wormyguy for At-Large Senate: Effectively Reforming the Office of Vice-President

[tpfkaw]

Dear all,

Following my unexpectedly-strong performance in the recent Northeast Senate election, I decided to continue my campaign at-large in the April elections.  I hope to run a positive and active campaign and to provide a clear alternative to the status quo in Atlasia.

Feel free to ask questions; I will try to answer them all to the best of my ability.

[tpfkaw]

For convenience's sake, I will repost my proposals from the earlier half of my campaign here:

Presso Releaso Numero Uno!

The Anti-Conscription Amendment

Recently, the Senate has once again taken up debating the Anti-Conscription Amendment, as originally proposed by Jbrase.  I'll let you in on a little secret:

I was the original author of that amendment.

It is my personal belief that conscription is a war crime and has no place in a civilized society.  I will be one of the most forceful voices against conscription in the Senate and will introduce the Anti-Conscription Amendment in its original form in every Senate session until it is passed.

Presso Releaso Numero Deux!

Federal Tax Reform

If I am elected to serve =in the Senate, I will introduce the following legislation such that federal revenues will be collected at the regional level.  This new mechanism will allow for regions to experiment with revenue collection methods in order to find whichever one yields the most economic growth for the revenue they are required to collect, while also increasing activity at the regional level as the federal budget request will require innovation in methods of revenue generation in every region.  Regions which do not provide enough revenue will be penalized by having their federal grants reduced, while regions which provide more than enough will have their revenue requests for the next year reduced.  Economically depressed regions, that is to say regions with higher unemployment, will have less of a revenue burden than more prosperous regions, creating a tax system which will now for the first time be progressive by region.  This mechanism also allows for automatic Keynesian stimulus by automatically increasing the deficit the government is allowed to run in periods of high unemployment.

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Presso Releaso Numero Drei!

Constitutionally Protecting a Sensible Foreign Policy

Since 2001, Atlasia has been dragged into several needless wars that have damaged our international credibility and our strategic posture, as well as causing the deaths of thousands of our soldiers and the maiming of tens of thousands more, as well as the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of civilians in the countries we have invaded, bombed, or destabilized.  After over a decade, little progress meaningful to average Atlasians has been made after the expenditure of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.  Those who have benefited are largely well-connected corporate interests in the military-industrial complex, who profit off of a needlessly-aggressive foreign policy.  If I am elected Senator, there is no issue I will be more active on than to end this state of affairs, immediately and permanently.  To that end I will offer the following constitutional amendment:

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[tpfkaw]

And, to begin this campaign in earnest:

Presso Releaso Numero Fjórir (Deux)!

Reforming the Vice-Presidency and the Executive

Recently, there has been debate over a proposal to give the Vice-President the powers of a full Senator, so as to make the position more important and influential.  While I applaud the intentions behind this proposal, I believe that it substantively would create major pitfalls that Atlasia would do better to avoid.  Specifically, the Vice-President already has the power to break a tied vote in the Senate.  Allowing the Vice-President to directly introduce legislation into the Senate would represent a major threat to the separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches.  One of the major checks that the legislative branch has over the executive is that only it can introduce and create legislation, and then the executive is limited to determining whether to sign or to veto that legislation.  Allowing the executive to have power over the legislative procress would eliminate one of the few checks the legislative branch still has over the executive.  To prevent constitutional abuses of the civil rights of Atlasian citizens, it is necessary to maintain a strict dispersal of power such that no branch can obtain too much.  More practically, if one single official (the President) is inactive, the entire game can come to a complete standstill.  The problem is not that the Vice-President has not enough power, but that the President has too much in relation to the Vice-President.

