Amendment to Article 2 of the OSPR (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsored by: Senator Fritz



Edit: I abreviated the title in the subject field.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This still seems like an unnecessary change. I see no reason for switching the two roles when historically the Veep has been less active then the PPT. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Maybe so but the Consitution is fairly vague on the matter and open to interpretation. One thing I do note is that this originally started as way to reduce mid senate transitions and the confusion caused by them. However this current "flexible" proposal means that it will require such a transition in Senate leadership to occur more frequently. Thus unnecessarily slowing the senate down and making senate activity even harder to achieve.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

At the very least, implementation should be delayed to the next senate and it should be amended so that the Veep has to choose at the beginning of each Senate and can't change his mind except when he gave authority over to the PPT and then the PPT went innactive.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't see that this proposal would bring a some improvement, but it don't make it worse. We had one post less and the vice president would be upgraded.

What you mean by one post less?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What you mean by one post less?

Forget it. Today I write before I begin to think , but I'm still against it.

Perfectly alright, that is my major accomplishment over my past two terms, by the way.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I also pick up on Fritz' recognition of the language of the Constitution. "shall act as President of the Senate in the absence of the Vice President." is rather unambiguous. Like it or not, it's the current Constitution!

As to the actual legislation, why couldn't the Dean take over the role given to the PPT by this legislation?

I think we should maintain the separate elected position. If the Dean wants to run for it, he can and if ge doesn't want it, he wouldn't have to do it. Think of Afleitch is situaiton. Suppose the Veep goes innactive and Afleitch doesn't have time to do the job because of his wedding, or take Fritz, lets say he is the Dean and he declined to run because of lack of time and the Veep goes innactive, what happens. The duties of runing the Senate or even the step in should be the most active Senator, not the most senior.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I also pick up on Fritz' recognition of the language of the Constitution. "shall act as President of the Senate in the absence of the Vice President." is rather unambiguous. Like it or not, it's the current Constitution!

As to the actual legislation, why couldn't the Dean take over the role given to the PPT by this legislation?

I think we should maintain the separate elected position. If the Dean wants to run for it, he can and if ge doesn't want it, he wouldn't have to do it. Think of Afleitch is situaiton. Suppose the Veep goes innactive and Afleitch doesn't have time to do the job because of his wedding, or take Fritz, lets say he is the Dean and he declined to run because of lack of time and the Veep goes innactive, what happens. The duties of runing the Senate or even the step in should be the most active Senator, not the most senior.

Fair point. I'm still a little shaky on having a PPT who is relatively sidelined, though...

Well the stated goal was orginally greater flexibility. This constitutional issue came up and kind of forced hands a little bit.

I also pick up on Fritz' recognition of the language of the Constitution. "shall act as President of the Senate in the absence of the Vice President." is rather unambiguous. Like it or not, it's the current Constitution!
As to the actual legislation, why couldn't the Dean take over the role given to the PPT by this legislation?

Not a problem though. If this current legislation fails we can always amend the constitution. Lets not make it sound like anyone legally binded to vote for this over this discovery.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Is there any citizen out there who was involved in the actual drafting of these rules- that which is being referred to as OSPR- who could comment on why the Constitution is so blatantly contradicted?

I two am interested in this question. Peter, MJ, anyone who may know something about this specific question please share it with us.


I am going to hold off on a final vote for a day or two longer and see if we can get an answer, if there are no objections of course.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We have waited long enough. Before I will start this vote, I will remind Senators that if you oppose this bill, don't feel forced to vote for this because of an issue with the Consitution conflicting with the OSPR. We need to conduct some more extensive research and find out just why this was ignored or allowed in the first place. I encourage Senators to vote nay on this and give us the time we need. There is no pressing emergency or innactivity on the part of the PPT, hell I am the most active Senator here appearently. So I see know reason not to do what we need to do to make sure we adopt the right changes.



A vote is now open. Senators please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.



NAY

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Constitution also states: "The Senate may establish rules for its own proceedings..."

True, but this does not give the Senate the power to establish rules that contradict the Constitution.

I am a firm beleiver in adhereing to the Consitution 100% of the time. However in this instance we have an issue of "what is the best policy for promoting effective and efficient gameplay" and as such in circumstances restricted to just that pretext the Constitution can become a secondary concern to what is best for the game because this is a game not real life.

