clarify that I intend to support this petition, regardless of whatever direction the re-boot idea goes in, since there are plenty of other things that I think really should be addressed. I just think that it would be good to take the opportunity to have debate on the issue.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Ugh, the Legislature is slipping into inactivity. I suppose we should go to a final vote now.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Aye

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Achieved a quorum with only five hours to spare, eh? If this bill had failed on account of not achieving a quorum, I would have probably re-introduced it & used my Speaker powers to move it to the top slot. It is quite important that we get this done in a timely fashion.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     We're glad to be of service when it comes to making the oceans of Atlasian law a bit easier to navigate.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I think we ought to try to get moving again, so the Accountable Military Bill should be up next, as quoted here:

The Accountable Military Bill i sup for debate for 24 hours. Here is the bill in it's entirety.

Accountable Military Bill

1. Should the Southeast Militia be committed to action by executive order, except in response to a direct attack by a hostile force, it shall be the right of the citizens to petition for a referendum on the matter.

2. Should the petition gain the signatures of three registered citizens of the Southeast, a voting booth on the referendum shall be opened within fourty-eight hours to remain open for seventy-two hours, unless the Southeast Militia is recalled from the action in question within that time.

3. Should a majority of citizens who vote on the referendum vote in favor of recalling the Southeast Militia from the action in question, then the Southeast Militia shall be immediately recalled, with the withdrawal completed within two weeks of the closing of the voting booth on the matter in question.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I notice that my colleague Giovanni has not been online since July 3rd. This is a friendly reminder to everyone to give official notice if you are going to be offline for any extended period.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I think I'm OK with the Accountable Military Bill.

I don't really see how it would come into play in practice though.

     Well there was the time when we passed the Suck It Pacific Act (or some title along those lines) & the Governor ordered the Militia to escort the prisoners to the Pacific. In a case like that, this would be useful. Granted it wouldn't come up often at all, but it would be nice to have it available just in case.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Do you guys want to vote or still debate it?

     I am fine either way.

     It occurred to me though that the title of this bill might make it difficult for somebody to find it quickly in the regional statute. It would be helpful if it could be easily associated with extant law in regards to the regional militia. I would like to propose an amendment to change the title to the Southeast Militia Bill, & to accept that amendment as friendly.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Wow, I really spaced out there. I change the amendment to make it the Accountable Militia Bill.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Aye.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Hey there, Southeastern Legislature. As you're all no doubt aware, pretty soon you'll be needing to pick a representative to the Constitutional Convention. I'd like to place myself in consideration for this appointment.

     Alright, we will discuss that once we are finished with the current bill.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     We need Governor Jbrase to sign it before it enters force, though.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Alright, before we move on to the next bill, we need to select a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Thoughts on selecting Senator Bacon King?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Alright, before we move on to the next bill, we need to select a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Thoughts on selecting Senator Bacon King?

I think Senator Bacon King should describe what he intends to push for in his potential role as a delegate, what his goals are, etc.

     Agreed. The fact that this Convention will be smaller than the last one makes it highly important that the delegates are the best possible people for the role. I will inform the Senator that his presence is requested on the Legislature floor.