My alternative proposal is simple.  Instead of making the Vice-President a full Senator, the position of Vice-President would be given, it addition to its present powers, sole authority to nominate Secretaries to the Cabinet, while the Presidency would maintain its power to sign or veto laws and to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court.  This would accomplish making the Vice-Presidency into a position of real influence, without increasing the powers of the already-bloated executive and in fact would cause executive power to be more dispersed.  Previously, it was a no-brainer for a Presidential candidate to choose a running-mate from another party, perceived as being more moderate, and/or who held the opposite position on some controversial issue(s).  Now, under my proposal, a Presidential candidate would have to think long and hard before choosing an ideological or partisan adversary as his or her running-mate.  No longer could one cynically create an alliance of convenience simply to troll for votes, but a Presidential candidate would be forced to choose someone whom he or she trusts and is willing to share power with.  Simultaneously, the Vice-Presidency would now be a position of real influence and authority, which would attract active and engaged members eager to perform its duties.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Absolutely agreed on the Vice President ordeal. It's just a whole mess of an idea.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Absolutely agreed on the Vice President ordeal. It's just a whole mess of an idea.

Predictably, the issue is falling victim to people making mountains out of molehills. For instance, Yelnoc's weird objection as if I'm proposing adding new offices, or depriving good candidates from other offices, which I'm not, which it doesn't. But whatever.

I wanted to respond to Wormyguy's ideas, because at least he's proposing something even if I think it's flawed, as opposed to some people in the Senate who just talk talk talk.

While I applaud the intentions behind this proposal, I believe that it substantively would create major pitfalls that Atlasia would do better to avoid. Specifically, the Vice-President already has the power to break a tied vote in the Senate. Allowing the Vice-President to directly introduce legislation into the Senate would represent a major threat to the separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches. One of the major checks that the legislative branch has over the executive is that only it can introduce and create legislation, and then the executive is limited to determining whether to sign or to veto that legislation. Allowing the executive to have power over the legislative procress would eliminate one of the few checks the legislative branch still has over the executive.  To prevent constitutional abuses of the civil rights of Atlasian citizens, it is necessary to maintain a strict dispersal of power such that no branch can obtain too much.

I am amazed how "No, this distorts separation of powers" was turned into such a bloated paragraph, but okay, sure. I've heard this before and really, to be entirely honest with you, do not see why this matters.

Our system is whatever we make it, and it's not like separation of powers has any serious impact on our little game at the end of the day anyway. I look at this issue from the perspective of "What would make this game work better and the positions in it more meaningful" and not "What would happen in the real world if we did this!"

One of the biggest problems, in my view, is that the executive gets off easy every single time they get in power and then do jack sh** for their entire term. They can do this because there is no official mechanism for directing legislation or bringing forward any sort of plan. For the last year, I can think of only one Administration that has brought forward a plan on their own and accomplished a big idea, and that was Tmth after February of last year.

I just really don't see why we should continue to let that sort of thing slide, because of some very.. academic objection. It just really doesn't affect us this way and is one of those silly "in character, roleplaying" objections. It's impossible to argue with because it's so meaningless.

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I feel an obligation at this point to TLDR these posts for people. Essentially, you're saying we should let the Vice President appoint cabinet officials, and this one piddly little power will apparently balance it out and make it worthwhile and important. I just don't see how this is the case.

You will not solve the problem of Vice Presidential irrelevance by giving it a rarely-used power of appointing cabinet officials. I feel like these proposals are just trying to grasp onto smaller little proposals in an attempt to find some way to excuse having the position in the first place. No one really wants to solve the problem in a big way, they just want it to have some reason to exist so boring unity tickets can continue unabated.

This problem needs a big solution, and giving it one little power does not suddenly improve the position to the point that tickets are somehow way heavier and more meaningful and the Vice President has people actively fiending for the job. People will want the job when it has powers and stuff to do, and tickets will stop being ideologically pretzeled when the VP has some serious weight when it comes to governing. The only way to accomplish this is expand on it's pre-existing Senate powers. People have tried desperately to find some way around this and nothing has changed.

We passed and ratified an Amendment four months ago to let the Vice President serve as a cabinet official. How's that going? The answer; It's not. The current P and VP are woefully inactive and no one has even suggested that Bacon King serve any sort of cabinet capacity, and if they have, it's been well hidden.

We have two big and bold options here. Let the Vice President be a Senator too, or get rid of the Vice Presidency. But no one has the balls, apparently, to do either. No one wants to get rid of it, but no one wants to give it any real power either. It's the classic game reform conundrum. You have people sitting on the sidelines once again bitching about a problem that no one wants to solve because no one wants to pay attention to us game reform cranks. So we just waste time. Until people come around, as they usually do. It just takes time to beat pride.