Several concerns have been raised by myself and others throughout this that have not been addressed and in fact have been ignored by the proponents who have hidden under the guise of "Pass the bill because the constitution requires you to". Thats why I felt myself compelled to remind the Senators who have concerns or objections that have not been addressed that they are not forced to vote for this because of the Constitution because 1) It can be addressed again. 2) It has never been raised before across six years. 3) Efficiency and practicality can take precedence over the Consitution in certain circumstances. For instance. Suppose like BK said, he could just cede authority to me. That is the case but he could just as easily take it back. Now suppose a future Vice President develops some kind of negative relationship mid term and then tries to take back over midterm, causing confusion. Could this be prevented in some way by adding a clause to this bill. It might seem like a rare occurance but this is a political simulation and we must take such possibilities into account.

Currently we have a wonderful Vice President and I don't question his abilities at all. However he won't be Vice President much longer and in the passed we had some real winners in that office as well as a lot of real losers. I am willing to change my vote to AYE if I am convinced that this will look just as good as the current setup in managing the Senate.

I urge Senators to change their votes to aye. The Constitution does require that the PPT be the President of the Senate's replacement, not the other way around. Besides, all VP would have to do is say, "okay, you do the job now PPT" which is basically what happens IRL in the Senate.

I think its pretty clear what happend way back in the day and why the OSPR conflicts so with Constitution. Because it was taken for granted that the Vice President would do just that and so they just took it the next step and wrote it into the rules. It still doesn't explain why they wrote in such a contradictory way, or the lacking of an explanation on why they did it. However we must focus on this day, not 6 years ago.

I know for sure no one of you has considered the fact that I might be opposing this because it lessons my dictatorial authority over the Senate. But just in case you are, I can assure you it is not the case.


I get the impression from Fritz, that he doesn't like the way I have been operating as PPT. I have been late to the draw on two bills. The first one was entirely my fault, spending to much time on the other boards and not enough here . The second one is on this bill. However votes are supposed to last week unless there are enough votes to pass or fail it outright before hand. I was not expecting three abstention nor two other Senators to not vote till several days after the first 8 did. Then I realised I had forgotten to put "At Final Vote" in the topic bar. A mistake made commonly and often unavoidable in the previous Senate.

Just felt I should clear the air on these because I sense tension and I don't want it to be there.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

First off, Yankee, I have no problem with your performance as PPT.  I think you have been doing a fine job.

As you recall, my original bill was to abolish the PPT altogether.  My intent was to make an improvement to game play, not to address any constitutional issues.  The office of PPT has been in a state of severe flux over the past two Senates.  I believed this change would provide more stability to the leadership.  Also, my feeling is that this change gives some purpose to the office of Vice-President: a basically useless office, except when the President or PPT is absent.

Then, Peter pointed out that the PPT is a constitutional office, and that an amendment would be required.  In my review of the constitution, I found this glaring inconsistency between the constitution and the rules.  So I abandoned my original bill, and moved instead to bring the rules into compliance with the constitution.  I added the clause about the VP being allowed to confer the leadership upon the PPT as a sort of compromise, to give this some fleeting chance of passage.  And as Bacon King correctly points out, that is how it is done in real life.

I contend that this bill provides superior efficiency and practicality than the current rules.  There have been two instances in recent history when a PPT resigned near the end of a session.  Both times, it was suggested that Bacon King just retain the leadership until the end of the session.  Both times he declined, because of the rules.

If this passes, I expect that due to long-standing tradition, the VP will often confer presiding powers to the PPT.  I also expect there might be times when that is not done- and, as President of the Senate, that should be the VP's prerogative.  This bill allows some flexibility regarding who is in the leadership role,  but puts the President of the Senate in the drivers seat.  I can even envision the VP and PPT working as a team, with the VP presiding over bills that are particularly important to the administration.

If this fails, I do expect the constitutional issues to be addressed.

Okay then, with this more comprehensive explanation satisfactory, I change my vote to AYE and urge the other Senators to do the same.

Please fix the thread title.

Considering I have had you on ignore for the past month and half, you are extremely lucky I use the "Show Post" button so liberally. Otherwise your posts would have gone unoticed.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Please fix the thread title.

Considering I have had you on ignore for the past month and half, you are extremely lucky I use the "Show Post" button so liberally. Otherwise your posts would have gone unoticed.

You're in charge of this Senate. It's your job to know what goes on.

One space missed   out ofhabit  doesn't affectmy   ability to lead theSenate. lol

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senators voting in the Affirmative: Badger, Fritz, MaxQue, Mint, NC Yankee and Tmthforu94

Senators voting in the Negative: Afleitch and Duke

Senators Hashemite and Hans-im-Gluck abstained.


This amendment has enough votes to pass. Senators have 24 hours to change their votes.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The resolution has passed. As an amendment to the Senate rules it doesn't required a Presidential Signature.