Pacific Legislature Official Thread

[The Duke]

Does anyone else have anything to say about this proposal?  And does Hugh intend to write up a competing bill?

[The Duke]

Eh, I don't know about letting the court choose how many points a convict gets.

[The Duke]

Anyone else have comments?

[The Duke]

Eh, I don't know about letting the court choose how many points a convict gets.

So you'd support legislative mandatory sentencing?

The law ought to specify some kind of parameters for what the sentence ought to be.  This is an interesting idea, but I think it needs to be polished up.

[The Duke]

Let me provide an example of what I mean now that I have some time, let's say I break a law somewhere.  The law would say you can get 8-10 years for that crime or something.  There are parameters so that if I get a really zealous jury, I get 10 years but not 25 years.  If I get a less zealous jury I get 8 instead of say, 2.  This way, if a jury is involved in an emotional case, like say a kid gets sexually assaulted, they don't impose a penalty driven by emotion of the case they have to work within the confines of the law that's broken.  This is why I say there should be some kind of guidelines in the law as to what penalties should be.

[The Duke]

Does anyone else have anything to say?

[The Duke]

Its been quite a long while, so I'm going to open a vbote on my Three Strikes Law proposal.

If Hughento wants to continue pursuing his point system, I'd certainly urge him to refine the law and present it to the people for their signatures.  Its a innovative idea that deeserves a fair public hearing in the future.

Voting open now.

[The Duke]

Three Strikes has passed.

I'm going to post our budget tonight, and we can debate it.

[The Duke]

We're about to start debating my 2006 budget plan, as soon as I post it.

[The Duke]

Proposed FY2006 Budget!

Here is the basic outline budget, same format as the last one we passed.

-$265.0 billion in expenditures
-Department of Education - $104.6 billion
-Department of Health - $68.7 billion
-Department of University $34.0 billion
-Department of Corrections - $24.2 billion
-Department of Transportation - $12.0 billion
-Department of Resources - $3.7 billion
-Department of Housing - $1.0 billion
-Administrative Costs - $16.8 billion

I am also proposing two changes to the tax rates.  I am proposing cutting the top tax rate from 15% to 14% and the second highest rate from 12% to 11%.

I hereby open debate and open the floor to suggested changes.

[The Duke]

-Department of Corrections - $24.2

$24.2?  That might buy lunch for a row of prisoners.

I'm sorry, tere should be a "billion" at the end of all these numbers obviously.  I'll add that.

[The Duke]

Out of curiosity, what is "Department of University", anyway, and how are its functions not covered by the Department of Education?

It runs the University system.  All public universities are administered under this department.  The Department also handles all the formerly state government aid and loans to college students, which is a subtantial sum.

This year's budget is a large enough sum to fund the construction of the University of the Pacific Region which is a goal our Region set out to achieve in December of 2004 under Proposition 8.  We can now fund the planning and groundbreaking of that project.

[The Duke]

I'd like to hear how many people support combining the Departments of University and Education or if people that is a suprfluous idea.  I am open to either, actually.

[The Duke]

Well, I'd first like to hear why the Department of University was created in the first place.  It seems like kind of specific thing to dedicate an entire department to.  At the very least, the Department of Education should be renamed if we keep the Department of University, given that it will no longer be the only department that covers education.

In California, I'm pretty sure the Universities are actually not in the Department of Education.  They are run by the Board of Regents, an independent body.  The Department of Ed in California only deals with primary and secondary schools.  So seperating the two seemed very natural to someone who's home state does in fact seperate the two.

The Department of University on its own has the third largest budget in the Regional government.  It does have a mission that seems specialized on the surface, but its actually quite extensive when you dig deeper.

So, it was the size of the budget and the fact that in California the two things are seperated if memory serves that led to them being two seperate departments.

[The Duke]

I'd hardly expect someone from British Columbia to know the nooks and crannies of the California state government.  I certainly don't know much about the BC government.  Just explaining why it made sense to me at the time.

I'm going to ask the GM if there are any saving from consolidating the two.  If there are savings, I plan to amend my budget proposal and combine the two departments.  If there are no savings, or if there is no response, then I would suggest we just keep things as is.

Are there any other issues of concern folks have?

[The Duke]

With the GM's notice of no savings, the bill shall not be amended.  24 hours for any one to voice any further concerns they have on this budget.

[The Duke]

Debate has essentially died down.  Since there are no further comments, I open the vote on the 2006 Budget.

[The Duke]

  Are we going to move on to another issue now or what are we going to do now?

I think this one remains open for a week, and if anyone wants to introduce anything after that, they may.

You need 3 signatures, actually, to introduce something (or get the Gov. to introduce it for you, as he doesn't need signatures).

[The Duke]

The capital is actually San Francisco.  The government offices are only in Cowtown (Sacto) to save money.